Customer Application Upgrade

Definitions
Attribute – MicroStrategy schema objects that represent information about your business. They provide additional context to your reporting, allowing your users to understand the values of facts and metrics across various parameters.
Derived Attribute – A derived attribute is an attribute whose values are calculated from other attributes.
Linked Attributes – Attributes that have a custom link configured (hyperlink, link to report etc.)
MicroStrategy - BI/Reporting tool.
MicroStrategy Dossiers - An interactive display that you can create to showcase and explore business data.
MicroStrategy Document (Document/Dashboard) - Contains objects representing data coming from one or more MicroStrategy reports, as well as images and shapes. Documents can appear in almost as many ways and are generally formatted to suit your business needs, in a single display of presentation quality.
Information Window – MicroStrategy Document’s version of a pop-up window (which can also be filtered on).
Visualization Filters - A visualization such as a bar chart, grid etc. can be utilized to filter other visualization by being targeted to a particular visualization
Targeting - A way in MicroStrategy to set up and apply filters or visualization filters to filter on visualizations.

Outcome
Converted the customer facing application (End users can access both via web and mobile [iPad]) from solely Web based to a MicroStrategy and Web hybrid. This improved application performance by an average of 29%. This proved beneficial especially during a season peak where there are many active sessions (sessions were no longer directly hitting the database).

Business Value

Improved application performance for customers and field during peak season.
Database is no longer being accessed directly.
Year-end updates are easier to implement (less lead time).
Improved overall functionality (less clicks).

Role in Project
As a MicroStrategy Developer I performed/assisted in the following tasks:

Tasks Performed: Designed the front end of the dashboard and navigation (stitched dashboard). Created derived metrics as needed. Provided solutions to UX/UI challenges. Created functionality documentation, data dictionaries and development documentation.

Worked with my Team to: Provide feedback on data design challenges (metric/attribute/dataset design). Unit Testing and to assist users in UAT sessions.

Business Needs

Improve performance during peak season (in which there are increased sessions).
Convert the existing application from web based to either 100% MicroStrategy or a MicroStrategy/Web Hybrid (80% MSTR 20% Web).
Make sure the business and customers are not losing any existing functionality (exporting, navigation etc.)

Assessment and Solutions Implemented – Handshake Process

Assessment was performed and functionality was broken out by components then determined if it could be handled entirely within MicroStrategy or will need to perform a handshake process with web.

Search Functionality

Previous Functionality

The ability to search by:
- Zip code
- Alignment
- Customer Name
- Customer Number

Solution Implemented

It was determined that the search functionality would remain within Web, the customer number selected will be passed from Web to MicroStrategy which would then run the MicroStrategy Document (prompted dashboard).
Handshake: Web to MSTR

Application Page Navigation
Previous Functionality
Navigation was entirely vertical with expand and collapse functionality.

Solution Implemented
MicroStrategy does not have this specific functionality available, the existing navigation had to be slightly modified to be made adaptable within MicroStrategy. The Splash Page still has the same navigation within a vertical format but instead of expanding to reveal subpages within the same page, the button was designed to navigate the user to the page selected. Navigation to other pages and any subpages would then appear as a separate page in a horizontal format. Customer Number initially selected within the Search Functionality will be passed to each page the user navigates to in the application.

Hyperlinks
Previous Functionality
Certain pages contained links within the datasets that would redirect to either invoices or customer groups etc.

Solution Implemented
The redirection links for invoices and customer group are still hosted via web. In MicroStrategy we were able to create a derived attribute link (linked attribute) via MicroStrategy Dossier. This object is a derived attribute with a hyperlink embedded within the attribute. The hyperlink was provided by Web and would redirect the user accordingly. The Dossier in which this derived attribute was created was then imported within the document, By importing the dossier this incorporated the derived attribute within the dataset even after the dossier imported was removed. This in turn replicated the same functionality as the existing application for the end user.
Handshake: MSTR to Web

Customer Instruction Flag
Previous Existing Functionality
Some customers have a list of instructions presented within the application. Not every customer has these instructions and there is a flag indicating if a customer contains these instructions or not. If a customer has these instructions a textbox would expand out and reveal these instructions.

Solution Implemented
MicroStrategy was able to replicate this flag indication but the expand collapse functionality needed to be modified slightly since that feature is not available within MicroStrategy document. A solution to adapt this functionality was to implement an information window (pop up window). If a user has these instructions, they will display in this window when clicked if there are no instructions then a "No Information" message would appear.

Export/Email Functionality

Previous Functionality

Certain pages within the previous application included an email/share/print button. The email functionality sends PDF export to the user via email. The share button allowed the user to export to applicable pages to PDF. The print button could either print or export (Print to PDF) the applicable pages to a PDF

Solution Implemented

The email and Share functionality could not be automated within MicroStrategy, the work around provided to the business for these functionalities were:

Email
- Export the file then attach in an email and send accordingly (email app will not populate by default).

Share/Print
- The Print (Print/Print to PDF) option is feasible within MicroStrategy and was implemented.
- In MicroStrategy, Documents specifically for PDF exports were created. This is a Document that is configured to automatically export to PDF when executed. A prompt is included in the dataset of this document in order to pass customer parameters when executed (“exported’) from the application (via link). These types of documents were created for each page that required a PDF export (total of 4 documents).

Seasonal Product Shipping Status
Previous Functionality
Products that are seasonal had a specific section to track the shipping status of each order created. There was a section for the current year and previous year. These pages in the previous functionality required a lot of back and forth to view each order.

Solution Implemented
When recreated within a MicroStrategy Document we condensed everything within one page reducing the back-and-forth navigation the user initially had to do to view each order.

Summary of products created (finished products)

A total of 20 MicroStrategy Documents needed to be created and stitched/linked but from the end user’s perspective the experience is seamless. Below is the breakdown/outline of the documents created as part of the project:

8 documents via web
8 documents via mobile (iPad)
4 PDF documents (PDF Exports these are utilized for both web and mobile)

Business Value

Business Needs

Improve performance during peak season (in which there are increased sessions).

Convert the existing application from web based to either 100% MicroStrategy or a MicroStrategy/Web Hybrid (80% MSTR 20% Web).

Make sure the business and customers are not losing any existing functionality (exporting, navigation etc.)

Assessment and Solutions Implemented – Handshake Process

Assessment was performed and functionality was broken out by components then determined if it could be handled entirely within MicroStrategy or will need to perform a handshake process with web.

Search Functionality

Previous Functionality

The ability to search by:

Zip code

Alignment

Customer Name

Customer Number

Solution Implemented

It was determined that the search functionality would remain within Web, the customer number selected will be passed from Web to MicroStrategy which would then run the MicroStrategy Document (prompted dashboard).

Handshake: Web to MSTR

Export/Email Functionality

Previous Functionality

Solution Implemented

The email and Share functionality could not be automated within MicroStrategy, the work around provided to the business for these functionalities were:

Email

Export the file then attach in an email and send accordingly (email app will not populate by default).

Share/Print

The Print (Print/Print to PDF) option is feasible within MicroStrategy and was implemented.

Summary of products created (finished products)

A total of 20 MicroStrategy Documents needed to be created and stitched/linked but from the end user’s perspective the experience is seamless. Below is the breakdown/outline of the documents created as part of the project:

8 documents via web

8 documents via mobile (iPad)

4 PDF documents (PDF Exports these are utilized for both web and mobile)