Configure Windows Authentication for the Web Module

A great feature of Vantage Ultimate is its ability to publish reports and storages to the Web Module so that users can login, view their reports and analyze data.

You can create users and set their login username and password manually, but no one wants to have to remember yet another username and password combination to login to the Web Module, so make it easy on your users by using Windows Authentication. This way, as long as a user is logged into their Windows machine with their Windows domain username, they will sail straight into the Web Module without being prompted for a username or password.

To use Windows Authentication, there are just a few things you need to do.
1. Configure the Web Module to use Windows Authentication. 2. Enable Windows Authentication in IIS.
3. Connect Vantage and the Web Module using the new authentication details. 4. Give users the correct login name.

1. Configure the Web Module to use Windows Authentication.

You can configure Windows Authentication using the Initial Configuration Wizard that is displayed when you first install the Web Module, or via Options | Authentication.

Using the Initial Configuration Wizard:

  1. On the Authentication page selecting IIS Integrated authentication and click Next
  2. On the Delegate Administrators page, entering the users that should have administrative access to the Web Module in the form of domain\username, replacing domain with your organization’s AD domain, and username with the sAMAccountName of your administrators (each on a separate line). Click Next.
  3. Click Finish.

Using Options | Authentication:

  1. Go to Options | Authentication and select the IIS Integrated option.
  2. In the Users edit box, enter the users that should have administrative access to the Web Module in the form of domain\username, replacing domain with your organization’s AD domain, and username with the sAMAccountName of your administrators (each on a separate line).
  3. Click Change

If the authentication was successfully changed, you should get a message saying 'The specified credentials were not accepted'.

Don’t panic at this point. This message is an indication that the authentication was successfully changed and that the Web Module is now listening for IIS to pass through Windows Usernames. The reason you’re getting this message is because IIS is not yet passing through Windows Usernames to the Web Module. This is configured in the next step.

2. Enable Windows Authentication in IIS.

Now that the Web Module is expecting IIS to authenticate your users, you need to configure IIS to do this.

  1. Open IIS by navigating to Start | Control Panel | Administrative Tools and double-clicking on Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
  2. Navigate to the Web Module site or virtual directory in the left hand ‘Connections’ Panel. It will be located under <Server Name>-><Sites>. For example, MyServer->Sites->Default Web Site->webmodule.
  3. Select the Web Module site and ensure the Features tab is selected at the bottom of the middle pane.
  4. Double-click the Authentication feature.
  5. Right-click Anonymous Authentication and select Disable, then right-click and Windows Authentication and select Enable
  6. Restart IIS by selecting your server in the right hand connections pane, and clicking Restart in the ‘Actions’ pane on the right.

Go back to the Web Module in your browser and click Refresh.

Assuming you added your current username to the list of Delegate Administrators above, you should be logged into the Web Module with your username displayed in the top right.

3. Connect Vantage and the Web Module using the new authentication details.

In order to publish information to the Web Module, you need to add a connection between Vantage and the Web Module. This is done on the Web Module screen in Vantage Ultimate.

  1. Click Add Web Module (or if you already had a web module before changing the authentication details, select it and click Properties)
  2. Enter the server & virtual directory of the Web module, and enter the credentials of one of your Web Module administrators
  3. Click OK to connect.

3. Give users the correct login name

Your administrator accounts can now log into the Web Module using Windows Authentication, but all other users will not be able to log in unless they have their login name specified in the form of domain\username. This is done in Vantage Ultimate on the Organization screen.

On the User Details Page of the Import Organization wizard, the Use Active Directory Defaults option to automatically import users in the form of domain\username, or make sure you use the Prefix option on the User Details page to prefix domain before your imported usernames.

Once you have updated your Organization, synchronize Vantage with the Web Module: 1. Go to the Web Module tab 2. Click the Synchronize link in the Web Module task pad.

You may also want to provide permissions for certain users to log in to the Web Module and view reports. This is done in the Permissions section on the Web Module screen.

That’s it. You can now test that everything is working by getting one of your users to access the Web Module’s URL. They should sail straight in with no username/password prompt.