MicroStrategy documents can be considered as HTML pages; they're very complex at times, but still they belong to the Web world. We will see that it is also possible to use HTML tags in them. In a document we can represent various objects, and use data from different reports and graphs.
With the Desktop application we were limited to one grid or graph at a time; with MicroStrategy Web there is no such limitation and we have the possibility to put several datasets on a single page plus images, shapes, links, and HTML code.
Documents have different visualization modes: as with reports, we create and modify objects in Design View , while the users will consume the data in Interactive View . In fact, there are more types of views, but for the moment let's remember those two: Design and Interactive.
Enough said, let's get our hands dirty and create a very simple document. You need to have all the schema objects and all reports from the previous chapters to continue.
Start the Web Interface:
- From the Start | All Programs menu, go to MicroStrategy | Web and select the icon named Web.
- If prompted for a username and a password, type the operating system account that you used to log in. Optionally check Remember my password and click on OK.
- If you see an Information Bar message, check Don't show this message again and click on Close.
- If you see a yellow bar on top of the Internet Explorer window saying that Intranet setting are now turned off by default, click on it and select Enable Intranet Setting and confirm that Intranet settings use a less secure level by clicking on Yes.
- You are now looking at the WELCOME MicroStrategy 9 page, click on the COOKBOOK project icon to go to the login page.
- Type
Administratorin the User name textbox and the metadata password. These are the MicroStrategy credentials not the operating system ones and press the Login button. - You are now in the Home page of the COOKBOOK project. Notice that there are several folders similar to the Desktop application: My Reports, Shared Reports, and so on.
- Scroll down a bit and click on the Create Document icon,see the following image, and you will be redirected to the Create Document page:
- Here we have several templates. Scroll down to the section named Document Templates and click on Blank Document, as shown in this image:
- We're in the Document Editor: there is a Dataset Objects pane on the left and the Layout area on the right. See that the Layout is divided into sections: Page Header, Document Header, Detail Header, and so on. (refer to the How it works... section for details).
- Click on the Detail Header gray title to select the section. Look at the Insert menu, see that there's a very small arrow shaped icon next to it? Click on the arrow to open the menu and choose the first option labeled Text:
- The cursor changes its shape to a cross. Now click on the white empty part of the Detail Header section and drag the mouse to design a rectangle.
- When you release the mouse button, the focus is inside the textbox and you can type
Hello Worldin it. - Now click on the small arrow icon next to the Format menu and select Properties and Formatting.... This will bring up a dialog like the one in the following screen capture, where you can modify several textbox settings:
- Look on the left and click on Format | Font in the left list. On the right pane, set the Size to 20 and the Style to Bold.
- Click on OK to confirm and you'll see the newly created textbox with a bigger font.
- Now look at the toolbar and click on the interactive mode button (tool tip: Interactive Mode). It's right next to the design mode button, which is now depressed.
- The document is executed and you will be shown the result: a blank page with the Hello World text, not extremely useful, but it's a start.
- From here click on the first button on the toolbar named Save As… and name the document
25 Hello World Document. Click on OK. - When prompted select Run newly saved document and you'll be back to the Hello World page.
MicroStrategy documents have several different sections and it is important to understand how they work:
- Page Header: appears at the beginning of every page; use it to write page numbers or the name of the company.
- Document Header: appears only once at the beginning of the document. If there is more than one page, the page header is repeated but the document header is not; use it to write the name of the document, a description, or an address.
- Detail Header: appears only once right before the details; use it to display column headers or aggregated values.
- Detail: appears as many times as there are rows in the underlying dataset; for example, if you have a report of 10 rows, the detail section is repeated 10 times; use it to display single values.
- Detail Footer: same as the detail header but after all the detail rows; use it for the bottom line totals.
- Document Footer: same as the document header but at the end; use it to write additional information such as data source, disclaimers, or KPI descriptions.
- Page Footer: similar to the page header; use it for copyright notices or any other small piece of information at the end of each page.
The documents section can be enabled or disabled. If you do not need all of them, as often happens, you can prevent the section from displaying. While in the design mode, open the Tools | Sections menu. Here, you can check and uncheck as needed. See the following screen capture:
Please note that at least one section must be present, otherwise you'll get an error.
Try this: uncheck all sections but Detail Header. You still have your Hello World text and nothing else.
By default, when running the document, sections will be hidden if empty (that is, they have nothing to display), even if they are enabled in the Tools | Sections dialog. To override this behavior, in design mode right-click on a section header, open the Properties and Formatting… dialog, go to Properties | Layout and uncheck the Hide if Empty option.