The newest feature release of Microstrategy, Microstrategy 10.8 delivers critical visualization and dashboard capabilities across enterprise analytics, enterprise mobility, embedded analytics and new features for MicroStrategy Desktop, MicroStrategy Web, MicroStrategy Mobile.
With this new release, R and the R Integration Pack are bundled and installed with MicroStrategy Server making it easier to leverage machine learning capabilities, AI integration, visualization dashboards, and predictive analytics. The new release also delivers a new gallery for custom data connectors, enhanced color palettes for data visualizations, improved parity between Android and iOS mobile apps, and new ready-to-deploy dashboards.
Below is an overview of new features in MicroStrategy 10.8
Installation
- Operating Systems: The MicroStrategy Platform now supports and is certified for Windows Server 2016.
- Optionally install and configure “R” and the “R packages” during installation: During installation, if you select “Intelligence Server”, you can now request the installer to download, install, and configure “R” and the “R packages” as part of the installation process. This streamlines the effort needed to perform R based analysis with the MicroStrategy platform.
- Many MicroStrategy customers rely on R analytics to build advanced analytics and predictive models. From regression models to market basket analysis, Monte Carlo simulation and Naïve Bayes Classification, R applies hundreds of different analytical models directly to the data in MicroStrategy reports and dashboards.
- MicroStrategy 10.8 makes it easy to get started with R. Both R and the R Integration Pack are now bundled and installed with MicroStrategy Server. With this new seamless, out-of-the-box setup, it’s simple for MicroStrategy 10.8 customers to leverage R models and visualizations in MicroStrategy reports and dashboards.
- MicroStrategy Operations Manager has been removed: Operations Manager will no longer be available for new installations or upgrades. Enterprise Manager functionality should be controlled exclusively through MicroStrategy Command Manager.
- MicroStrategy on Amazon Web Services (AWS):
- New release: With MicroStrategy on AWS, users can implement MicroStrategy 10 in the AWS cloud within minutes. MicroStrategy on AWS allows customers to deploy and manage the entire MicroStrategy platform on their controlled AWS Accounts using the new Web-based interface or the easy-to-use APIs.
- Administrative services: MicroStrategy on AWS allows users to automate and schedule administrative tasks, making it easy to Start, Stop, Resize, Restart and Terminate all available environments via the new console or the RESTful APIs.
- Amazon Web Services-backed: MicroStrategy on AWS is backed by the latest Amazon Web Services technology and allows organizations to leverage powerful AWS tools and services with the MicroStrategy platform.
- Regional availability: Environments are deployable near the customer to reduce latency. Additionally, the regional data centers help organizations ensure compliance with local laws and regulations.
Data Sources
- The MicroStrategy platform allows organizations to build custom connectors to nearly any data source and helps them tap into data sources that are not available out-of-the-box. The platform offers a set of APIs to build almost any data connector and an extensive SDK to support the Data Connector API.
- With MicroStrategy 10.8, customers now have access to a public gallery for data connectors on the MicroStrategy Community. Customers and partners can download, update and use this content. Innovators that build their own connectors are encouraged to upload and share their content on this gallery for others to leverage
- Amazon Athena (certified as a warehouse platform for Analytics)
- Cassandra 3.x (certified as a warehouse platform for Analytics)
- Microsoft Azure SQL Database (certified as a warehouse, metadata, and statistics platform for Analytics)
- Oracle 12c Release 2 (certified as a warehouse, metadata, and statistics platform for Analytics)
- SAP HANA 2.0 (certified as a warehouse platform for Analytics)
- MicroStrategy Hadoop Gateway update: MicroStrategy Hadoop Gateway now supports filtering and aggregating data during the data preparation stage. This new capability allows you to filter and aggregate data before cube publication on Hadoop for Parquet, Text, CSV, JSON, AVRO, and ORC files.
Microstrategy Developer
- Aggregate and Subtotal from base: You can now apply Aggregate from base and Subtotal from base to metrics in MicroStrategy Developer. The new options appear at the top of the Subtotals/Aggregation tab of the Metric Editor.
- Data Internationalization support for Microsoft Analysis Services via MDX cube provider string parameters: LocaleIdentifier parameter can be passed to database in database connection string to specify the user language.
Microstrategy Web
- Visual Insight dashboards
- Improved export customization: The Export to PDF dialog box has been added to allow formatting of PDF exports. Customization options include page orientation, page size, page header and footer visibility, overview page creation, and visualization specification. This enhancement to distribution services makes it possible to share content in a way that is more relevant to users.
- New pre-defined color palettes: New out-of-the-box color palettes are available, inspired by nature. You now have more options when deciding dashboard color themes, improving dashboard aesthetic with little effort.
- Tooltips that identify original name of renamed attributes and metrics: You can now hover the mouse pointer over objects in the Editor or Datasets panel to display a tooltip that shows the original name of an attribute or metric along with a description, if available.
- More formatting options for Totals: Previously, when you changed value formats through the floating Format menu or Properties panel, formatting applied to the entire grid – including the subtotal row. Subtotal rows can now format independently from values on the grid. With this enhancement, you can assign different formatting rules to subtotal rows on grid visualizations without affecting the rest of the values in the grid.
- Improved ability to switch between Shape types: You can now switch between shape types across the graph matrix and not lose applied formatting. For example, when a bar chart is changed to a bubble graph, the drop zones in the bubble graph will retain its original formatting. This enhancement facilitates the data discovery process, allowing users to confidently switch back and forth between visualizations.
- Report services documents
- Hide Subtotal null/zero rows and columns: Hide null/zero value functionality has been extended to include Subtotal rows and columns.
- Hierarchy Reporting (Early Adopter feature)
- Performance enhancement: When navigating a hierarchy, the display of elements is now noticeably faster.
- Data internationalization support for Microsoft Analysis Services: The LocaleIdentifier connection string parameter, which is used by Microsoft Analysis Services for data internationalization, is now supported.
- Support formatting by cell for MDX metrics: For MDX metric values, you can now select whether to format per column or cell. (In MicroStrategy Developer, navigate to VLDB Properties > MDX > MDX Cell Formatting. Then select MDX metric values are formatted by column (default) or MDX metric values are formatted per cell.)
Microstrategy Desktop
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- Improved export customization: The Export to PDF dialog box has been added to allow formatting of PDF exports. Customization options include page orientation, page size, page header and footer visibility, overview page creation, and visualization specification. This enhancement makes it possible to share content in a way that is more relevant to users.
- Support for easily switching to the locale associated with a dashboard (.mstr file): A dashboard created with a different locale setting may not display as designed. If you open a dashboard file that was created using a different locale than your current setting, you are now asked whether you want to change to the locale setting associated with the .mstr file.
- New pre-defined color palettes: New out-of-the-box color palettes are available, inspired by nature. You now have more options when deciding dashboard color themes, improving dashboard aesthetic with little effort.
- Tooltips that identify original name of renamed attributes and metrics: You can now hover the mouse pointer over objects in the Editor or Datasets panel to display a tooltip that shows the original name of an attribute or metric along with a description, if available.
- More formatting options for Totals: Previously, when you changed value formats through the floating Format menu or Properties panel, formatting applied to the entire grid – including the subtotal row. Subtotal rows can now format independently from values on the grid. With this enhancement, you can assign different formatting rules to subtotal rows on grid visualizations without affecting the rest of the values in the grid.
- Improved ability to switch between Shape types: You can now switch between shape types across the graph matrix and not lose applied formatting. For example, when a bar chart is changed to a bubble graph, the drop zones in the bubble graph will retain its original formatting. This enhancement facilitates the data discovery process, allowing users to confidently switch back and forth between visualizations.
MicroStrategy Mobile
iOS
- Support Hierarchy Reporting features: The following Hierarchy Reporting features are now supported:
- Hierarchical display for hierarchical attributes in dashboard grids
- Hierarchical navigation in dashboard grids
- Filtering of hierarchies in dashboard grids
- Hierarchical sorting for hierarchical attributes in dashboard grids
- Shortcuts to “expand all” and “collapse all” hierarchical attributes in dashboard grids
Android
- Support custom property for D3 visualizations: Custom properties can now be displayed for D3 visualizations in Report Services Documents.
- Ability to bundle images: Images can now be bundled with the app during compile time.
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server
- Change Journaling is on by default: Change journaling is now permanently enabled. Additionally, administrators now have the ability to manually purge the change journals.
- In-Memory query optimization for many-to-many relations: Improvements have been made to the in-memory query optimization to improve table join performance and data correctness for many-to-many relations.
- New Identity Providers: MicroStrategy 10.8 certifies new Identity and Access Management Systems (or IDPs) – PING, OKTA, and Microsoft Windows Azure Directory. MicroStrategy Web- and Mobile- (JSP version) can authenticate against newly certified IDPs using SAML protocol
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