Microstrategy Analytics

Slowly Changing Dimension Types 0, 4, 5, 6 and 7 Ralph introduced the concept of slowly changing dimension (SCD) attributes in 1996. Dimensional modelers, in conjunction with the business’s data governance representatives, must specify the data warehouse’s response to operational attribute value changes.  Core SCD approaches:  Type 1 (overwrite),  Type 2 (add a row), and  Type 3 (add a column).  Since legibility is a key component of the Kimball mantra, we sometimes wish Ralph had given these techniques more descriptive names, such as “overwrite” instead of “type 1.” But at this point, the SCD type numbers are part of our industry’s vernacular. We have written about more advanced SCD patterns, such as the 2005 article entitled “ Slowly Changing Dimensions are Not Always as Easy as 1, 2, 3. ” However, we’ve not consistently named the more advanced and hybrid techniques. With the third edition of  The Data Warehouse Toolkit  (Wiley, 201...

Save Personal View of Microstrategy Report/Dashboard Starting in MicroStrategy Web 9.3.0, it is possible to capture a view of the report / document that user is viewing at a particular moment. This feature is available for both Report and Document. Create Personal View option is located under Home Menu bar (see image below). Saved view is available under My Subscription page under Personal View Subscriptions (see second image below) Create Personal View option is located under Home Menu bar Saved view is available under My Subscription page under Personal View Subscriptions Saving a personal view of a report, document, or quick dashboard A personal view allows you to save your own custom view of a report, document, or quick dashboard. The personal view includes every change that you made to the report, document, or quick dashboard since you opened it, including: Creating metrics Filtering Pivoting Sorting Prompt answers for a r...

Alerts Editor Alerts can be sent to an email address or to an iPhone, iPad, or Android device with MicroStrategy Mobile. This allows users to be notified of data that is likely to be important for making business decisions. You can also have formatting automatically applied to metric values in the report, to draw immediate attention to the data that meets the alert's threshold conditions. For example, when the Inventory Count data in a report falls below 1,000 units, you can have the report sent to you, with the values below 1,000 displayed in red text. You can specify a subject and message to display for the alert, as well as a report or document to be displayed when viewing the alert, as described below. You can receive and view alerts on a mobile device even if the MicroStrategy Mobile application is not running. Prerequisites    You must have the MicroStrategy Distribution Services product installed and MicroStrategy Web must be configured to use Distribu...

Retrieve a list of user groups and the associated users in MicroStrategy Developer Follow the steps below to create a list of all groups and the users in each group: In MicroStrategy Developer 9.x, select 'Project Documentation' from the Tools menu to start the wizard. Select any project that is in the project source that contains the users and groups and click Next. Select only Configuration Objects for documentation. Uncheck the 'Basic Properties' object category from the next screen, as shown below: Then select only 'User Group' under the Configuration Objects section and only 'Groups' and 'Members' under the Definition section, as shown below: Go through the rest of the wizard, and open the resulting documentation. After navigating down to the User Groups, the documentation should look similar to the following image: This page shows every group, any child groups, and all members of each group.

    Retrieve a list of user groups and the associated users in MicroStrategy Developer 9.x Although MicroStrategy Command Manager 9.x can be used to generate lists of all user groups and all users within a particular group, there is currently no way for it to retrieve a list of all groups and all of the users in each group. If such a list is desired, it can be created using the Project Documentation Wizard in MicroStrategy Desktop Developer 9.x. Follow the steps below to create a list of all groups and the users in each group: In MicroStrategy Developer 9.x, select 'Project Documentation' from the Tools menu to start the wizard. Select any project that is in the project source that contains the users and groups and click Next. Select only Configuration Objects for documentation. Uncheck the 'Basic Properties' object category from the next screen, as shown below: Then select only 'User Group' under the Configuratio...

Subtotals across level are displayed at the bottom of the of the grid report instead  of distributed under each attribute element In certain reports, users may notice that subtotals defined across level are not  broken by attribute element in a grid report in MicroStrategy Developer 9.4.x-10.x and are instead displayed at the bottom of the page as shown in the image below:     CAUSE: This behavior is observed because of the way in which the Advanced Sorting is defined in the report.  The subtotals are arranged in the observed way to preserve the sorting order. ACTION: Make sure that the placing of the attributes on the template is consistent with the order defined in the advanced sorting options to display the subtotals in the expected position as shown in the image below.

Generate a MicroStrategy Connection File to Connect Workstation to a MicroStrategy Environment A MicroStrategy connection file (.mstrc) is a text file that contains all of the information needed to connect Workstation to a MicroStrategy environment. When adding a new environment to Workstation, just drag and drop your .mstr file into the connection window, enter your credentials, and configuration is complete. Once you have connected to an environment, you can generate the .mstrc file for that environment for back up or to share and allow others to connect.  This article explains how to generate a .mstrc file for an environment.  How to create a MicroStrategy connection file (.mstrc) Open Workstation. Right-click on an existing environment and choose Properties.  If an environment does not already exist, an environment will need to be created first. In the bottom left corner, click on the button "Generate Connection File". No...

Defining custom subtotal displays in MicroStrategy By default, when users apply subtotals in a report, the name of the subtotal is displayed in the subtotal line items that appear in the report. Users can use custom subtotals to give more control over the characteristics of a subtotal. Custom subtotals allow users to define custom subtotal line items that appear on the reports  U sers can make the subtotal name dynamic by typing special characters in the subtotal name field as listed in the following table. Character Description #A The name of the attribute under which the subtotal appears. #P The name of the attribute to the left of, or above the attribute under which the subtotal appears. #0 All the forms of the parent element. #1 The first form of the parent element reading from left to right or from top to bottom. #2 The second form of the parent element reading from left to right or from top to bottom. #3 The third form of th...