MicroStrategy ONE
The purpose of attribute forms on a report
Attribute forms are identifiers or descriptors of an attribute. Just as an element is a distinct occurrence of an attribute, a form defines the attribute. For example, if Chicago is an element of the attribute City, then a form for the Chicago store is a URL, such as www.chicago.com, or an abbreviation such as CH.
Each attribute form provides details that identify and describe an attribute. The Store_ID is a unique numeric identifier for each store, while Store_Name holds the actual store name. Attribute forms for the Store attribute can include ID, numbers, descriptive names, short abbreviated names, URLs, and so on. In MicroStrategy, you can assign up to 32 forms to each attribute.
The form you select for an attribute determines which attribute elements are displayed when the report is executed. By selecting a different form for the attribute, you, in fact, select a different set of values for display. For example, in a report that includes Region as an attribute, if ID is selected as the attribute form, the display could be a number such as four. If the Description is selected, the display could be a name, such as Northwest. If a report lists the cities in which you have stores, then you might choose to display the long name attribute form, such as Chicago, instead of the URL attribute form, that is, www.chicago.com. When you modify the attribute display on a report, you can select, for each attribute, which attribute forms appear on the report or you can use the attribute's default setting.
You can also select which attribute forms are displayed on the report and which are retrieved with the report results but not displayed on the grid, that is, they are found in Report Objects. In Grid view, you can add the attribute forms in Report Objects to the report without re-executing the report.
For additional information, refer to the appropriate topics in the Basic Reporting Help and Advanced Reporting Help.