MicroStrategy CTO Newsletter Spring 2022
Dear MicroStrategy Customer,
We’ve started 2022 with renewed energy and excitement surrounding a phenomenal line-up of new product features. With our most successful MicroStrategy World conference to date, we saw over 8.7k total attendees tune in globally to watch our signature keynotes and technical sessions. More importantly, our teams had the chance to speak with many of you individually to dive into specific use cases and understand what you want to see from the product moving forward.
That’s where the story for this year starts.
We need to enable organizations to build seamless, scalable applications at a faster pace — whether standalone or embedded. And we need products that offer improved efficiency to allow you to spend more time on what matters: the data insights. With a mission of providing our customers with an entirely revamped mindset for modern design, we’ve introduced a simple, no-code development option that is next level.
Enter: Applications.
And we’re talking about a new generation of application — based on a strong MicroStrategy Library foundation. Built strategically to enable customized data portals for a variety of user groups, the concept of applications brings an impressive competitive edge to our platform. Teams can build one app for employees using iPads on the sales floor, and another for finance executives in headquarters. We’ve equipped you with the solution you need to create siloed experiences based on requirements — all with less hassle and lower maintenance costs.
Alongside dossier innovation and strategic steps forward for Workstation, administrators and app designers alike can creatively transform a dossier canvas into an entirely immersive data viewing experience. With use of free form layout, creative navigation workflows, and information windows for contextual insights, a dossier, in and of itself, can stand alone to serve as a centralized hub of analytics. To ensure applications are ready for all use cases, we’ve also provided security controls to grant limited access and login as well as full embedding functionality for extended options.
Our teams have remained focused on this mission, propelling considerable ingenuity forward. We’re proud to announce that the latest release of MicroStrategy is now available on MicroStrategy Cloud, as well as for download to on-prem environments. This release contains enhancements to the latest version of our platform. Let me share some of the highlights, starting with what’s new for applications:
Applications
As promised, we’ve continued investment in the custom application framework for MicroStrategy Library. Applications are a great way to brand the Library experience for a specific team segment or an embedded instance on a website. This modern spin on applications revolutionizes the way users view and analyze data, providing users with their own unique world of analytics:
• Administrators can now create enterprise-ready Content Groups and assign them to specific groups of users to view and interact with automatically on the home page of MicroStrategy Library. These default content groups can be viewed by end users in the sidebar menu of all Library clients, including mobile.
• Define Content Groups in a custom application to lock and limit content that can be viewed or accessed by users upon login to that specific application.
• Note that these new Content Groups are MicroStrategy objects that can be migrated between environments.
• Accessibility improvements to MicroStrategy Library and dossiers.
Dossiers
Today, dossiers are more flexible and versatile than ever — and it’s about to get even better:
• With MicroStrategy 2021 Update 5, easily display and compare one or more key metrics on a scale using thresholds with the new Gauge visualization ready to add to the canvas.
• Dossier authors can now strategically lock specific filter selections into place in authoring to disable interactions in the filter panel of MicroStrategy Library.
• Use the new option for vertical scrolling that allows authors to expand the canvas while retaining the existing content dimensions previously created. This allows users to easily continue creative design on app-like dossiers. Watch the video below to see this feature in action!
• Design innovative, pop-up information windows with a close button to allow end users to more easily return to the main dossier canvas. This new option is useful for full screen information window use cases.
• Updated Waterfall chart settings dynamically color the start point according to increase or decrease for enhanced precision.
• Enhanced custom visualization framework that enables tagging of custom visualizations to their relevant gallery section for easier navigation. With 2021 Update 5, the visualization gallery also provides an all-new KPI section.
• Experience enhanced accessibility in zoom controls for maps and other visualization controls for consumption workflows.
Yes, applications may be the main character of the story this quarter, but let’s not forget this release also includes an impressive set of enhancements across our other products.
Check it out:
Workstation and Administration
We have integrated new capabilities for architects to manage and model their data more effectively, extending what users can do in Workstation. We’ve also added a great line-up of valuable features tailored for the administrators, providing new workflows to improve platform management.
For the Architects, we’ve introduced a few additions you don’t want to miss:
• Create and edit custom groups in Workstation. This allows architects to create groupings of data elements without modifying the original data source. This functionality is available directly from Workstation and with APIs.
• Create custom-based transformations to provide details for time periods such as Last Year, Month to Date, and others. Available directly from Workstation and with APIs.
• View, create, and edit shortcut objects for quick access to objects.
• Experience the power and speed of in-memory data with your attributes, filters, metrics, and other objects by creating Intelligent Cubes directly in Workstation.
For the Administrators, notice a new user editor and even a new subscription type:
• With the new user editor in Workstation in MicroStrategy 2021 Update 5, easily configure delivery addresses and project privileges.
• Monitor object changes through the change journal. The change journal is now integrated directly in Workstation and supported with APIs.
• Configure log levels for Library and Server to better manage the platform.
• Send content directly to a user’s history list repository with History List subscriptions now available. All new in Workstation and supported with APIs.
• Use two new Python modules that support schema management and user hierarchy creation for enhanced automation capabilities.
Embedded
To ensure seamless app integration with customer portals and provide enhanced flexibility for building with MicroStrategy, we continue to add new features to our Embedding SDK:
• New in MicroStrategy 2021 Update 5, we released new REST APIs to enable
administrators or developers to programmatically create and edit standalone metrics, subtotals, and base formulas in the semantic layer.
Data Gateways
• Note continued investment to improve performance for our Platinum and Diamond Gateways. In this release, we’ve delivered push down for the frequently used Case and CaseV functions for SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Redshift, MySQL, BigQuery, Impala, Hive and SparkSQL.
Mobile
The mobile experience is at the center of MicroStrategy’s product suite, allowing users to view data in a portable form. Mobile analytics is critical across multiple industries and use cases, including retail and healthcare. We continue to certify and update our applications to ensure top
performance:
• Certification with MobileIron to support iOS 11.3.4 and Xcode 13.1.
• Certification with BlackBerry Dynamics to support iOS 11.3.4 and Xcode 13.1.
• With MicroStrategy 2021 Update 5, we support app bundle format for app compilation for Library Android SDK. To learn more about Library Android and App Bundles, read more here.
Cloud
Finally, we’ve seen many of our customers successfully move to our fast, flexible, and scalable architecture. Alongside resources to easily manage and monitor, there’s more time to focus on the data to drive critical business decisions. Not to mention, applications on MicroStrategy Cloud are up and running in a matter of minutes. In this release, we’re continuing to expand the global reach of our Cloud deployment options:
• Deploy Azure Enterprise Environments in the UAE North Region.
• Support for Azure environments in the Switzerland North Region. Now customers in this region can select from Team, Department, or Enterprise environments.
Of course, we’re just getting started for the year. You can find full documentation including functional, performance, and security updates, on our website. For all other critical updates, please make sure to review the Support newsletter going live on March 31, 2022.
In addition to the new features mentioned here, we wanted to take time to remind you that moving forward, platform version 11.3 will serve as our long-term support line. This line will continue to have additional feature enhancements, security improvements, and performance optimizations delivered regularly through the end of 2024. If you have not upgraded to our most current software release, now is the time. Not only will you get access to the latest features listed for this release, but you’ll have a more seamless upgrade experience.
Download the latest release today from the MicroStrategy Resource Center or access MicroStrategy on AWS or Azure via the MicroStrategy Cloud Console, including one-click upgrade ready to go.
Finally, from the MicroStrategy team, we thank you again for making MicroStrategy World 2022 such a successful event. The strong partnership with our customers continues to pave the path forward for a new way of thinking about business analytics.
We look forward to continuing our story with you.
Best regards,
Tim Lang
Chief Technology Officer
