Use Bots

Bots are supported in MicroStrategy Cloud environments and starting in MicroStrategy ONE (March 2024), Bots are supported on the MicroStrategy Cloud for Government platform. You can only use Bots in MicroStrategy Library and Library Mobile apps.

Starting in MicroStrategy ONE Update 12 for Library and MicroStrategy ONE (March 2024) for Library Mobile apps, you can use Bots to gather insight on a selected dataset. You can also use the Snapshots panel to save Bot responses as snapshots for future use and embed Bots on your site. MicroStrategy ONE (March 2024) also includes suggested topics and an Ask About panel to view information on your dataset and generate questions. It also adds support for compound multi-faceted questions.

Check out the following topics to get started:

• Prerequisites
• Using a Bot
• Understanding the Response
  • Response Limitations
  • Response Troubleshooting
• Using Snapshots
  • Access the My Snapshots Panel
  • Add, Delete, and Clear All Messages
  • Copy and Download a Message
  • Sort and Search
  • Rename and Reassign a Category
  • Ask Again
  • Rename a Snapshot Title
  • View the Snapshot Panel in Focus Mode
• Chat History
• Question Limit
• Share and Manage Access
• Embed Bots
• Troubleshooting Errors
• Related Topics

Prerequisites

There are two new privileges that are introduced with Bots:

• Create and Edit AI Bots
• Run AI Bots

You must have the Create and Edit AI Bots and Run AI Bots privileges to ask a Bot questions and create, edit, and save a Bot.

A user that is granted the Create and Edit AI Bots privilege, is automatically granted the Run AI Bots privilege. If the Run AI Bots privilege is revoked, the Create and Edit AI Bots privilege is automatically revoked.

You must have the Run AI Bots privilege to run and message a Bot.

Using a Bot

1. Find a Bot in one of the following locations and click to open the Bot you want to use:
   • The Library Home page
   • In the Library Navigation pane, expand All and click Bots.
   • In the Library Navigation pane, click Content Discovery.
   • In the Library Navigation pane, click Content Groups.

In any of the above locations, you can use search and filter to find a Bot.

2. A welcome page appears that includes greeting messages and some suggested topics or questions based on the dataset provided topics and questions defined in General Settings.

   

3. You can type a question or click a suggested question and use Enter or click the blue envelope icon.

As you type a question, a Suggestion list appears to understand the available attributes or metrics. You can click a suggestion or use your arrow keys to navigate the list and use Tab or Enter to select an attribute or metric.



4. Starting in MicroStrategy ONE (March 2024), click the wand icon in the message panel to show suggested topics.

   

5. Starting in MicroStrategy ONE (March 2024), click Ask About or the Ask About icon in the top right to open the Ask About panel which displays information about the attributes and metrics in the dataset used by your Bot:
   1. Expand an object to display the object description and samples, if the object is an attribute.
   2. Click the Start Conversation icon next to the object to generate suggested questions related to the current object.

      

   3. Choose a suggestion and interact with the Bot.

      

6. Once the Bot responds, hover over the message to copy or download the message or add the message to My Snapshots.

   

7. Starting in MicroStrategy ONE (March 2024), click the Interpretation icon for insights on how the Bot interpreted and executed your question. The extent of information that displays in the Interpretation window varies on your user privileges. For more information, see AI Interpretation and Execution.

8. To use a previous message with edits:
   1. Hover over the question in the chat history and click Copy to query box.

      

   2. Edit the message.

Understanding the Response

Bot responses are comprised of natural language text and visualizations. Bot supports a range of visualization types. If you ask a question that requires specific visualizations, ensure that the chosen visualization type is one of the following supported types:

• Grid
• Vertical bar chart

Only one metric is supported.

• Pie chart

Ring chart is not supported.

• Line chart

Some line chart subtypes are not supported.

• KPI

Attributes are not supported.

• Heat map
• Mapbox
• Key Driver Analysis
• Insight line chart for trend and forecasting analysis

Response Limitations

Responses include the following limitations:

• The Bot displays only the most recent 30 messages.

• If the response includes many data points, the visualization displays limited data (up to 1,000 rows) to focus on clarity and readability.

• A visualization can have a maximum size of 50 MB (around 10 MB post-compression).

  • A visualization that exceeds 200M will not be displayed once you reopen the Bot.

• External storage is limited to 2TB.

• Updates to themes in the Appearance panel are not applied to previous visualization results.

Response Troubleshooting

Use the following troubleshooting guidelines for Bot responses:

• If a map request returns a missing Mapbox key error, configure the key in the Library server and restart the Library server.
• To view Insight line charts and Key Driver Analysis, ensure the Python service is active.

Using Snapshots

Allow saving answers to "My Snapshots" is enabled by default. To disable Snapshots, turn off Allow saving answers to "My Snapshots" in General Settings.

Access the My Snapshots Panel

1. Find a Bot in one of the following locations and click to open the Bot you want to use:
   • The Library Home page
   • In the Library Navigation pane, expand All and click Bots.
   • In the Library Navigation pane, click Content Discovery.
   • In the Library Navigation pane, click Content Groups.
2. Click the Snapshots icon to open the Snapshot panel.

Add, Delete, and Clear All Messages

You can add messages to the snapshot panel, with messages remaining static despite any changes to the dataset. The snapshot does not clear automatically and each Bot can store a maximum of 50 snapshots.

1. In the Bot panel, hover over a message and click the Take a snapshot icon. The message is added to the Snapshot panel and the icon updates to green.

   

2. Use one of the following options to delete a snapshot:
   1. Click the Take a snapshot icon, again.
   2. In the Snapshot panel, click Delete > Yes.

      

3. To clear all snapshots in the snapshots panel, click the Clear All icon > Yes.

   

Copy and Download a Message

Snapshots can be copied or downloaded as PNG image files in the chat panel message menu, the Snapshot panel message menu, or the Snapshot focus mode menu.

Copy is only supported on HTTPS environments.

1. Hover over a message and click the Copy or Download icon.

   

2. Your message is then copied to your clipboard or downloaded to your machine.

Sort and Search

Use the search box at the top of the My Snapshots panel to search for messages. The keyword is used to match the question or answer summary. However, it will not be used to search for data in a visualization.

To sort messages, click the Sort icon. You can sort snapshots by Date Created or Category.

The timestamp for Date Created refers to when the answer was generated, not when the snapshot was added.

Rename and Reassign a Category

Five categories are automatically generated for each Bot when a dataset is inserted, in addition to an Others category. When you add to the Snapshot panel, a category is automatically assigned to each message.

To rename a category:

1. In the Snapshot panel, click the Sort icon and choose Category.
2. Click the Category menu on the top right and click Rename.

   

3. Enter a new name.

To reset a category for a snapshot:

1. In the Snapshot panel, click the Move to icon on the bottom of a message.

   

2. Choose a new category.

Ask Again

1. Click the Ask Again icon at the top of a message.

   

2. The query copies to the query box where you can enter to view the results.

Rename a Snapshot Title

1. Click the Rename icon at the top of a message.

   

2. Type a new name and press Enter.

   

View the Snapshot Panel in Focus Mode

1. Click the Maximize icon on the bottom of a message.

   

2. The message appears in focus mode where you can view the content and copy, download, or delete the snapshot.

   

Troubleshoot Snapshots

Why is there no Snapshot panel or Take a Snapshot icon?

Allow saving answer to 'My Snapshots' may be disabled. To enable the setting, see General Settings for more information.

Why is the Copy icon disabled?

The copy function is blocked for security on http websites. If the copy icon is disabled, switch to a https website to use the copy icon.

Why is a snapshot labeled as Uncategorized then moves to a category?

The Bot automatically categorizes an answer you save as a snapshot. The process sometimes takes some time. Before the Bot returns a category result, the snapshot is categorized as Uncategorized. It will then move to the correct category after the Bot returns a result.

What is the Others category?

Others is a predefined category in MicroStrategy Library. When you create a Bot, it generates five categories to categorize your snapshots. When you take a snapshot, the Bot assigns the snapshot to the most suitable category. If the Bot can't categorize the snapshot into any of the existing categories, the snapshot is moved to Others.

How many snapshots can you add in each Bot?

You can add a maximum of 50 snapshots for each Bot. If you exceed this limit, an error message displays.

Chat History

If a Bot is added to a user's Library, the chat history and snapshots remain and display the next time the Bot opens.

You need to configure the external storage to keep visualization data. For more information on configuring the storage service, see MicroStrategy Storage Service Configuration for AI Bot.

To view the chat history:

1. In the chat list, scroll up.

If the chat history contains more than 30 responses, only the past 30 responses will display. To avoid responses clearing automatically, save responses to My Snapshots.

2. Click Clear History on the upper right to clear the chat history.

Clear History does not remove saved Snapshots.

Question Limit

A Bot author can define a question limit for each user. For more information, see General Settings

Once you reach the question limit, you cannot ask any new questions until the 30-day rolling period ends. However, you can still open the Bot to view the chat history and Snapshots.

Share and Manage Access

You can manage access and share Bots with other users.

For more information on managing access to Bots and other objects, see Grant Permissions and Manage Access for All Objects in Library.

To share Bots:

1. Access the Share options using one of the following methods:
   • In the Library Home page, right-click a Bot and choose Share > Share Bot.

   

   • Click Additional Information and choose Share Bot.
   • While editing a Bot, click Share > Share Bot.

   

2. In Share With, type the user you want to share with.
3. Expand the drop-down on the right and choose a permission.
4. Click Share.

Embed Bots

You can share a Bot and embed it on your site. To start the embedding Bot process:

1. Access the Share options using one of the following methods:
   • In the Library Home page, right-click a Bot and choose Share > Embed Bot.

   

   • Click Additional Information and choose Embed Bot.
   • While editing a Bot, click Share > Embed Bot.

   

2. The Embed Bot dialog appears, click Download code snippet.

   

3. Open the download file.
4. Once the file loads in your browser, right click in your browser and choose View Page Source.
5. Edit the values described in Embed MicroStrategy Bot Consumption Page and Properties for an Embedded MicroStrategy Bot Consumption Page.

Troubleshooting Errors

When using the Bot, you may encounter the following errors:

• Copy

  "message": "The API requires MicroStrategy Storage Service. Please contact your administrator."

This error indicates a potential issue with the installation or configuration of the MicroStrategy Storage service. If you are using a cloud environment, the Storage service is not installed by default so this error is rare. If the error does occur, examine the Library log for error details. The log path is /mstr/MicroStrategy/logs and the log name is MicrostrategyLibrary-MicrostrategyLibrary.log.

• Copy

  Could not open JDBC Connection for transaction; nested exception is java.sql.SQLTransientConnectionException: springHikariCPApplication - Connection is not available, request timed out after 10000ms.

This error indicates a potential connection issue with the database. Examine the Library log for error details. The log path is /mstr/MicroStrategy/logs and the log name is MicrostrategyLibrary-MicrostrategyLibrary.log.

Related Topics

Create and Edit a Bot

Auto Adoption

KB486246: Encode Visualization Generated by Bots