Tenant overrides

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1. Overview

This walkthrough shows you how to use overrides to allow multiple tenants to share the same Dundas BI instance and objects such as data connectors and dashboards but have them display differently for each tenant.

For example, data connector overrides can access different databases for each tenant if they have the same structure, allowing you to reuse all of the same objects based on that data connector between tenants including dashboards and reports. Each tenant might maintain their own database, or you may decide to use separate databases for security reasons.

Tip

Also see Customize branding for each tenant if you want to override application styling differently for each tenant.

2. Example setup

The following steps walk through setting up a simple example of a dashboard shared between tenants but displaying different data for each.

2.1. Set up tenant data sources

Create a database with a single table for the first tenant as follows:

Database name: DatabaseA
Table name: Products
- Column: ProductID, int
- Column: ProductName, nvarchar(50)
- Column: ListPrice, decimal(18,2)

SQL Server database for the first tenant

Create a DatabaseB for the second tenant with the exact same schema (but different data) as above.

SQL Server database for the second tenant

2.2. Create a new project and dashboard

For this example, log on to Dundas BI as a System Administrator and create a new project. Do not select a specific tenant so that it will be accessible to all tenants, and make it the active project.

Create a new data connector for DatabaseA.

Then create a new dashboard by dragging the ListPrice and ProductName columns from your data connector to the dashboard canvas.

A table visualization is displayed, showing values from DatabaseA.

Check in your dashboard.

2.3. Add tenants and users

Go to the main menu and click Admin. Expand the SaaS / Multi-Tenancy section and click Tenants. (If you don't see this option, it means you aren't licensed for this feature.)

Click Add New in the toolbar, and in the Add Tenant dialog, enter the Name (Tenant A in this example).

The External Application URI Override is another available tenant override that will use the specified URL in emails to this tenant's users, in shared links, and when using federated authentication, in case you have set up a different URL for each tenant.

For this example, seats available in the license will be allocated on a per-tenant basis, but this is optional if you want tenants to use the 'global' pool of all available seats: expand the Seat Allocation section and under Reserved set Standard User to 5.

Enter the seat allocation for the tenant

Click the submit button at the bottom to add the tenant.

Repeat the above steps in order to add Tenant B. The Tenants page will update with the list of both tenants.

Tip

Every tenant that you create is given a unique ID. If you only know the ID of a tenant but not its name, you can search for it in the Tenants screen by pasting the ID in the Search box.

Next, edit Tenant A, click Accounts, and then Add account, or alternatively expand Account Service in the administration sidebar, click Accounts, and add an account from this page.

Add a new account User A and ensure its Tenant field is set to Tenant A.

Similarly, add a new account User B and set its Tenant field to Tenant B.

3. Add data connector overrides

From the Tenants page, edit Tenant B in our example.

Click Data connector overrides and then Add override.

In the Open dialog, choose the data connector to override for this tenant and click the submit button at the bottom.

In the data connector dialog, update the settings required to connect to the data source for this tenant (e.g., DatabaseB).

Note

Only the original data connector's structures are discovered and listed under the data connector, and only databases with the same structure/schema are supported when using tenant overrides. Some data providers such as PostgreSQL/Amazon Redshift, Oracle, or MySQL may prefix the original database name in queries by default, which can prevent an override from taking effect - in this case, select the Single Schema option in the original data connector's settings.

Submit the dialogs to add the override for the tenant.

4. View the dashboard as a tenant user

Log out of Dundas BI and log back on as User A.

View the dashboard and observe that it displays the correct data from DatabaseA.

Log out again and log back on as User B.

View the dashboard and observe that it displays the correct data from DatabaseB.

Note

If there are data cubes in your own project displaying tenant data while using warehouse or in-memory storage, they will need to be re-built following changes to tenant overrides.

5. Using tenant time dimension overrides

Tenant time dimension overrides allow for a single time dimension's settings to be changed per-tenant. An example of this is if tenant A and tenant B use a different day as the start of the week. The following steps apply a time dimension override:

Edit a tenant from the Tenants page in Administration as shown above for data connector overrides. In the Tenant Details dialog, click Time dimension overrides.

Edit time dimension overrides for a tenant

Click Add override. In the Open dialog, select a time dimension to override.

In the Time Dimension dialog, change the options as required for this tenant, then submit the dialogs.

Select the time dimension options to override

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