KB37200: The ‘403 Forbidden’ error message is encountered when exporting a report with special characters in the report name to Excel or PDF in MicroStrategy Web 9.x and 10.x via Single Sign-on.

SYMPTOM:
In Strategy Web 9.x and 10.x, consider the following scenario:

• Connect to Web using Single Sign-On.
• Run a report with special characters in the report name and export to Excel
• The following error is encountered:
   
  

•  
   
  
  Sample Code/Error
   ‘Forbidden
  You don’t have permission to access /dashboard/asp/xxx.exp.aspx on this server’
  
   
   
  Note: The same report exports fine in a non Single Sign-On environment.
  

 
CAUSE:
In Web, when exporting to PDF or Excel, a temporary name for the export object is used and then retrieved the server.  In this example, the report name is ‘Test (A & B)’.  Since the original name of the report contains special characters, it is causing an issue with Single Sign-On session state.
 
ACTION:
Re-name the report name and remove the special characters