Managing User Sessions and Data Access in Bold Reports

Introduction

In Bold Reports, user sessions play a crucial role in managing user access and ensuring secure interactions with the platform. Below is an overview of user sessions, their authentication methods, and their benefits.

Authentication Methods

Bold Reports supports two primary authentication methods:

• Local Authentication: Users are registered directly on the Bold Reports Server, and their identities are verified through the server’s internal mechanisms.
• External Authentication: This method utilizes third-party authenticators such as OAuth or OpenID to validate user identities. Please refer to the help documentation for more details.

Data Access for Logged-In Users

When a user logs into the Bold Reports application, their session is authenticated, and they are granted access to the data, reports, data sources, and datasets that they have permissions for. The following steps outline how data access is managed for a logged-in user:

1. Authentication: The user logs in using either local or external authentication methods.
2. Session Creation: Upon successful authentication, a session is created and stored in the browser.
3. Data Retrieval: The Bold Reports application retrieves the user’s permissions and accesses the relevant data, reports, data sources, and datasets from the server.
4. Data Processing: Data is processed and extracted for optimized performance.
5. Data Display: The retrieved data is displayed to the user based on their permissions, allowing them to interact with and manage the reports.

User Session Management

• After authentication, a user session is stored in the browser and remains active until the configured timeout period.

• Default Timeout: Bold Reports logs out users after 60 minutes of inactivity. This setting can be customized in the configuration file. For instructions, refer to the Knowledge Base article.

• When external authenticators are used, session timeout policies are determined by the authenticator. For example:
  * Azure AD: Token expires after 1 hour.
  * Auth0: Access token expires after 24 hours.
  * Okta: Access token expires after 1 hour.
  * Cognito AWS: Access token expires after 1 hour.
  * JWT: Users can utilize JSON Web Tokens (JWT) authentication for defined lifetimes, providing flexibility in session management.

Access Tokens

Bold Reports also supports the generation of access tokens through its REST API. These tokens have an expiration time of 7 days. Additionally, users can generate personal access tokens via the Bold Reports application UI, which can have a maximum expiration of 45 days. For more information on managing access tokens, please refer to the Help Documentation.

Benefits of User Sessions

• Security: User sessions ensure that only authenticated users can access sensitive data and resources.
• Session Management: Administrators can configure session timeouts to enhance security and manage user activity effectively.
• Flexibility: Support for various authentication methods allows organizations to integrate Bold Reports with their existing security frameworks.
• User Experience: By managing session lifetimes appropriately, users can enjoy a seamless experience without frequent logins.

For further information on user sessions and authentication in Bold Reports, please refer to the relevant documentation and resources.

Additional References

• How to Modify the Idle Session Time in Bold Reports?
• Documentation on different authentication mechanisms in Bold Reports
• Embed the report with user impersonation