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Manual mapping

In a previous post I’ve warned about the not so automatically behavior of the automatic mapping. However, I can’t blame the manual mapping for the same degree of inconsistency. I mean, boy, that’s as manual as it gets!

Take a manually mapped attribute and have a look at its source tables. Now drop the attribute from one of these tables (on database and Catalog level) and try to run a report which used that table.

On the one hand, MSTR knows from the attribute definition that it can include that table into the SQL. On the other hand, it should know from the table definition, as updated in the Warehouse Catalog, that the column is no longer there, but such a small detail doesn’t have enough force to deter the SQL Engine. So it simply writes the SQL as if nothing had happened, and the only error you get is from the database (i.e. a11.attribute_id does not exist).

So, if you aren’t doing this already, don’t forget to inform the manually mapped attribute that one of its source tables decided to discontinue their relationship, next time you indulge in such data model changes.

MicroStrategy 9 GA Features

Dashboard Features:
 Easy to add Tabs and report layouts(Panels)
 Default templates available to choose the number of reports per tab
 Tab adding is just clicking plus sign(+)
 Drilling is possible in AJAX or DHTML mode
 All, Total features are introduced and bugs are fixed
 Many graph issues in 8 are fixed in 9

Prompt & Filter
 Prompt and Filter can be created in WEB
 New web options for prompt values display, Search in list view, drop down box and many new web options for filter and prompt
Total, Sub Total
 Advanced totaling, Display options (What ever available in Desktop, same features are now available in WEB

Derived Elements
 After report execution; kind of consolidation and partial custom group is possible (but actual cons and cus grp) and derived element can be saved and reuse the same.
 Example: Jan+feb or making Jan& Feb row together as ‘Winter’ and or total of MAR+APR
Threshold
 Threshold is possible in WEB on the fly. It’s just slider bar…you can set many thresholds with different color just on the fly.

Document Report
 Reports can be placed parallel in document report

Back & Forward button
 In MSTR-8, if you click on IE back button, session will be expired. But in MSTR-9, inside the MSTR-9 web there is option for back & forward.
 Suppose you applied some total, formatting, formula on the fly and if like to switch to old one, you can just click on back button

Preferences, Notes, Screens
 Extra preference like web colors, etc
 Different screen in MSTR 8, like menus and icons
 Folders/objects can be viewed in tree view (expand like windows explorer)

Delivery Service in WEB (new feature like Narrowcast server):
 It looks in the upcoming MSTR version, Narrowcast component won’t be there
 Delivery service: you can subscribe reports for email or folder, or you email reports directly.
 You add many email IDs, subscription
 Everything in WEB
Note: you cannot import LDAP or SMTP server emails from server, its has been raised as enhancement request, may be in 9.x we can expect.
Note: Dynamic subscription not possible in delivery service, next version may have (Not sure)

CUBE (New very big feature)
 Cube is kind of Cognos Cube. You can pull many attributes and metrics into metrics as cube report. And when you link other normal reports with cube report, it will fetch data from cube report.
 Cube report can scheduled
 Cube object deleted, reports linked to cube report won’t work.
 There cube at user level, grp level and many things are there…you can find more details in website or help in MSTR-9.

CUBE Advisor: (Another big feature)
 If I have to say in one line: it will advise you to make how many reports can be converted to cube link report

Admin:
 Many new features in MSTR 9 Admin
 Special one: Users, Grps, Sec.Filters can be created in WEB under Admin login.

Architect: (New component in MSTR DESKTOP)
 Like BO, OBIEE tools here you can make table level relationships.
 No need to add key attributes as a child/parent.
 Its good component, this is what we were looking from MSTR.
 Still doing many testing, investigation on some of the scenarios, so will post more once I complete the analysis.

Multiple Sources:
 Multiple source can used, differentiae the tables with colors……
Metric name can be removed (no more “Metric” name in reports)


Other features;
 New data types (like NCHAR, Binary data type)
 New SQL tuning properties
 New OLAP functions
 New forecasting functions
 Temp table indexing
 Data mining functions
 Linking websites in dashboard
 Banding
 Portlet to portlet (web linking feature)
 Multi select rows, columns on the fly and do manipulations.
 Watermark in documents, reports background
 Linking report from dashboard
 Personalized Prompt Answers
 Metadata and Data can be in same DB
 Importing delivery service from NCAST to Delivery service
 64 bit-Windows supported
 64 bit web server supported
 Command manager, Object manager, Project merge, desktop license are separate now.
 Eclipse can be linked to WEB files and easy to customize the MSTR WEB 9
 Now Caching can be done at EXCEL, WORD,XML, HTML CSV format (means when you export report it can be cached at excel level)
 AND many more new features……will post when ever come across……

Email if any queries: senthil.raj.u@gmail.com

How to hide Metric column in MicroStrategy

For hinding Metric column only in Web: (assuming that English language was the Locale.)

1. On the Web Server machine, go to the default location of <>\Web ASPx\WEB-INF\classes\resources and open up the file called MessagesBundle_en_US.properties.
2. Go to the line 'mstrWeb.1158'. For English language, 'Metrics' is the value.
3. Delete the word 'Metrics' and leave one single space.
4. Save the close the file.
5. Restart Web server.

Note: If an environment is being accessed by users that may not be using the project default language, the administrator will need to go in and modify each MessageBundle properties file for that respective language and clear the mstrWeb.1158 Metrics reference.

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For hiding Metric column in Desktop for Reports and RS documents.

1st method

1. Goto Grid menu nad check that Automatic Column width is disabled.
2. Place the mouse between the Metrics column and the first metric on the report. Then, drag the column to the left until it is no longer present on the report:.

2nd method

1. Open Options under Grid menu.
2. Open tab Columns and Rows.
3. Select radio button Fixed.
4. Select Metric from dropdown menu and set 0 as pixen as width.

MicroStrategy event in India

Finally, MicroStrategy Inc is going to host BI classes in India.

20th May: co-sponsored by Systech
22nd May: co-sponsored by InfoStep

Location are not specified, but looks like they would be hosted at Chennai and Mumabi respectively.

Search by ID is dead. Long live Search by ID!

It appears that someone at MicroStrategy was receptive enough to come up with the idea of including a search by ID function in version 9. It’s called… “Search by ID” (act surprised now) and it can be found under the Tools menu of the “Search for Objects” window.

This, and the new “Translate” function in MicroStrategy 9 render my “Search by ID v2” application almost obsolete. I refrain from calling it completely obsolete for the sole reason that it still offers the direct and recurring dependents export to Excel function. To the date I still haven’t found a recurring dependents search function in MicroStrategy Desktop.

By the way, since I was confronted with a case when this tool was not able to find an object, I feel compelled to add a small tech note. If the user you log in with doesn’t have the right to “see” a particular object, then of course this object won’t be found by Search by ID v2. This may happen if the object you are looking for is placed in a colleague’s personal folder, or if that object has some kind of “Deny all” permission set for your user/usergroup.

MicroStrategy license is Absolutely free now

Not within a month after the release of Free Reporting Suite (that's what MicroStrategy, Inc calls the free BI product), MicroStrategy, Inc. is giving away the must have features finally absolutely free. I user named rich Arriaga pointed out the same to me. First, I disbelieved, but I see that there are lot of change on the site itself. But one image showing that you need to pay for must have features still exist (check the image above). I thought I must have had done a mistaken in missing to read NOT INCLUDED during initial launch of Reporting Suite, but the site/license policy is indeed changed.

Also, now MicroStrategy explictly states that that technical support cost 18%, which I had posted earlier. Something that was missing from MicroStrategy, Inc site.

This will certainly help the MicroStrategy professionals community a lot and MicroStrategy clients in long run in easily hiring MicroStrategy professional readily and at good rate.

Filtering Compound Attributes

Scenario:
Attribute1 is a compound key attribute with a ginormous number of values. In fact, there are so many values that when you attempt to see all its elements, you get a spool space error.

You also have a list of a few hundred elements (ID1 and ID2) belonging to this attribute and you somehow must build a report that would only show results for these elements.

Deal breaker:
As mentioned before, manually selecting the elements is out of the question. Not only does the spool space error occurs, but just imagine handpicking hundreds of values.

Having two filters, one for each ID, in which the appropriate values are entered using the “In List” option is also a bad idea. You will get much more than you expect, regardless if there is an “AND” or an “OR” operator between the two filters.

Solution:
As far as I tested, qualifying on multiple IDs of the same attribute is not possible in MicroStrategy, not even in version 9. Theoretically the element qualification is what we are looking for, but as stated before there are certain limitations.

The only solution that I can think of is to create a FreeForm SQL Report. Writing the WHERE block should be no problem, as you can generate it in MS Excel based on the two columns… something like =CONCATENATE("OR (a11.Attribute_ID1 = ",A1," AND a11.Attribute_ID2= ",B1,")").

If you know of better/faster ways, please share.


Update:
A better solution was presented to me by AK.
Simply create an additional attribute DESC form as a concatenation between the two IDs, separated by a pipeline character. From here on it gets much simpler.