Set env::username for testing PRPT in Pentaho Report Designer (PRD)

A common technique to restrict access in Pentaho Report Designer is use the variable ‘${env::username}’ in queries. This is replaced with the currently logged in username on the server and allows group memberships/rows access to be identified at the database level.

Unfortunately, when testing (or debugging) a report using the Desktop designer, there is no obvious way to set the username – this means all the queries have to be manually changed to use a string literal (e.g. ‘acave’) with all the risks that might entail.

However, a tip I discovered on an obscure forum from more than a decade ago , allows the setting of the username value at program startup.

In the file

[PRD_INSTALL_PATH]/report-designer/resources/classic-engine.properties

(on my Win10 setup, it’s in C:\pentaho\design-tools\report-designer\resources\classic-engine.properties)

Find the line

org.pentaho.reporting.engine.classic.core.environment.username=Designer

and change it to (your user for testing). Here I’m using ‘test_user_name’

org.pentaho.reporting.engine.classic.core.environment.username=test_user_name

Save the file and restart the Pentaho Report Designer. When running your queries, the ‘${env::username}’ will be replaced with ‘test_user_name’ when the queries are run.