A MicroStrategy Report Services document contains objects representing data coming from one or more reports, as well as positioning and formatting information. It is used to format data from multiple reports in a single display of presentation quality. When you create a document, you can specify the data that appears, control the layout, formatting, grouping, and subtotaling of data, and specify the position of page breaks. In addition, you can insert pictures and draw borders in the document.
Most of the data on a document is from an underlying dataset. A dataset is a MicroStrategy report that defines the information that the Intelligence Server retrieves from your data warehouse or cache.
For a complete introduction to documents, with images, examples, and tutorials based on MicroStrategy Desktop, see the MicroStrategy Report Services Document Creation Guide.
You can deploy out-of-the-box documents to your project by reconciling the documents’ content to your own project objects. For example, you can use a document or dashboard from the MicroStrategy Tutorial project or any of the Analytical Modules in your own project. To do this, you use the portable documents feature. A portable document contains all the design of the document without the data, allowing you to copy documents between projects, even when the projects do not have the same metadata. When you import the document into the replacement project, you map the document to the new project (referred to as reconciling the document). For instructions on creating and reconciling portable documents, see the Advanced Documents chapter of the MicroStrategy Document Creation Guide.
If you are new to designing documents, see Best practices: Designing effective documents.
The information for documents in this online help assumes that you understand how to create reports. For information on reports, see About reports and Overview and checklist to create a report.
A MicroStrategy Report Services product license.
To create documents, you must have document designer privileges.
You can create a document in any of the following ways:
From scratch: Create a document from start to finish, by selecting the data to be included and formatting the document. Documents use datasets (or MicroStrategy reports) as sources of data on the documents.
From a template: You can use another document as a template, which allows you to pattern the new document after an existing one. The same dataset, controls, formatting, and layout as the original are used in the new document. You can add to or modify the document after it is created.
From a report: You can start with a MicroStrategy report, and use the report as the document's primary dataset. The report is added to a new document as a Grid/Graph in the Detail Header section of the document.
After you add controls, you can specify how they are formatted and displayed:
Some control types provide interactivity and visually intuitive graphic images. These controls include panels, panel stacks, selectors, and widgets. These controls are most commonly used on dashboards. For examples of dashboards and these controls, and steps to create them, see Designing dynamic enterprise dashboards.
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