Report Service Document

What is a document?

A document displays your organization’s data in a format that is similar to a PowerPoint presentation, where several grid and graph reports can be viewed at the same time, along with images and text. High-quality, Pixel Perfect™ documents allow you to display your business data in a user-friendly way that is suitable for presentation to management for boardroom-quality material. Examples of documents include scorecards and dashboards, managed metrics documents, production and operational documents, and more

What are the different export formats?

Excel, PDF, Flash, HTML

What are the different view modes?

Flash View

HTML View

Design View

What is a dataset?

A dataset is a MicroStrategy report that defines the data that the Intelligence Server should retrieve from your data warehouse or from a cache that is available to the document.

What is a hyperlink?

A hyperlink connects text or an image in a document to a web page (the target of the hyperlink). When the document is open in PDF View, as shown below, the cursor changes to a hand when you hover the cursor over text that contains a hyperlink.

What is grouping of data in document?

If the data is grouped by page, drop-down lists are displayed at the top of the screen,

What is a layout?

A multi-layout document contains multiple documents, each in its own layout, creating a “book” of documents. Each layout functions as a separate document, with its own grouping, page setup, and so on, but the layouts are generated into a single PDF document. If a document contains multiple layouts, tabs are displayed at the top of the screen.

What is a dashboard?

A dashboard is commonly only one page long, is intended to be viewed online, and usually provides interactive features that let analysts change how they view the dashboard’s data. By being only one page long, a dashboard makes it easy to view the whole document at one time and see all the information. A dashboard allows interactivity from users, so each user can change how they see the data, within the limits of what the dashboard allows them. You must view a dashboard in Flash View in MicroStrategy Web to be able to interact with its widgets, selectors, and panel stacks

What are the different display modes?

View Mode: view the results

Cannot create a new document.

•Cannot edit an existing document.

•Cannot manipulate any objects on the document, as you can in any of the other display modes.

Interactive Mode

Edit an existing document.

•View the results of the document.

•Use selectors to flip through the panels in a panel stack or display different attribute elements or metrics in a grid or graph report displayed on the document.

•Format grid and graph reports.

•Sort grid reports and pivot report objects on them.

•Add totals.

•Resize rows and columns.

•Create metrics based on report objects already on the grid report.

•Optimized for dashboard viewing.

Cannot create a new document.

•Cannot format the layout and positioning of objects or the entire document.

•Cannot format the Flash properties of widgets.

Flash Mode

Access and interact with features provided by Flash, such as widgets. Widgets are interactive Flash-only graphs, such as gauges and time series slides, that dynamically update when you select a new set of data.

•Format widget Flash properties.

•Edit an existing document.

•View the results of the document.

•Use selectors to flip through the panels in a panel stack or display different attribute elements or metrics in a grid or graph report displayed on the report.

•Sort grid reports and pivot report objects on them

Cannot create a new document.

•Cannot manipulate or format grid or graph reports, except to sort and pivot objects on them.

•If a graph report uses a graph type that is not supported in Flash, the graph is not displayed

What are controls?

Controls are the objects that display the data, images, and shapes in a document; they are the objects shown in the document’s Layout area as you design the document.

1.       Text Fields

2.       HTML container

3.       Line or Rectangle

4.       Image

5.       Grid/Graph

6.       Panel stack, which is a holder for a collection of panels, or layers of data, in a document. A user can navigate or flip through the panels in a panel stack; only one panel is displayed at a time.

7.       Selector, which allows users to interact with the document, by flipping through the panels in a panel stack or by displaying different attributes or metrics in a Grid/Graph

8.       Widget, which displays the results of a dataset report in Flash in MicroStrategy Web, allowing users to visualize data in different ways than traditional reports displayed as Grid/Graphs do

In documents, Information about the document (such as page numbers) and the dataset reports (such as report names and filter information), what is it called? –

Auto Text Codes

What are the different sections in a document?

1.       Page Header and Footer

2.       Document Header and Footer

3.       Detail Header and Footer

What are the different types of text field in a document?

Static text: This text does not change and is commonly used for labels or descriptions. Examples in the sample document are the words “Employee” and “Revenue”. For directions to add static text, see Adding static text to a document

•Dynamic text: This text is automatically populated by the document or dataset. Dynamic text is always included within braces { }.

There are two types of dynamic text:

Data field

Auto text code

Eg: Date/time: {&DATETIME}

What are the different types of metrics that can be created within a document?

Calculated expressions: A calculated expression is a metric that is calculated dynamically, when the document is executed, directly from metrics on a document dataset Eg: Revenue - Cost

 Derived metrics: A derived metric is a metric that is obtained dynamically, when a document is executed, directly from metrics on a document dataset. A derived metric is created using at least one of the metrics in the document

Summary metrics.

What are the issues faced when exporting reports/documents to excel?

Choose Excel-compatible colors for objects as well as grid and graph formatting. MicroStrategy Desktop's basic set of 40 colors matches the Excel colors. Color from the Advanced Color Picker will be matched by Microsoft Excel with more or less accuracy.

Use graphs that are supported by Microsoft Excel. Examples of non-supported graphs are gauge graphs and combination graphs.

Lines and rectangles are not supported when exporting to Microsoft Excel. As a workaround, use a text field border to create a line or a rectangle.

A line graph within a Report Services document changes color when exported to excel. [Fixed in 9.3]

When exporting Report Services documents with objects that are overlapped, unexpected behavior is seen as Microsoft Excel does not support this feature and priority  might be given to one of the overlapped objects. 

Word-wrapping specified for multi-word object names does not take effect in PDF or Excel.

Custom line in a graph report is not carried over when exporting to Microsoft Excel as a Live Chart [Not sure if its fixed now]

The secondary axis on a dual axis graph report is not displayed when exporting the report to Excel format with the option "Export graphs as live Excel charts".Hence don't export a graph report as live chart in Excel format when exporting it.

Banding does not display correctly when exporting reports to Excel 2007 and above from MicroStrategy 9.2.1 Desktop and Web. Change the excel options such that you can export to older versions.

Prompt details are not fully displayed when exporting to Microsoft Excel 2007 from MicroStrategy Web 9.2.1.Change the excel options such that you can export to older versions.

Metric values will still appear despite column width set to 0 when exported to Excel 2007 in MicroStrategy version 9.2.1. Use excel 2003 to workaround.

Stacked Bar graph becomes Clustered Bar graph when exporting a Report Services document to Excel in MicroStrategy Web 9.2.1.

A Report Services document that includes attributes which use the date or datetimedatatype. When the document is exported to Microsoft Excel, the attributes are recognized as plain text instead of dates, thereby inhibiting the use of certain pivot functions in Microsoft Excel native to the date format