Strategy One

Auto Narratives

Starting in MicroStrategy ONE (September 2024), auto narratives is supported in Managed Cloud Enterprise. You can use auto narratives in Strategy Library, Library for iOS, Library for Android, and Workstation when you connect to a Library server.

Auto narratives simplifies data interpretation by transforming complex visualizations into easy-to-understand natural language summaries. This enhances data accessibility, reduces the time needed to identify key insights, and makes data comprehensible to users of all technical backgrounds. Users can generate customizable summaries for entire dashboard pages or specific visualizations, ensuring relevance by respecting any filters applied. Narratives are updated when underlying data changes, maintaining accuracy and context. This supports faster decision making and caters to various user needs, from technical experts to non-technical stakeholders.

Starting in Strategy One (September 2025), you can display an AI-generated summary of an entire dashboard page using auto narratives. See Auto Narratives for Dashboard Pages: One-Click Page Summaries.

Prerequisites

Auto narratives is part of the Strategy AI add-on bundle and is available for Managed Cloud Enterprise (MCE) customers starting in MicroStrategy ONE (September 2024). Only users and user groups with the Use Auto Assistant and ML Visualizations privileges can access auto narratives.

Generate a Default Auto Narrative for a Visualization

Dashboard authors can create auto narratives. By creating an auto narrative directly from an existing visualization, a general summary of the visualization is created automatically. You do not need to provide any instructions. You can modify the summary to reflect an output that suits your business needs.

  1. Edit a dashboard.

  2. In the top right of an existing visualization, click Moreand choose Create Auto Narratives.

    A general summary of the visualization displays in a new visualization, as shown below. The summary of the Delayed Flights by Month line graph lists the months with the highest and lowest number of delayed flights, with the insight that it's a seasonal trend.

  3. To modify the summary, select the auto narrative. On the Editor panel, describe your request in detail in the Instruction box. For example, you can add the following after the visualization tag:

    Summarize the highest and lowest 2 months. Highlight the month names in blue. Use sentences but break out the details in bullet points.

  4. Click Generate to refresh the auto narrative.

    The results are shown below:

  5. By default, the summary content is automatically refreshed when the data changes, for example, by changing a filter. To disable the automatic refresh, in the Editor panel, clear the Auto Refresh check box. When disabled:

    • The Refresh icon still displays when users view the dashboard.

    • When the data changes, a notification displays and users can refresh the auto narrative manually.

  6. You can also use the Format panel to modify the text.

  7. You can resize and reposition the auto narrative visualization, just as you would for any other visualization.

Define a Customized Auto Narrative

When you define an auto narrative, you can include detailed instructions to:

  • Summarize a specific visualization

  • Summarize specific information from different visualizations

  • Summarize the dashboard page

  • Summarize information using specific formatting

The possibilities are endless; the above examples provide ideas for starting points.

  1. Edit a dashboard.

  2. On the toolbar, click Visualization .

  3. Click Insight+ and select Auto Narratives .

  4. In the Instruction box on the Editor panel, type @ and select the current page or specific visualizations you want auto narratives to summarize. Describe your request in detail to identify key insights and display them in a formatted summary.

    Some examples of instructions include:

    • Provide the top three categories in @Visualization1 and the bottom three stores in @Visualization2.

    • Summarize the top three categories in @Visualization1 and highlight the category names and values in green. Summarize the bottom three stores in @Visualization2 and highlight the store names and values in red. Use sentences but break out the details in bullet points.

    • Summarize the @Sales Performance across different countries and products.

    • Highlight two top-performing products per country in green and under-performing products in red with their actual values. Include one paragraph per country and bullets within each paragraph. Before the first character of each paragraph, display the flag of the country. Display Country Name in bold and currency in $. Title the visualization Sales Highlights. Color the title royal blue and make it bold, size 14, and centered.

    • Provide an executive summary of @Product Revenue Comparison and @Product Category Revenue Comparison with highlights in green and lowlights in red. Separate paragraphs for each with bullets within.

  5. Click Generate to create the narrative in the blank visualization. The example below uses the "executive summary" instructions from the examples listed above.

  6. You can also use the Format panel to modify the text.

  7. By default, the summary content is automatically refreshed when the data changes, for example, by changing a filter. To disable the automatic refresh, in the Editor panel, clear the Auto Refresh check box. When disabled:

    • The Refresh icon still displays when users view the dashboard.

    • When the data changes, a notification displays and users can refresh the auto narrative manually.

  8. You can resize and reposition the auto narrative visualization, just as you would for any other visualization.

Consume Auto Narratives

Business users can view auto narratives directly within dashboards, where they are presented as concise, natural language summaries of key insights. Once these narratives are created by dashboard authors, these summaries are tailored to provide you with the most relevant information based on the underlying data and filters applied.

  • If automatic refresh is enabled, you can see these insights dynamically adjust as you interact with the dashboard, ensuring you always have access to the latest and most pertinent data.

Every auto narrative has a corresponding cache containing summary data. The cache is invalidated when the dataset is refreshed or the dashboard definition is modified.

  1. Click Refresh to manually update the summary.

  2. If automatic refresh is disabled and the data changes, a notification displays. Click Refresh to manually update the summary.

  3. To copy the text with its formatting, hover over the top right and click Copy .

  4. To export the data, click the Menu icon , point to Export, and select PDF.

Best Practices

Source Data

Auto narratives can only generate summaries based on the page it is currently located on or the visualizations within that same page. To summarize visualizations within a panel stack, ensure that the auto narratives is added to the same panel as the target visualization.

If visualizations are controlled by attribute or metric selectors, any changes to the attributes or metrics of the target visualization may affect the summary's accuracy. In such cases, click Generate to regenerate the summary for the correct result.

Instructions

When setting up auto narratives, provide clear and specific instructions to get the best summary output. If you don’t provide specific instructions, auto narratives generally displays highlights, lowlights, key drivers, or trends if applicable. If the summary does not meet your expectations, modify the instructions and click Generate, as the structure of the outcomes can vary based on the data and visualizations used.

If your instructions refer to specific attribute or metric names, such as when indicating how to filter the narrative, ensure the capitalization and spelling of the object names match those in your dataset.

Formatting

Provide detailed instructions for custom formatting. Auto narratives supports rich HTML formatting, allowing you to customize font color, size, styles, images, bullets, titles, and paragraphs.

After generating and saving an auto narrative in the dashboard, it’s best to avoid drilling down on the data in the visualizations targeting auto narratives. Drilling could remove the attributes or metrics referenced in the instruction, potentially leading to incorrect results.

Managing Footnotes

A footnote for a single source visualization may appear in multiple paragraphs within an auto narratives visualization. If you prefer to not display the footnote, simply include instructions such as "don’t show the footnote."

Accuracy in Filtering Instructions

When providing instructions for filtering data, such as “display the revenue for region 'Northeast’,” ensure that 'Northeast' matches the exact capitalization and spelling as it appears in your dataset. This helps prevent errors and ensures the query retrieves the intended data accurately.

For more detailed information on tracking and analyzing the usage of auto narratives, see Auto Narratives Insights.

Accuracy in Calculations

Auto Narratives may generate incorrect results for some smart metrics, such as "Profit Margin". This result is due to Auto Narratives direct calculation based on the data present in the visualization. To ensure the summary result meets your expectations, dashboard authors should review the result to ensure it meets your expectations.

For complicated calculations, use Auto Answers or create a standalone Auto Agent using your data.