DISPLAYNAME session variable

Question

The documentation says that I can use the DISPLAYNAME session variable. However, in the server variable initialization block, it returns no value. In fact, it is not even recognized as a bind variable.
For example,
The query select ':USER' from dual returns
Variable Value
==== ========
mysessvar Administrator
However, select ':DISPLAYNAME' from dual returns
Variable Value
==== ========
mysessvar :DISPLAYNAME
I have read other threads dealing with the GROUP session variable, so it seems like this should be possible. However, I cannot get it to work. I am using OBIEE version 10.3.3.2. Thanks.

Answer 1

Sorry. Yes, usually the best thing to do is state your objective, rather than your method. I am using SSO, but I want to have the ability to filter records based on the user logging in. Here is one way I thought of doing this.
What I need to do is filter records based on a particular ID. Let's say my report table looks like this:
RID UID Amount
=== === =====
1 1 10
2 2 15
3 1 20
I also have a table mapping username to UID, let's call it USERS.
UID Username
== ========
1 Joe
2 Bob
We have set up OBI to use SSO and cookies. We will authenticate the user and then redirect to OBI. However, in OBI, I only want to show the records related to the user logging in. So, if Joe logs in, I only want to show records with RID =1,3. If Bob logs in, I only want to show records with RID=2.
Now, if I was to create 1 named user in OBI for each user in USERS, I could use an init block to query the USERS table, get the UID and set it to a session variable. I could then use this session variable to filter my records. However, even though we won't have that many users, I don't want to do it manually. I want to create one OBI user that has access to the report. To filter records, my thought was to set the DISPLAYNAME using a cookie and then use the DISPLAYNAME to retrieve the UID.
To answer the question asked by Turribeach, OBI is only looking at users defined in the rpd. We are using SSO, but OBI is not using external authentication.
To summarize, I am using SSO, but I want to have the ability to filter records based on the user logging in. I just want to know the best way of doing that. Thanks!