Managing tokens

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1. Overview

Tokens are used in Dundas BI to provide options for setting filters besides choosing specific data source values. Most filters provide a token menu containing options such as All or Null. For time dimension filters, additional tokens let you select relative date values such as Today, Current week, or Year to date.

Token menu
Token menu

All user types can create custom tokens for themselves, but Dundas BI administrators and Tenant administrators with the Create Token privilege can manage all tokens, including tokens built into Dundas BI, or create new tokens for other users to use.

Custom token <em>Last 40 days</em>
Custom token Last 40 days

2. Token types

Token CategoryDescriptionExample
Attribute Based on the user logged in Current Account Name, Current Culture Name
Basic Basic tokens All, Default, Null
Data Defined by querying an element of the data cube First day, Largest order
Named Set Defined on a specific dimension hierarchy USA, Canada, Paris
Relative Time Time based parameter token definition Current Week, Last 30 days, Beginning of Today
Script Defined using DundasScript, allowing unlimited flexibility return TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeFromUtc(DateTime.UtcNow, currentSession.TimeZone);

You can create custom Named Set, Data, Relative Time, or Script tokens, while Attribute and Basic tokens are defined by the system but have options that can be set. There are also custom attributes you can define that can appear in token menus.

Note
Attribute tokens and custom attributes are listed in token menus only when editing data cubes.

3. Creating and managing tokens

To create and manage tokens as an administrator, expand the Setup section in Administration, then click Tokens.

The Tokens setup screen
The Tokens setup screen

Creating tokens as an administrator is the same as for other users except that you can create script and relative time tokens from this screen. You can also create and manage tokens for other users of the system and promote user defined tokens to global tokens.

Administrators can access additional options for tokens:

  • Symbol: Optionally set a symbol to use when including this token as part of a URL query string.
    Add caption and symbol
    Add caption and symbol
  • Token Association: When creating a token as an administrator, this will be Global by default and available for all users. If you want to have a tenant-specific or account/group-specific token, select the desired token association from the dropdown list, and then choose the tenant or account.
    Token association
    Token association

See Creating custom tokens for details on creating each type of token.

4. Rename or localize a token

You can specify different captions for a token to be displayed depending on the language/culture of the user who is logged in. This applies to all types of tokens, including the system-defined attribute and basic tokens.

Locate and select the token from the list in the Tokens setup screen and click the Edit button in the toolbar.

Click or right-click a token and choose Edit
Click or right-click a token and choose Edit

Click the caption link at the top of the edit dialog.

To rename the token for all users, change the text under Default; otherwise, click Add localized caption.

Add localized caption
Add localized caption

For a localized caption, enter the IETF language tag in the Culture field, and fill in the Caption field.

Provide the culture and caption
Provide the culture and caption

5. Promoting a custom token

You can promote a user created custom token to a global token.

Locate and select the token from the list on the Tokens screen and click the Promote button on the toolbar.

Promote a custom token
Promote a custom token

6. Checking references

For all types of tokens other than Basic, you can check for any files referencing the token in Dundas BI version 10 or higher, such as a data cube transform parameter, a metric set's filtering, or a view parameter or filter. This can tell you, for example, whether it's safe to delete the token.

Select a token and choose References in the toolbar. The References dialog will list files using the token, similar to the dialog you can access from a file's properties.

Check a token's file references
Check a token's file references

For custom attribute tokens, if you want to find instead which accounts/groups have values assigned to this custom attribute, you can check the references of the custom attribute directly.

7. See also

 

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