Authorization is the process of determining the capabilities and resources to which an authenticated user or program has access. In the context of Managed Reporting, authorization refers to which Managed Reporting groups, domains, and privileges, and also to which Dashboard group views and roles trees each user has access.

By default, Managed Reporting authorizes users to its built-in repository (installation_dir/WebFOCUS/basedir). While it is possible to build a successful implementation that authorizes users to the built-in repository, there are advantages to externalizing Managed Reporting authorization:

• Performance. As the number of Managed Reporting users increases, relational DBMS and X.500 directory technology performs better than the built-in security repository.
• Auditing. External authorization sources may afford companies more flexibility in meeting their auditing objectives. For example, systems that update LDAP, Active Directory, and RDBMS authorization sources may themselves have desirable auditing capabilities or may be more easily be adapted for this purpose than the built-in security repository.
• Administration. Many companies that seek externalized authorization solutions already have systems and/or processes in place to administer these authorizations. It may be easier to meet the administration objectives of the company with an externalized solution for Managed Reporting authorization.
• Data Synchronization. External authorization affords the opportunity to read the display name and email of Managed Reporting users from an external source, reducing errors and effort in creating users. For more information, see Retrieving User Information From Two Directories.