MicroStrategy ONE

MicroStrategy metadata

MicroStrategy metadata is a repository that stores MicroStrategy object definitions and information about your data warehouse. The information is stored in a proprietary format within a relational database. The metadata maps MicroStrategy objects—which are used to build reports and analyze data—to your data warehouse structures and data. The metadata also stores the definitions of all objects created with MicroStrategy Developer and Web such as templates, reports, metrics, facts, and so on.

In general, report creation in MicroStrategy is achieved through using various types of objects which represent your data as report building blocks. You can build and manipulate several fundamentally different kinds of objects in MicroStrategy; these objects, which are described below, are all created and stored in the metadata repository.

  • Configuration objects—Objects that provide important information or governing parameters for connectivity, user privileges, and project administration. Examples include database instances, users, groups, and so on. These objects are not used directly for reporting, but are created by a project architect or administrator to configure and govern the platform. As a general rule, configuration objects are created and maintained with the managers in MicroStrategy Developer within the Administration icon. For more information about creating and administering configuration objects, see the System Administration Help.

  • Schema objects—Objects that are created in the application to correspond to database objects, such as tables, views, and columns. Schema objects include facts, attributes, hierarchies, and other objects which are stored in the Schema Objects folder in MicroStrategy Developer's folder list. Facts, attributes, and hierarchies are three essential pieces to any business intelligence application. These schema objects are often created and managed by a MicroStrategy architect:

    • Facts relate numeric data values from the data warehouse to the MicroStrategy reporting environment. Facts are used to create metrics, which are analytical calculations that are displayed on a report. The number of units sold is one example of a fact. Facts are discussed in more detail in The Building Blocks of Business Data: Facts.

    • Attributes represent the business context in which fact data is relevant. In the example of regional sales in the Southeast, Southeast represents the attribute or context of the sales data. Attributes are used to define the level at which you want to view the numeric data on a report. Attributes are discussed in more detail in The Context of Your Business Data: Attributes.

    • Hierarchies are groupings of attributes so that they can be displayed to reflect their relationships to other attributes. These groupings can help users make logical connections between attributes when reporting and analyzing data. One of the most common examples of a hierarchy is a time hierarchy which includes attributes such as Year, Month, Quarter, and so on. Hierarchies are discussed in more detail in Creating Hierarchies to Organize and Browse Attributes.

  • Application objects—Objects used to provide analysis of and insight into relevant data. Application objects include reports, documents, filters, templates, custom groups, metrics, and prompts. Application objects are created using schema objects as building blocks. All application objects can be created and maintained in MicroStrategy Developer. Reports and documents can also be created and managed in MicroStrategy Web. Information on creating application objects is in the Basic Reporting Help and Advanced Reporting Help.

    For more information about MicroStrategy Web, see MicroStrategy Web.

The metadata enables the sharing of objects across MicroStrategy applications by providing a central repository for all object definitions. MicroStrategy Intelligence Server evaluates the most efficient data retrieval scenario to provide excellent query performance.

MicroStrategy metadata also facilitates the retrieval of data from the data warehouse when using MicroStrategy applications. It converts user requests into SQL queries and translates the results of those SQL queries back into MicroStrategy objects such as reports and documents which can be easily analyzed and understood.