Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook

By : Davide Moraschi

3.8 (11)

Buy this Book

Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook

3.8 (11)

By: Davide Moraschi

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Business intelligence is becoming more important by the day, with cloud offerings and mobile devices gaining wider acceptance and achieving better market penetration. MicroStrategy Reporting Suite is a complete business intelligence platform that covers all the data analysis needs of an enterprise. Scorecards, dashboards, and reports can be explored and delivered on desktop, the Web, mobile devices, and the Cloud. With the latest Visual Insight tool, MicroStrategy brings the power of BI to the business users, allowing them to discover information without the help of IT personnel. Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook covers the full cycle of a BI project with the MicroStrategy platform, from setting up the software to using dashboards in the cloud and on mobile devices. This book uses step-by-step instructions to teach you everything from the very basics to the more advanced topics. We will start by downloading and installing the software and a well-known sample SQL Server database. Then, one brick at a time, we will construct a fully-featured BI solution with a web interface, mobile reporting, and agile analytics. The chapters are ordered by increasing difficulty, and each one builds on top of the preceding chapter so that the learning process is progressive. The examples given in this book are practical, and you will be able to see the immediate result of your efforts. We will first cover setting up the platform, including the creation of the metadata and the different objects that are part of a BI project: tables, attributes, and metrics. Then, we take a look at how to create and analyze reports, charts, documents, and dashboards, as well as how to manipulate data with the desktop application, the web Interface, and an iPad device. The last part of the book is dedicated to advanced topics like the new agile analytics technology from MicroStrategy, where we cover both Visual Insight and MicroStrategy Cloud Express. Whether you are a database developer, data analyst, or a business user, Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook will get you up to speed with one of the most powerful BI platforms on the market with the smallest possible investment of time and money.

Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook

Credits

Foreword

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

Getting Started with MicroStrategy

Introduction

Installing SQL Server 2012 Express LocalDB

Installing SQL Server Native Client 11.0

Installing SQL Server 2012 Command Line Utilities

Setting up the AdventureWorks DW sample database

Installing the .NET Framework 4.0 and the 4.0.2 update

Checking whether IIS is enabled and working

Installing MicroStrategy Suite

Registering the MicroStrategy License

Metadata and data warehouse

Creating ODBC DSN for metadata and data warehouse

Modifying the logon account for the Intelligence Server

Creating the metadata and configuring the Intelligence Server

Opening the MicroStrategy Desktop application

The First Steps in a MicroStrategy Project

Introduction

Creating an empty project

Setting up a data warehouse connection and selecting tables

Modifying a table structure

Using logical tables to create custom views

Generating constants with SELECT statements

Schema Objects – Attributes

Introduction

Attribute forms – ID and DESC

Using functions in an attribute form

Parent-child relationship I

Parent-child relationship II

Other attribute forms

Selecting which forms are displayed

Building Data Explorer Hierarchies

Creating an attribute-only report

Parent-child relationship in a report

Filters on attributes

Objects – Facts and Metrics

Introduction

Creating a simple counter fact and metric

Using SQL View to inspect SELECT statements

Understanding the GROUP BY clause

Adding more facts

Filters on metrics

Creating ranking metrics

Grouping at a different level (level metrics)

Embedding filters inside metrics

Using Metric Join Type in reports

Creating a previous month metric (transformation)

Data Display and Manipulation – Reports

Introduction

Going deeper into data with drill down

Manipulating grids – Pivot and page-by

Dynamically adding and removing objects in reports

The bottom line – customizing subtotals

Avoiding missteps – NULL values in facts

How to sort data in grids

Emphasizing numbers with conditional formatting

Printing and exporting reports

Restricting results with view filters

Data Analysis and Visualization – Graphs

Introduction

Displaying both grid and graph in the same view

Drag-and-drop objects using drop zones

Beautify your chart

Display multiple metrics with dual axis charts

Conditional formatting with thresholds

Analysis on the Web – Documents and Dashboards

Introduction

Setting up MicroStrategy Web

Creating your first "Hello World" document

Adding data to a document – the dataset

Modifying the grouping in a document

Stepping up to dashboards

Using the editable mode to fine-tune the design

Adding interactivity with panels and selectors

Embedding images, HTML, and links

Switching to Adobe Flash mode

Dynamic Selection with Filters and Prompts

Introduction

Restricting rows – compare an attribute to another attribute

Restricting rows – evaluate on moving dates

Changing the level of a metric filter

Adding interactivity to filters using prompts

Using prompts as object selectors

Mobile BI for Developers

Introduction

Setting up the Mobile Server

Setting up a mobile connection

Installing and configuring the mobile client

Adapting content to the iPad screen

Using mobile views in documents

Adding panels to mobile documents

Creating panel selectors

Adding details with pop-up windows

Linking from one document to another

Mobile BI for Users

Introduction

Answering prompts in reports or documents

Sorting, drilling, and paging

Adding notes and sharing

When things go wrong

Consolidations, Custom Groups, and Transformations

Introduction

Creating virtual attributes with consolidations

Aggregating results with custom groups

Creating bands on metrics (custom groups banding)

Month-to-date and year-to-date transformations

In-Memory Cubes and Visual Insight

Introduction

Creating a cube from an existing report

Building a new cube

Scheduling data refresh

Creating reports and documents based on a cube

Exploring data with Visual Insight

Using the network visualization

MicroStrategy Express

Introduction

Creating an Express account

Importing Excel data

Using filters

Importing cross-tabbed data

Connecting to a RDBMS

Refreshing dashboard data

Sharing a dashboard by e-mail

Solution to Exercises

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

Exercise 4

Exercise 5

Exercise 6

Exercise 7

Exercise 8

Exercise 9

Exercise 10

Exercise 11

Exercise 12

Exercise 13

Exercise 14

Exercise 15

Exercise 16

Exercise 17

Exercise 18

Exercise 19

Exercise 20

Exercise 21

Exercise 22

Exercise 23

Exercise 24

Exercise 25

Exercise 26

Exercise 27

Exercise 28

Exercise 29

Exercise 30

Exercise 31

Exercise 32

Exercise 33

Exercise 34

Exercise 35

Where to Look for Information

Online resources

Blogs

Books

Cloudera Hadoop

Introduction

Connecting to a Hadoop database

HP Vertica

Introduction

Connecting to a Vertica database

Index

Customer Reviews

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Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook

By : Davide Moraschi

Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy Cookbook

By: Davide Moraschi

Overview of this book

Chapter 3. Schema Objects – Attributes

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