Configuring IBM Cognos® authentication properties in Unica

If the Unica and Cognos® applications are installed in different network domains, you must configure Cognos® authentication properties in Unica. This action ensures that the Unica applications can communicate with the Cognos® applications.

About this task

The setting of the Enable form authentication property indicates that Unica security uses form-based authentication in place of cookies. You set this property to True when either of the following is true:

  • Unica is not installed in the same network domain as the Cognos® applications.
  • Cognos® is accessed by using an IP address (within the same network domain) instead of the Fully Qualified Hostname (which is used to access the Unica applications), even if both of the Unica applications and the Cognos® installation are on the same computer.

When the value is True, the login process to Cognos® Connection passes the login name and password in clear text and is not secure unless Cognos® and the Unica are configured to use SSL communication.

However, even with SSL configured, the user name and password appear as clear text in the HTML source code when someone views the source of a displayed report. For this reason, you should install Cognos® and Unica in the same network domain.

To configure Cognos® authentication properties in Unica, complete the following steps.

Procedure

  1. Log in to Unica as the platform_admin user.
  2. Select Settings > Configuration.
  3. Expand Reports > Integrations > Cognos version .
  4. Set the value of the Authentication Mode property by selecting either authenticated or authenticatedPerUser.

    For authenticated mode, continue with step 5.

    For authenticatedPerUser mode, continue with step 8.

  5. For "authenticated" mode: Verify that the values in the Authentication user name and Authentication datasource name fields match those of the user and data source that you created in the previous task, Creating the reports system user.
  6. Set the value of the Enable form authentication property.
    Note: When the Enable form authentication property is set to True, the Authentication mode property automatically behaves as though it were set to authenticated. You must complete the step that is required for this mode, which is described in Creating the reports system user.
  7. Save the new settings.
  8. For "authenticatedPeruser" mode: Assign the Report User role to the default asm_admin user. To test reports, you need a user with access to both the Unica application and the report data. The platform_admin user does not have access to the Unica application features.