76. How long does it take to get Microstrategy Desktop up and running?
Microstrategy Desktop installs in minutes and automatically presents a list of available Microstrategy Intelligence Servers. Within an hour, the installation and setup are completed.
77. How does Microstrategy Desktop integrate with the rest of the Microstrategy platform?
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.
78. What security is provided with Microstrategy Desktop?
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.
79. To what extend can Microstrategy Desktop be personalized?
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.
80. Is the Microstrategy MDX engine certified by SAP?
Yes. This new Dynamic MDX Engine generates optimized MDX syntax that is fully certified with SAP BW using SAP's high performance BAPI interfaces.
81. Can users join data across SAP BW Info Cubes and Query Cubes?
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.
82. Can Microstrategy Desktop join data across heterogeneous data sources?
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
83. Does Microstrategy provide predictive modeling capabilities commonly available in data mining tools?
Yes. Microstrategy 8 can calculate four of the primary data mining functions including neural network algorithms, clustering algorithms, regression algorithms, and tree algorithms.
84. Can Microstrategy incorporate best-of-breed data mining insight into mainstream business reports and analysis?
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.
85. Can Microstrategy Desktop export data to other software applications?
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.
86. What data sources does Microstrategy Desktop support?
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.
87. To save time, can many reports be run at the same time?
Microstrategy Desktop can execute multiple reports simultaneously. Report results are saved in a personal History folder when ready.
88. Can reports be executed in off-peak periods?
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.
89. What is Microstrategy OLAP Services?
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 multi-dimensional OLAP analysis within Intelligent Cubes, while retaining users' ability to seamlessly drill through to the full breadth and depth of the data warehouse.
90. What are the Intelligent Cubes used by OLAP Services?
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.