Secure your business data with SAP Analytics Cloud's advanced access control and security features

[bush_pv]

 

I'm PV. Busharath and I work as a financial planning consultant in Applexus Technologies.

Ensuring data security has become imperative for organizations in the current business landscape, particularly in the realm of analytics and business intelligence solutions. Cyber threats are a constant concern, making comprehensive security measures essential for safeguarding sensitive data. SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) provides organizations with robust security features to safeguard their data and mitigate the risk of cyber-attacks. This blog will focus on the SAC Security Model, which offers precise control over user permissions and access to data and functionality within the application, enabling organizations to maintain data security and compliance.

 

Data security in your SAC model

 

1. Dimension Security using Data Access Control:

By defining read and write permissions for certain dimension members, Dimension's Data Access Control (DAC) feature enables you to have fine-grained control over data access within your model. Any dimension in the model can have this security feature activated to ensure data confidentiality and compliance, such as by limiting the ability of Business unit members to view financial information depending on their individual roles.

Steps to Activating the DAC:

It is easy to enable the DAC function for the Product dimension, which can be done from either the model preferences or the settings for each individual dimension.

Choice I:

Open the model you want to apply DAC, then in Model Preferences go to Access and Privacy and enable Data access control in Dimensions.

Choice II:

1. Open the dimension for which you wish to use DAC.

 

2. Turn on Data Access Control in the Dimension Settings window on the right.

 

3. In "Read" and "Write" columns you can choose which users should have read and write permissions for each dimension member.

 

4. Save your changes after applying the necessary access controls.



Now the specified user having the read and write permission to those allowed three Cost Centers only.



So, by using DAC technique, you can control read and write access to specific accounts or to restrict access to particular versions of the data, such as actuals or budgets, using the account or version dimensions, respectively.

 

   2. Model Data Privacy

Role-based security for your models is further enhanced by the Model Privacy option in the model settings. You can manage who, besides the owner, has access to the model by turning on this feature. When model data privacy is enabled, only the model's owner and user roles with the appropriate access privileges can view the data.

A safe SAP Analytics Cloud infrastructure is built on assigning users the proper roles.

An administrator only needs to access the list of roles and select the role that needs its permissions updated for a private model.

By selecting the "Select Model" option, you can choose a private model with pre-defined permissions or build a new one.

It is important to note that only models with privacy enabled will be shown when browsing the list of roles to alter permission for a private model.

Here, you can give a role Full Access or Limited Access. With limited access, you can set of read and write permission restrictions for every model dimension, version, accounts.

When a Story is created using this model and shared among users, people with this Role can only read these selected version, accounts and dimensions only.

 

Dimension Security and Model Privacy are used together 

When used together in a SAC model, Dimension Security and Model Privacy work to safeguard sensitive data both at the data and model levels. This ensures that unauthorized users cannot access sensitive data and even authorized users cannot view certain dimensions of the data that they are not permitted to access.

When a Story is created using this model and shared among specified user with this Role can only read planned and actual cost of specific members in the Cost Center dimension on Actual Version.

 

Conclusion

The SAP Analytics Cloud platform provides robust access control capabilities that allow administrators to define access rights and roles for different users or groups, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access or modify sensitive data. With Model Data Privacy and Data Access Control, SAC offers a flexible security framework that includes Matrix Security for granular control over data access based on users and dimensions. This level of control over data access, coupled with advanced security features such as Data Encryption, Audit Trails, Multi-Factor Authentication, and Regular Security Updates, makes SAP Analytics Cloud a powerful and secure solution for businesses looking to protect their sensitive data while still enabling their teams to make informed decisions.