How can I get the SAS Metadata groups of the current user?

Question

I wish to set the value of a macro variable (in the autoexec file of a workspace server) based on the current user's metadata group membership.

Users can be in more than one group, and I need to be able to write logic that decides the variable's value based on the "highest" group of which the user is a member (for some definition of highest).

I have looked at generic methods for querying metadata from SAS code, but they seem to suggest the executing user should have an administrative role, and my users won't.

Answer 1

Users do not need to be admins in order to query metadata. They would need to have read access to the metadata objects. I'm just a user on our server, and I can get a list of all users and their associated groups, using an adaption of http://support.sas.com/kb/30/682.html :

data users_grps (keep=name group email);
   length uri name groupuri group emailuri email $256 ;

   call missing(uri, name, groupuri, group, emailuri, email) ;    

   /* Get URI of first person */
   n=1; 
   nobj=metadata_getnobj("omsobj:Person?@Id contains '.'",n,uri);
   if nobj=0 then put 'No Persons available.';
   do while (nobj > 0);
      call missing(name, groupuri, group, emailuri, email) ;    

      /* Retrieve the current persons name. */
      rc=metadata_getattr(uri, "Name", Name);

      /* get the persons email address (only first one)*/
      rc2=metadata_getnasn(uri,"EmailAddresses",1,emailURI) ;
      rc3=metadata_getattr(emailuri, "Address", email);

      /* Get the group association information for the current person. */
      a=1;
      rcgrp=metadata_getnasn(uri,"IdentityGroups",a,groupuri);

         /* If this person does not belong to any groups, set their group */
         /* variable to 'No groups' and output the name. */
      if rcgrp in (-3,-4) then do;
         group="No groups";
         output;
      end;

      /* If the person belongs to any groups, loop through the list */
      /* and retrieve the name of each group, outputting each on a */
      /* separate record. */
      else do while (rcgrp > 0);
         rc4=metadata_getattr(groupuri, "Name", group);
         a+1;
         output;
         rcgrp=metadata_getnasn(uri,"IdentityGroups",a,groupuri);
      end;

      /* Get URI of next person. */
      n+1;
      nobj=metadata_getnobj("omsobj:Person?@Id contains '.'",n,uri);
   end;

run;

Would think that could be adapted to look up the groups of the current user.

Answer 2

This macro will give you either all groups, or the direct-group memberships of a specific user:

https://core.sasjs.io/mm__getgroups_8sas.html