Skip to main content

Using Scan MD Microstrategy

ScanMD 

WHAT IS SCAN MD?
ScanMD is a troubleshooting application whose aim is to provide a quick resolution to known metadata logical inconsistencies.  Logical inconsistencies are errors within an object's definition structure. The word 'known" means that those erroneous structures have already been investigated and processed by MicroStrategy Technical Support and, as a result, a Test has been implemented in ScanMD. 
It is not the intention that ScanMD be used as a proactive method for addressing metadata inconsistencies.  If you find yourself proactively running ScanMD and/or finding inconsistencies through ScanMD then please contact MicroStrategy Technical Support as this means that there is, most likely, a deeper problem to be investigated.
Refer to the following technical note if ScanMD is going to be executed against a 10.3 and higher metadata:
CONSIDERATIONS/GUIDELINES
  • ScanMD is to be used as a troubleshooting application and a vehicle to provide a quick resolutionafter a problem has been identified as a metadata inconsistency. In other words, ScanMD should not be run on a "schedule" or "after every migration". 
  • Before running ScanMD, a database backup of the metadata must be made. With a backup of the metadata in place, proposed fixes should only be accepted if the full impact of the fix is understood.
  • When a Fix is performed on a project, the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server should be stopped, or that Project unloaded.  No users should be connected to the project undergoing a fix.
  • Always use the latest version of ScanMD, which is the one supplied in this document.
  • For cases where ScanMD is used, there may still be questions as to how the metadata got into this state.  To help answer that question --  customers encountering inconsistency issues should make note of Schema-related changes (if the problem is affecting Schema objects), Object Migrations, or error messages prior to experiencing the problem.  Change Journaling, if it has been enabled, can help in preserving this information.
Microstrategy's disclaimers and Limitation of Liabilities about using ScanMD:

Disclaimer:The utility application is provided "as is" and without warranty of any kind. Microstrategy Expressly disclaims all warranties, express, implied or statutory, including, without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, satisfactory quality and noninfringement.
Limitation of Liability: Microstrategy shall have no liability to licensee for any damages of any kind, including, but not limited to, liability for direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential, damages (which shall include, but not be limited to, loss of data or information, loss of revenue or anticipated profits or lost business).
SCANMD CHECK-ONLY MODE
The current version of ScanMD does not provide the ability to execute one or more common tests in check-only mode. Due to the new feature enforcing the inter-object dependencies, check-only mode is not possible in this release. Consider one example, before executing  Schema Collection Verification test which ensures all schema objects are in the Schema collection, the ScanMD will execute Table Verification test and eliminate table objects with invalid definition. Therefore, the execution sequence is crucial to maintain the metadata consistency. Check-only mode may generate misleading results by ignoring inter-object dependencies and execution sequence.
HOW TO USE SCANMD
Follow steps below:
  1. Go to Start -> Programs -> MicroStrategy -> Tools, run ScanMD
  2. Click Nextto pass ScanMD introduction to the next step, which is Step 1of ScanMD
  3. In Step 1, choose a Project Source from the drop down list, and enter a Login and a Passwordthat have administrative privileges to the metadata. Click Next to go to Step 2
  4. In Step 2, choose a single project, All Projects , or Configuration from the drop down list. Select a different location for log file if desired. Click Next to go to Step 3

      
    NOTE: During the transition from Step2 to Step3, ScanMD will check the compatibility between the Metadata Version and the version of the MicroStrategy platform present on the machine where ScanMD is running.


  5. In Step 3, choose between Common Tests and Custom Tests. If a Custom Test is not yet added, click Add test to browse to its location. Make your test selections, and Click Next to go to Step 4;



    NOTE:
    - Multiple Common Tests can be chosen at once, but only one Custom Test can run one at a time.
    - Either Common Tests or Custom Tests can be selected, but not both.

  6. In Step 4, adjust tests against project(s) chosen in Step 2, select a Number of concurrent test executions, choose whether to Fix all errors automatically or not, and click Next to begin the scan; If any errors are found, ScanMD will pop up a dialog for each set of Common Tests that was executed.


    NOTE:
    - Some ScanMD Common Tests must be run in a specific order. As of ScanMD 8, the execution order of the Tests is enforced. If Common Tests is chosen in Step 3, ScanMD will automatically add any other Common Tests that are required. 

    Based on your test selections, Scan MD has identified some additional tests which need to be run in order to ensure the integrity of your Metadata.
The required tests will be added to your selections.

    Though only "Attribute Verification" and "Hierarchies Verification" are selected, four other common tests are added with suffix "(Required)":

    - Those Tests which do not have any dependencies are still allowed to execute in parallel.
    - "Concurrent test executions" usually reduce the overall execution time when running on a computer with multiple cores or CPUs and against remote MDs (i.e. not a local DB such as Access).

  7.  In the Summary Step, select "Check here to open the log file" if you wish to review, after clicking Close, the actions that ScanMD performed. Otherwise, simply click Close. 

    ScanMD Test Results:

    ScanMD Summary step:

  8. Restart Intelligence Server if the changes cannot be reflected in 3-tier environemnt.  

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Microstrategy Caches explained

Microstrategy Caches Improving Response Time: Caching A  cache is a result set that is stored on a system to improve response time in future requests.  With caching, users can retrieve results from Intelligence Server rather than re-executing queries against a database. To delete all object caches for a project 1 In Developer, log into a project. You must log in with a user account that has administrative privileges. 2 From the  Administration  menu, point to  Projects , and then select  Project Configuration . The Project Configuration Editor opens. 3 Expand  Caching , expand  Auxiliary Caches , then select  Objects . To delete all configuration object caches for a server 1 Log in to the project source. 2 From the  Administration  menu in Developer, point to  Server , and then select  Purge Server Object Caches . 4 Click  Purge Now . To purge web cache follow the steps in the link ...
3 comments
Read more

Microstrategy Custom number formatting symbols

Custom number formatting symbols If none of the built-in number formats meet your needs, you can create your own custom format in the Number tab of the Format Cells dialog box. Select  Custom  as the Category and create the format using the number format symbols listed in the table below. Each custom format can have up to four optional sections, one each for: Positive numbers Negative numbers Zeros Text Each section is optional. Separate the sections by semicolons, as shown in the example below: #,###;(#,###);0;"Error: Entry must be numeric" For more examples, see  Custom number formatting examples . To jump to a section of the formatting symbol table, click one of the following: Numeric symbols Character/text symbols Date and time symbols Text color symbols Currency symbols Conditional symbols Numeric symbols For details on how numeric symbols apply to the Big Decimal data type, refer to the  Project Design Guide . ...
3 comments
Read more

Case functions Microstrategy

Ca se functions Microstrategy Case functions return specified data in a SQL query based on the evaluation of user-defined conditions. In general, a user specifies a list of conditions and corresponding return values. Case This function evaluates multiple expressions until a condition is determined to be true, then returns a corresponding value. If all conditions are false, a default value is returned.  Case  can be used for categorizing data based on multiple conditions. This is a single-value function. Syntax Case ( Condition1 ,  ReturnValue1 ,  Condition2 , ReturnValue2 ,...,  DefaultValue ) Example Case(([Total Revenue] < 300000), 0, ([Total Revenue] < 600000), 1, 2) sum(Case (Day@DESC in (“Sat”,”Sun”), Sales, 0) {~+} Sum(Case(Category@DESC In("Books","Electronics"),Revenue,0)){~+} CaseV (case vector) CaseV  evaluates a single metric and returns different values according to the results. It can be used to perfo...
3 comments
Read more

Microstrategy Dossiers explained

Microstrategy  Dossiers With the release of MicroStrategy 10.9, we’ve taken a leap forward in our dashboarding capabilities by simplifying the user experience, adding storytelling, and collaboration.MSTR has  evolved dashboards to the point that they are more than dashboards - they are  interactive, collaborative analytic stories . Ultimately, it was time to go beyond dashboards, both in concept and in name, and so  the've  renamed VI dashboards to  ‘ dossiers ’.  Dossiers can be created by using the new Desktop product or Workstation or simply from the Web interface which replaces Visual Insights. All the existing visual Insights dashboards will be converted to Dossiers   With MicroStrategy 10.9, there was an active focus on making it easier to build dashboards for the widest audience of end users. To achieve this, some key new capabilities were added that make it easier to author, read, interact and collaborate on dashboards ...
7 comments
Read more

MicroStrategy Connection File

Creating a Connection File in Microstrategy Workstation A MicroStrategy connection file (also know as the .mstrc) is a text file that contains all of the information needed to connect Workstation to a MicroStrategy environment.  With a .mstrc file, users can simply import the file and enter their credentials, and then they will be connected to a MicroStrategy On-Premises Environment. Requisites   MicroStrategy Workstation URL for your Environment MicroStrategy Login credentials How to create the connection file With the integrated option  Connect to New Environment: Open Workstation window. Go to  Environments  located under  Manage  on the left side.   Click on the plus symbol with the label of  Connect to a New Environment .   Assign a friendly environment name. Provide the Environment URL and click  Continue . Note: If it is a default MicroStrategy installation of MicroStrategy Library, the Environment U...
2 comments
Read more

Apply or Pass-through functions in Microstrategy

Ap ply (Pass-Through) functions MSTR Apply functions provide access to functions or syntactic constructs that are not standard in MicroStrategy but are provided by various RDBMS systems.. Syntax common to Apply functions Apply Function Name   ("expression with placeholders", Arg1, Arg2, Arg3, …ArgN) where: Apply Function Name  – is a generic name used for the predefined pass-through functions described above expression with placeholders  – is the string describing the actual expression or syntax that the engine uses while generating the SQL and which is sent to the RDBMS. The placeholders are represented by #0, #1, and so on. "#" is a reserved character for MicroStrategy. Arg  – is an argument that replaces the parameter markers in the pattern. Arg1 replaces #0, Arg2 replaces #1, and so on. There are   five  pre-defined Apply functions to replace regular, predefined functions of the same type. For more details, cli...
6 comments
Read more

Sort by metric subtotals and attribute elements together in Microstrategy

Sort by metric subtotals and attribute elements together in Microstrategy Users may observer that when creating a report that contains advance sorting with a metric that contains subtotals the report results appear to be only sorted by the metric values specified. Even if a sort is specified for the attribute elements on the report, the results in the report appear as if the attribute sort was not defined. In the screenshot below, the results for a report are shown where the Advance Sorting option 'Sort metrics hierarchically using: Total' is selected. For this report, a second sort is defined on the Customer Gender - 'DESC' form, users would notice that the ordering of the this attribute is not consistent: The sort definition for the report is shown below: CAUSE: When the option to 'Sort metrics hierarchically using: Total' option is selected, the MicroStrategy Engine first sorts the results based on the Total values, and then sorts th...
1 comment
Read more

Custom Tooltips in Microstrategy developer and Web

Custom Tooltips in Microstrategy developer and Web The following table describes the macros you can use to customize graph tooltips in both MicroStrategy Developer and MicroStrategy Web: Macro Information Displayed {&TOOLTIP} All relevant labels and values associated with a graph item. {&GROUPLABEL} Name of the graph item's category. This value is often the graph item's attribute element information, as attributes are commonly used as the categories of graph reports. {&SERIESLABEL} Name of the graph item’s series. This value is often the graph item's metric name information, as metrics are commonly used as the series of graph reports. {&VALUE} The value of a given data point. {&XVALUE} The X-value of a data point. Only applicable to Bubble charts and Scatter plots. {&YVALUE} The Y-value of a data point. Only applicable to Bubble charts and Scatter plots. {&ZVALUE} The Z-value of a data point. Only applicable to Bubble charts and Scatter plots. {...
2 comments
Read more

Prompt-in-prompt(Nested Prompts) in Microstrategy

Prompt-in-prompt(Nested Prompts) in  Microstrategy Nested prompts allows you to create one prompt based on the other and other bases on another, nested prompts allows us to prompt the highest level(Like year) to middle level(like Quarter, then to the low level(like Month). Here you can see how to  create a 3-level deep nested prompt that will prompt the user to select a year, then a quarter within that year, then a month within that quarter. Prompt-in-prompt is a feature in which the answer to one prompt is used to define another prompt. This feature is only implemented for element list prompts . The following procedure describes how to achieve this: Create the highest level filter. This is a filter which contains a prompt on an attribute element list. Create a filter on the attribute "Year." Click "prompt on attribute element list" and click "Next" through the rest of the screens to accept the default values. Do not set any additio...
3 comments
Read more

MicroStrategy default sort order for an attribute elements browsing

MicroStrategy default sort order for an attribute elements browsing and display How does MicroStrategy 9.x resolve the default sort order for an attribute when different sort orders are defined for different forms? Consider the following cases: CASE 1 A new attribute is created with three forms, all with sort order set to none. Form Name Form Type Default Sort Order ID ID None DESC DESC None LongDesc None None The overall sort order is evaluated and stored in the attribute definition when the attribute is saved. With all form sort orders set to none there is no saved sort order, MicroStrategy defaults to sort ascending by ID. CASE 2 The same attribute is modified so the forms are now: Form Name Form Type Default Sort Order ID ID None DESC DESC Descending LongDesc None Ascending Now when the attribute is saved, MicroStrategy goes through each form in the order they appear in the main 'Forms' window of the attribute editor. The first...
2 comments
Read more