MicroStrategy World 2021 is over for another year. Despite being a virtual conference, this did not lessen the number of important product announcements made at the event. The conference also demonstrated the continued focus on modernizing the way MicroStrategy does BI. And, in my opinion, they are doing a really great job at this over the most recent one to two years.
ย The following is a quick summary of what I consider the key product announcements made at MicroStrategy World 2021. I selected them mainly because of their direct impact on Business Users and how they build, collaborate, and consume insights on a daily basis.
ย
Business users are getting lot of great features in this release. The Dossier tool continues to receive lots of advanced DataViz features. As of the 2021 release, it is now very difficult to recommend Report Services Documents for new Dashboards, as Dossiers can handle almost any scenario these days. Apart from Information Windows, Transaction Services and Pixel Perfect output, Dossiers are now more than capable of handling almost all your Business User needs.
DOSSIER – Main Feature Announcements
- New capability to Show / Hide visualizations depending on screen size. This will allow for better control over the Dossier user experience across Mobile and Web form factors. This is a game-changer feature for Dossiers, in my opinion.
- New Scrolling Capability which allows for the creation of Infographic-style Dossiers. Users can now put more stuff on a Dossier page because individual pages can be defined as โscrollableโ. This is another game changer feature for Dossiers in 2021.
- New โFirst / Last Nโ Filter Panel & Selector functionality. A new mechanism for pre-configuring selectors to automatically pre-select elements of the selector. For example – the โLatest n-weeks” or โFirst n-Monthsโ. A much-improved user experience for consumers that will greatly reduce โtime to insightโ.
- There are two new Base Maps in MapBox (Boundary and Focused). In addition, both allow you to โsee throughโ your map with exceptional transparency controls.
- New quick access menu for Data Sorting on the grid visualization. Right click on a grid header brings up the new sorting and powerful sort-within functionality.
- Updated Waterfall Visualization. Much cleaner output as well as a newly re-designed formatting panel experience.
- New Shapes feature to add more design elements to a Dossier. The following SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic) shapes can now be added โ Rectangle, Circle, Ellipse, Triangle and Line / Arrows. All can be formatted to fine-tune the appearance of the shape โ including transparency.
LIBRARY – Main Feature Announcements
- The consumption experience of RSDs and Dossiers in Library continues to receive improvements. These refinements continue to make Library more accessible to our Business User community.
- New Personalized Tagging (Color Flags and Tag Names) to help organize Dossiers within a personal Library. This is similar to folders in web, but in a non-hierarchical way. Users will not get lost down a folder branch. Everything is easily accessible on the left panel.
- Automated tagging for Recent and Favorite Dossiers: Library keeps track of these and displays them at the top of a Library. It is easy to mark Dossiers as favorites โ just click the โstarโ icon.
COMING THIS YEAR – NEW DOSSIER & LIBRARY FEATURES
- Panel Stacks are coming to Dossier: Functionality will be similar to how Panel Stacks operate in an RSD. A knock-on bonus is that it will help with rendering time of Dossiers since data will only be loaded for a panel when it is displayed.
- New / Enhanced Charts: Gantt, Micro, Sankey, and Gauge Charts. Expect enhanced experiences like the new experience with the updated Waterfall Viz.
- Enhanced Text Box formatting: New text box handling will allow users to do more precise bolding, italics, and font sizes on individual words in the Text box. Previously, all text had to have the same formatting across the whole text box.
- Quick Start Dossier Templates: Accelerate Dossier building with ready-to-go templates
- Create and Manage Subscriptions in Library: You will be able to Subscribe / Unsubscribe to/from reports and Dossiers right in your own personal Library. Great for keeping your Library under control when other people subscribe you to dozens of Dossiers.
That is my list of the major announcements surrounding MicroStrategy 2021 as they relate to Business Users and Consumers.
If you are interested in learning more about the features that relate to Administrators and Architects, you can find that article HERE