MicroStrategy 9.0 codenamed Orion will go GA by Q1 2009, which is still like 3-4 months behind schedule. It is too good as far as some stupid bug fixes that I wanted for long time and some dashboard stuff.
My suggestion - If you are non-English user wait till 9.0 SP1 to be released, or at least HF1. You will not regret your decision.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Report Service Documents
Every time we rename an object, MicroStrategy updates that object’s name in all of its dependants. That’s true, right?… Or is it?
Well, it’s almost true. This fails when the object whose name we change is referenced as a data field in a Document.
Tip. A data field is a text field that is created either by dragging it from the Dataset Objects area into the Layout area, or by creating it manually and then typing the object’s name. The name should appear between braces ({}) and should be also surrounded by brackets ([]) if it contains spaces or special characters.
Now, because the data field does not have an object ID, MicroStrategy is completely oblivious if the object referenced in it is renamed, thus the document will not run. Strangely enough, it performs fine if the object was moved to a different folder.
The way to avoid such mishaps is to do a dependence check when renaming a Metric or Attribute and see if they are being used as data fields inside a Document. All it takes then is typing the new name into the text box.
Of course, if the object is used in the Document as part of a grid, then the Metadata does its job very well.
No projects were returned by this project source
If no projects are returned by MicroStrategy these could be reasons.
But mostly, I have found the issue to be user not given right privileges, not connecting to right Project source or metadata corruption.
- Run License Manager and check that you have MicroStrategy Desktop and MicroStrategy Architect among Installed Products.
- You enabled anonymous authentication. The Guest user is a member of the Public group. By default, this user group does not have access to any projects in the project source. Revert back to Standard authentication, Administrator -> User Manager -> Public/Gest -> project Access. Set the access and privileges desired for the guest login.
- You are trying to connect to a Microsoft Access database with database authentication. Microsoft Access does not support database authentication.
- Similar to #2, LDAP user ID and password blank would lead to no project(s) when using LDAP authentication.
But mostly, I have found the issue to be user not given right privileges, not connecting to right Project source or metadata corruption.
Friday, December 19, 2008
A Funny farewell letter
Today was my last day at my employer, First Indian Corporation. I was searching some good "be in touch mails" to be sent to colleague. I couldn't anything good so sent a simple straight forward email. But I also landed up some funny farewell emails too. Here is the best one.
(Great Farewell Email from ex - JP Morgan employee)
----
Dear Co-Workers and Managers,
As many of you probably know, today is my last day. But before I leave, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know what a great and distinct pleasure it has been to type “Today is my last day.”
For nearly as long as I’ve worked here, I’ve hoped that I might one day leave this company. And now that this dream has become a reality, please know that I could not have reached this goal without your unending lack of support. Words cannot express my gratitude for the words of gratitude you did not express.
I would especially like to thank all of my managers both past and present but with the exception of the wonderful Saroj H*********: in an age where miscommunication is all too common, you consistently impressed and inspired me with the sheer magnitude of your misinformation, ignorance and intolerance for true talent. It takes a strong man to admit his mistake - it takes a stronger man to attribute his mistake to me.
Over the past seven years, you have taught me more than I could ever ask for and, in most cases, ever did ask for. I have been fortunate enough to work with some absolutely interchangeable supervisors on a wide variety of seemingly identical projects - an invaluable lesson in overcoming daily tedium in overcoming daily tedium in overcoming daily tedium.
Your demands were high and your patience short, but I take great solace knowing that my work was, as stated on my annual review, “meets expectation.” That is the type of praise that sends a man home happy after a 10 hour day, smiling his way through half a bottle of meets expectation scotch with a meets expectation cigar. Thanks Trish!
And to most of my peers: even though we barely acknowledged each other within these office walls, I hope that in the future, should we pass on the street, you will regard me the same way as I regard you: sans eye contact.
But to those few souls with whom I’ve actually interacted, here are my personalized notes of farewell:
To Philip C****, I will not miss hearing you cry over absolutely nothing while laying blame on me and my coworkers. Your racial comments about Joe C***** were truly offensive and I hope that one day you might gain the strength to apologize to him.
To Brenda A**** whom is long gone, I hope you find a manager that treats you as poorly as you have treated us. I worked harder for you then any manager in my career and I regret every ounce of it. Watching you take credit for my work was truly demoralizing.
To Sylvia K*****, you should learn how to keep your mouth shut sweet heart. Bad mouthing the innocent is a negative thing, especially when your talking about someone who knows your disgusting secrets. ; )
To Bob M***** (Mr. Cronyism Jr), well, I wish you had more of a back bone. You threw me to the wolves with that witch Brenda and I learned all too much from it. I still can’t believe that after following your instructions, I ended up getting written up, wow. Thanks for the experience buddy, lesson learned.
Don M***** (Mr. Cronyism Sr), I’m happy that you were let go in the same manner that you have handed down to my dedicated coworkers. Hearing you on the phone last year brag about how great bonuses were going to be for you fellas in upper management because all of the lay offs made me nearly vomit. I never expected to see management benefit financially from the suffering of scores of people but then again, with this company’s rooted history in the slave trade it only makes sense.
To all of the executives of this company, Jamie Dimon and such. Despite working through countless managers that practiced unethical behavior, racism, sexism, jealousy and cronyism, I have benefited tremendously by working here and I truly thank you for that. There was once a time where hard work was rewarded and acknowledged, it’s a pity that all of our positive output now falls on deaf ears and passes blind eyes. My advice for you is to place yourself closer to the pulse of this company and enjoy the effort and dedication of us “faceless little people” more. There are many great people that are being over worked and mistreated but yet are still loyal not to those who abuse them but to the greater mission of providing excellent customer support. Find them and embrace them as they will help battle the cancerous plague that is ravishing the moral of this company.
So, in parting, if I could pass on any word of advice to the lower salary recipient (”because it’s good for the company”) in India or Tampa who will soon be filling my position, it would be to cherish this experience because a job opportunity like this comes along only once in a lifetime.
Meaning: if I had to work here again in this lifetime, I would sooner kill myself.
To those who I have held a great relationship with, I will miss being your co-worker and will cherish our history together. Please don’t bother responding as at this very moment I am most likely in my car doing 85 with the windows down listening to Biggie.
----
Couldn't control my laughter. One of very interesting reading I have come across in recent time.
(Great Farewell Email from ex - JP Morgan employee)
----
Dear Co-Workers and Managers,
As many of you probably know, today is my last day. But before I leave, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know what a great and distinct pleasure it has been to type “Today is my last day.”
For nearly as long as I’ve worked here, I’ve hoped that I might one day leave this company. And now that this dream has become a reality, please know that I could not have reached this goal without your unending lack of support. Words cannot express my gratitude for the words of gratitude you did not express.
I would especially like to thank all of my managers both past and present but with the exception of the wonderful Saroj H*********: in an age where miscommunication is all too common, you consistently impressed and inspired me with the sheer magnitude of your misinformation, ignorance and intolerance for true talent. It takes a strong man to admit his mistake - it takes a stronger man to attribute his mistake to me.
Over the past seven years, you have taught me more than I could ever ask for and, in most cases, ever did ask for. I have been fortunate enough to work with some absolutely interchangeable supervisors on a wide variety of seemingly identical projects - an invaluable lesson in overcoming daily tedium in overcoming daily tedium in overcoming daily tedium.
Your demands were high and your patience short, but I take great solace knowing that my work was, as stated on my annual review, “meets expectation.” That is the type of praise that sends a man home happy after a 10 hour day, smiling his way through half a bottle of meets expectation scotch with a meets expectation cigar. Thanks Trish!
And to most of my peers: even though we barely acknowledged each other within these office walls, I hope that in the future, should we pass on the street, you will regard me the same way as I regard you: sans eye contact.
But to those few souls with whom I’ve actually interacted, here are my personalized notes of farewell:
To Philip C****, I will not miss hearing you cry over absolutely nothing while laying blame on me and my coworkers. Your racial comments about Joe C***** were truly offensive and I hope that one day you might gain the strength to apologize to him.
To Brenda A**** whom is long gone, I hope you find a manager that treats you as poorly as you have treated us. I worked harder for you then any manager in my career and I regret every ounce of it. Watching you take credit for my work was truly demoralizing.
To Sylvia K*****, you should learn how to keep your mouth shut sweet heart. Bad mouthing the innocent is a negative thing, especially when your talking about someone who knows your disgusting secrets. ; )
To Bob M***** (Mr. Cronyism Jr), well, I wish you had more of a back bone. You threw me to the wolves with that witch Brenda and I learned all too much from it. I still can’t believe that after following your instructions, I ended up getting written up, wow. Thanks for the experience buddy, lesson learned.
Don M***** (Mr. Cronyism Sr), I’m happy that you were let go in the same manner that you have handed down to my dedicated coworkers. Hearing you on the phone last year brag about how great bonuses were going to be for you fellas in upper management because all of the lay offs made me nearly vomit. I never expected to see management benefit financially from the suffering of scores of people but then again, with this company’s rooted history in the slave trade it only makes sense.
To all of the executives of this company, Jamie Dimon and such. Despite working through countless managers that practiced unethical behavior, racism, sexism, jealousy and cronyism, I have benefited tremendously by working here and I truly thank you for that. There was once a time where hard work was rewarded and acknowledged, it’s a pity that all of our positive output now falls on deaf ears and passes blind eyes. My advice for you is to place yourself closer to the pulse of this company and enjoy the effort and dedication of us “faceless little people” more. There are many great people that are being over worked and mistreated but yet are still loyal not to those who abuse them but to the greater mission of providing excellent customer support. Find them and embrace them as they will help battle the cancerous plague that is ravishing the moral of this company.
So, in parting, if I could pass on any word of advice to the lower salary recipient (”because it’s good for the company”) in India or Tampa who will soon be filling my position, it would be to cherish this experience because a job opportunity like this comes along only once in a lifetime.
Meaning: if I had to work here again in this lifetime, I would sooner kill myself.
To those who I have held a great relationship with, I will miss being your co-worker and will cherish our history together. Please don’t bother responding as at this very moment I am most likely in my car doing 85 with the windows down listening to Biggie.
----
Couldn't control my laughter. One of very interesting reading I have come across in recent time.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Performance tuning in MicroStrategy
Some of collection (mine and from friends)
1. Use Aggregate tables
2. Use partition mapping
3. VLDB settings
4. Collect statistics on the tables
5. Use Index on all Key columns ( for conditions from WHERE clause, JOIN conditions, ORDER BY clause , GROUP BY clause )
6. Convince the requester of report to drop least used and most SQL intensive calculations/columns. In rare cases it works.
7. Select from in-memory tables (from Orion onwards)
8. Avoid Custom Groups
9. Use Free form reports (if any other tuning doesn't bring much improvement)
10. Use Database function instead of MicroStrategy provided function
11. Use Cartesian Products Wisely
12. Connectivity between I-Server, Web-server, Database server and meta-data server is fast.
13. chk explain plan of the query generated (teradata specific). it should indicate high confidence level... also full table scan should not be there.
14. Use Case Statement option available in VLDB Properties, If your report contains any Custom Groups.
15. If the SQL of your Report has any Sub queries, You can use the "Use Temporary Table" option available in Query Optimization in VLDB Properties. For reports with several relationship filters, temporary table syntax may execute significantly faster on the database.
16. make sure you not using lookups at fact table.
17. as others pointed out make sure indexes and collect stats are there
18. get the SQL and execute directly in DB. if it's take less time then you'll have something to do with MSTR or fine tune DB SQL with the help DBA.
19. in MSTR, go to project config, increase the project memory settings. this is the memory MSTR uses for worker set. it should be large enough to process it quickly.
20. also go to intelligence server configuration and make sure the worker set XML is at optimum level. ( you can set 5 Lk for 8.0.3)
21. web server java heap size should be more if you are working with bigger data set and RS documents. by default it is 256 MB and you can set it as 512 MB (max)
22. MicroStrategy recommends the use of warehouse partitioning when implementing cross-dimensional partitioning.
1. Use Aggregate tables
2. Use partition mapping
3. VLDB settings
4. Collect statistics on the tables
5. Use Index on all Key columns ( for conditions from WHERE clause, JOIN conditions, ORDER BY clause , GROUP BY clause )
6. Convince the requester of report to drop least used and most SQL intensive calculations/columns. In rare cases it works.
7. Select from in-memory tables (from Orion onwards)
8. Avoid Custom Groups
9. Use Free form reports (if any other tuning doesn't bring much improvement)
10. Use Database function instead of MicroStrategy provided function
11. Use Cartesian Products Wisely
12. Connectivity between I-Server, Web-server, Database server and meta-data server is fast.
13. chk explain plan of the query generated (teradata specific). it should indicate high confidence level... also full table scan should not be there.
14. Use Case Statement option available in VLDB Properties, If your report contains any Custom Groups.
15. If the SQL of your Report has any Sub queries, You can use the "Use Temporary Table" option available in Query Optimization in VLDB Properties. For reports with several relationship filters, temporary table syntax may execute significantly faster on the database.
16. make sure you not using lookups at fact table.
17. as others pointed out make sure indexes and collect stats are there
18. get the SQL and execute directly in DB. if it's take less time then you'll have something to do with MSTR or fine tune DB SQL with the help DBA.
19. in MSTR, go to project config, increase the project memory settings. this is the memory MSTR uses for worker set. it should be large enough to process it quickly.
20. also go to intelligence server configuration and make sure the worker set XML is at optimum level. ( you can set 5 Lk for 8.0.3)
21. web server java heap size should be more if you are working with bigger data set and RS documents. by default it is 256 MB and you can set it as 512 MB (max)
22. MicroStrategy recommends the use of warehouse partitioning when implementing cross-dimensional partitioning.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Free full-day BI classes by MicroStrategy
MicroStrategy is imparting training about "reporting, analysis, and monitoring in an enterprise BI application" specifically designed for "business users and budget owners" in various conutires starting 16th Dec.
If you don't have a MicroStrategy Account, click here for creation of account. You will have to use only and only official office email address for account access.
Schedule for various countries/cities is here.
Click on suitable date and follow the wizard and you are done.
If you don't have a MicroStrategy Account, click here for creation of account. You will have to use only and only official office email address for account access.
Schedule for various countries/cities is here.
Click on suitable date and follow the wizard and you are done.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
MicroStrategy CEO may lose his Jet
MicroStrategy CEO had leased a Jet during hay days couple of years back with lot fan fare. It made CEO (Michael Saylor) stand in line with CEO of Google etc. Now it is coming back to them. USD 25 Million a year lease of plane is getting lot of flak from the investor/share holder considering that's almost equal to last quarter revenue of the company. There is grapevine that MicroStrategy would not continue with the lease that comes for payment in December end.
Update 25th Feb 2009
------------------------
this post will be taken off soon as this I found some contradicting fact(s). Reason was not immediately taking down: may not "un"harm the reputation
Update 25th Feb 2009
------------------------
this post will be taken off soon as this I found some contradicting fact(s). Reason was not immediately taking down: may not "un"harm the reputation
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
MicroStrategy is not planning a development center in India
Peer BI compnaies have established IDC for quite some time but MicroStrategy is yet to setup an office in India. They currently outsource to Cybage a part of their Testing, Documentation and Widget development. It is least likely that MicroStrategy would start anything like development center, sales or consulting at India anytime for next 4-5 years. They are currently setting up the base at China and that's becoming their center too much focused. A center in China make sense for MSTR as 1) Compared to India there would be large probable customer 2) i18n into Chinese and other languages (Korean, Japanese etc) would be easy to do.
Though not development wise but mainly making the product ready into different languages (They are having it for quite some time) and thus marketing the prospective customer base is a killing thing to do business in China not in India. There are just 3 clients of MicroStrategy and Indian are brought up with mentality "sasta hai to achcha hai".
Though not development wise but mainly making the product ready into different languages (They are having it for quite some time) and thus marketing the prospective customer base is a killing thing to do business in China not in India. There are just 3 clients of MicroStrategy and Indian are brought up with mentality "sasta hai to achcha hai".
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