MicroStrategy World 2021 – Features for Technical Users

MicroStrategy World - Features For Technical Users

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.

MicroStrategy 2021 for TECHNICAL USERS

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 Technical Users such as Developers, Administrators, and Architects. These users are getting lots of great features in the 2021 release, primarily in the WorkStation tool. These features will help Administrators better manage and monitor the MicroStrategy environment. Architects will be able to access the semantic graph / schema through WorkStation. And something to look forward to – there will be a bunch of new features coming over the next few quarters that will even further extend the technical capabilities of WorkStation.

 

The legacy Developer tool is finally becoming less and less relevant with each of the quarterly feature releases for WorkStation. This is a good thing.

WORKSTATION โ€“ MAIN ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • USER ADMINISTRATION: We can now do almost everything related to User Management within WorkStation – Add, Modify, Delete, Groups, Privileges, Security etc.

  • SERVER ADMINISTRATION AND MONITORING: An important responsibility for Administrators is system health. Now, from within WorkStation, we can monitor the health of all our servers – IServer, Web and Mobile, as well as Library. In addition, there is a new Cube Monitor that helps us monitor and manage our In-Memory cubes. Combined with Platform Analytics, we are finally seeing many of the most important admin features, transition from Developer to WorkStation.

  • PYTHON SCRIPTS CAN NOW BE STORED IN WORKSTATION: Python scripts are becoming a major part of MicroStrategyโ€™s future direction. So, it is not surprising to find this new capability to store Python scripts within the Semantic Metadata Layer. This keeps them nice and safe and easy to access, when required.

  • NEW โ€œREPLACE DATAโ€ CUBE DATA OPTION: When setting up the cube update rules, we were limited to Add, Update, Delete. In 2021, we now have the additional option of doing a โ€œReplaceโ€ of all data in the cube.

  • MONTHLY WORKSTATION RELEASE CADENCE: Due to the break-neck speed that MicroStrategy is pumping out new functionality for WorkStation, expect tool updates to arrive on a Monthly cadence going forward.

WORKSTATION โ€“ COMING SOON

  • MOVING AWAY FROM COMMAND MANAGER TO PYTHON: Today, most Admins use Command Manager to help manage repetitive tasks in MicroStrategy. However, in 2021, we can expect Python Scripts to start replacing Command Manager Scripts as the scripting language of choice. Command Manager is not going awayโ€ฆ We just have an additional way of doing things using Python. The important part to note is that WorkStation will now be able to handle the execution and storage of these scripts. It will not be long before another legacy tool (Command Manager) will be deprecated, just like Developer.

  • โ€ข CREATE SCHEMA OBJECTS WITHIN WORKSTATION. TABLES, FACTS, ATTRIBUTES, FILTERS: These Architect specific features are due to arrive with each Monthly Workstation update in 2021. The plan is to eventually expose all of these Architecting features via constant API enhancements. We have already seen the ability to view the schema in WorkStation. Next up (very soon) will be Warehouse Catalog Manager to pull in and configure your source tables, quickly followed by Fact and Attribute creation. I would expect most of the current Architect features to be in WorkStation later this year.

  • MULTI-USER SCHEMA EDITING: Remember the pain of doing some schema Architecting and receiving the dreaded โ€œSchema is locked byโ€ฆโ€ message? Sounds like this will be a thing of the past when the new Multi-User Schema Editing feature goes live this year.

  • ADD DERIVED ELEMENTS, SECURITY FILTERS, CONSOLIDATIONS, VALUE PROMPTS: All of these features will be API enabled this year.

  • MULTI-CONTENT SUBSCRIPTIONS SHOULD ARRIVE IN Q1 2021. WILL REPLACE NARROWCAST: This is a big one. If you are one of the many sites that use the legacy tool โ€œNarrowcastโ€, you will be happy to hear that we are about to get some new functionality in WorkStation that will make your life easier. One of the main reasons for using Narrowcast rather than the newer โ€œDistribution Servicesโ€ to send emails is the ability to send more than one attachment with the email. Well, multi-content subscriptions are scheduled to arrive in a matter of weeks (end of Q1). Yes, you will now be able to set up your email subscriptions in WorkStation and configure the subscription to send multiple attachments during the schedule execution.

  • CREATE SCHEDULES IN WORKSTATION (TIME AND EVENT BASED TRIGGERING): Soon, we will be able to create and manage subscriptions from within WorkStation. This includes the normal time-triggered schedules as well as event-triggered schedules.

  • CHANGE SUBSCRIPTION OWNERSHIP: This has been a long time coming!!! Take ownership of subscriptions that were created by people who have left the company. No more running crazy SQL or command manager scripts to take ownership. We will be able to do this in WorkStation later this year.

  • SEND MSTR CONTENT VIA SLACK & TEAMS: Here is a fun one. Integration with Slack and Teams is coming this year. Now we can push MicroStrategy reports and Dossiers to Slack or Teams channel. This is going to be awesome for collaboration.

  • DELIVER SUBSCRIPTIONS TO CLOUD REPOSITORIES: Workstation is slated to receive the ability to create subscriptions that will allow you to send output to a number of Cloud Repositories. SharePoint and AWS/S3 will be the first to arrive in 2021.

  • INCLUDE VISUALIZATION, HTML TEXT AND DYNAMIC VALUES IN EMAIL BODY: The ability to embed a these is coming in 2021. Embedding a visualization will be an interesting feature that I cannot wait to play with. Sometimes, having to open an attachment is one step too many for some users, so having the visualization embedded in the email will get more eyes on the insights than before.

  • PYTHON SCRIPTS WILL BE ABLE TO BE PREVIEWED AND EXECUTED IN WORKSTATION: With Python scripts becoming a pivotal part of MicroStrategy WorkStation, you will now be able to preview what a Python script will do prior to execution in WorkStation.

  • SCHEDULE ADMIN TASKS: The Developer tool had a number of built-in Administration tasks that helped keep the environment tuned. These same capabilities will be coming this year to WorkStation.

  • MANAGE DATABASE INSTANCES; JOB MONITORING; CLUSTER MANAGEMENT: These Develop features will also be enabled in WorkStation this year.

  • FFSQL: I guess this is a big one for sites that are doing some non-schema stuff with Freeform SQL. Good news for you is that FFSQL is actively being worked on and should arrive in 2021, if all goes according to plan.

  • HIERARCHY VIEWER: Miss the System Hierarchy Viewer in Developer? Fear not, this is coming to WorkStation too.

  • HYBRID-CUBES: This is an interesting one. Hybrid Cubes are coming this year. If I understand the concept correctly, the aim is to have the most recent data available in a hybrid-cube. If the data required by the Dossier is not available in the cube, this new feature will go find it in the Warehouse / DB. Kind of like Dynamic-Sourcing. I need to dig more into this as it sounds very powerful indeed.

That is my list of the major announcements surrounding MicroStrategy 2021 as they relate to Administrators, Architects and Developers.

You can find my post on MicroStrategy Features for Business Usersย HERE