Creating a grid report

A report is a MicroStrategy object that represents a request for a specific set of formatted data from your data source. In its most basic form it consists of two parts:

• A report template (usually simply called a template), which is the underlying structure of the report.
• The report-related objects placed on the template, such as attributes, metrics, filters, and prompts.

To create a report that accurately answers a specific business query, be sure you understand the fundamental MicroStrategy objects that make up a report, as described in MicroStrategy objects. This section assumes you have a basic understanding of each object presented in this chapter. For information on the specific objects that make up a report, refer to the following:

• Attributes: See Providing business context to a report: Attributes.
• Metrics: See Calculating data on a report: Metrics.
• Filters: See Filtering data on a report: Filters.
• Prompts: See Asking for user input: Prompts.
• Templates: See Designing a report's structure: Templates.
• Consolidations and custom groups: See the Consolidations and Custom Groups chapter in the Advanced Reporting Help.

A simple report generally has at least one attribute, one metric, and one filter. It is not necessary to have all these objects in the report, but the data returned is more meaningful if all these objects are present in the report.

For example, if you create a report with just one attribute, such as Customer, and run the report, it returns a list of all the attribute elements for that attribute. In this case, you see a list of names for every customer who has done business with your company and is in your database. Likewise, if you add just one metric to an otherwise blank report, you see all revenue data for all time, for all regions.

If you add a metric and an attribute to the same report, such as the Customer attribute and the Revenue metric, the report data begins to become useful because you can view what revenue each customer brought to your stores. However, for most organizations, this is still a prohibitively large report.

If you add a report filter to the report, you can limit the data to a specific area of interest. For example, you can define a specific geographic region and a time period by adding a few additional attributes to the report, such as Region and Year. Then you can add a filter to see only your most profitable Northeast region customers for the past year. The resulting report can display those customers in your Northeast region who brought in the most revenue last year.

It is not required that the objects in a filter are also part of the report itself. In this example, adding the Region and Year attributes to the report lets the report's users see the context of the report's results.

This section describes how to design a report with basic reporting components, such as attributes, metrics, and filters, in MicroStrategy Web using the Report Editor. It provides procedures to create a new report and add attributes, metrics, filters, and prompts to the report. It also provides a procedure to modify an existing report.

If you use the MicroStrategy Tutorial project to perform the examples in the procedures that follow, you can become familiar with the Report Editor environment and the features it offers. The Tutorial project offers an opportunity to use MicroStrategy even if your organization does not yet have its own data available in a MicroStrategy project.