MicroStrategy ONE

Report designer role

This chapter primarily discusses software functionality that is only available to users who have privileges equivalent to Developer or Web Professional roles in MicroStrategy (or a broader set of privileges, such as those provided to the Administrator role). If you are not sure which privileges are assigned to your user name in the MicroStrategy environment, contact your system administrator.

Report designers design a reporting context or environment in which report analysts can successfully analyze business data. This environment allows report analysts to work within defined limits, ensuring that business data can be easily and quickly analyzed, as well as making sure that only reasonable queries are submitted to the database. Reasonable means that irrelevant data sets cannot be created, nor can huge amounts of data be retrieved from your data source, which can hamper system performance.

These roles allow a defined group of report designers to be trained on more advanced report functionality, while report analysts can manipulate reports without needing to understand the details of creating reports. Report analysts are not required to have a thorough understanding of the project. These users can analyze data, generate new reports from existing reports through drilling, and create quick and easy reports using Report Builder, which can all be performed in a controlled, user-friendly environment.

For example, a report designer might design a report for the sales department that displays data on the organization's annual regional revenue, including product brands. The report designer places the attributes Customer Region, Category, and Brand on the report, and the metrics Profit, Revenue, and Revenue Rank by Region. (To view this actual report, see the Brand Performance by Region report in the MicroStrategy Tutorial project.) A report analyst can then execute this report and drill to see details about revenue and profits for only the states in the Northeast region. Another report analyst can execute the same report, drill on a different object on the report, such as the brand Son, and view revenue and profits for a single item in the product line that concerns him.

There are numerous ways to design reports, each one giving users a slightly different data analysis experience. For example, you can design reports that prompt users for an answer about the type of data they want to view, before the report is run. Each user then sees report results specific to how he answered the prompts. A prompted report might allow users to select from certain attribute elements to create their own personalized version of the report. (Elements of an attribute are the values of an attribute. For example, 2011 and 2012 are elements of the Year attribute, while New York and London are elements of the City attribute.)

A report designer can also add to a report a selection of extra functionality for users. For example, drill maps define specific paths for users to navigate through the data. Drilling is a report manipulation method through which the user requests additional information that is directly related to the information available in the current report. After running a report, you can allow users to drill to various levels on the report. For example, with a drill map in the Brand Performance by Region report discussed above, a report analyst might drill from the regional level down to the State level, then down to the City level, then drill further down to view data for individual customers. Each drilling displays a new report.

Each of these report design methods is described in this chapter: