Version 2021

Introduction to the Web SDK

This section of the MicroStrategy Developer Library (MSDL) helps you build customized applications using the functionality provided by the MicroStrategy Web SDK. It provides a detailed description of the MicroStrategy Web architecture, discusses the various layers of functionality, and includes a large number of typical customization scenarios with easy-to-understand steps that illustrate the wide range of tasks possible using this SDK.

The following topics provide introductory information about the Web SDK:

The main body of content  for the Web SDK is organized into the high-level sections listed below. It is recommended that you read the description of each section in order to become familiar with the way in which content is presented. Understanding how the content is organized will allow you to access information that is of interest to you more quickly.

  • Understanding MicroStrategy Web
    This section presents conceptual and technical information about the architecture for MicroStrategy Web, page execution and event processing, authentication integration and single sign-on, generating HTML output, the Task Infrastructure, and error handling.  

  • Upgrading to a newer version of MicroStrategy Web
    This section provides guidance on upgrading to a newer version of MicroStrategy Web, so you can start using the Web SDK to adapt and integrate MicroStrategy functionality into your application or modify the standard interface or functionality.  

  • Customizing MicroStrategy Web
    This section provides both conceptual and technical information about how to modify MicroStrategy Web, as well as a broad range of customization scenarios. The conceptual information describes the fundamentals of customizations, while the scenarios provide detailed step-by-step instructions for how to accomplish them.  

    To find any customization scenario in the quickest manner possible, use the Customizations Explorer.

  • Tasks and Service-Oriented Architecture
    In service-oriented architecture, discrete chunks of functionality are built as services that can be accessed by many applications in many different ways. In MicroStrategy Web, these services are called tasks. Once an operation has been defined as a task in MicroStrategy Web, it can be called as a service from anywhere using any protocol. The topics in this section describ how to create and use MicroStrategy tasks.
  • Single Sign-on
    The information covered in this section is relevant to you if you wish to integrate your MicroStrategy Web products within an existing security or authentication framework. Contents include the interfaces, implementations, and scenarios for writing the External Security Module, and details on using single sign-on as part of an identity management system.
  • Data as a Service
    This section provides both conceptual information about using data as a service and practical instructions for how to embed MicroStrategy BI data into an application using services, called tasks in MicroStrategy Web.  
  • Web Services (deprecated)
    Web Services has been replaced by a comprehensive set of powerful, easy-to-use REST APIs..

  • References
    This section includes reference information for the APIs, event handlers, custom tag libraries, transform parameters, XML schemas, and so on. The API reference provides detailed information about all the packages that are part of the Web SDK, along with a summary of the classes and interfaces. It also lists important information about the properties and parameters of beans, which you can use when creating new beans or modifying existing bean properties.

   To see changes to the Web SDK in the current release, refer to What's New.

For earlier versions of the Web SDK and additional resources, refer to Previous Releases.