Microstrategy 7 Questions 1

[LeeBrown]

As I am new to this site I am unsure of the protocol, so if I step out of line then I apologise.

Background - I have spent the past 2 years on various BusinessObjects development projects, however I also have some very limited experience on the old DSS Agent kit. I have a list of questions for those of you who have done some development using Stategy7 and are prepared to help.

The questions...

basically all I have done is asked what can businessobjects do, so if you think "ah but Strategy is really good at..." then please add it to the list.

1. Does it still use temporary tables to produce a report?

2. Can more than one user view/manipulate a single report?

3. Is slice and dice done locally or on the server? do all the attributes in the temp table have to be displayed in the report?

4. Does drilling require a re-query of the database?

5. Is it aggregate aware?

6. How is a report generated? In BOb you have a blank piece of paper that you can add tables, charts and cells - what you see on the screen is what is printed out. From what I remember of the old version it displayed a seperate window for each report and if you wanted any formatting you had to export to Word - is this still the same?

7. Is there a concept of user defined variables?

8. Can it handle exception reporting?

9. Can the values displayed in a user prompt be restricted depending upon the selections made higher up the hierarchy? e.g. You may select 'Electrical' under the Product group prompt and then under the Low Level Product Group you only see values linked to Electrical.

If this is possible how simple is it to acheive? lots of coding, dodgy workarounds?

10. In a ranked report, is it possible to display the top 3 followed by a cell called 'others' which displays those not included in the top 3?

11. Can you rank within a rank? e.g. top 5 selling products within my top 3 stores

12. IS it possible to drill without altering the report i.e. with BOb I could display a list of my products followed by a number of measures, I could then see how the measures change through different restrictions placed higer up the hierarchy - I could choose to restrict by region, promotion etc

13. A businessobjects universe(metadata) can only access data through one ODBC string, however a single report can contain AND combine data from different universes and therefore different DBMS - can Strategy? Can Strategy even combine data from different projects that use the same ODBC string?

14. If you have lots of users creating reports I presume lots of Temp tables are created - are these always cleared up? do you know of any problems?

15. Do the temp tables remain for as long as the report definition remains in the metadata?

16. BOb gives you a GUI that displays your database tables and relationships(in an ER format), so it is very simple to drag across table attributes to be turned into objects - does Strategy have something similar, how easy is it to use?

17. In order for BOb to answer complex questions that involve sets, you have to use another of their tools, Set Analyser. I presume this is where Strategys Collabrative Analytics comes in? Does it match up to the hype? Again, do you know of any issues with this?


18. In your experience, do most sites opt for the desktop rather than use the tool via the web? Are there any known issues with the web tool?

I realise there are a lot of questions, but any help you can provide would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Lee

 

[nlim]

Hi there, you have a very detailed list of questions. Are you planning an evaluation of the 2 products? If so, you're probably better off calling the companies directly.

N

 

[teccum]

I have tried to clarify to a possible extent some
of the questions which u have asked. Hope this finds
helpfull.

1. It uses the same concept but it is not called as the
temporary table.

2. Yes more than one user can view or modify the report
provided the respective priviledges are set.

3. Slice and Dice are done on the server if it is going
to fetch new attributes and elements for the report.
All the attributes in the temp table are not required
to be displayed in the report.

4. Once again it depends upon whether any new attributes
are to be fetched from the report.

5. It is aggregate aware.

6. In Mstr 7 each objects are treated like an editor so
as to allow the user to modify and treat and
understand the objects easily. Yes In version 7 also
it opens a seperate window for a new report where in
even after generating the report one can see the
objects involved and also save it as a seperate
object. It has some built in features from which u
can standardize your requirement - wysiwug. It has
a document(which is similar to a report) feature
where u can add any object into your report.

7. NO there is no concept of user defined variables.

8. It will be helpfull if more details is given on this
questions.

9. yes. it can be done by restricting the user
priviledges for the attribute and then creating a
prompt for the same attribute for the user.

10. yes

11. Yes

12. If my understanding is correct...what u are asking
is to see the parent attributes even after drilling
down. This is possible to be displayed in the report.

13. Strategy can connect only to a single database at
a time for a project. The OBDC can be used commonly
however for different projects and the same metadata.

14. Temp tables are always cleared and i have not come
across any problem so far.

15. NO.

16. The architecture of Mstr 7 is quite different. Even
though one can see the database tables avlaible, it
does not display in a ER format. It has a user-driven
way of creating objects and definition of the project.
It is easy to create these objects through that way.

17. I have not used much of the functions that mstr 7
has come up with, since it depends on the type
of project like whether it is financial or banking
or any other so that those functions can be used
and calculated. It has come up with a lot of
functions and calculations of which some i have
used and it works fine. It depends on the d/base
being used also.

18. As far my knowledge goes most of them prefer to
use it through web and there is also the cost
issue coming into factor and web does support
for to a normal extent what a user required is.
There are lot of issues with the web tool and it
depends on the business requirement but there is
no major drawbacks. I believe they are changing
and upgrading with the each version.


U can also contact their support site for more
clarifications.



Thanks
VIJAY

 

[srinathmk]

HI vijay,
That was a very extensive one that you provoided.. thanks..I would like to clear on the Question 8. Can it handle exception reporting?. I guess it referes to using conditional formats/alerts. Ex: if a measure exceeds a certain value display it in red.
I also have a set of questions :

1. Is the semantic layer (universe in case of BO) which contains mapping to the underlying physical structure completely isolated from the reporting interface.

2. Can one report be linked to a completely different report with passage of variables from the first report, which is opened by clicking on a cell. Basically Drill Through.

3. Can data from a microstrategy report be used as a source for generating another report.

4. Is there any SDK for customisation.

5. Is security info stored in a file or a proper data base.

6. Is it possible to conditionally hide a row based on a prompt without filtering. Ex : If my prompt says show totals, then only the row containing totals should be shown.

 

[reisw]

I think i can answer some of these questions.

1. Is the semantic layer (universe in case of BO) which contains mapping to the underlying physical structure completely isolated from the reporting interface.

I'm not sure I understand this question but I think the answer is yes. There are schema objects like attributes and facts that map directly to the tables in the database. Thes objects are then used to build reports and metrics.

2. Can one report be linked to a completely different report with passage of variables from the first report, which is opened by clicking on a cell. Basically Drill Through.

Yes. There is a tool called "Drill editor" that allows you to setup drill paths to things like hierarchies and other templates that would replace the existing template. You can also choose if you want to filter on the item you are drilling on.

3. Can data from a microstrategy report be used as a source for generating another report.

Yes. You can setup a microstrategy report as a datramart that gets saved back to the database. You can then name the columns what you want in the database and then add that table to the project and then create other reports based off of it.

4. Is there any SDK for customisation.
Yes.

5. Is security info stored in a file or a proper data base.
If you use the built in application security it is stored in the metadata repository.

6. Is it possible to conditionally hide a row based on a prompt without filtering. Ex : If my prompt says show totals, then only the row containing totals should be shown.

In the current version 7.1.x you can put attributes in the page by either look at one element at a time or group them all by showing the totals. In the next release 7i you can do more filtering and select which elements you want to display without having to re-run the report. It should be out sometime in April from what I've heard.

 

[nlim]

to add, the exception reporting/conditional formating is available only in the next release.
they do have something which can send you an email with the specific data when an analytical exception occurs in the data. somewhat better than scanning thru the reports to look for a red color...