Microstrategy Blog

While the merge with Object Tracking Tool is still in development, I am proud to introduce the new and improved version of Metadata Browser, which you can download here: MBsetupV2.0.exe

Improved Documentation Tool
New properties are now retrieved for common object types:

• Metrics: dimensionality, condition, transformation, smart (yes/no)
• Attributes: form, lookup table, child & parent relations
• Filters: expression
• Prompts: item list

Change Journal Tools
This new function only works with MicroStrategy version 9.0 or higher and it either shows the Change Journal entries for a single object or for all the objects in a particular folder.

God Mode
If you have admin rights you can connect using “God Mode” and thus gain access to hidden system files. An interesting use (found during the test phase) is to navigate to System Objects\Columns and make dependency searches directly on Columns.

This is a read only application. Using it won’t cause any changes to your Metadata.

Downloadable, Enhancement, MicroStrategy 9.0 Metadata Browser, Microstrategy

First off, I’ve done it, I’ve fooled them all, they think I’m an expert! Muahahahahah.

There was a conference call last Thursday (10-08-09) led my COO Sanju Bansal to address the Free MicroStrategy Reporting Suite. I’ll keep it concise. It’s awesome, I’ve always thought it’s awesome. This call was meant to assist in the roll-out (getting bloggers to chatter about it, I’m assuming, is part of their Marketing strategy). So here’s my chatter. If you don’t take advantage of this, you’re retarded (take that PC police). I consult by the way…send me an email.

The conference starts with a background about the company. Largest Independent Public BI program….great fiscal health…etc. If you’ve attended MicroStrategy World, this is the first 15 minutes of any meeting you’ve attended. They present MicroStrategy as “Big Picture” platform software. Why “Free”? They want to get on the “right side of history earlier than everyone else.” The product is truly free, and there aren’t any “catches”. In order to attach to a piece of the BI software pie, then your free product needs to be fully capable, otherwise, what’s the point?

In other news…Subway just bought MicroStrategy?

There is a Gartner report they wanted to push. Check out the web page www.microstrategy.com/GartnerVol3

I only had one question (the least interesting since I’m not a industry analyst, but a video game geek), and so I’m not articulate or capable of putting together a coherent thought. I asked Sanju Bansal how customers that bought licenses before the free package would be able to match some of the free offerings. In my case…the free version has 2 “full” desktop licenses, my company has one. His answer was to download and utilize the entire free package…well, not exactly what we can do. We have well over a hundred licenses. What I want is that one extra licenses to I’ve at least met that minimum threshold of free licenses. I just want a free license! I’ll have to follow up with my sales person on that.

Anywho, here’s the link to the free reporting suite. Use it. Love it. I’ll leave the rest of the coverage to the pros.

MicroStrategy 9.0 Free, Reporting Suite, Sanju Mansal

So, I’ve logged my first enhancement request…which I’m monitoring with bated breath.

Remember when I did this post about how awesome derived elements are? Well, they’re still awesome, but sometimes I forget that I have awesome all powerful access equal to that of the Gods…sometimes it comes back to bite me.

I rolled out the Derived Elements function to our users. They were as thrilled as I was. Since we’re a project based organization (I work in Video Games) projects come and go, and our Data Warehouse has a constantly expanding list of projects. So, our user base gets to dynamically group like projects based on their predesignated lists (it varies per Business Unit); one list might be “fighting games” and the other “downloadable games”, but next month, there might be more.

Things fell apart when the Web Professional users had new projects that appeared, and they were unable to edit their Derived Elements…once they created them and saved them out to their “My Objects” folder…that was it…it became static. Great functionality…but only so much. As a desktop user, I can get into them and edit them, but our users don’t want to call me to say, “Hey, add project A to group B.” The tutorials like to use “Seasons” to group months, but I think the assumption here was that the lookup lists were static, which isn’t the case with an organization such as ours. So case logged. P4.

I’m thinking Hot Fix 3 has my name written all over it…right?

All Things Data, Enhancement, Wish List

Now that the 9.0 is all installed, it’s time to dig into some of those finishing touches that I’ve always wanted to do…which is a dynamic and expansive drill map.

I’m starting by doing specific drill maps for all of my major attributes, but what I’d like to focus on today isn’t the Up, Down, Across (though I’d really love someone to comment on the real difference between the 3…maybe I’m just slow), but the “Drill to template” option. The reason this drill option is so powerful is because it allows you to drill outside of the metrics that you are already working with. In a standard drill may you might be drilling into sales. The tutorial has the best example of this – Drill from Category, into Sub-Category, into Product. However, sometimes that doesn’t answer the questions that you want to have answered. What if you’re looking at a revenue report, and you want to jump across to Accounts Receivable?

Enter Template Drilling. As a background for this, you might also want to view document ID TX5700-8X-2789 in the MicroStrategy Knowledge base.

The link above is click-able to a full sized image.

The template that I have created includes on it 3 items: Invoice Number (with Description), Due Date, and the Metric “Invoice Amount”. When you drill to this template, the end goal is to display the invoices that are outstanding on whatever project you drilled into. This requires an understanding of some of the drill settings.

Drilling can make the navigation process between reports truly dynamic and give insight into metrics that under normal circumstances might be unrelated.

Drill Map, MicroStrategy 9.0 Apply Filter, Drill Map, Microstrategy

Couple more pickups as I continue to work through new issues…

Your projectsources.xml file will reinstall itself (C:\Program Files\MicroStrategy\Web Services), so make sure to redo that information, especially if you’re using LDAP authentication. The default settings are below. Fill in the correct information

<ProjectSource>
<ProjectSourceName>MicroStrategy Tutorial</ProjectSourceName>
<ServerName>localhost</ServerName>
<AuthMode>MWSStandard</AuthMode>
<PortNumber>0</PortNumber>
<MaxPooledConnections>100</MaxPooledConnections>
</ProjectSource>

In the MicroStrategy Knowledge Base, you can also view case TN5600-75x-1432 to see the specifics of how to use LDAP authentication.

Another note: With Distribution Services as part of the package now, be sure to review all of your User Groups and check on your License Manager. I was several users over the limits, because some of the automatic privilege assumptions that were made in my MicroStrategy Analyst and Professional group weren’t right, so you might have to re-familiarize yourself with your licenses, and how they operate in 9.0.

MicroStrategy 9.0, MicroStrategy Office MicroStrategy Install, MicroStrategy Office