URL API

The URL API allows you to directly request MicroStrategy Web to perform actions by using specific arguments in the request. This is useful in the context of the out-of-the-box MicroStrategy Web, as well as when integrating MicroStrategy Web with an external Web site, portal, or other third-party application. You can achieve a lot of functionality simply by passing the appropriate parameters through a URL.

For example, you may wish to link to a MicroStrategy Web page such as the Shared Reports page that displays the list of publicly available reports and documents, the My Reports page that displays the list of a specific user's personal reports, or any other Folder Browsing page that displays a particular folder’s contents. In other cases, it can be very useful to link to the Report Execution page to instantly display a report’s contents. If a requested report contains prompts you would like answered automatically, you can include the prompt answers as a URL parameter.

Using the URL API requires an understanding of the basic structure of a MicroStrategy Web URL, as well as knowledge of the additional parameters that exist and how they can be used for actions such as executing specific events, authenticating the user, passing prompt answers, and specifying and sequencing multiple events. The following topics provide a more detailed explanation for each of these areas.

Use cases

You can use the URL API in any page section (or any page) that allows you to execute a report or browse the contents of a folder.
You can enable drilling from a document to a report or other documents. You can also embed a document drilling link in a report grid within a document (requires additional customization).
You can link to a specific MicroStrategy Web page from any external Web site by passing appropriate parameters such as report name or folder name, as well as optionally including credentials for authentication by a specific MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. Thus, you can display any MicroStrategy Web page’s content from any other context.
You can also display MicroStrategy Web pages within an enterprise or homegrown portal, or any other third-party application by passing the appropriate URL parameters from an embedded inline frame (iframe). The correct URL retrieves the content and displays the results inside the application.
You can use your MicroStrategy Web product as a data provider. In this case, users connect to a third-party application through its interface. The third-party application in turn connects to a MicroStrategy Web product to retrieve the data. The data that is sent back to the third-party application may be in any format such as XML, tab-delimited, or any custom format. The MicroStrategy Web product only provides the data; all the formatting is completed by the third-party application.