Share

Página Principal > Productos > User Interfaces: Office > MicroStrategy Office FAQs

MicroStrategy Office™

Features | Benefits | FAQs

MicroStrategy Office™ Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is MicroStrategy Office?
  2. What can a user do with MicroStrategy Office?
  3. Who could use MicroStrategy Office?
  4. What are the business benefits of using MicroStrategy Office?
  5. What kind of information can users access with MicroStrategy Office?
  6. How can I build these scorecards or presentations through MicroStrategy Office?
  7. How do users make reports and documents look professional?
  8. How does MicroStrategy Office integrate with the rest of the MicroStrategy platform?
  9. How does MicroStrategy Office integrate with my system?
  10. What do users need to access MicroStrategy Office?
  11. What is the recommended hardware configuration for my Web Server to run MicroStrategy Office?
  12. How does MicroStrategy Office provide a secure environment?
  13. Can MicroStrategy Office be centrally administered?
  14. How long does it take to learn MicroStrategy Office?
  15. What printing capabilities are available in MicroStrategy Office?
  16. What exporting capabilities are available in MicroStrategy Office?
  17. What types of graphing capabilities are available in MicroStrategy Office?
  18. How many users can access the MicroStrategy Office at the same time?
  19. Can MicroStrategy Office display multiple tables, images and other information on the same page?
  20. To what extent can MicroStrategy Office be personalized?
  21. Does MicroStrategy Office require the MicroStrategy 7.5 product release & Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)?
  22. What version of Microsoft® Office is required to run MicroStrategy Office?
  23. Will this release of MicroStrategy Office support Microsoft Outlook?
  24. Does MicroStrategy Office integrate with Microsoft Access?
  25. Does MicroStrategy Office support prompts?
  26. How can MicroStrategy Office reports be distributed to business users?
  27. How does the Excel formatting get applied? If I change the formatting on a MicroStrategy report in Excel, is that formatting retained?
  28. Can the formatting and style be the same for all of the MicroStrategy reports?
  29. How do I know when the data was last refreshed?
  30. How is my metadata and project performance affected?
  31. Can reports from different projects and/or Intelligence Servers be included in the same Office document?
  32. What operations are available from MicroStrategy Office Smart Tags?
  33. Does MicroStrategy Office support off-line analysis?
  34. What are the pivot table and pivot chart capabilities in MicroStrategy Office?
  35. What happens to the Excel, PowerPoint, or Word document, if the report in the metadata is changed? How does MicroStrategy handle this? Do I need to distribute a new workbook to my users?
  36. What programming languages does the MicroStrategy Office API support?
  37. What are the licensing requirements for the MicroStrategy Office API?
  38. I hope MicroStrategy has kept Excel, Word, and PowerPoint the same?
  39. Can I schedule MicroStrategy Office reports to be run automatically?
  40. Can I set the Office document to refresh automatically on opening?
  41. How can I get an evaluation copy of MicroStrategy Office?
  42. Can I see a demo or presentation of MicroStrategy Office?

1. What is MicroStrategy Office?
 MicroStrategy Office brings secure and scalable Business Intelligence to Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft PowerPoint®.

2. What can a user do with MicroStrategy Office?
Users can easily access all their reports, dashboards and scorecards for interactive analysis in Excel, or for great PowerPoint presentations rich with reliable charts and graphs. They can also edit the information and can save, print and export these reports just as they would any other Microsoft Office document.

3. Who could use MicroStrategy Office?
All company employees and business partners who use Microsoft Office can use MicroStrategy Office to easily access reports, dashboards and scorecards, with full security controls.

4. What are the business benefits of using MicroStrategy Office?
Your Sales force can be more effective and informed with customers by having the reports, dashboards and scorecards they need in a presentation personalized to that customer. Business Unit Managers can analyze their performance, and easily and securely share information with their teams. MicroStrategy Office allows companies to distribute information to their employees and partners quickly and cost effectively. As a result, these employees and partners will have the information they need to improve processes and revenues, significantly impacting the bottom line.

5. What kind of information can users access with MicroStrategy Office?
Users can access any corporate information in the data warehouse; both summary and detailed level information depending on their security profile.

6. How can I build these scorecards or presentations through MicroStrategy Office?
You use Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft PowerPoint, or Microsoft Word. You don't have to learn a BI tool. When you have the data you need, you can format the report.

7. How do users make reports and documents look professional?
All MicroStrategy formatting in the reports, dashboards and scorecards appears natively in the Microsoft Office documents. If more formatting is required, Microsoft Office provide a range of suitable capabilities.

8. How does MicroStrategy Office integrate with the rest of the MicroStrategy platform?
MicroStrategy Office is a integrated part of the MicroStrategy platform. MicroStrategy Office sends requests via Web Services to the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and in return receives appropriate reports, dashboards and scorecards.

9. How does MicroStrategy Office integrate with my system?
MicroStrategy Office can integrate with the existing security model such as Windows® or LDAP authentication.

10. What do users need to access MicroStrategy Office?
Users only need to have the tiny MicroStrategy Office add-in to Microsoft Office. This is typically done as a silent install.

11. What is the recommended hardware configuration for my Web Server to run MicroStrategy Office?
The recommended hardware configuration for a Web Server is a PC compatible with a 2 GHz Pentium Processor or equivalent with 1 GB of RAM and 200 MB of available hard drive space.

12. How does MicroStrategy Office provide a secure environment?
Security experts recommend double firewalls for higher security. MicroStrategy supports this architecture to protect corporate data from external attacks.

13. Can MicroStrategy Office be centrally administered? Yes, since MicroStrategy 9 deployments can be centrally administered and configured as part of MicroStrategy Web Services.

14. How long does it take to learn MicroStrategy Office?
Most users are already familiar with Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. The idea here is to keep users working efficiently in the interface with which they are most familiar.

15. What printing capabilities are available in MicroStrategy Office?
MicroStrategy Office prints as part of Microsoft Office.

16. What exporting capabilities are available in MicroStrategy Office?
Users can export their reports just as they would do any other Microsoft Office Document. The reports can then be integrated into larger documents or used into different applications.

17. What types of graphing capabilities are available in MicroStrategy Office?
MicroStrategy Office offers all the major graphing capabilities available in Microsoft Office. The MicroStrategy platform additionally provides Interactive Dashboard Visualizations that go beyond Microsoft Office capabilities.

18. How many users can access the MicroStrategy Office at the same time?
MicroStrategy Office is built upon a highly scalable architecture. We have shown in internal testing that MicroStrategy Office can easily accommodate many thousands of users through the Web Services architecture.

19. Can MicroStrategy Office display multiple tables, images and other information on the same page?
Yes. A Microsoft Office document contains pictures, Internet hyperlinks, text, charts and tables. Users have complete freedom to create and design the document that they need.

20. To what extent can MicroStrategy Office be personalized?
Each MicroStrategy Office user has a unique security profile. Access to some application functionality, or specific reports and data can be defined on a per user basis. The MicroStrategy Office pages will adapt and display only what each user is allowed to see. Since the release of MicroStrategy 9, MicroStrategy Office has centrally configurable deployment.

21. Does MicroStrategy Office require the MicroStrategy product release and Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)?
MicroStrategy Office requires MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and uses MicroStrategy Web Services powered by Microsoft IIS and the .NET framework.

22. What version of Microsoft Office is required to run MicroStrategy Office?
MicroStrategy Office is certified with Microsoft Office XP, 2003, and 2007.

23. Will this release of MicroStrategy Office support Microsoft Outlook?
Configuring Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor enables support for Microsoft Office.

24. Does MicroStrategy Office integrate with Microsoft Access?
MicroStrategy Reports run and export to Microsoft Access as Data Mart Reports, with no need for MicroStrategy Office.

25. Does MicroStrategy Office support prompts?
Yes. MicroStrategy Office supports prompts in two ways. MicroStrategy Office can natively display the prompt dialog allowing user selection of prompt answers and defaults. MicroStrategy Office has configuration options to allow prompt answer re-use and sharing. Additionally, users may load predefined elements prompt answers directly from files (text or .CSV formatted).

26. How can MicroStrategy Office reports be distributed to business users?
To distribute MicroStrategy Office reports run in Excel, PowerPoint, or Word, users can save these files and then they send them to other users. With the MicroStrategy Office client installed, these other users can simply open up these files and refresh them. These user's security profiles will be applied ensuring that they are only able to see the data to which they have access.

27. How does the Excel formatting get applied? If I change the formatting on a MicroStrategy report in Excel, is that formatting retained?
Users can choose to run MicroStrategy reports through MicroStrategy Office with inherited report formatting or without formatting. Users can choose to add additional rows and columns on the right or bottom of the report and this formatting will be persisted when the workbook is refreshed. Even direct changes made to the cells on the MicroStrategy report will be persisted when refreshed.

28. Can the formatting and style be the same for all of the MicroStrategy reports?
Yes. When a report is run in MicroStrategy Office, it will inherit the user-defined report formatting. Users can define all of their MicroStrategy reports to use the same auto style through MicroStrategy Desktop. Similarly, users can choose the default formatting to be applied to Excel charts.

29. How do I know when the data was last refreshed?
In the MicroStrategy Office client users click on the "Reports" button to see the last refresh date and time.

30. How is my metadata and project performance affected?
Your metadata is secure and protected. Users have safe and controlled access are not allowed to modify your metadata, or to drill outside a report.

31. Can reports from different projects and/or Intelligence Servers be included in the same Office document?
Yes. MicroStrategy Office can include reports from many sources in one Microsoft Office document.

32. What operations are available from MicroStrategy Office Smart Tags?
When running Microsoft Office XP or higher, MicroStrategy Office Smart Tags recognize MicroStrategy projects and reports and provide right-mouse click access directly in the text of a Microsoft Office document.

33. Does MicroStrategy Office support off-line analysis?
MicroStrategy Office supports off-line analysis in multiple ways. A. Report execution can populate PivotTables that may be manipulated - pivoted, filtered, drilled, etc. B. Entire Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations or individual reports may be automatically refreshed from the data warehouse or from the History List when reconnected to the network.

34. What are the pivot table and pivot chart capabilities in MicroStrategy Office?
Users can run reports directly to a pivot table or pivot chart. Your report inherits all of the native Excel functionality. The report is run and then automatically converted to a pivot table or chart.

35. What happens to the Excel, PowerPoint, or Word document, if the report in the metadata is changed? How does MicroStrategy handle this? Do I need to distribute a new workbook to my users?
Just click refresh. There is always a link between the workbook and the MicroStrategy report definition. This means that users will only need to click on the "refresh" button to get the latest data.

36. What programming languages does the MicroStrategy Office API support?
The MicroStrategy Office API can be called from Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) embedded in Microsoft Office documents or any language that supports calling methods via COM; for example Visual Basic, Visual Basic .NET, C# .NET, etc.

37. What are the licensing requirements for the MicroStrategy Office API?
The MicroStrategy Office API is part of the MicroStrategy SDK. An SDK license is required for each developer. A MicroStrategy Office license is also required for each end user of the custom Microsoft Office application.

38. I hope MicroStrategy has kept Excel, Word, and PowerPoint the same?
Of course. MicroStrategy Office works within Microsoft Office. Not one characteristic has been touched. That work is the domain of Microsoft.

39. Can I schedule MicroStrategy Office reports to be run automatically?
Yes. MicroStrategy reports can be scheduled through MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. These reports will be cached and MicroStrategy Office will be able to retrieve these cached reports. Excel, PowerPoint, and Word documents cannot be automatically refreshed on a schedule basis. Users will need to click on the refresh button to refresh the document.

40. Can I set the Office document to refresh automatically on opening?
Yes. This is simply a customization of your spreadsheet that calls the refresh function in MicroStrategy Office. It is very standard and straightforward Excel customization.

41. How can I get an evaluation copy of MicroStrategy Office?
For a free evaluation copy of MicroStrategy Office, please visit our web site at http://www.microstrategy.com/FreeEvalCD.

42. Can I see a demo or presentation of MicroStrategy Office?
For a demonstration of MicroStrategy, please visit our online web seminars or contact your account team.