I thought of sharing couple of things to work with Visual Insight & how does it helps the dynamic dashboard for next generations of BI Technology.
I’ve been working with Visual Insight for quite a few years & it keeps growing year by year with features added to it. I can say that, this post cannot convey end to end of all VI features – but would try to share as much as i could & also the other reference materials (video or knowledge base site information where i dint get a chance to explore in real time)
=> You could add multiple panels within the layout
=> You could add multiple layouts within the dashboard
=> You could add multiple datasets in VI now.
=> You could add multiple datasets from different source system in VI now.
=> You could add PIE/Ring PIE in VI – new graphs added
=> You could use URL API to link or navigate from VI to Dashboard or viceversa
=> You could use VI dashboard integrated in the Portals
=> Main advantage of VI is self service discovery of data for end clients & not to depend on IT.
With visual insight, the end users can create dashboards in minutes and perform analysis out of it quickly. This is the main advantage of going with VI and will dominate more in the market from my perception.
About Maps with Area
Starting MicroStrategy Analytics Enterprise Web 9.4.1 Hotfix 2, Users can display data as colored regions on an interactive map using a Map with area visualizations.
For example, user can display a map of the United States , then have states automatically colored based on the number of elements.
Steps to create a Map with Areas Visualization:
Prerequisites
1. The steps below assume that you have already created the following:
2. An attribute with the name of each location that you want to display in the visualization.
Each element in the attribute should contain the name of a location defined in the base map. For example, if the base map
defines an area for Japan, the country attribute should contain an element named Japan.
3. The dashboard that you want to modify.
To create and add a Map with Areas visualization to a dashboard.
1. Click the name of the dashboard to run it.
2. Click the arrow to the right of the Add Visualization icon , then select Map with Areas. A blank visualization is added to the
2. Click the arrow to the right of the Add Visualization icon , then select Map with Areas. A blank visualization is added to the
dashboard and displayed with an icon representing the visualization’s type.
3. If the Dataset Objects panel is not displayed, from the Show menu, select Dataset Objects.
4. If the Map panel is not displayed, from the Show menu, select Edit Visualization.
5. From the Dataset Objects panel, click and drag the attribute containing the location information for each area to the Geo Attribute
area in the Map panel.
6. Depending on whether the attribute containing the location information has been assigned a geo role, select from the following:
If the attribute has been assigned a geo role, Visual Insight will automatically display the first base map that supports the
attribute’s geo role. You can change the base map that is used. Do the following:
From the Show menu, select Properties.
From the Current Shape drop-down list, select the name of the base map that you want to use, such as World Administrative
Divisions or U.S. States Names.
Click X in the top right of the Properties panel to close it.
If the attribute has not been assigned a geo role, you must select the base map to use to display areas in the visualization. Do
the following:
From the Show menu, select Properties.
From the Current Shape drop-down list, select the name of the base map that you want to use, such as Continents or U.S.
Regions.
Click X in the top right of the Properties panel to close it.
7. To display map areas in different colors based on the value of a metric, from the Dataset Objects panel, click and drag the
metric to the Color By area.
8. By default, when you click an area in the visualization, a tooltip containing additional information about the location is displayed.
You can include additional metrics or attributes in the tooltip. To do this, from the Dataset Objects panel, click and drag the
metrics or attributes that you want to display to the tool tip area.
9. To save your dashboard, click the Save icon .
9. To save your dashboard, click the Save icon .
Ref: KB Site
About Density Map Setup
User can display their data on an interactive map , with colored shading displayed based on the concentration of locations of interest, with a Density Map Visualization.
For example, user can display areas with a high number of stores in red , and areas with a low number of stores in blue.
Steps to create a Density Map Visualization:
Prerequisites:
The steps below assume that the dashboard’s dataset already includes attributes that provide the geographical location of each location in the Density Map visualization. You can provide location information in one of the following ways:
Provide one attribute that has been assigned a geo role for which MicroStrategy automatically adds the latitude and longitude
information for each map marker. For example, you can provide an attribute that has been assigned the Country, State, City, ZIP
Code, or Location geo roles during the data import process.
Provide two separate attributes, as follows:
1. One attribute that contains the latitude of each location. For example, you can provide an attribute that has been assigned the
Latitude geo role during the data import process.
2. One attribute that contains the longitude of each location. For example, you can provide an attribute that has been assigned the
Longitude geo role during the data import process.
The steps below assume that you have already created the dashboard that you want to modify.
You must be connected to the Internet. If you use a proxy to connect to the Internet, specify your proxy settings in the Internet
Options section of the Windows Control Panel; contact your network administrator for help.
To create and add a Density Map visualization to a dashboard:
1. Click the name of the dashboard to run it.
2 . If the Dataset Objects panel is not displayed, from the Show menu, select Dataset Objects.
3. If the Map panel is not displayed, from the Show menu, select Edit Visualization.
4. Click the Add Visualization icon . A blank visualization is added to the dashboard.
5. Click Select a Visualization. The Select a Visualization dialog box opens.
6. Select Map, then select the Density Map subtype. A Density Map visualization is added to the dashboard. MicroStrategy
automatically selects the attribute or attributes that were assigned geo roles during the data import process, and adds them to
the visualization.
If MicroStrategy does not automatically detect the correct attributes to add to the visualization, do the following:
To provide the locations in the visualization using one attribute that contains the latitude and longitude information
automatically added by MicroStrategy, from the Dataset Objects panel, click and drag the attribute to the Geo Attribute area in the
Map panel. Analytics Desktop automatically detects the latitude and longitude attribute forms and displays their names in the
Latitude and Longitude areas.
To provide the locations in the visualization using separate attributes for the latitude and longitude of each location, do the
following:
a> From the Dataset Objects panel, click and drag the attribute that contains the latitude information to the Latitude area in the
Map panel.
b> From the Dataset Objects panel, click and drag the attribute that contains the longitude information to the Longitude area in
the Map panel.
7. By default, when you click a location in the visualization, a tooltip containing additional information about the location is
displayed. You can include additional metrics or attributes in the tooltip. To do this, from the Dataset Objects panel, click and
drag the metrics or attributes that you want to display to the Tooltip area.
8 To save your dashboard, click the Save icon
Ref: KB site
About Data Blending
In MicroStrategy Analytics Enterprise Web 9.4.1, the new Report Services Documents Engine automatically links common attributes using the modeled schema whenever possible. The manual linking is not allowed between different modeled attributes. Just in case the requirement need to link different attributes, this can be done by using the MicroStrategy Architect at the schema level. The join behavior by default for linking related attributes is done using a full outer join. In case there is no relationship between the attributes, then a cross join is used.
The manual attribute linking can be done as shown in the images below:
2. Browse the file to match the existing data and select continue:
3. Set the attribute forms if need, MicroStrategy will automatically assign the detected ones:
4. The attributes can be mapped manually by selecting “Link to Project Attribute”
5. Select the attribute form that matches the desired join:
6. The attribute should appear similar to the ones existing in the schema as shown
7. Save the recently created dataset:
8. Now there are two cubes used as datasets in the same Visual Insight dashboard, as shown:
Automatic Linking -The attributes icons have a blue link, as shown below. This indicates that MicroStrategy has automatically linked them to elements in the Information dataset.
Ref: KB Site
I would strongly advice my bloggers to watch below link YOUTUBE video – which talks more and more about Visual Insight in 9.4.1 & thanks for reading till the end of the post 😉
Visual Insight 9.4.1 based on the new MicroStrategy Analytics Platform
Wishing all southern part of India – Happy Pongal & Makara Sankranthi !!
Have a Good Day!!