MicroStrategy Interview Questions and Answers

MicroStrategy Incorporated is a company that provides business intelligence (BI), mobile software, and cloud-based services.

Founded in 1989 by Michael J. Saylor and Sanju Bansal, the firm develops software to analyze internal and external data in order to make business decisions and to develop mobile apps. It is a public company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, in the Washington metropolitan area. Its primary business analytics competitors include SAP AG Business Objects, IBM Cognos, and Oracle Corporation’s BI Platform. Saylor is the CEO and chairman of the board.

1. What are Logical Views used for?

Ans:

Logical Views allows application architects to create any desired view using MicroStrategy, without DBA involvement. Once these Logical views are created, they are available to the report designer in a way similar to any other table. This allows developers to model attributes and facts whose expressions span multiple tables.

2. How will Project Sources be configured in the MSTR Office?

Ans:

By editing the projectsources.xml, new project sources can be added.

3. Difference between standard, absolute and ignore condition in metrics?

Ans:

• Standard filtering allows the report filter to affect the metric.
• Absolute filtering raises the report filter to the level of the target, so all subcategories in the categories included on the report are added together.
• Ignore filtering disregards filtering criteria based on the attribute in the target and its related attributes (both parents and children).

4. Comparison between Consolidations and Custom Groups?

Ans:

A custom group is a set of special filters that can be placed on a template. It is made up of an ordered collection of elements called custom group elements. Consolidations are used to specify the data you want to view in your report. They allow you to group attribute elements in new ways without changing the metadata and warehouse definitions.

5. What is an object prompt?

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An object prompt allows you to select which MicroStrategy objects to include in a report, such as attributes, metrics, custom groups and so on. Object prompts can either determine the definition of the report template or the report filter.

6. How are the reports optimized?

Ans:

VLDB properties allow you to customize the SQL that MicroStrategy generates, and determine how data is processed by the Analytical Engine.

7. Define order of precedence of VLDB properties?

Ans:

Reports>Project>Database Instance>DBMS

8. What is Metric Formula Join Type? How it is different with Metric Join Type?

Ans:

This is basically used for Compound Metrics and determines how the different tables used in metric formula are joined.

Whereas the Metric Join Type determines how the metrics are joined to other metrics.

9. What are attribute roles?

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A user defines two attributes that have the same definition but play different roles in the business model. In this example, attribute Origin Airport and Destination Airport are defined using the same Lookup Table and Column (Airport_ID). Both attributes share the same forms, or information about them (Description, Location, etc.). In the fact table, however, a separate column exists for each of their roles (Origin_Airport_ID and Destination_Airport_ID).

10. How do we resolve attribute roles?

Ans:

By creating explicit table alias for the same or enabling the Automatic Attribute Role recognition.

11. What are statistics tables and how do you configure the project statistics?

Ans:

Statistics tables contain data on the MicroStrategy system’s usage and performance, and are populated by all projects that are configured to log statistics.

To configure:-

• Set up the Enterprise Manager.
• Define the statistics and enterprise warehouse database.
• Create the statistics database instance
• Go the project configuration wizard of the project
• Select statistics and define the what you want to log

12. What is the Command Manager?

Ans:

MicroStrategy Command Manager lets you perform various administrative and application development tasks by using text commands that can be saved as scripts. Like for example: – server management, user management, security, database management.

13. Difference between project merge and object manager?

Ans:

Object Manager can move just a few objects or just the objects in a few folders. Project Merge moves all the objects in a project.

Object Manager must locate the dependents of the copied objects and then determine their differences before performing the copy operation. Project Merge does not do a dependency search, since all the objects in the project are to be copied.

Project Merge can be run from the command prompt in Microsoft Windows.

14. How conflicts occur and what are the ways to resolve them?

Ans:

When copying objects across projects with Object Manager, if an object with the same ID as the source object exists anywhere in the destination project, a conflict occurs. There are various ways to resolve depending upon the conditions like use existing, replace, keep both, use newer, use older, update in same path, update in new path and merge privileges.

15. How many types the MicroStrategy license can be bought?

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Two types: – named users or cpu license.

16. What are report caches and how many types are there?

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A report cache is a result set from an executed report that is stored on MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. 4 types: matching caches, history caches, matching-history caches and xml caches.

17. While establishing relationships between attributes how do you decide which attribute qualifies as child and which one as parent?

Ans:

While establishing the relationship between attributes one can either look from business hierarchy point of view and the attribute higher in the hierarchy becomes parent of the attribute lower in the hierarchy. Parent and Child follow a one-to-many relationship. Example Time hierarchy Year > Month > Date. Here Year would be parent of Month and Date and Month parent of Date.

We can also identify Parent-Child relationships from database design point of view. Here in a table the Primary Key uniquely identifies the other columns in the table and hence qualifies as a child of all the other attributes from the table, in the same ways as a child in real world identifies his father (at least the biological one).

18. What is the logical size of a table and what does it depend on?

Ans:

Logical size is Microstrategy way of generating the best suitable/optimized SQL to fetch the required data. Microstrategy follows an algorithm to calculate the logical size of a table, which depends on the no of attributes and facts based on the table and also the position of those attributes in the system hierarchy.

The logical size does not depend on the actual data (no of rows) in the database. If the candidate answers this than his concept is wrong.

19. What are Level Metrics? And why are they required?

Ans:

Level metrics are advanced metrics which are set to be evaluated at a specified attribute level. These are required when in the same report you need to roll up a metric at two different levels side by side. Example is comparison of “Revenue from a Region” to “Revenue from a Country”. Here Region and Country are the two different levels.

20. What is the difference in the way Microstrategy Handles Consolidations and Custom Group? Any advantage of using one over the other?

Ans:

Custom Groups are handled at the database end where as Consolidations are handled at the Analytical Engine end. As a result the Consolidations are not an overhead for the database as there is a single pass in the query. On the other hand Custom Groups are an overhead on the database as they fire a separate SQL pass for every Custom group element.

21. What are VLDB properties?

Ans:

VLDB stands for Very Large Data Base Properties. This is Microstrategy way of handling database specific preferences while generating the report SQL. There are a number of them. A few common one are for Attribute or Metric join types, cross join check, type of intermediate table, etc.

22. At which levels can you set the VLDB properties? Which level has the highest precedence?

Ans:

VLDB Properties can be set at various levels like Report, Template, Metric, Project, Database Instance and DBMS level. Out of this Report level has the highest priority. It overrides all other levels.

23. Define various ways of incorporating security in Microstrategy?

Ans:

In Microstrategy security can be incorporated using a mix of any of the following ways:

• Putting user specific restrictions at the database end and using user specific connection mapping. This is for column level security.
• Applying folder and object level security to restrict access to certain set of reports/objects
• Applying Security filters to the user. This provides row level security.

24. What are pass-through functions and why they are so called? Give some examples.

Ans:

Pass-through functions are Microstrategy way of generating database specific SQL constructs which otherwise are not possible. These are called pass-through functions because Microstrategy does not check the actual SQL construct and dumps it as is on the database. Examples include ApplySimple, ApplyComparison, etc.

25. Please write a query to get “All the departments, and the count of employees in those departments, which have more than 50 employees and are based out of State New York. Following are the table structures:

Department table: Department_ID, Department_Name, State (Note: Department ID is Unique here and more than one department can belong to one State) Employee Table: Employee_ID, Employee_Name, Department_ID (Note: Employee ID is unique here and more than one Employee can belong to one department, but one employee does not belong to more than one department)

Ans:

Following should be the query

26. What is star schema and snowflake schema?

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Star Schema is a highly denormalized schema whereas snowflake schema is a highly normalized schema. Star schema is characterized by a large number of rows in a table and less number of joins between tables. Snowflake schema is characterized by less number of rows in a table while more number of joins between tables.

27. What are the advantages and disadvantages of star and snowflake schema?

Ans:

Star Schema Advantages: Reduces the number of joins between the tables and hence faster performance

Star Schema Disadvantages: Requires Most amount of storage space. 

Snowflake Schema Advantages: Minimum storage space and minimum data redundancy

Snowflake Schema Disadvantages: Requires more joins to get information from look up tables hence slow performance.

28.What are ad hoc reports and static reports?

Ans:

Ad Hoc reports run in real time based on the input parameters provided by the user at the run time. In Microstrategy, ad hoc reports are created using Prompts.

In static reports, users won’t be provided any input parameters. These reports are usually scheduled to run overnight and ready to view immediately in the mornings using cache.

29. What is a filter?

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Filter is a public object. It is used to restrict the data retrieved by the report from the database tables .From SQL perspective it corresponds to the “WHERE” Clause.

30. What are Consolidations?

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Consolidations enable us to group together attribute elements and create a virtual attribute. They perform Row level maths.

31. What are custom groups?

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Custom groups are used to create different filters to different rows of a report. For example, a report can be created to display top 5 customers as well as bottom 5 customers in the one report using a custom group.

32. What are Pass through Functions?

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Pass through functions are used to utilize various special functions that specific to databases. Some of the passes through functions available are Applysimple and Applycomparison.

33. What is a Security filter?

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Security filter is used to apply security at the database data level. Whenever a user’s associated security filter runs a report, a WHERE clause is always included in the report sql with the condition defined in the Security Filter.

34. What is a Microstrategy Desktop?

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Microstrategy Desktop is a Windows client-server software application that provides integrated monitoring, reporting, and analysis capabilities.

35. What does Microstrategy Desktop allow users to do?

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Using Microstrategy Desktop, users can easily access and share critical corporate information they need to make cost-cutting decisions and improve business processes. The information found in databases can also be used to help increase revenue and boost profits. Users can access this database and SAP data without having to learn technical database query (SQL) or multi-dimensional expression (MDX) syntax.

36. What can users do with the information they access using Microstrategy Desktop?

Ans:

Users can analyze the information using standard aggregations and more sophisticated functions such as average, summation, percentage contribution, standard deviation and net present value. Investigative reporting, using pivoting, sorting, slicing, and drilling to more detail, can be performed with simple mouse clicks. Users can also format reports to their specifications and view the data as intuitive charts and graphs to identify trends and anomalies quickly.

37. What are the benefits of using Microstrategy Desktop?

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Users can obtain critical information immediately without waiting for IT departments to create reports. The software is easy to use and provides context sensitive help, thus eliminating the need for extensive support and maintenance staff.

38. Can Microstrategy Desktop access SAP data?

Ans:

Yes. With the release of Microstrategy 8, Microstrategy Desktop incorporates a new dynamic data access engine designed to access multidimensional databases

(MDDBs or OLAP Cube Databases) such as those from SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) databases.

39. Can Microstrategy Desktop access operational data systems?

Ans:

Yes. Microstrategy Desktop users can use a new Operational SQL Engine to include data from any operational system using completely free-form SQL, including stored procedures and views.

40. How fast is the performance on Microstrategy Desktop?

Ans:

Microstrategy Desktop provides instant access and analysis of information. This high performance is enabled through Intelligence Cubes™, caches, incremental fetches and advanced analytic features.

41. How long does it take to learn Microstrategy Desktop?

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Microstrategy Desktop preserves the look and feel of popular desktop software such as Microsoft® Windows® Explorer and Microsoft Office. As such, users are immediately comfortable with Microstrategy Desktop. A customized interface using HTML can be created, simplifying navigation and report execution.

42. Can I make my data and graphs look professional?

Ans:

Yes. Users can format their data into appealing reports using various formatting styles and graphs for maximum visual impact. Users can choose from more than 30 different charting options to present information in the best layout possible.

43. Is it possible to display multiple reports, images and information on the same page?

Ans:

Yes, users can easily combine tables, images, graphs and other information onto the same page in a document. Visually impressive and compelling documents can be printed out and shared with corporate executives. Business users can now rearrange the organization of any report with simple drag and drop actions or by clicking on the new toolbar icons to get entirely new views of the data, all from the same report and without requiring assistance from IT.

44. What printing capabilities are available in Microstrategy Desktop?

Ans:

Microstrategy Desktop offers advanced printing capabilities. Features include repeating row/column headers, customizable headers and footers, and a comprehensive page setup menu. Users can preview reports before sending it to the printer.

45. What subtotaling features does Microstrategy Desktop contain?

Ans:

Microstrategy Desktop has more than 10 different subtotaling functions that aid analysis of the data. Subtotals can be presented at any level in the rows, columns and pages on the report.

46. What are the minimum requirements for Microstrategy Desktop?

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Minimum requirements are a computer with at least a 450MHZ Pentium- compatible CPU, 256MB of RAM and 500MB of hard disk.

47. Is Microstrategy Desktop available in other languages?

Ans:

Microstrategy Desktop is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Korean, Italian, Swedish, Japanese and Portuguese.

48. How long does it take to get a Microstrategy Desktop up and running?

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Microstrategy Desktop installs in minutes and automatically presents a list of available Microstrategy Intelligence Servers. Within an hour, the installation and setup are completed.

49. How does Microstrategy Desktop integrate with the rest of the Microstrategy platform?

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Microstrategy Desktop is the intuitive client-server interface used by business analysts and application developers. Microstrategy Desktop interacts with the Intelligence Server to build metrics, create and format reports, and retrieve timely, accurate information to the desktop to enhance the decision-making process.

50. What security is provided with the Microstrategy Desktop?

Ans:

Microstrategy Desktop provides a host of security options to ensure that data is kept confidential and private. To facilitate easy deployment and minimal maintenance, Microstrategy Desktop integrates with Windows NT and 2000 security and with Novell directory. As a result, users who have logged into these systems will not need to log on again.

51. To what extent can Microstrategy Desktop be personalized?

Ans:

Each Microstrategy Desktop user has a security profile defined by their administrator. This profile controls access to application functionality, specific reports or particular data for individual users or groups of users. The Desktop interface will adapt and display only what this user is allowed to see.

52. Is the Microstrategy MDX engine certified by SAP?

Ans:

Yes. This new Dynamic MDX Engine generates optimized MDX syntax that is fully certified with SAP BW using SAP’s high performance BAPI interfaces.

53. Can users join data across SAP BW Infocubes and Query Cubes?

Ans:

Yes. Users can use Microstrategy Desktop to create reports that access SAP data and join data across SAP BW Info Cubes and Query Cubes as well as access multiple instances of SAP BW at once.

54. Can Microstrategy Desktop join data across heterogeneous data sources?

Ans:

Yes. Microstrategy 8 extends the Microstrategy data modeling flexibility to include integrated views of data across heterogeneous data stores. By mapping conforming dimensions from different sources, Microstrategy Desktop can automatically join data from multiple different sources in the same report document. Data can come from any source accessible by Microstrategy 8, including the data warehouse, data marts, SAP BW, and any number of operational system databases

55. Does Microstrategy provide predictive modeling capabilities commonly available in data mining tools?

Ans:

Yes. Microstrategy 8 can calculate four of the primary data mining functions including neural network algorithms, clustering algorithms, regression algorithms, and tree algorithms.

56. Can Microstrategy incorporate best-of-breed data mining insight into mainstream business reports and analysis?

Ans:

Yes. Microstrategy 8 has extended its analytic engine with “Data Mining Services” capability that allows reports and analyses to include predictive capabilities in every Microstrategy report or analysis. Microstrategy 8 includes the new ability to import data mining models directly from best-of-breed data mining products from vendors like IBM, Teradata, SAS, and SPSS using the new PMML or predictive modeling mark-up language standard.

57. Can Microstrategy Desktop export data to other software applications?

Ans:

You can export information from Microstrategy Desktop to text files, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access and HTML files. The formatting of the tables and data are preserved when you export to these file formats.

58. What data sources does Microstrategy Desktop support?

Ans:

You can access data in all the major databases including Oracle, IBM DB2, Informix, NCR Teradata, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Red Brick, Sybase and Non-Stop SQL.

59. To save time, can many reports be run at the same time?

Ans:

Microstrategy Desktop can execute multiple reports simultaneously. Report results are saved in a personal History folder when ready.

60. Can reports be executed in off-peak periods?

Ans:

Reports can be attached to time-based or event-based schedules that are defined by the administrator. These schedules automatically trigger the report execution and place a notification message in the History folder on completion.

61. What is Microstrategy OLAP Services?

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Microstrategy OLAP Services is an extension to Microstrategy Intelligence Server that allows Microstrategy Web and Desktop users to manipulate Intelligent Cubes™. With OLAP Services end users can add or remove report objects, add derived metrics and modify the filter — all with speed-of-thought response time against Intelligent Cubes. OLAP Services enables full multidimensional OLAP analysis within Intelligent Cubes, while retaining users’ ability to seamlessly drill through to the full breadth and depth of the data warehouse.

62. What are the Intelligent Cubes used by OLAP Services?

Ans:

Intelligent Cubes are user or administrator created multi-dimensional cubes that operate within Microstrategy Intelligence Server. On Microstrategy’s BI platform, creating an Intelligent Cube is as easy as creating a report. Intelligent Cubes enable

Microstrategy to combine the speed and interactivity of multi-dimensional OLAP analysis and the analytical power and depth of relational OLAP.

63. What specific features and functionality do I get with OLAP Services?

Ans:

With OLAP Services Microstrategy Web, Desktop and Office users can:

Create unique report views based on an Intelligent Cube.

• With OLAP Services, users can create unique report views by adding or removing attributes and metrics contained within the Intelligent Cube. This allows speed-of-thought report creation and modification with no need to extract data from the data warehouse.

Create new on-the-fly metric calculations from existing metrics in an Intelligent Cube.

• The new calculation is performed without submitting a new request to the data warehouse.

Filter their view of the data within an Intelligent Cube.

• The filtering will be performed on Microstrategy Intelligence Server within the Intelligent Cube.

64. How are Intelligent Cubes different from ordinary cubes?

Ans:

Intelligent Cubes are created automatically when a new report is run against the data warehouse. Subsequent requests by other users can seamlessly hit this new Intelligent Cube. The logic to match user requests with the appropriate Intelligent Cube is automatically handled within the Microstrategy platform. Users don’t have to specify the cube to which they want to connect.

65. Give the benefits of Intelligent Cubes.

Ans:

• Greater Efficiency – Intelligent Cubes are automatically generated and shared among all users whenever a report is executed by a user or pre-cached by the administrator or a user.
• Easy to Use – Intelligent Cubes can be designed by mainstream BI users, using the same interface and the same operations as are used with basic OLAP analysis.
• More Scalable Cubes – Intelligent Cubes do not need massive pre-calculations or pre-aggregations. The mid-tier Intelligence Server can do these calculations on-the-fly as the cubes are being used.
• Increased Manageability and Reliability – Intelligent Cubes can be configured to expire or refresh automatically whenever underlying data or definitions change.
• Increased Power for End-Users – Users can seamlessly drill through to the full depth of the data warehouse, or slice and dice with speed-of-thought response time within the Intelligent Cube.

66. What end user products leverage OLAP Services?

Ans:

Microstrategy Web (Analyst and Professional versions), Microstrategy Desktop (Analyst and Designer versions) and Microstrategy Office all leverage the functionality enabled by OLAP Services.

67. What does an end-user need to do to take advantage of this?

Ans:

The usage of OLAP Services is transparent to end-users. Users do not need to know the name and location of an Intelligent Cube, or even if it exists. OLAP Services works with Microstrategy Intelligence Server to automatically use the appropriate Intelligent Cube or create a new one to satisfy the end user request.

68. How is security handled?

Ans:

Intelligent Cubes used by OLAP Services automatically inherit all of the security provisions of every report object used within the Intelligent Cube, and those provisions are dynamically applied to each user’s security profile when the cube is accessed. If a user only has privileges to use four of the five metrics contained in an Intelligent Cube, that restriction will automatically and seamlessly apply when the user accesses the Intelligent Cube. The user will still have access to the Intelligent Cube for the four metrics he or she has privileges to use.

69. Can I access Intelligent Cubes without OLAP Services?

Ans:

Yes, with the appropriate version of Microstrategy Web or Desktop, certain functions leverage the Intelligent Cubes. These functions include: report formatting down to cell level, column aliasing, drilling, pivoting, page-by, adding metric thresholds, adding subtotals, ranking and sorting. Please see the Web and Desktop version comparisons to determine exactly which Web or Desktop version includes the desired functionality.

70. Is OLAP Services sold as a separate product?

Ans:

Yes, OLAP Services is sold as a separate product that is installed with Microstrategy Intelligence Server. It is licensed either on a per-user or per-CPU basis.

71. What is Microstrategy Narrowcast Server?

Ans:

Microstrategy Narrowcast Server is a software product that monitors and delivers individualized information to users via email, web portals, and wireless devices such as PDAs, pagers, and phones. Through a easy-to-use web page, users specify what information they want, when and how they want to receive it.

72. What are the business benefits of Microstrategy Narrowcast Server?

Ans:

Microstrategy Narrowcast Server provides an easy and inexpensive way to send corporate information to untrained employees, partners, and customers. As a result, decision-makers have the information they need to maximize revenue generation and streamline business processes that cut operating costs.

73. What kinds of applications can Microstrategy Narrowcast Server support?

Ans:

Microstrategy Narrowcast Server supports: enterprise reporting applications, executive information portals, corporate information dissemination, sale force automation, working capital management, supply chain management, extranet portals, secure business to business portals, customer service applications, and intelligent alerting applications.

74. Why do businesses need to send information out to users proactively?

Ans:

People do not have time to search through information to identify information that requires immediate action. An intelligent alerting system understands and constantly monitors the information users need, and delivers information only when users need it. Users save time and take action when required.

75. How do current Microstrategy Narrowcast Server customers use Intelligent Alerting?

Ans:

Customers use Microstrategy Narrowcast Server to deliver inventory alerts, business performance alerts, supply chain alerts, customer activity alerts, stock and personal finance alerts, last minute travel alerts, data load alerts, customer account activity alerts, and fraud alerts. New uses are constantly being developed for intelligent alerting.

76. How do users receive only information that they want?

Ans:

Through an easy-to-use subscription web page, users specify what information they want. Some personalization options include the language choices and specific information criteria such as certain products. Using this user profile, Microstrategy Narrowcast Server sends only the information that the user has requested.

77. Can users turn off the information delivery?

Ans:

Yes, users can switch on and off their own information delivery. Administrators can also set up some ‘non-optional’ information delivery so that everyone receives the information. As a result, users can obtain information without having to wait for IT to develop the reports.

78. What kinds of information can users receive?

Ans:

Users can receive both tables and charts from the Microstrategy platform, and content from current information sources such as transaction processing systems, Enterprise Resource Planning systems, databases, XML files, and web servers.

79. What formatting can be applied to the information that is sent out by Microstrategy Narrowcast Server?

Ans:

Information can be formatted into HTML, plain text, Microsoft® Excel, or PDF files. The size and display of these files are adjusted to suit the email type or the wireless device for different users.

80. To which devices can Microstrategy Narrowcast Server deliver information?

Ans:

Narrowcast Server can deliver information to email, mobile phones, pagers, faxes, PDAs, intranet and extranet web portals. Businesses can also build and plug in their own Information Transmission Module to support their own devices.

81. What is a joint child?

Ans:

A joint child is Microstrategy way of handling Composite Keys. Composite keys consist of two or more columns which together act as unique identifiers. To handle this case in Microstrategy we make this set of columns, constituting composite keys, as joint child.

82. Are the reports created using Microstrategy Desktop available to other products such as Microstrategy Web?

Ans:

Yes. Reports created using Microstrategy Desktop are immediately available to other Microstrategy products because of our centralized metadata architecture

83. Write the different types of matrices in microstrategy?

Ans:

• Derived
• Nested
• Compound
• Simple

84. What is a compound attribute?

Ans:

A compound attribute has its value determined by an expression which combines two or more columns in a database to create a new column

85. What are different kinds of objects in Microstrategy?

Ans:

• Configuration Objects: Configuration objects are MicroStrategy objects which can be reused in multiple projects and they appear in the system layer. Ex: Database Instances, Users, Login ID’s, Schedules
• Schema Objects: The building block of BI. Schema objects are directly mapped to a column or columns in the database. Attributes, Facts, Functions & Operators, Hierarchies, Partition Mappings, Tables & Transformations
• Public Objects: Objects that generate analytical data and are built on other schema objects or public objects. Also called as application objects. Ex: Consolidation, Custom Groups, Drill Maps, Reports, Documents, Filters, Prompts, Metrics, Templates and Searches

86. Define metadata in MicroStrategy?

Ans:

MicroStrategy consists of multiple object definitions, which are stored using a database repository, known as metadata. It could be hosted on most of the databases. Metadata repository also consists of information about data warehouses. All the required information is captured in a format within a relational database. All report making, and data analysis is done by mapping MicroStrategy objects, achieved through metadata. Similarly, the report creation process uses various objects, representing data as report building blocks, which are eventually created and stored in a metadata repository. Sharing of objects across MicroStrategy applications is enabled by metadata, by providing a central repository for object definitions.

87. Explain what is the difference between the Report filter and Report limit?

Ans:

• Report limit: It determines a set of criteria used to restrict or limit the data returned in the report data set after the report metrics are calculated.
• Report Filter: It applies the where condition to the query sent to the warehouse to retrieve the results.

88. Explain what Smart Metrics are in Microstrategy?

Ans:

Smart metric is referred to when a compound metric is defined with other metric objects using arithmetic operations like sum M1/M2.

For example: Simple or Compound Metrics Total (profits/unit sold) Smart Metrics: Total (profit)/ Total (sold)

89. Mention what types of testing can be carried out over the Microstrategy reports?

Ans:

Microstrategy can carry out test like

• Naming convention tests
• Total calculations test
• SQL query validations
• Attribute and metric positions in the report
• Drilling options tests
• Prompts related verifications
• Security filter tests
• Formatting/export functionality tests
• Threshold testing

90.  Explain what are the advantages of a dataset compared to a file-set?

Ans:

File set consists of total tables and information while data-set consists of attributes, metrics of a particular report only.

91. Compare Microstrategy and Tableau.

Ans:

Criteria	MicroStrategy	Tableau
Relational OLAP	Excellent	Good
Ad hoc reporting	Excellent	Good
Graphical Reports	Cannot directly be used for analysis	Directly used for analysis

92.. Write the components MicroStrategy metadata?

Ans:

MicroStrategy metadata consists of project settings, MicroStrategy object definitions and data warehouse connection information.

93. Explain heterogeneous mapping?

Ans:

It  allows the engine to do  joins unlike column names. If the user describes more than one expression for a given form, heterogeneous mapping will mechanically take place when tables and column names require it.

94. Describe Implicit Attribute?

Ans:

An implicit attribute is a practical or same  attribute that does not actually exist in the database because it is made at the application level.

95. How can we decide drilling options for an attribute?

Ans:

Based on similarities between attributes, hierarchies and their drilling design we can decide the drilling option.

96. Name the two types of Hierarchies?

Ans:

• User defined Hierarchy
• System hierarchy

97. Name the type of Facts in Microstrategy?

Ans:

• Simple facts
• Derived facts
• Implicit facts

98. Define Base Formula?

Ans:

Base formula is used to provide the formation of more complex metrics.

99.. Define Level Metrics?

Ans:

Level metrics are modern metrics which are set to be evaluated at a particular attribute level.

100. Name the types of Transformation?

Ans:

• Expression based transformations
• Table based transformations