SQL, VB, MicroStrategy & Other Topics

Ever come across a situation where you need more real estate on the chart but those large dollar amounts on your Y axis running in to hundreds of millions just take up all of the white space? Or simply make your grids too wide? Solution is very simple! Go to the metric number formatting, select Fixed  number format and change Abbreviation value to desired format - thousands, millions  or billions . Another option is to select Custom  number format and enter this formula:   #,##0,.00"K";(#,##0,.00)"K" Once this formula is working fine, modify it to suit your needs.

Error: SQLEngine got an Exception from DFC: [DFCENGINE] Engine Logic: Fact does not exist at a level that can support the requested analysis. Fact: "Visitor Count". Level: "Visitor ID, Visitor Center Name and ID". Error in Process method of Component: SQLEngineServer, Project VUE Reporting, Job 43595, Error Code= -2147212800. If you have worked with MicroStrategy, you have definitely come across this error at least once! First things first - did you recently change any attributes? If you did, did you update the schema? If no, then that is most likely your problem. Update the schema from MSTR Desktop > Schema > Update Schema or Ctrl+U. If that does not fix your problem, I may not be able to give you an exact answer but can guide you through troubleshooting the problem. Below, I will use my error mentioned above related to Visitors to guide you through troubleshooting. The steps mentioned below may be a little long for those of you who are already famil...

Many people have hard time understanding the Level Metrics in MicroStrategy - including me. Here is a quick cheat sheet I put together for reference. Consider the following data layout: Country, Regions, Call Centers Geographical Hierarchy: Country --< Regions --< Call Centers Total 6 call centers : Region1 (R1C1, R1C2), Region2 (R2C3, R2C4), Region3 (R3C5, R3C6) Report Filter : Call Center in (R1C1, R2C3, R2C4) 'The Cheat Sheet' TARGET ATTRIBUTE FILTERING GROUPING Revenue Summary Outcome Region STANDARD STANDARD Apply Report Filter to Call Center output on report and SUM all Revenue for Call Centers displayed on report and Group By Region Region1: R1C1 Region2: R2C3 + R2C4 Region STANDARD NONE Apply Report Filter to Call Center output on report and SUM all Revenue for Call Centers displayed on report and do NOT Group By Region1: R1C1 + R2C3 + R2C...

Using MicroStrategy, you can produce some really nice dashboards that are easy to read and get straight to the point. Anybody who looks at a lot of charts ( like this site ) immediately knows when they see some extra - unwanted labels on the chart. Those are some major distractions. Look at the Before and After charts below. With the chart legend, Metric name kept on showing up. If a chart was regarding your customer demographics - gender and age, it would be so annoying when you keep on seeing Male Age , Female Age , Working Male Age , Working Female Age - you get the idea. You already know it is a chart displaying ages, so no need to keep on hammering your audience with the world 'age'. Below screenshot shows you easy the cause for such behavior of MicroStrategy and the fix for the same. Fix can be applied in MicroSrategy Desktop design view. Right-click on the chart > Graph Option > Options > select the checkbox "Supress last level labels". ...