In many cases, custom security requirements can be accommodated with standard Realm Driver configuration settings. For example, you can specify a stored procedure to authenticate the user and/or retrieve user privileges from a relational DBMS. You can also tailor how the Realm Driver reads information from LDAP and Active Directory with property file settings.

In more specialized cases, you may need to extend the Realm Driver to meet your needs. Extending the Realm Driver still allows you to take advantage of the following features:

• Logging - the Realm Driver initializes a logging service that you can write to.
• Property File Manager - the Realm Driver initializes a property file manager that has special logic to dispatch blocks of properties to each of the custom manager classes based on a configurable prefix. This also makes it easier for those familiar with the Realm Driver to support your custom security solution.
• User Caching - the Realm Driver implements a caching feature in the adapter class. This means that the data retrieved by your manager classes is automatically cached according to the standard Realm Driver business logic. This caching feature compensates for certain inefficiencies in Managed Reporting processing. While you could build a similar caching feature on your own, we recommend using the standard caching behavior in the Realm Driver.
• Dynamic Account Creation in ReportCaster - the Realm Driver dynamically creates user entries in the ReportCaster Repository during the first Login of the user to Managed Reporting. This is done by a privileged function in the MR API not available outside of the Realm Driver.
• Custom Error Messages - the Realm Driver enables you to create and display custom error messages during the authentication process. Developers can create error messages using numbers in the range of 1180 - 1198 when extending the WFMRX_DBSecurityManager class in the Realm Driver API. To display the error messages while authenticating, add the REALM_CUSTOM_AUTH_MESSAGE=YES variable to the install_drive:\ibi\WebFOCUS77\client\wfc\etc\site.wfs file.