This presentation was delivered jointly with two colleagues. The original slides have been stripped down and blog links have been added where videos used to be.

1. Pushing MicroStrategy to the Limit
The Hacker Way
Bryan Brandow Ashish Shah Jeremy Clover
facebook.com/MicroStrategyHacks

2. This presentation has been modified from the form
it was originally delivered. Facebook branding and
stats have been removed after the title
slide, videos have been removed and additional
links and information have been added.

3. Bryan‟s Section
Bryan Brandow

4. it‟s all about the
user experience

5. making dashboards
more engaging

6. HTML Containers
A door into the code
• Allows you to add HTML code
snippets
• Place them anywhere on the
dashboard
• Can be used as iFrames to load
external content
• Can run JavaScript…

7. Video Removed. For more information, check out this blog post.
http://www.bryanbrandow.com/20
12/09/create-graph-popups-with-
javascript.html

8. JavaScript Popups
Advantages over Info Windows
• Dashboard loads faster
• Called from anywhere
• No parameter limit
• Reposition window
• Open multiple
• Single popup serves the entire
dashboard

9. JavaScript Popups
Add the JavaScript
<a style="cursor:pointer"
onclick="window.open('<microstrategy url>', '',
'height=435,width=710');">

10. Answering Prompts
Append macros to the end of the URL
• &elementsPromptAnswers=AttributeGUID;AttributeGUID:Value
<BaseURL>
&elementsPromptAnswers=8D679D4B11D3E4981000E787EC6DE8A4;
8D679D4B11D3E4981000E787EC6DE8A4:Central;
8D679D4B11D3E4981000E787EC6DE8A4:South
• &valuePromptAnswers=Value
<BaseURL>
&valuePromptAnswers=Central^South

11. Hiding Page Sections
Integrated look and feel
• &hiddenSections=

12. Video Removed. For more information, check out this blog post.
http://www.bryanbrandow.com/20
12/10/hideshow-sections-on-
document.html

13. Collapsible Sections
Add the JavaScript
<img id='moreApple'
onclick="javascript:
if(getElementById('K8').style.height=='0px') {
getElementById('K8').style.height='300px';
getElementById('moreApple').src='../images/minus.gif';}
else {
getElementById('K8').style.height='0px';
getElementById('moreApple').src='../images/plus.gif';}
;"
src='../images/plus.gif'
style="cursor:pointer"
width=12>

14. Collapsible Sections
Retrieve the IDs
• Execute your Dashboard and
use Inspect Element (via
Chrome)
• Section ID = K8

15. Video Removed. For more information, check out this blog post.
http://www.bryanbrandow.com/20
13/01/collapsible-sections-with-
jquery.html

16. jQuery
Making dreams come true
Add this to the beginning of the HTML Container:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery.min.js"></script>

17. jQuery Collapsible Sections
More powerful JavaScript
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#K8').hide();
});
$('#moreApple').click(function () {
if ($('#K8').is(":hidden")) {
$('#K8').slideDown("slow");
$('#moreApple').attr('src', '../images/minus.gif');}
else {
$('#K8').slideUp("slow");
$(‟#moreApple').attr(„src‟, '../images/plus.gif‟);}
});

18. Jeremy‟s Section
Jeremy Clover

19. friction
sucks

20. understanding the HTML structure
firebug it

21. dynamic sections
reuse and recycle based on structure
HTML Containers
• Define, Find, Capture, Change
<div id=“k50” pber=„AttributeVal‟>
<span>Metric Value</span>
</div>
• Let the document logic drive the data
• Approx. 50 lines (currently) of Javascript
Code will be posted directly after

22. is it perfect?
nope

23. does it work?
yep

25. full control over style
format anything anywhere
CSS and jQuery
• Move panels outside of div sections
• Remove block overflow hidden
• Z-index adjustments
• Transparency on the fly
• Extensive fading options
• Adjust “tooltip” formatting

26. date reformatting
because we can

29. n00bs
moving fast and breaking things
We‟re New at This
Represents 2 Months of
Work

30. Ashish‟s Section
Ashish Shah

31. it‟s all about the
user experience

32. making data
more accessible

33. Reducing clicks to access data…
Understanding the pain-points of end-users
The Challenges…
• Sharing a link the size of a paragraph in not very appealing
• Too many clicks to access daily reports causes friction
• Report links bookmarked by users can get outdated quickly
• Not sure how current the data is!
The Solution…
• Quick Links
• Data Freshness Time-Stamps

34. Quick Links

35. Data Freshness Timestamp

36. Quick Links & Data Freshness Timestamps
The Highlights
Highlights:
• Thin jdbc connection to the database
• Determines the active I-Server at runtime
• Deployed as a plugin – built in v8.1.2 and never touched since
• Crowd-sourced. Very easy to maintain and audit
• Easy integration with ETL scripting and internal pages
• Code extended to show highlights/announcements and communicate outages!

37. it‟s all about the
user experience

38. making data more
open and connected

39. Revamp User Experience
One stop shop for accessing data
The Challenges...
• How to reduce friction?
• How to enable browsing?
• How to enable discovery?
• How to enable collaboration?
The Solution…
• Data Portal

40. Video Removed. No further information available at this time.

41. Data Portal Highlights
• Crowd sourced
• Reporting technology agnostic
• Built on FB LAMP stack
• Internal identity management
• It‟s all about the UEX!

42. Data Portal
Example URLs of Mobile Dashboard
Instead of:
https://<web_server_name>/MicroStrategy/servlet/mstrWeb?Server
=<i_server_name>&Project=<project_name>&port=<port
number>&evt=2048001&src=mstrWeb.2048001&visMode=0&docu
mentID=29A51324451BE8397F1A14A79AB1AE1A&currentViewMe
dia=1&<authentication tokens>
This: intern/data/portal/mobile
Or just: dp mobile