Enterprise Rollout Strategy

[Lingxiang]

I am not sure if this forum is only for technical discussions. We are planning on rollout MicroStrategy to the whole company and I am interested in learning other people's strategy on this.

Do you allow business users to create their own reports?
Do you allow them to create their own metrics?
What tools do you give business users?
How do you support those users?

Thanks!

 

[OV]

>>Do you allow business users to create their own reports?
We allow them to modify and save existing reports in their
personal folders. However, they can not create new reports from scratch.

>>Do you allow them to create their own metrics?
Yes

>>What tools do you give business users?
I am not sure what you mean

>>How do you support those users?
In the first stage we extensively train a group of "advanced" business users that will support others. The same for the help desk. If the problem escalates to the development we use Webex.

 

[reisw]

Do you allow business users to create their own reports?
Yes. We have created specific "Report Builders" that keep users confined to a particular subject area and also to limit them from getting "wrong" answers.

Do you allow them to create their own metrics?
No.

What tools do you give business users?
Microstrategy Web

How do you support those users?

We have all users go through our help desk and then if neccasary it gets escalated to us for support.

 

[namrac]

Do you allow business users to create their own reports?

Unfortunately, yes - although we see this as the primary value in the tool. We feel that the cost/pain of hundreds of "wasted" reports, support calls, etc. are more than offset by the few "Gems" that our business users come up with. Business users are the real experts on business questions our analysts will never gain the insight that comes from years of managing a business. The real trick is getting the folks with that insight to use the tool, and keep the system running well enough to let them use it.

Do you allow them to create their own metrics?
Trained "developer" users/analysts primarily in our financial departments.

What tools do you give business users?
MSI Web 7.2.x without OLAP services for true end users.
Desktop for the "developers"

How do you support those users?
Poorly, I'm afraid. We have a direct support line and cycle a couple good analysts through it. We use MSI E-trainer to provide basic interface training for web. Classroom instruction for Desktop users with custom courseware built around our data.