Administration

Deleting unused Facts in MicroStrategy

Apr 30th

Posted by Ashish Tiwari in Administration

3 comments

I was searching a technote for a friend about distinct not apearing in the SQL (not something to do True Key, sadly) with the and landed up with this interesting technote which I’m going to implment for my current project sometime. We can’t use Object Manager to find this even though there is specific feature to do it as Tables are considered (logically) dependent on Facts. [Can anyone from MicroStrategy explain why is that? It should be other way round.]

Luckily it is simple but you need to have Select access on Metadata. Just run following query against your metadata database and your would get the list of afacts not used by any metric. Also, your would need to run it for each project your have. :(

SELECT object_id,
       object_name
FROM   dssmdobjinfo
WHERE  object_type = 13
       AND project_id = <Project ID> 
       AND object_id NOT IN (SELECT DISTINCT depn_objid AS object_id
                             FROM   dssmdobjdepn
                             WHERE  project_id =??
                                    AND depnobj_type = 13
                                    AND object_type = 4)
ORDER  BY object_id ASC

Disclaimer: Running a unmanaged SQL query against Metadata is not guranteed by MicroStrategy, Inc.

MSTR 9.0.1 (Release 2) and it’s New Features

Feb 5th

Posted by Senthil Raj in Administration

3 comments

MicroStrategy 9 Release 2 (9.0.1 products) is now available on the download site.

What are the new features in MSTR 9 R2 (9.0.1)

1) Jump Start Project

2)  MicroStrategy Health Center

1) JUMP-START PROJECT

                                    What is the Jump-Start Project?   

Jump-Start is a complete MicroStrategy project that comes with 7 dashboards and 30 reports and all the underlying metrics, filters, attributes, and dimensions.  All you have to do is add data and rewire.  It was designed with one purpose in mind – to help you develop a complete MicroStrategy Project FAST! 

                                     How does Jump-Start Work?  

MicroStrategy’s Jump-Start Project provides the standard building blocks of any project, attributes and facts, and uses those objects to create application objects such as metrics, filters, reports, enterprise documents, and dashboards.  Because a specific project has yet to be defined, all of these objects use generic names as placeholders.   You redefine/rewire the attributes and facts so that they work off your data tables, and due to the object oriented design of MicroStrategy, the data will be cascaded into the pre-built reports and dashboards automatically. With all this work prebuilt, the Jump-Start project delivers a complete BI project in a matter of a few hours

Manuals are available in MicroStrategy site.

2) MicroStrategy Health Center

MicroStrategy Health Center allows users to prevent, diagnose and fix problems in a MicroStrategy system.  It detects known problems and provides an immediate solution to many of them.  

Health Center can email a system administrator if it encounters a problem with the system. In cases where Health Center cannot fix a problem immediately, it enables users to bundle relevant system information, such as log files, into a diagnostic package and transmit the package to MicroStrategy Technical Support for review and troubleshooting. 

  • MicroStrategy Health Center can only operate on MicroStrategy 9.0.1.
  • By default, MicroStrategy Health Center is installed and turned off (not configured). To start configuring MicroStrategy Health Center, please see the tech note below:
    • TN32554 How to Configure a MicroStrategy Health Center System
  • If MicroStrategy Health Center is already configured, to learn more about what common tasks can be carried out, please see the tech note below:
    • TN32552 How to use MicroStrategy Health Center Console
  • For a List a Current System Checks:
    • TN32551  A List of System Checks for MicroStrategy Health Center
  • MicroStrategy is constantly extending the functionality of Health Center by developing new system checks and information collectors, and refining existing ones. To keep the Health Center System up to date:
    • TN32553 How to keep the Health Center System up to date

Source: MicroStrategy’s Technical Email

Resetting forgotton Administrator Password

Aug 8th

Posted by Ashish Tiwari in Administration

1 comment

Only 3 tier MicroStrategy metadata that I can run a SQL query is client’s :cry:

Looking forward for people who can execute the following SQL statement directly against the MicroStrategy metadata. Perfectly legal and DMCA compliant as encryption is not broken but bypassed.

UPDATE  DSSMDUSRACCT
SET PASSWD = ’00000000c34abc5741b1cf54247cbc76af3b513ec911585a22b95befb7e10c14′
WHERE upper(LOGIN) = ‘ADMINISTRATOR’

If above given password doesn’t work use any of following:

9c1185a5c5e9fc54612808977ee8f548b2258d31
00000000187c9eeace8a9d2b94b7b8c21d4e1d10c911585ad5674d244057eb6f

It may be very foolish of me trying to bypass the RMD 160 encryption :-D . I don’t even know if it works. Basically the above given SQL statement rests the password to “” (nothing). As I do not have any easy access, please let me know if it works for you. You may have to change the SQL syntax of the DBMS in which your metadata is stored.

Note: I’m not responsible if your metadata is redundant due to use of the above SQL statement or use of above statement bring you issues at your job. Also, this would work only in a metadata NOT having used  in 2 tier configuration prior to execution of SQL statement. ie, you must connect to the metadata using a 3 tier connection before execution.

Geography Hierarchy

Data restriction using Security Filter

Jul 12th

Posted by Ashish Tiwari in Administration

No comments

Take following scenario. You have three attributes. Region -> Market -> Country. (I know, spelling are pretty bad)

Geography Hierarchy

Geography Hierarchy

I had implemented Security Filter at Country level several time and explained to several friends about how to do it. But I never came across a scenario when I had to do it at Market level or Region level, i.e., not the lowest level of hierarchy.

Take a scenario, when you have put security filter for the User Group, who have been provided access to only South Asia Market runs a report containing Country attributes or someone with EMEA Region access runs a report with Market attribute. What would happen? Do you think that someone with South Asia Market would be able to see only India and/or Srilanka or someone restricted to APAC can’t see Middle East Market or Panama Country?

I know the half answer. There are so many possibilities. Hope to completely post by Month end.

No projects were returned by this project source

Dec 21st

Posted by Ashish Tiwari in Administration

No comments

If no projects are returned by MicroStrategy these could be reasons.

  1. Run License Manager and check that you have MicroStrategy Desktop and MicroStrategy Architect among Installed Products.
  2. You enabled anonymous authentication. The Guest user is a member of the Public group. By default, this user group does not have access to any projects in the project source. Revert back to Standard authentication, Administrator -> User Manager -> Public/Gest -> project Access. Set the access and privileges desired for the guest login.
  3. You are trying to connect to a Microsoft Access database with database authentication. Microsoft Access does not support database authentication.
  4. Similar to #2, LDAP user ID and password blank would lead to no project(s) when using LDAP authentication.

Sometimes a faulty installation is needed to be repaired.

But mostly, I have found the issue to be user not given right privileges, not connecting to right Project source or metadata corruption.

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