Professional Documents
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Application Designer
Application Designer
Application Designer
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Real Player and RealJukebox are included under license from Real Networks, Inc. Copyright 1999-2009. All rights
reserved.
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Contents
Application Designer Overview xix
Organization xix
Reference materials xx
Task list xx
Section I
Other considerations 37
For more information 38
Information source security 38
Defining applications with security 39
Implications for upgraded reports 45
To learn about... 46
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Contents
Contents
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Contents
Section II
Contents
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Contents
Contents
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Contents
Contents
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Section III
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Contents
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Section IV
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Contents
Example2 479
Dynamically renaming zip files in e-mail attachments 479
Syntax 479
Example 480
Other properties 480
Syntax 480
Examples 481
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Section V
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Contents
Index 527
INTRODUCTION
Application Designer
Overview
Organization
The information in this guide is divided into three main sections:
ConceptsThis section provides you with the key concepts about the
product components and features with which you are working.
InterfacesRefer to this section for interface-specific information.
This section explains the interfaces you use to develop and test services.
How do I...?This is where the procedural information is found. This
section provides the answers to the how do I? questions you might
have while using Narrowcast Server.
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Reference materials
Before you begin developing an application, you should read the
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server Getting Started Guide, which serves as
an introduction to the features and functionality of MicroStrategy
Narrowcast Server. The Getting Started Guide also provides you with the
basic terminology and information resources that can help you navigate the
software and accompanying documentation.
Task list
A task list is shown below which identifies the application design tasks for
the roles of application designer, subscription administrator, and portal
administrator.
When designing services for a new system, you perform the application
designer tasks in the appropriate order.
When setting up subscription information for a new system, you
perform the subscription administrator tasks in the appropriate order.
When setting up a subscription portal for a new system, you perform the
portal administrator tasks in the appropriate order.
You might perform additional tasks during the course of designing your
application, but the following lists the basic tasks:
Task
Application Designer:
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Service Operations
3. Test services
Service Operations
Publication Operations,
Information Object Operations
Service Operations
Task
Service Operations
Service Operations
Subscription Administrator:
4. Create, modify, delete users in the Subscription
Book
Portal Administrator:
7. Select a Portal Repository
Task list
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SECTION I
Application Designer
Concepts
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C H A PT E R
1.
Creating Services
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A service is the fundamental tool that you use to deliver information using
Narrowcast Server. A service defines some set of information that should
be delivered, how this information should be delivered, a set of users who
want to receive this information, and the schedule on which they would
like to receive it. Thus, a service is the entity that defines who should
receive content, what content they should receive, how they should receive
it, and when they should receive it. When you define a service you
therefore answer these same questions. The Service Wizard is the
recommended way to create services. It should satisfy your needs for most
application design requirements. The Service Wizard guides you through
the process of designing a service by having you define:
by which delivery methods a service should be delivered, such as email, wireless, and over the Web
the content that should be delivered, such as an HTML e-mail with
several reports or a wireless plain text service for a wireless service
the recipients who should receive this information and their preferences
the schedule on which the information should be delivered
The following sections cover each of these topics in greater detail.
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Publications
Each delivery method is supported by a single publication, which specifies
the content to be delivered. Since each delivery method corresponds to an
information transmitter, each publication is in turn created for a single
information transmitter. It is the information transmitter for a publication
that specifies which content sections the publication provides to the
application designer and which types of content each section can accept.
For example, the E-mail (SMTP) information transmitter informs
publications for the E-mail (SMTP) delivery method that a message
subject, message body, and a section for attachments should be provided.
The E-mail (SMTP) information transmitter also dictates that the subject
can only accept one text document, while the attachments section can
accept any number of documents of any type. Other information
transmitters specify their own content sections and their own rules for what
types of content these sections can accept.
In addition to this role of containing message content, publications also
specify the locales and devices the publication supports. As discussed in
chapter 8, Supporting Diverse User Populations, locales specify the
regional characteristics of messages while devices control how messages
are formatted for end user devices. When creating services using the
Service Wizard, all of this functionality might not be immediately
apparent. This is because the Service Wizard is designed to guide you
through a streamlined application design process. For example, when you
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Go to first
publication
Go to next
publication
Publication
supports user's
device?
no
yes
Publication
supports user's
locale?
yes
More
publications?
no
Go to first
publication
no
Go to next
publication
yes
Publication is used to
determine service
content for user
Publication
supports user's
device?
no
End
More
publications?
yes
Publication
supports user's
system locale?
yes
no
no
Subscription not
supported by service
definition. No
message generated.
End
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sections.
Content sections noted as advanced are sections that are not needed for
basic applications, but can provide additional power and flexibility for
advanced applications. These sections are typically execution control
documents that provide additional flexibility to control how messages are
delivered. For example, the contents of a MicroStrategy report can be used
to dynamically control the sender that appears in e-mail messages sent by
Narrowcast Server. The properties that are controlled by execution control
documents vary from one information transmitter to the next. For more
information on execution control documents for the e-mail and wireless
(SMTP) information transmitters, see appendix A, E-mail and Wireless
(SMTP) ITM Execution Control Documents. For more information on
execution control documents for the File information transmitter, see
appendix B., File ITM Execution Control Documents. For more
information on execution control documents for the SMS (SMPP)
information transmitter, see appendix C., SMS (SMPP) ITM Execution
Control Documents.
In addition, for the Wireless (SMTP) information transmitter, an HTML
message body section is also provided as an advanced content section. This
is for advanced devices that support HTML content. For the e-mail
(SMTP) information transmitter, a text message body section is also
provided as an advanced content section. If only a text message body and
no HTML message body is specified, text e-mails are delivered. If both
text and HTML message bodies are provided, a multi-part MIME message
is delivered. Multipart MIME allows one e-mail message to contain both
text and HTML bodies so that MIME-compatible e-mail clients can
display the best content type that they support. MIME is an extension to
the standard SMTP e-mail protocol that allows HTML messages,
attachments and other content beyond plain ASCII text to be sent via email.
Within each content section, error handling can be used to control whether
or not messages are sent to individual recipients if there is an error with any
documents formatted for a particular recipient. Each document within a
service can either be removed or can cause no content to be delivered to
this recipient if an error is encountered.
Note: Using specific error handling settings, you can define services with
alerting capability. For more information, refer to Error handling in this
chapter and chapter 5, Alert-Based Applications.
For the E-mail (SMTP) delivery method, you define the content by adding
documents to the following content sections:
subject
message body (HTML)
attachments: includes Excel, HTML, and text, as well as zip and other
imported files
execution control (advanced): overrides the default information
transmitter settings; see appendix A.: E-mail and Wireless (SMTP) ITM
Execution Control Documents for more information
message body (text) (advanced)
Wireless (SMTP) delivery method
For the Wireless (SMTP) delivery method, the following content sections
hold the service content:
subject
message body (text)
attachments: includes Excel, HTML, and text, as well as zip and other
imported files
execution control (advanced): overrides the default information
transmitter settings; see appendix A.: E-mail and Wireless (SMTP) ITM
Execution Control Documents for more information
message body (HTML) (advanced)
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For the Print delivery method, the following content sections hold the
service content:
cover page: allows one or more text or HTML documents; these are
printed first in the order they appear in the interface
documents: requires at least one text, PDF, imported, or HTML
document; these are printed second in the order they appear in the
interface
File delivery method
For the File delivery method, the following content sections hold the
service content:
saved documents: requires at least one document of any type; one or
more are allowed
execution control (advanced): allows only one text document; this
document is optional; see appendix B.: File ITM Execution Control
Documents for more information
SMS (SMPP) delivery method
For the SMS (SMPP) delivery method, the following content sections hold
the service content:
message body: required and limited to one plaintext document)
execution control document (advanced): overrides the default
information transmitter settings; this document is optional and limited
to one plaintext document; see appendix C: SMS (SMPP) ITM
Execution Control Documents for more information
Web (Portal) delivery method
For the Web (Portal) delivery method, the following content sections hold
the service content:
document body: can be one HTML or one plaintext document
attachments: can be any number and any type of documents)
link rendering style: an XSL stylesheet file that transforms ITMgenerated XSML into hyperlinks. These hyperlinks are then added to
the bottom of the HTML message body for Subscription Portal
messages. By using a different XSL stylesheet, the appearance of these
hyperlinks can be changed.
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Documents
When content sections in a service such as a subject or message body are
added for a delivery method, a document is created. Documents define the
fully-formatted content that end users receive. Documents combine static
content such as text, HTML, and static images with dynamic content such
as reports returned from MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, personalized
files, and personalized Web hyperlinks. Multiple types of documents are
available to support different types of content such as HTML, text, and
Excel. Each delivery method, such as e-mail or wireless, supports one or
more content sections such as the subject or message body of an e-mail
message. In the Service Wizard, content is defined by clicking a content
section for the desired delivery method. This opens a document editor to
define the appropriate type of content for the selected content section or
opens a dialog box so that you can select the information source containing
a MicroStrategy Desktop document to include. This process allows you to
easily create and select the appropriate documents to serve as service
content.
Note: The Service Wizard creates documents as embedded by default so
The export formats you can select in Narrowcast depend on the export
formats set while creating the document. For details to define export
formats for a document, see the Report Services Document Creation
Guide.
For more information on working with HTML, Excel, and text documents,
refer to chapter 3, Working with Documents. This chapter provides indepth information on how to create powerful, high-quality content within
Narrowcast Server as well as techniques for working with each type of
document. Also, information on how to link to MicroStrategy Desktop
documents and include them in Narrowcast Server services is provided.
An additional section on XSL stylesheets provides comprehensive
information on using XSL stylesheets with Narrowcast Server.
Both documents embedded within services and reusable documents saved
within Narrowcast Administrator can be given names to help you identify
them and remember their purpose. However, when naming documents to
be used as attachments, you need to avoid the use of characters that could
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cause an invalid file name when files are sent as attachments. Invalid
characters can cause undesired behavior in some e-mail clients. In general,
avoid using the following characters:
\
* ? < > |
Document elements
A document element consists of one or more information objects plus
error handling settings and XSL stylesheet selection. A document element
is essentially a place holder or container for one or more information
objects, which allow dynamic content to be added to a document, and for
the same formatting and error handling conditions to be applied to all
information objects within this document element. This also allows an
information object to be changed without changing the stylesheet or error
handling settings. Its ability to hold multiple information objects permits
several information objects to be merged by one XSL stylesheet. Each
information object must have the same type, such as text, XML, or HTML.
Error handling
In MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server, the error handling properties that
govern the delivery of dynamic content are defined at the document
element level, the document level, and the publication level.
Document element-level error handling
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Error handling is also available at the document formatter level for the
Excel document formatting module. No error handling is available for the
HTML or Plaintext document formatting modules. For more information,
see Excel documents in chapter 3, Working with Documents.
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Compressed documents
Delivering large documents in Narrowcast Server services can adversely
affect the speed and performance of various downstream systems and can
require large amounts of storage space. For example, this might occur
when large Microsoft Excel workbooks are delivered via e-mail, published
to the Subscription Portal, or saved to network locations.
Compressing, or zipping, documents is one way to reduce the size of files
generated by Narrowcast Server. File compression advantages include
reduced traffic across corporate networks
reduced storage in mail systems
reduced download times from the Subscription Portal
faster, more efficient transfer between mail systems and client machines
reduced database storage space requirements when storing Subscription
Portal documents in a database
Any information transmitter that can accept imported documents can send
compressed documents. This includes the E-mail (SMTP), Wireless
(SMTP), and Web (Portal) information transmitters that are provided with
Narrowcast Server. The SMS (SMPP) information transmitter, which does
not accept imported documents, also does not allow documents to be
compressed. Custom information transmitters follow the same rule: if it
accepts imported documents, it can send compressed documents.
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in which you can create users and then subscribe them to this subscription
set, if you have chosen a static subscription set. For more information on
the Subscription Book, users and addresses, or subscriptions and
subscription sets, see chapter 4, User Management.
Schedules
A schedule sets the times or frequencies a service is executed and
represents a recurrence pattern, not a fixed date on which to send the
service. For example, although you can be specific with the service start
date, for example, April 4, 2000, at 2:30 PM, it is still a recurring schedule,
most likely on a yearly recurrence. Execution intervals are calculated by
combining the start date of a service with the interval specification of a
schedule to arrive at a set of dates and times when the service runs.
All schedules are built using the standard Gregorian calendar, as opposed
to a fiscal calendar. Schedules are defined relative to time zones, to
automatically account for daylight savings time, date boundaries, and
other time zone specific issues. To allow subscribers throughout the world
to receive services at specific local times, each service can use more than
one schedule.
Since Narrowcast Server is driven by the calendar, use of other calendars,
such as merchandising calendars and fiscal calendars, must be simulated.
Similarly, holidays present disruptions in schedules which should be
handled carefully.
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Who?
(Who will receive this information?)
Subscription Set
What?
(What information will be sent?)
Publication, Document, Information Object,
Question Object
When?
(When will this information be sent?)
Schedule
Where?
(Where will the user receive the information?)
Device
How?
(How will this information be formatted?)
XSL File, Locale
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Document: A document defines the content that the recipient sees upon
viewing the service (what). Document composition can include three
types of MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server Objects: information objects,
which pull dynamic data from an information source (for example,
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server); XSL files, which format the
information objects; and a template file, which determines the initial
structure of the document (for example, a 3-sheet Excel workbook).
There are four types of documents: plaintext documents, HTML
documents, Excel documents, and imported documents. Documents are
organized within publications. To understand how and why this is the
case, consider that each publication is intended for one and only one
transmission channel such as e-mail. Thus, each publication may
contain only a certain set of documents that is valid for a particular
information transmission channel. The publication structures these
documents so that a valid message is produced for the transmission
channel. For example, a publication intended for e-mail transmission
allows a set of documents including an HTML body and a text subject.
Locale: A locale helps control message formatting (how) and determine
which subscriptions receive the publication. In the first role, locales
tailor content to suit regional preferences by controlling what
information is retrieved, how documents are formatted, and how
messages are delivered. In the second role, locales control which
subscribers receive a publication. Each publication is defined for one
specific locale. When a service is executed, each publication is only
delivered to subscribed addresses that specify the same locale. For
example, if a French and a German locale are defined, a German
publication is associated with the German locale, and a French
publication is associated with the French locale. One service can then
contain both publications. When the service is executed, French
subscribers receive the French content, and German subscribers receive
the German content.
Device: A device specifies characteristics of the receiving device
(where) to which the service content is sent and determines which
subscriptions receive the publication. A publication is defined to
support a set of devices, and a publication is only sent to user addresses
that use those supported devices. For example, one publication can
support all pagers, and another can support all PDAs. One service can
contain both publications. Upon running the service, the PDA content is
sent to PDA devices, and the pager content is sent to pager devices.
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Next steps
If you have read this chapter, you now understand how services work and
how to create them. The next logical place to go is to the next chapter,
Dynamic Content and Personalization, to learn how to add dynamic
content such as reports to your service and how to personalize users so that
each user receives content that is relevant to them. Once you complete this
chapter, you can learn more about user management options in the User
Management chapter, or explore other functionality within Narrowcast
Server in the subsequent sections.
Next steps
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Dynamic content
After reading the chapter on Creating Services, you understand that service
content is created using documents. These documents are created by
entering content such as HTML or text into an editor. This content that is
entered directly into the editor is called static content since it is not
determined at service execution time and does not change from one
recipient to the next or from one service execution to the next. However,
the true power of Narrowcast Server comes from content that is
determined at service execution time and can vary from recipient to
recipient or from execution to execution. This type of content is called
dynamic content. Like static content, dynamic content is added to
documents, but dynamic content may be personalized so that each
recipient receives information that is relevant for him. This section
provides an overview of dynamic content and how Narrowcast Server uses
Information Objects to retrieve dynamic content from external sources
such as MicroStrategy projects, database queries, or external systems.
See the following for more information:
Information objects
Other types of dynamic content
Information objects
A key feature of Narrowcast Server is the ability to gather and use
information from external sources. This information can be used for
message contents or for subscription set information. This information can
be retrieved from diverse locations such as a relational database, on the
Web, in a flat file, and so on. In Narrowcast Server information objects
play this crucial role of gathering information from external sources. An
information object is a set of instructions specifying how to get data from
an external information source.
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Segment information objects are optional and are used to return a set of
segment boundary values in a predefined format. These segment boundary
values specify the ID for the first subscription in each segment of the
subscription set for the service.
When designing a segment information object, you must assign a prompt
object to be used to control the segment size. The Information Object
Wizard restricts your options at this stage, allowing you to select only
those reports that have the correct prompt objects.
For more information on this topic, see Slicing and segmentation in
chapter 6, Page Personalization and Dynamic Subscriptions.
Information objects
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Not every document type (HTML, text, Excel) supports each information
object type. Specifically, text documents and Excel documents do not
support image information objects. However, HTML documents do
support all information object types.
When you insert a certain kind of information object (for example, a
MicroStrategy Grid report), into a document, the information object type
is automatically determined and you need not take any action other than to
follow the instructions to define the information object correctly. Thus,
you typically only need to be aware that different XSL stylesheets can be
chosen for XML information objects to change formatting, and that images
are not available in text or Excel documents.
The related information objects are listed for each document type.
Excel: MicroStrategy Grid reports, user information, subscription
information
HTML: MicroStrategy Grid and MicroStrategy Graph reports, user
information, subscription information
Imported: These are containers for imported files and do not use
information objects
Text: MicroStrategy Grid reports, user information, subscription
information
Additional kinds of information objects might be available if your system
administrator has added a different kind of information source. For
example, an ODBC information source might allow for a database query
information object. These additional information objects will only be
available in the appropriate types of documents.
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Information objects
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street address
city
state
country
zip code
custom combination (returns XML string with all user details)
In addition, you can create your own user information properties that can
be personalized by end users through the Subscription Portal and inserted
into message contents. Do this by selecting Edit User Information
Available from the Tools menu in Narrowcast Administrator. This user
information property now appears on the Insert menu in the document
editors along with all the other user information properties.
You can combine user information with data from other information
objects by inserting the desired user information into a document element
with another information object such as a MicroStrategy report and using
a stylesheet to format the combined data from both sources. You can also
combine multiple pieces of user information and format them as desired by
selecting the Custom Combination option and using stylesheets.
Subscription information
Narrowcast Server also provides the ability to insert information about the
subscription that is being processed. This is typically used for message
tracking purposes such as inserting a unique message identifier into a Web
hyperlink to track which messages have been viewed or inserting other
information such as address or subscription ID into message contents.
Another example is for use with pagers, wherein a pager company requires
that a PIN be inserted in the message subject. The format required is shown
below:
To: name@company.com
Subject: <PIN number of my pager>
The following subscription information is available by default in
Narrowcast Server:
address ID
address Display
device ID
locale ID
physical address
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PIN
subscription ID
subscription set ID
user ID
all subscription data
unique message identifier
Personalization
What is personalization?
In MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server, personalization refers to the process
of providing different content to different subscribers within the same
service execution by having information objects return content that is
tailored for each user. The use of personalization in Narrowcast Server
enables the following functionality:
Users can provide their preferences and receive only the information
that is relevant to them.
Administrators can control user access to information and prevent users
from accessing sensitive information.
Narrowcast Server can gather information from external sources using
the identity of individual users to integrate with the security features
of external systems.
Personalization can be defined either after creating an information object
or by creating and selecting a question object.
Types of personalization
In MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server, personalization of dynamic content
exists in four forms: preferences, authentication, security, and locale
selection.
Preferences allow users to define the information they want to receive.
For example, a user might specify that he wants to receive weather
information for Boston. Note that preferences can be defined at the user
level or for individual subscriptions. Preferences defined at the user
level are applied by default to all services to which the user subscribes,
while preferences defined at the subscription level can only be applied
to a specific subscription. Subscription preferences always override
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Personalization
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Atlanta user preference can be created for the Which City? question
object), but one and only one user preference is defined as the default
user preference. The default user preference specifies the preferences that
are used by default for all subscriptions defined for a user.
At the subscription level, the default user preference can be overruled by
selecting a different user preference (if more than one user preference
exists for a question object) or by defining personalization at the
subscription level called subscription preferences. Thus, user
preferences enable the reuse of a users preference decisions across
multiple subscriptions so that the same question object does not need to be
answered multiple times. Subscription preferences cannot be reused for
other subscriptions.
Advanced techniques
User and subscription preferences can be defined in their simplest form by
answering the prompts within an information object. However, in some
cases this results in a less than ideal application design.
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For example, suppose you need five reports that contain a prompt object
on region and some other prompt object. You obviously cannot reuse the
same information object since the report is not the same. However, when
users define preferences, they will be forced to answer the same which
region prompt five times.
Furthermore, suppose you create a service with an information object
prompting on region, then suppose you have your entire user population
provide preferences for this information object. Now suppose you need to
change the report to a different report which still prompts on region. You
certainly do not want to lose preferences for all your regions.
Question objects provide solutions to this kind of problem by providing an
independent template for which users can define their preferences. This
section explains how to use question objects.
Question objects
Advantages
It is important to understand why question objects exist and how they are
helpful. A question object allows the structure for providing preferences (a
set of questions) to exist without linking this structure to any one specific
information object or requiring any specific information object to exist
without changing. This is powerful because it allows users to
define preferences that can be reused across multiple information
objects
define their preferences and maintain those preferences even if an
information object changes
Personalization
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Thus, if the concept of a question object did not exist, and the structure
required for user preferences was always stored within information
objects, users would not be able to ensure their preferences were reusable
across multiple information objects or maintainable as application designs
change.
Prerequisites
For the MicroStrategy information source, whenever you select a report for
a question object, the selection is validated to ensure it will work as
intended. Messages are displayed indicating what is needed for a valid
selection and whether or not a selection is valid. If a selection is not valid,
an explanation of what is needed is shown. In this case you cannot proceed
with the question object definition until you select a valid report. See the
Question object validation section in this chapter for more information.
For more information
For more information on how preferences use question objects, see the
Personalization section in this chapter.
Other considerations
If two subscribers have the same personalization and are subscribed to the
same service, they do not necessarily receive the same content. This is
because there are two other ways to control the content that subscribers
receive. Personalization, as described above, refers to different ways to
control how information objects return information. In addition, it is also
possible to control which content users receive and thus which
information objects are executed for each subscriber. This can be done
through the use of locales and devices. Thus, five factors control what
information subscribers retrieve when a service is executed in
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server:
preference
authentication
security
locale
device
As noted above, personalization controls how information objects are
executed and is determined by a users preference, authentication, security,
and locale. Locales and devices impact the content subscribers receive
differently than preference, authentication, and security definitions.
Locales and devices control which publication is executed to deliver
content for a given subscriber and hence which information object is
executed.
This has to do with the way users describe the type of information they
want to receive and the type of information that services are designed to
provide. On the user side of the equation, each user selects one locale for
which the user wants to receive content, and each address is defined for
one device on which the user wants to receive content. In the service
Personalization
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Security can be used to limit the choices available when a user defines
his preferences. For example, if an administrator uses security to
constrain a users regional preferences to cities within the Southeast
region, when a user defines his preferences, the user can see and select
preferences for cities in the Southeast Region such as Atlanta and
Charleston, but not for San Francisco or Chicago.
Security can be used to limit the content returned by information
objects. For example, for the case above, if security is instead defined
to limit a user to see only sales for the electronics product category, a
user can select preferences for any city in any region, but if the report
returns sales broken down by both city and product category, only sales
information for the electronics product category is returned by the
information object.
Note: When defining a report in MicroStrategy Desktop to be used as an
information object or question object that supports information source
security, do not restrict the list of available elements in the prompt object
that will be used for security. On the page in the Prompt Generation
Wizard where you select how to limit element availability, select the
option to List all elements (no restriction).
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Once the security object prompt and default security object have been
selected in the information source, it is necessary to properly design
information objects and question objects, if created and used, to support
security.
The role of information objects and question objects in information object
execution
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The security object (either at the user or information source level) must
be defined for information objects that contain the security object
prompt. This ensures that it is applied whenever the information object
is executed, whether or not users define any preferences. However, the
information object must contain the security object prompt. A few
potential scenarios related to this functionality are worth considering.
For each of the scenarios below, the information object and question
object associated with this information object contain the same prompt
objects as described below.
A security object can also be used to limit the choices available to users
when they define their preferences. In other words, the security object
definition for a user can limit the choices available to the user when
element prompt objects within a question object are presented for
personalization. Thus, this can be used to limit the content that users can
request. In this case, it is not necessary to have the security object prompt
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Once the information source, information objects, and question objects are
properly defined to support security, it is necessary to set security for each
user. Do this by defining security objects for users within the Subscription
Book or Static Subscription Set Editor. Note that unlike preferences,
security can only be defined at the user level, and not at the subscription
level. Remember that security objects are only applied if they are defined
before a users preferences are defined. If users define their preferences
before a security object is defined, the security object is not applied for
these users.
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question objects, since the security object prompt is not in both the
information object and the question object, the security object is not
applied when the information object is executed. As a result, the upgraded
information object still returns the same content as the report in
MicroStrategy Broadcast Server. However, the security object for each
user can still be used to filter the choices available to the user when
defining preferences. This only occurs if the question object prompt is an
element prompt object in the same hierarchy as the security object prompt.
For services upgraded from MicroStrategy Broadcast Server that were not
personalized through MicroStrategy InfoCenter, the security object is not
applied to limit the choices available for preferences, since the question
object produced during upgrade prompts for a filter, not an attribute
element. For services upgraded from MicroStrategy Broadcast Server that
were personalized through MicroStrategy InfoCenter, upgraded services
might have the security object prompt applied to limit choices available for
preferences. This is only the case if the question object uses an attribute
element prompt object in the same hierarchy as the security object prompt.
To learn about...
...tasks involving publications, information objects, and related objects,
see the following topics in the How Do I...? section:
Information Object Operations
Publication Operations
...the editors and wizards used to create and edit publications and their
related objects, see the following topics in the Interfaces section:
Excel Document Editor
Imported Document Editor
HTML Document Editor
Import File Dialog Box
Information Object Wizard
Plaintext Document Editor
Publication Wizard
Question Object Dialog Set
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Working with
Documents
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HTML documents
Narrowcast Server allows application designers to leverage the full power
of HTML to create beautifully formatted messages with individually
personalized data and formatting. The Narrowcast Server HTML
Document Editor provides an easy-to-use HTML authoring interface that
allows you to enter text, define formatting, add images, provide
personalized user information, and insert information objects, such as
MicroStrategy reports, quickly and easily. However, HTML documents
also offer a number of advanced, more subtle features. This section
provides instructions to use Narrowcast Server to deliver high-quality, fullfeatured HTML content.
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HTML templates and for making simple changes. This mode is opened by
default unless you have added information objects that are inserted into
HTML tags and, hence, are not rendered and displayed in the Editor mode.
The second mode is the Preview mode. This mode is similar to the Editor
mode except that it shows your HTML content exactly as it will appear in
Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browsers and it does not allow you to
modify the HTML content.
The third mode is the Source mode. This mode provides direct access to
the HTML source. This mode is displayed by default if you have inserted
information objects into HTML tags such that, as a result, the information
objects can only be displayed in this mode. This mode is powerful because
it provides direct access to the source HTML and allows you to copy and
paste HTML templates that were developed in external tools or provided
by other parties such as a graphics department. In this way, complex
template files can be created in the preferred HTML authoring tool and
added to Narrowcast Server to add personalized formatting and dynamic
content.
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3.
Once this is done, edit the document elements and select the desired
XSL stylesheets and apply the desired error handling conditions.
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5.
Helpful techniques
Several techniques are discussed below.
Using tables to control the layout of information objects
within the HTML content
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Edit the HTML source and add an image link referring to the correct
file name but without any file path.
To see an example of how this works, edit a message with a MicroStrategy
Graph report using a text editor (drag Service 1a onto Notepad). Find the
image link for the Graph report (search for src) and then find the image
with the name (now converted to a long stream of letters and numbers) at
the end of the message.
Using information objects within HTML tags
For this technique, information objects are used such that the information
object results are not rendered directly as content but rather control how
the HTML functions to render content. One example of this is the use of
report data to personalize image links as discussed above and illustrated in
MicroStrategy Tutorial for Narrowcast Server Service 3b. A second
example is the use of subscription information in links to provide
recipient-level read message tracking. In this case, a unique message
identifier is inserted into an image link (or Active Server Page or Java
Server Page link) on a remote server. The inclusion of this unique message
identifier allows the Web server to determine which messages have been
opened and to log this information to a relational database where it can be
joined with recipient-level delivery status information logged using
transmission recording.
For more information on transmission recording, see Recording
transmission information in chapter 4 of the MicroStrategy Narrowcast
Server System Administrator Guide. For more information on inserting
unique message identifiers into message contents, see the MicroStrategy
Tutorial for Narrowcast Server Service 3a and the corresponding content
in the MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server Getting Started Guide.
HTML documents
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Excel documents
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server can leverage the full power of Microsoft
Excel 97 or 2000 by including Excel content within services. As with other
forms of content in Narrowcast Server, Excel workbooks are delivered
using documents. As a result, any delivery method that supports Excel
documents, such as E-mail (SMTP), Wireless (SMTP), or Web (Portal),
can deliver Excel documents. This section introduces you to the
capabilities that can be achieved using Excel workbooks in Narrowcast
Server and provides tips for getting the most out of your Excel
implementation.
Note: Thresholding and stoplighting functionality is provided in the
General strategy
To use Excel workbooks with Narrowcast Server, you should first
understand how Narrowcast Server uses them. Narrowcast Server Excel
documents first start with a template file that is created by importing an
Excel workbook from outside of Narrowcast Server. Narrowcast Server
can then insert static text or dynamic content, such as grid reports, into this
template file.
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The true power of Narrowcast Server is its ability to preserve all aspects of
the original template file while only modifying the data values and the cell
formatting on specific cells. Thus, you can generate complex, highlyformatted template files that are preserved by Narrowcast Server.
Narrowcast Server then supplies dynamic, personalized data to this
existing framework.
You can also create Excel macros that are automatically run to perform
actions on the data when the user opens the spreadsheet. Thus, an
important consideration in designing applications with Excel is what can
be defined in the template definition and what should be defined using
macros that are run when the workbook is opened. As a general rule, you
should define as much as possible in the Excel template and use macros
only to do processing that you cannot do until the actual data is inserted.
A good example of this is shown in the MicroStrategy Tutorial for
Narrowcast Server in Service 1a. If you open the Excel workbook after it
has been delivered by Service 1a (you can find the resulting message under
../Program Files/MicroStrategy/Narrowcast
Server/Delivery Engine/Tutorial/SampleMessages),
you notice that it contains a highly formatted workbook that includes
graphs, images, number formatting, cell formatting, row and column
resizing, and sheets with custom names. However, if you open the template
file before it is imported (you can find the original template file under
../Program Files/MicroStrategy/Narrowcast
Server/Delivery Engine/Tutorial//
TemplatesandStylesheets), you notice that all of this formatting,
including the graph definitions, is already present.
As a result, Narrowcast Server inserts dynamic data from the warehouse
and the workbook comes alive based on the existing template definition.
This has the advantage that no macros need to be created or tested and the
user is not prompted to run the macros.
However, in some cases, the data returned is of an unknown number of
rows or columns or you want to perform actions based on the data that you
must determine based on the data itself. In these cases, you need to use
Excel macros to perform actions once the data is in place. The remainder
of this section explains specific ways that Narrowcast Server can leverage
the power of Excel to create powerful applications.
Excel documents
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Excel Document Editor then allows you to place text or information object
data anywhere within each sheet. This can be done by assigning absolute
placement coordinates (for example, cell D11 corresponds to a row offset
of 10 and a column offset of 3) or by using relative coordinates based on
other information that has been inserted. The data that is inserted can then
be formatted using XSL stylesheets to provide complete control over each
cell including number formatting, color formatting, and so on. For
MicroStrategy reports, the report formatting defined in MicroStrategy
Desktop or MicroStrategy Web is preserved by default. However, this
formatting can be overridden by selecting a different XSL stylesheet just
as it can be for any XML information object. For more information on the
Excel Document Editor, refer to chapter 15, Excel Document Editor. For
more information on XSL stylesheets, refer to Using XSL stylesheets in
this chapter.
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Excel documents
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A hyperlink behind each of the EIS buttons enables one-click access to any
of the three available sheets. This is illustrated in the tutorial services in the
attachment in Service 1a. For example, the user would see the following
screen after clicking the Sports Equipment button:
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This table is not easy to work with because the data is not cross-tabulated,
meaning that it is not grouped in any meaningful way. Excels pivot table
functionality can be used to cross-tabulate the data in a way that makes it
understandable.
In the example below, a pivot table has been sent to the end user which
groups sales by day of week for every state and class of item. Additionally,
one or more stores can be selected from the Store drop-down list, which
then adjusts the totals within the cells to reflect sales for the selected stores.
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The end user can easily refine the pivot table by selecting those attributes
that should be used as filtering criteria. The pivot table below allows
filtering across multiple dimensions simultaneously, as determined by the
user. The key is that this method provides users access to actual data on
which they can perform any additional offline analyses they require.
However, the benefit of Excel is that, unlike in many business intelligence
interfaces, the data is provided in an extremely common easy-to-use
interface with which most end users are already familiar. This reduces
training costs and deployment times significantly.
Excel documents
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In the above example, the user is looking at the data for basketball sales at
the Greenville store, and is in the process of switching to the Greenwich
store. With pivot tables, it is easy to give the end user the ability to add or
remove levels of detail from a report and provide substantial analytical
power with minimal complexity.
Pivot tables require very little code; refer to the Excel documentation for
more information.
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Once a macro has been recorded, it can be associated with an Excel event.
While this continues the automatic chart example, the principles apply to
any situation in which macros need to be run.
Macro source code can be viewed and edited via the Tools, Macro, Visual
Basic Editor menu item in Excel. All macros are contained in module
folders, which can be opened by double-clicking them. For more
information, see the following How Do I...? topic:
Associate a macro with an event in Microsoft Excel
Creating automatically-executed macros
Excel documents
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Note: This sample code is for illustration only, and should be tailored to
This macro does not have to be run each time the workbook is opened. By
running this macro once and saving the workbook, the altered formatting
for column C is saved.
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The easiest way to achieve this is to record the action of the Chart Wizard
and then replace the Range("") command in the Source:= line with
the UsedRange command. This selects just the active data area, thereby
enabling one chart macro to accommodate varied amounts of data.
Note: This feature is available only for Excel 2002 and later.
Excel documents
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Error handling
Error handling for Excel documents is set in the following locations: the
Document Element Properties dialog box within the Excel Document
Editor, the Error Handling section of the Document Properties dialog
box, and the Excel Document Formatter. It is important to understand the
differences between the two locations in Narrowcast Administrator that
control error handling for the execution of Excel documents with dynamic
content.
Document Element Properties dialog box within the Excel
Document Editor: These settings control the execution of specific
document elements and handle errors in creating properly imported
document elements. For example, these settings apply when no data is
returned by an information object, if an information object returns an
error, or when there is a problem formatting document elements
correctly. Thus, these errors occur when creating a document element,
and apply to a specific document element but not to an entire Excel
document.
Error Handling section of the Document Properties dialog box:
These settings specify whether a collection of information objects that
fail or return no data cause the document to be cancelled. For example,
these settings apply if the selected information objects return no data or
return an error. This type of error applies to an entire Excel document
rather than a specific document element.
Excel Document Formatter: These settings control how successfully
imported document elements are inserted into an Excel document by the
Excel document formatting module. For example, these settings apply
if the Excel document could not be created because some cells fall
outside of the valid sheet area. Thus, this type of error is not specific to
an individual document element, but rather concerns the entire Excel
document.
For this reason, it is important to understand where to set error handling to
control different events. Any errors produced by XSL stylesheets, bad
XML format, errors with data returned, or with no data returned must be
set at the document element level. Any errors produced when trying to
format a document using properly imported document elements must be
set at the document formatter level.
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Text documents
Due to the nature of text content, working with text documents in
Narrowcast Server is often less involved than working with either HTML
or Excel documents. As with HTML and Excel documents, the Plaintext
Document Editor allows you to insert dynamic content such as
MicroStrategy reports or user information. However, information objects
used in text documents must be in text or XML format, since information
objects in image format, such as MicroStrategy Graph reports, are not
supported. You can also cut, copy, and paste text from within the document
editor or from other sources. This is useful, for example, if you have a text
template that you want to use as the basis for your text document.
However, other advanced functionality associated with HTML and Excel
documents, such as viewing different modes in HTML documents or
working with Excel macros, does not apply due to the nature of text
content. You should, however, ensure that the length of text messages is
less than the maximum allowable character length for the types of devices
you want to support. For example, most SMS providers and most wireless
devices allow only a very limited number of characters to be delivered.
Despite the relative simplicity of working with the Plaintext Document
Editor, it is important to understand how Narrowcast Server devices can be
used to ensure that text messages are formatted correctly for all end user
devices. Different end user devices have differing capabilities for
supporting text messages due to both the service provider delivering the
message and the capabilities of the receiving device. As a result, it is
important to format text documents so that delivered messages are
appropriate for all service providers and end user devices.
Narrowcast Server devices allow you to use grid formatting, cell padding,
and string substitution to control how text documents are formatted.
Grid formatting allows you to control both how cells in a grid are padded
and which character is used to separate table columns. Cell padding refers
to the insertion of additional characters (typically characters interpreted as
blank spaces) after report data within each cell. These characters help
ensure that columns within a table line up properly when dynamic content
of different widths is inserted into table cells. Three cell padding options
are available.
First, you can choose not to pad cells. In this case, no character is used
to pad cells and table columns do not line up unless data of the same
width is returned for all cells. This option can be useful when generating
delimited files such as comma separated values (CSV) files where the
columns do not need to line up visually.
Text documents
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Second, you can pad cells to support devices that use fixed width fonts.
Fixed width fonts are fonts, such as Courier New, that display each
character using the same width. Thus, two lines of text with the same
number of characters always has the same length regardless of the
characters used in each line. As a result, for fixed width fonts, as long
as you enable cell padding and choose a character for cell padding that
is recognized as a non-breaking space, table columns line up correctly.
Nonbreaking spaces are discussed further below. Note that the choice of
font, which determines whether fixed width or proportional fonts are
used, is controlled by the receiving device; Narrowcast Server has no
control over this choice.
Third, you can pad cells to support devices that use proportional fonts.
Proportional fonts are fonts, such as Times New Roman, that display
different characters using different widths. As a result, two lines of text
with the same number of characters cannot be guaranteed to have the
same length unless the same characters are used in each line. One way
to avoid this problem when using tabular data is by using the tab
character as the column separator. This causes each column to start at a
fixed location regardless of the width of the characters in preceding cells
in the same row.
You can also specify the width (typically in pixels) for each character
that might be shown on a device. By choosing characters that show up
as blank or similarly (for example, the underscore character) and that
have a variety of widths, you can enable Narrowcast Server to
approximately align the data in each column of grid reports. This,
combined with the use of text-registration characters such as Tab, can
ensure that the data in each cell of a column aligns correctly for a tabular
report. As the capabilities of devices differ widely, not all devices
support either text-registration or cell padding.
When using cell padding for either fixed width or proportional fonts, you
should ensure that characters used for cell padding will be interpreted as a
non-breaking spaces. The reason for this is that some receiving devices
compress repeated white space characters such as the Space character
(ASCII 32), the Carriage Return character (ASCII 13), and the Linefeed
character (ASCII 10) into a single Space character. They might also break
lines at white space characters so that table rows are continued on the next
line. To avoid these problems, ensure that the character used for cell
padding is interpreted correctly as a nonbreaking white space. Many
character sets use the character ASCII 160 as a nonbreaking space. If this
character is not interpreted correctly, and you do not know which
characters would be interpreted correctly by the intended character set,
trial and error can be used to determine which character to use as a
nonbreaking space character.
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Imported documents
Imported documents allow you to import various types of files into a
Narrowcast Server system from the Microsoft Windows file system for use
in Narrowcast Server services. These files are imported manually by the
Narrowcast Server system administrator or application designer and are
delivered as static content, which is not personalized or retrieved from
outside Narrowcast Server at the time services are executed. When
creating imported documents, it is important to correctly define the
imported file used by the imported document. First, you must set the file
type correctly so that the file is identified correctly when it is delivered by
the information transmitter. For example, for e-mail delivery, the MIME
type is determined by this setting.
You must also ensure that the correct character set is chosen when the file
is imported into the Narrowcast Server system. Files can be stored in the
Windows file system in a number of different character sets, but files are
always stored in the Narrowcast Server system using the Unicode
character set. As a result, Narrowcast Server must know from which
character set to translate the document into Unicode. You should always
select the character set that was used to create the document, which is
typically the default language for the machine on which it was created. For
the United States and most Western countries, this is the Latin1 character
set.
Imported documents
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Desktop documents
Narrowcast Server allows you to take advantage of the following fullyformatted documents created in MicroStrategy Desktop:
Report Services documents include both static items such as lines and
images, and dynamic items such as fields, columns, grids, and graphs
that make up the data of a report.
HTML documents are the standard containers in MicroStrategy
Desktop for formatting, displaying, and distributing reports on the same
page or at the same time within a project.
In Narrowcast Server, you can create links to these documents and then
include them in your services. You cannot open or modify them from
within Narrowcast Server. But you can create the links from anywhere in
Narrowcast Server that documents are created, including Narrowcast
Administrator, the Service Wizard, and the Publication Wizard. Report
Services documents, referred to as documents in Desktop, are supported in
Excel, Flash, and PDF formats, while HTML documents are in HTML
format only. These HTML documents are not the same as the HTML
documents created within Narrowcast Administrator.
Note: To make effective use of these Desktop documents, you need to
know what they contain, which can only be determined from the Desktop
interface.
The export formats you can select in Narrowcast depend on the export
formats set while creating the document. For details to define export
formats for a document, see the Report Services Document Creation
Guide.
appropriate for the document in which they are inserted. For MicroStrategy
Grid reports, a default stylesheet is automatically applied that transforms
the report XML into a grid that preserves all report formatting defined in
MicroStrategy Desktop or Web. As a result, you do not need to know how
XSL stylesheets work to use XML information objects. You simply need
to know that when you insert a grid report into an HTML or Excel
document that the report formatting appears the same as it does in
MicroStrategy Web and Desktop. However, XSL stylesheets also offer
some powerful advantages should you choose to take advantage of them.
This section discusses some of these advantages and provides the basic
tools to allow you to get started using XSL stylesheets.
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Text documents
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For systems upgraded from Narrowcast Server 7.2 and previous versions,
an option is provided during upgrade to either upgrade and use the new
default XSL stylesheets or to maintain existing versions. Existing versions
should only be maintained if you have customized these stylesheets. If you
do choose to upgrade these stylesheets, column widths are preserved by
default, and the following stylesheets are upgraded to the latest versions
and applied by default:
MSTR7ToHTML-DefaultFormatting
MSTR7ToExcel-DefaultFormatting
The original stylesheets are backed up as follows and are not applied to any
documents:
72_MSTR7ToHTML-DefaultFormatting
72_MSTR7ToExcel-DefaultFormatting
If you do not upgrade these stylesheets, column widths are not preserved
by default, and the following new stylesheets, which do preserve column
widths, are added to this system but are not applied by default:
721_MSTR7ToHTML-DefaultFormatting
721_MSTR7ToExcel-DefaultFormatting
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4.
User Management
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The login ID is a unique string that can be used to identify a user. The login
ID is displayed in the Subscription Book and Subscription Set editors and
can be used as a login for self-subscribing interfaces. Login IDs must be
unique, which makes user management easier.
Password
It is possible for users to expire. If a user has an expiration date, the user
stops receiving services after the expiration date has elapsed.
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Locale
Status includes three settings: active, inactive, and invalid. The settings
identify whether a user can receive services. If a user is inactive or invalid,
no services are sent to any addresses for this user.
Addresses
An address tells MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server how to send services to
a particular subscriber. Each address can be associated with one and only
one user, and a user can have multiple addresses. The address properties
are as follows:
Address name
Physical address
Address display
Delivery method
Device
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PIN
Status
Expiration date
Delivery window
An address is added to subscription set to create a subscription to the
chosen service.
Address name
The address name is used to identify an address for a given user. The
address name is displayed in the Subscription Book and Subscription Set
editors. Although address names do not have to be unique for a given user,
it is preferable to keep the address names unique for a given user to
facilitate administration.
Physical address
The physical address is where the service is sent when using this address.
For example, in e-mail services, this is an e-mail address such as
yourname@yourcompany.com. For SMS services, the physical address
is a mobile devices telephone number such as 44.1753.8261.00.
Address display
The address display is used when sending services to devices that support
a recipient display name. For example, in e-mail services, the address
display is what appears in the To: field, such as Last Name, First
Name. Address display is not currently used for SMS services.
Delivery method
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Status includes three settings: active, inactive, and invalid. The settings
identify whether an address can receive services. If an address is inactive
or invalid, no services are sent to this address.
Expiration date
The delivery window specifies when this address can receive messages. It
specifies the hours each day during which messages can be transmitted to
the address. The time zone specifies which international time zone should
be used as a reference for the selected times. Time zones take regional
customs such as daylight savings into account. If a service is executed
outside a recipients delivery window, the recipient does not receive a
message for the service execution.
Governing
Governing is used to restrict the number of items that are retrieved when
you open the Subscription Book. This allows Narrowcast Server to work
more efficiently when you have a large subscription book and do not want
to risk long waiting times when you open it. Governing can be set for both
users and addresses. For example, if you set a limit of 5,000 users to
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retrieve for the Subscription Book and 10,000 users are in the Subscription
Book, only the first 5,000 are retrieved. Governing can be used in
conjunction with filtering to restrict the items that are retrieved.
Subscriptions
A subscription is a request to Narrowcast Server for a user to receive a
certain service with a certain personalization and at a certain address. It is
created when a users address is subscribed to or added to a subscription
set. A user receives a particular service by subscribing to a subscription set
used by the service. Subscription data for static subscription sets is stored
in the Subscription Book.
Subscriptions have the following properties:
Status
Expiration date
Subscription Preferences
Transmission
Notification
Status
Status includes three settings: active, inactive, and invalid. The settings
identify whether a subscription can receive services. If a subscription is
inactive or invalid, no services are sent to the subscription.
Expiration date
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Subscription Preferences
When you create a file or print service, you have the option to send
notification through e-mail when the service has been delivered.
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properties of the selected column. This might be helpful so that only the
relevant data is displayed such as addresses for a certain domain or
subscriptions with certain login IDs.
For more information, see the following Interfaces topic:
Static Subscription Set Editor
Important: When static subscriptions are used with MicroStrategy
information objects executed using personalized page execution, you must
disable automatic segmentation under Advanced Options in the
information object, unless the Subscription ID in the Subscription Book
matches Subscription IDs in the MicroStrategy project. Automatic
segmentation requires that the Subscription ID returned by the
subscription set is present in the project used for the content report.
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user ID
address Display
physical Address
locale
device
PIN
delivery window
time zone
transmission properties
personalization
When you create dynamic subscription sets, an information object is
defined to return subscription information from an external source. As a
result, your job is to ensure that any required data exists in the external
source (for example, you cannot assign user devices if device information
is not in the desired source), and to map this information to the appropriate
subscription properties required by Narrowcast Server for service
execution. Since Narrowcast Server has an open architecture, any
information source can be used to return subscription information and the
application design process for mapping external information to
subscription properties will be information source-specific. When
subscription information is available in a MicroStrategy project, the
MicroStrategy information source can be used to map attribute forms in the
desired project to the subscription information used by Narrowcast Server.
To do this, edit the MicroStrategy information source for the desired
project and select the check box to support dynamic subscriptions. You can
then select an attribute form, apply a constant, or use information in the
Subscription Book for the required subscription properties. You can select
more than one item for each property, such as providing content for testing
purposes and selecting two different attribute forms for e-mail addresses
that might be applied. For more information on editing an information
source, refer to chapter 15, Information Source Wizard in the
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server System Administrator Guide.
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Tip: You can use constants for all properties other than Subscription ID;
use blank constants for Transmission Properties and PIN. Subscription ID,
User ID, and Address ID can all use the same attribute form. You should
not elect to use information in the Subscription Book unless you have
designed your Subscription Book and MicroStrategy project such that
Subscription IDs are synchronized between the two.
Once you complete this mapping, these properties are available whenever
you define a subscription information object for this information source. If
you have chosen more than one item for any property, you can choose
which item you want to use for this subscription information object. Thus,
the information source makes a group of properties available for future
use, and the subscription information object determines which items to use
for a specific subscription set. When defining the information object, you
can also select an optional filter. This filter limits the subscriptions
returned for the subscription set.
Important: When using a filter to limit the subscriptions returned,
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ensure that the first attribute form on the page axis matches the attribute
form selected in this information source as Subscription ID. This is due to
the fact that the first attribute form on the page axis is used as the
Subscription ID when a report is selected. However, any content
information objects that use automatic segmentation are segmented using
the Subscription ID defined in the information source. Thus, you must
ensure that the same attribute form is defined in the information source and
on the subscription information object report or you must disable
automatic segmentation for any content information objects used with this
subscription information object. You can avoid any such problems by
creating a separate information source for each Subscription ID to be used
and ensuring that all subscription information object reports use the
Subscription ID defined in the corresponding information source. This
method is illustrated in the MicroStrategy Tutorial for Narrowcast Server,
Services 1d and 3a.
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Pre-SQL statements are used for certain types of alerting known as edgetriggered alerting. This occurs when a service is designed to run once when
a condition is true, but never again. For example, suppose a service checks
every five minutes to see if a value is 1 (true) and only executes in the event
the value is 1. As long as the value is at its initial state of 0 (false), the
service does not run. When the value is changed from 0 to 1, the service
runs once, then updates the value from 1 to 2 (or some other value) to
prevent the service from running again. If the value were not changed, the
service would run every five minutes since the value is still 1.
You can specify whether the successful execution of the SQL statement is
optional or required. This affects what happens if the attempted execution
of the SQL statement returns an error.
If it is optional, service execution continues even if the execution of the
SQL statement returns an error.
If it is required, service execution stops when the execution of the SQL
statement returns an error.
Because a common use of pre-SQL is to generate a snapshot of the data
in a database that is used for a subscription set or service content, the
successful completion of these SQL statements is critical to proper service
execution behavior. This setting ensures that inappropriate behavior, such
as duplicated messages or lost data, does not occur in the event of an error
in the database.
You can also choose whether the data returned by these SQL statements
controls whether or not the service executes. This is achieved by selecting
a check box to stop service execution if the SQL statement returns an
empty result set. If this is not selected, any results returned by a SQL
statement are ignored. If a SQL statement returns no data, that is handled
in the same manner as a statement that returns an error when the check box
is selected.
Note: When you make the selection for an empty result set to cancel a
The pre- and post-SQL statements can contain multiple statements that can
be executed against multiple databases. A SQL statement definition
contains the following information:
Subscriptions and subscription sets
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Variable
Macro
Description
Datatype
Maximum Width
External service
execution ID
\E
char, varchar
32 characters
Service execution ID
\F
char, varchar
32 characters
Service ID
\S
char, varchar
32 characters
Execution priority
\P
integer
Service execution
timestamp
\C
date-time
Service expiration
timestamp
\R
date-time
Subscription Set ID
\D
char, varchar
32 characters
Current timestamp
\T
date-time
\\
Escaped character
char, varchar
1 character
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For information on the types of data that can go into the synchronization
source files, see appendix E, Synchronization Data Types.
Synchronize users
Synchronizing users is useful for updating existing users and addresses
when information for these users and addresses has changed outside of
Narrowcast Server. The following tasks are involved:
adding new users
deleting obsolete users
remapping users
When new users are found in the synchronization file that are not found in
the Subscription Book, those users can be added or remapped to other
users. Similarly, users who no longer exist in the synchronization file can
be removed from the Subscription Book or remapped to new users in the
synchronization file. Thus, new users can be mapped to obsolete users no
longer in the synchronization file. For example, if a user name has changed
so that a different distinguished name results in the synchronization file,
the user should still maintain all subscriptions and have the same
preferences.
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Click Next.
Synchronization Options page
3.
In the File Location box enter the full path to the provided sample
file SynchronizationTutorial1.ldif.
4.
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4.
1.
Note that three new users from the synchronization file appear in the
Add Users list.
2.
Click Next.
1. Note that any existing users in the subscription book appear in the Do
Not Remove Users list.
Important: Moving users to the Remove Users list causes these users to
be permanently deleted.
2.
Click Next.
Review page
1.
Note that the three new users appear under Users to Add.
Important: Any previously existing users that you selected for removal
show up under Users to Delete. These users are permanently deleted from
your Subscription Book if you click Next while they are in this list.
2.
Click Next.
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Finish page
1.
2.
Click Finish.
Narrowcast Administrator
1.
2. Edit the users that have been added by the Subscription Book
Synchronization Wizard and note their properties.
After the synchronization process
Edit the LDIF file and study its structure. Note how the attributes present
in the file correspond to the users and user properties created during the
synchronization process.
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Click Next.
Synchronization Settings dialog box
8.
Change the File Location box to the full path of the second sample
LDIF file: SynchronizationTutorial2.ldif.
9.
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3.
5.
Subscriptions page
Click Next.
1. Note that the user Smith, Sarah appears in the Add Users list. She
has changed her name and, as a result, her distinguished name has changed
in the synchronization file. It is desirable to preserve this user and all
associated properties in the Subscription Book and remap the new Sarah
Smith to her previous identity Sarah Brown. To do this, click her name
and the click the lower arrow button to move her to the Make Users
Available for Mapping list.
2.
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Click Next.
1. Note that the user Brown, Sarah now appears in the Do Not
Remove Users list. Click her name and then click the lower arrow button
to move her to the User Mapping list.
2. In this list, click the right column of the row that has Brown, Sarah
in the left column and select her new name Smith, Sarah. This remaps
the Sarah Brown user in the Subscription Book to this new user Sarah
Smith in the synchronization source. As a result, any preferences,
subscriptions and other properties defined in the Subscription Book can be
preserved, but the mapping to the external source is not broken. This
allows future updates while preserving any changes made in the
Subscription Book.
3.
Click Next.
Review page
Click Next.
Finish page
1.
2.
Click Finish.
Narrowcast Administrator
1.
2.
Edit the subscription sets SubSet1 and SubSet2 and verify that new
subscriptions have been added.
After the synchronization process
Edit both LDIF files and study their structures. Note how the attributes
present in the files correspond to the actions that were taken during
synchronization and in the final results in the Subscription Book and
subscription sets. Note especially the new addresses that are present in the
second file and how certain attributes are used to indicate which users
should be subscribed to which subscription sets.
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C H A PT E R
Alert-Based
Applications
5.
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5.
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Since the table exists, the SQL statement runs successfully and the service
executes. Note that any SQL query that is designed to fail in the correct
conditions can be used to evaluate the alert condition.
Post-service execution SQL (such as Drop Table AlertTable) can
be used to reset the alerting condition. In this case, after the service has
finished its execution the statement deletes the alert table so that the
service does not execute until the next database load.
Note that if more than one service is to be triggered by the same event, a
different flag must be created and used for each service. If this is not done,
the post-service execution SQL for one service resets the alerting condition
used by the other service. With the very simplistic example discussed here,
the SQL statement included in the event script must create as many alert
tables as services depend on that event. However, pre-service execution
SQL and post-service execution SQL statements could be designed to
evaluate a particular row of a particular table for an appropriate event flag.
For example, you could create a SQL statement that causes a division by
zero when the alert condition is not met. For this case, the SQL statement
is designed to divide by the value of the selected column, which is 0 if the
condition was not met, and 1 if it was met. The division by zero makes the
SQL execution fail.
Some sample SQL follows:
SELECT (10.0 / a1.ALERT_TRIGGER)
FROM ALERT_TABLE a1
WHERE a1.SERVICE_ID=123
2.
Insert a value into this table using SQL such as the following:
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3.
exec SProcedure
5.
Note: Although this example uses a SQL statement that returns an error,
it is also possible to use SQL statements that return no data to prevent the
service from being executed. Refer to Pre- and post-service execution SQL
in chapter 4 for more information.
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project-wide problems that can make your project unusable. Since these
are user-initiated changes they are not covered by any MicroStrategy
warranty.
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The RunService function accepts string input for the service identification
(ID) and the subscription set ID, and then executes the service. To get the
service ID and the subscription set ID for a specific service and
subscription set, a query can be run against the Narrowcast Server
Repository such as the following:
select MR_OBJECT_ID, MR_OBJECT_NAME from MSTROBJNAMES where
MR_OBJECT_TYPE = 19
select MR_OBJECT_ID, MR_OBJECT_NAME from MSTROBJNAMES where
MR_OBJECT_TYPE = 17
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evaluates the alert condition for each user and returns information to
Narrowcast Server. Within the document containing this information
object, error-handling settings can be used to fail the document if an
information object or a set of information objects returns no data. These
settings can be defined in the Document Element Properties and
Document Properties dialog boxes.
Using this method, the information object is defined to only return
information if the alert threshold is reached or if the alert condition is met.
In the example for East Coast sales, personalization would be used to
answer a prompt on dollar sales. If no information was returned by the
report based on the users answer to the prompt on sales, the information
object would return no data and the document would fail. In the
Publication Wizard or Service Wizard, you must indicate that the
document that contains the alert information object is required for this
publication. Thus, when the document fails, the publication fails to be
delivered to any recipients for which the information object returns no
data.
Dynamic subscriptions
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To ensure that no duplicates occur, place these two SQL statements inside
a transaction.
You can use the post-service SQL to clear out the snapshot table and
perhaps put an indicator that it can be used again into another table. This
is useful if you have a fixed number of snapshot tables, and want to ensure
that a long-running service does not have its snapshot table overwritten in
the middle of service execution by a subsequent run of the same service.
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Summary
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server implements a number of features that
enable alerting functionality. These features support a wide variety of
requirements and uses. If the event status exists in the database or an
external application, it is probable that MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server
can support the required alert-based service.
Summary
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C H A PT E R
Page Personalization
and Dynamic
Subscriptions
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Introduction
Personalized page execution
Personalized page execution allows Narrowcast Server to retrieve
personalized content for many subscriptions at once by executing a single
report. Personalized page execution is now supported for consolidation in
the page-by field and for Report Services documents in Flash format. To
understand the significance of this, it is important to understand that
Narrowcast Server can gather MicroStrategy reports in one of two ways:
personalized report execution or personalized page execution. When using
personalized report execution, Narrowcast Server gathers a separate
prompted report result for each group of subscriptions with the same
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It is important to note these two methods do not only differ in the way
reports are retrieved, but also in the way recipients provide
personalization. For personalized report execution, recipients indicate
their preferences by answering one or more prompts, while in personalized
page execution, recipients indicate their preferences by selecting a specific
page of content. It is this key differenceone method of personalization
allows recipients to select part of a single report while the other allows
users to customize their own reportthat allows these two methods to
execute reports differently. One method, personalized report execution,
provides greater control over personalization since reports can be fully
customized using multiple prompt objects of any type, while personalized
page execution, provides limited control since recipients select which page
of content they would like to receive by selecting an attribute value from a
list of available attribute values that represent available pages.
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Dynamic subscription
Dynamic subscription is a process that allows Narrowcast Server to
retrieve a list of recipients and related subscription information from an
external source such as a data warehouse. This is done by executing an
information object which returns some or all subscription information.
When used to gather subscription information stored in a MicroStrategy
project, a subscription information object can gather subscription
information from a MicroStrategy report or directly from attributes in the
project. This information from the data warehouse can then be used
directly or joined with information in the Subscription Book Repository to
define a subscription set. If the list of recipients changes, dynamic
subscriptions can be used for alerting applications by determining at the
time of service execution who should receive the service, and what alert
information they should receive.
To understand how personal page execution and dynamic subscriptions
can be used together, consider the case where the data warehouse holds
both subscription information, such as a subscription ID and a physical
address, and user preferences, for example, some attribute value which
indicates user preference, such as customer region. In this case, dynamic
subscriptions can be used to return both subscription information and
personalization from the data warehouse. This personalization information
can then be used to personalize information objects executed using
personalized page execution. This is beneficial because dynamic
subscriptions return a single attribute value for user preferences, while
information objects executed using personalized page execution require a
single attribute value to define preferences for each user.
Introduction
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This can become a resource drain in the execution process which can slow
service execution. It can also consume a significant amount of system
resources on both the database and Intelligence Server machines.
Personalized page execution can remedy this problem by increasing the
efficiency of the service execution process.
Personalized page execution does this by executing one report that returns
content for all subscriptions in the segment that the execution engine is
processingdespite the fact that these subscriptions may have many
different personalizations. This can speed up the report execution process
since only one report request is made per segment.
Note: This can result in very large reports if the execution engine is
Execution
Engine
One multipage report is
executed for all subscriptions
in a segment and then sliced
by the execution engine to
gather content for
subscriptions with different
personalization.
Execution
Engine
Intelligence
Server
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Region ID
1
2
3
4
1
3
2
3
4
2
1
1
Report Content
A
B
C
D
Readers familiar with SQL will recognize that this is very similar to a
database join. Indeed, it can be thought of as a zero or one (result page) to
zero, one, or many (subscriptions) join that is performed in memory by the
Narrowcast Server. The allowance for the choice of which piece of
information from a subscription set is used to choose a page from the report
provides for a powerful Narrowcast Server feature. It enables different
pieces of content within a service to be personalized at different levels in
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Distribution
Manager
Segment
Executor
Distribution Manager
passes only IDs for
subscriptions in each
segments to each
Segment Executor
Segment
Executor
Segment #1
Intelligence
Server
Segment #2
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Subscription IDs
129857109235
Segment #1
298367102895
243523424535
145153451354
Segment #2
125145632365
125457625671
734756757868
Segment #3
457437568754
374373476347
375347347347
Segment #4
345623453254
356236234656
Segment Executor
gathers only content
for subscriptions in
current segments
from Intelligence
Server
Report Structure
Conceptual Result:
Multiple Pages
Segmentation processes
When a large subscription set is executed for a service, this represents a
potentially tremendous amount of work. For each subscription, content
must be gathered, formatted, and delivered. Each of these processes can
potentially take a long amount of time and can consume significant
machine resources. To allow this process to be scalable so that a large
number of subscriptions can be executed in a reasonable time, it is
necessary to divide this workload and distribute it across multiple
machines (called execution engines). As described previously,
Slicing and segmentation
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for the current segment. It is important to note that all subscription sets are
always segmented based on Subscription ID. As a result, subscription
information objects and content information objects should always be
segmented using this same Subscription ID to ensure that the content and
subscriptions returned to an execution engine are filtered properly.
If subscription information objects are defined using the subscription
information provided in the information source definition (rather than
selecting a report to return subscription information) and subscription
information objects and content information objects are segmented
automatically (as is selected by default), the correct Subscription ID is
used automatically for all segmentation processes. This is because a single
Subscription ID is always defined in the information source when dynamic
subscriptions are enabled, and this Subscription ID is used by default for
all segmentation processes when a report is not selected for the
subscription information object.
On the other hand, when a report is selected to define a subscription
information object, the first attribute form on the page axis of the selected
report is used as Subscription ID, and is applied when the dynamic
subscription set is segmented and when the subscription information
object is segmented. However, by default, content information objects are
segmented using the Subscription ID specified in the information source.
As a result, content information objects are segmented incorrectly in this
case unless the first attribute form on the page axis of the subscription
information object report returns the same attribute values as the attribute
form specified in the information source as Subscription ID, or
segmentation for the content information object is defined manually by
adding prompt objects to the content information object. This can only be
avoided by adding prompt objects to the content information object to
define the method of segmentation.
Important: If the Subscription ID on the report selected for the
subscription information object does not match the Subscription ID
specified by the Information Source definition, content information
objects might be segmented incorrectly.
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numeric or text data type can be used. However, the slicing attribute used
for personalized page execution information object reports cannot use an
attribute with a compound key.
address ID
address display
physical address
device
transmission properties
PIN
time zone
delivery window
user information
user ID
locale ID
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Subscription ID requirements
The Subscription ID is significant among all other subscription
information because the Subscription ID is the attribute form that is used
to identify the list of subscriptions when dynamic subscriptions are used.
In addition, the Subscription ID is significant because this attribute form
may also be used to join subscription information in the data warehouse
with subscription information in the Subscription Book. (For example,
Subscription ID and physical address might be returned from the data
warehouse, while personalization and Device ID might be returned from
the Subscription Book.) As a result of these two roles, the requirements for
Subscription IDs vary according to how the Subscription ID is used.
If the Subscription ID is used to join information in the data warehouse
with information in the Subscription Book, subscription IDs from the data
warehouse must correspond to Subscription IDs in the Subscription Book.
It is important to note that Subscription IDs stored in the Subscription
Book Repository are always integers that start at a very large negative
number and are incremented by one for each subscription.
Thus, it is not possible to join data from the data warehouse to information
in Subscription Book Repository unless one of the following is true:
The Subscription Portal is used to create the Subscription IDs in the data
warehouse. This is discussed further in chapter 9, Advanced
Subscription Portal Configuration.
The data warehouse is integrated with the Subscription Book
Repository such that the same Subscription IDs are shared between the
data warehouse and the Subscription Book Repository.
Some external system is used to synchronize Subscription IDs between
the Subscription Book Repository and the data warehouse.
However, if all subscription information is returned from the data
warehouse and no information is stored in the Subscription Book, then
Subscription IDs in the data warehouse does not need to correspond to
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This is a very commonly used scenario and is the scenario used in most
basic use cases. Reports are personalized using prompts and subscription
information is stored in the Subscription Book. No subscription
information object is used and subscription information including
personalization information is stored in the Subscription Book and
returned in a static subscription set. One or more content information
objects executed using personalized report execution are then personalized
using the personalization information stored in the Subscription Book
Repository. Since information objects executed using personalized report
execution are personalized by answering one or more prompts, the
Subscription Book Repository is ideally suited to store answers to prompts
in XML format.
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the report other than the page axis content is ignored. The content
information object must contain the slicing attribute as the first attribute on
the page axis. Each page on the report is used as a page of content for a
group of subscribers. The following image demonstrates proper report
design.
Subscription Information Content*
Subscription ID
Other subscription
information (physical
address, etc.)
Note:
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This scenario is used less commonly than the other scenarios since
personalization for prompted reports is not typically stored in the data
warehouse. In this scenario, subscription information including
personalization is stored in the data warehouse. A subscription information
object is used to return subscription information including subscription ID
and personalization information. One or more content information objects
executed using personalized report execution are then personalized using
the personalization information returned in the subscription information
object. Since information objects executed using personalized report
execution are personalized by answering one or more prompts, the
personalization stored in the data warehouse must stored as prompts
answers in XML format. It is also important to note that the use of
Intelligence Server reports to return subscription information restricts the
length of the XML string returned. As a result, when this method is used,
you must take care to ensure that all XML stored in the data warehouse is
less than the maximum allowable length. Thus, since personalization must
be stored in a short XML format in a data warehouse, this scenario often
has limited practical use.
Required reports and report design
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data from a report, but the subscription information could also be gathered
directly from the MicroStrategy project.
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3.
6.
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Click OK.
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Choose only the tables from which the fact will be used in ranking.
This is likely the table with the most subscriber information, such as
LU_CUSTOMER.
4. Create the Report Limit metric. This metric returns the first
subscription of each segment by calculating the Subscription IDs for which
rank number divided by the segment size has a remainder of 1.
Note: The modulus equals zero if the Segment Size is 1, and equals 1 for
every other number.
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Drag the same prompt into the parentheses after the comma.
5.
Click Modify.
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Click OK.
6.
Create a new filter which limits the subscribers you want, for
example, Sub Set = X, Customer(ID) < 10 (for testing), MetricX>20.
7.
Update the project schema or the fact you created will not be
recognized and report execution will fail.
8. Run the report to verify that it functions correctly. When prompted,
enter a reasonable segment size (100 is the default for Services). Ensure
that the report returns a table of data such as the following (segment size
of 50 is shown):
1
51
101
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The Portal Administrator Wizard is the tool that provides full control over
the Subscription Portal configuration and allows you to create site
definitions, publish services and device types, and specify information
source properties and default portal preferences.
The following diagram illustrates the four sections available in the Portal
Administrator Wizard and the tasks that can be performed in each section.
S ystem C onfiguration
y S elect or create a
S ubscription P ortal
y C reate or edit a site definition
S ite Preferences
S ervices C onfiguration
D efine channels
S pecify device types
S elect default devices
S elect device settings
C hoose inform ation source
settings
y C onfigure other site
properties
y
y
y
y
y
y P ick a service
y C onfigure page-by questions
for static subscription sets
y C onfigure page-by questions
for dynam ic subscription sets
y S et storage m appings for
dynam ic subscription sets
Before you begin, you should be familiar with these basic concepts:
Subscription Portal system
Database connections
Site definition
Services configuration
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Portal Repository
A Portal Repository is a specific set of tables defined by the Subscription
Portal, located in a database, and identified by a certain table prefix. The
tables for each Portal Repository can be given a unique table prefix, so that
multiple Portal Repositories can exist in the same physical database
instance. Each Portal Repository can store the definitions of one or more
sites. Multiple Subscription Portal systems can also share the same set of
Portal Repository tables.
Table prefixes for the Portal Repository
When you select the database connection that corresponds to the database
you will use for the Portal Repository, you can enter a table prefix that will
be used to prefix the names of all the Portal Repository tables in this
database. This is useful if you want to have multiple independent Portal
Repositories in the same physical database. If you are selecting a database
in which Portal Repository tables have already been created and you want
to reuse those tables, enter the same table prefix as the existing tables. If
you enter a table prefix for which Portal Repositories tables have not been
created, Subscription Portal creates those tables in the selected database.
Database connections
The first time you configure Subscription Portal, you must create a
database connection for each of the databases to which you will connect.
Subscription Portal connects to three information repositories:
Portal Repository
Object Repository
Subscription Book Repository
These information repositories, which can reside in the same database or
separate databases, are described in detail in their corresponding sections.
Database connections
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When you create a new database connection, the information entered is the
same for all three repositories:
a name by which you want to refer to the connection you are creating
the type of the database (SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, or Teradata)
the name of the machine on which SequeLink is installed and running
the name of the ODBC DSN on the SequeLink machine that
corresponds to the database to which you want to connect
the login ID and password that the Subscription Portal should use when
it accesses that database
Table prefixes
Table prefixes are useful if you have multiple independent repositories in
the same physical database. If you are selecting a database in which tables
have already been created and you want to reuse those tables, be sure to
enter the same table prefix as on the existing tables.
This is always the case when selecting an Object Repository or a
Subscription Book Repository because Subscription Portal does not create
those tables.
When selecting a Portal Repository, if you enter a table prefix for which
tables have never been created, Subscription Portal creates those tables for
you in the selected database.
Site definition
A site identifies a set of services that are made available through a portal
for access by end users. A site is defined by a connection to a single Object
Repository and Subscription Book Repository.
In addition, the definition of a site contains a collection of channels plus a
set of properties that define certain characteristics of the Subscription
Portal. Since each site is associated with a single Object Repository,
multiple sites must be created to provide access to services in multiple
Object Repositories.
The definition of a site and its related channels is stored in a Portal
Repository. A site can only be made available to end users through a portal,
but multiple portals can provide access to the same site.
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Portal
A portal defines the Web location (URL) through which end users access
Subscription Portal services and subscriptions. A portal is defined by a
Web server virtual directory and provides access to one and only one site.
Two or more portals can, however, provide access to the same site. This is
most typically done on different Web servers so that clustering can be used
to provide increased system performance for a high number of concurrent
users. The definition of each portal and which site it accesses are defined
and saved in the file system of the machine running the Subscription Portal
Web server.
Deleting a Subscription Portal
Deleting a portal means the site is no longer accessible through that virtual
directory. It does nothing to the site definition or properties that were
configured through the site. The site would still be available for viewing
through another portal, once that Subscription Portal has been configured
to point to the site definition.
Site definition
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If you delete a site it does not delete the subscriptions users have created.
However, it cuts off access to those subscriptions. End users cannot edit,
add, or delete subscriptions from their list of services. Also, any portal
using the deleted site definition must be reconfigured to use a different site
definition.
Object Repository
The site definition includes the location of the Object Repository. This
information repository is created using Narrowcast Administrator and
stores services, documents, publications, scheduling information, and
device definitions.
If you edit the location of the Object Repository, you have redefined the
site definition, which means that services might no longer be available.
You might be better served to create a new site and point it to a different
database connection. The option to change the location of the Object
Repository after the site has been defined is most useful if the new
repository is an exact copy of the original repository.
For additional information about Object Repository properties refer to the
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server System Administrator Guide.
Table prefixes for the Object Repository
When you select the database connection that corresponds to the database
you will use for the Object Repository, you can enter a table prefix to prefix
the names of all the Object Repository tables in this database.
If you used a table prefix when creating the Object Repository tables
through Narrowcast Administrator, you must enter that same table prefix
here.
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location of the Subscription Book Repository after the site has been
defined is most useful if the new repository is an exact copy of the original
repository.
For more information on the Subscription Book Repository refer to the
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server System Administrator Guide.
Table prefixes for the Subscription Book Repository
When you select the database connection that corresponds to the database
you use for the Subscription Book Repository, you can enter a table prefix
to prefix the names of all the Subscription Book Repository tables in this
database.
If you used a table prefix when creating the Subscription Book Repository
tables through Narrowcast Administrator, you must enter that same table
prefix here.
Channels
A channel is a grouping of services available to end users within the
Subscription Portal. Channels are created through the Narrowcast Server
Subscription Portal Administrator Wizard and deployed through the
Subscription Portal.
A channel is defined by a folder of services from an Object Repository.
Multiple channels can be defined within one site to group different sets of
services. Each channel appears as a tab in the Subscription Portal interface.
Each user subscription that is created through the Subscription Portal can
be accessed only through the channel through which it was created. A site
without at least one channel does not provide any functionality to end
users.
When a folder is selected in a Narrowcast Server system to define a
channel, this selection provides the structure of the channel in terms of
what services are available and how these services are arranged in
subfolders within the Subscription Portal. Each subfolder under the folder
chosen to define the channel appears as a folder in the Subscription Portal
and services are arranged within these folders just as they are within
Narrowcast Administrator. In other words, the folder structure and service
location in Narrowcast Administrator completely controls how services
are arranged and grouped within the Subscription Portal. Thus, application
design in Narrowcast Administrator should be carefully considered to
ensure that services are logically arranged into folders so that the channels
and their structure appears as desired in the Subscription Portal.
Site definition
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Channel folders are the means by which services are grouped. Services
can be published at any level within the folder structure. End users
navigate through the Subscription Portal and select channel folders
containing the services to which they want to subscribe.
Channel name and description
Once a folder has been selected from the Object Repository, a channel
name and description must be entered. The name and description are
visible to the end user through the Subscription Portal.
Device types
In addition to defining channels, the portal administrator determines what
devices are available to end users when they create addresses. Narrowcast
Server can deliver content to a large variety of devices, and each service is
designed to deliver content to some subset of these devices such as desktop
e-mail clients or wireless devices. Thus, when users create addresses and
subscribe to services via the Subscription Portal, they must be allowed to
select devices that are supported by the services to which they are
subscribing. This is controlled by the portal administrator using device
types.
A device type is a grouping of devices defined in a Subscription Portal to
make it easier for a user to find a certain device. For example, all e-mail
devices are in a grouping called E-mail.
A device type is defined by selecting one or more folders of devices from
the Object Repository. Each service defined in the Object Repository
supports a specific list of devices. There is no need to allow users to create
addresses using devices that are not supported in any services in your
Narrowcast Server system.
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The four device types that Narrowcast Server Subscription Portal defines
by default are:
mobile phone
pager
e-mail
personal digital assistants
These device types simply organize the devices to be made available to
your subscribers.
If you do not plan to support any of the devices in a given device type, you
can remove that type through the Portal Administrator Wizard. You can
also define your own groupings of devices by creating a new device type
definition.
Device folders
Devices
A device is a format for receiving information content sent from
Narrowcast Server to the subscriber of a specific service. These formats
include settings such as Outlook 98, Outlook 2000, and a specific pager
brand and model. New devices can be added to your system using
Narrowcast Administrator.
Each address that a user creates in the portal is designed for use with only
one device.
Refer to the MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server System Administrator
Guide for more information on devices.
Device settings
Each subscription site can define which device is used as the device to
deliver content to the My Reports page and which device is used by
default when new addresses are created during subscription creation.
Site definition
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Default device
Information sources
Each Narrowcast Server system supports a set of information sources.
When Narrowcast Server connects to an information source to obtain
content information, it uses authentication credentials that are specific to
the information source. For example, when connecting to a MicroStrategy
project, Narrowcast Server needs a login ID and password for that project.
Narrowcast Server allows each user account to specify its own
authentication credentials for each information source. If an authentication
is specified for a certain user, that authentication is used for all connections
to the specified information on behalf of that user. The definition of each
information source also includes a default authentication that is used for all
connections of any users for which no user-level authentication has been
specified.
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Site definition
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Preferences
The Preferences section controls how the default values are set for users
of the portal interface. It includes settings for
enabling/disabling creation of new users
selecting default user account expiration settings (Expired users no
longer receive messages from the services to which they have
subscribed.)
designating default values for DHTML settings
specifying the location of temporary files (Subscription Portal can
optionally create temporary files for performance purposes. If these
files are needed, you should periodically delete any files that have not
been cleaned up automatically. In most cases, temporary files are
deleted after a subscription is created. However, if a user cancels before
a subscription is complete, these files might not be cleaned up correctly
in all cases.)
providing administrative contact information
specifying available and supported user login modes
specifying prompt governing settings
Additional information on these settings is included in the Interface section
of this book.
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Services configuration
The diagram below illustrates the steps necessary to configure services
with page-by questions.
Pick a service
Configure page-by
questions for static
subscription sets
Configure page-by
questions for dynamic
subscription sets
Services configuration
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For each service that uses page-by questions, you must indicate to the
Subscription Portal the value to use as the preference object for each pageby question in the service. The Services Configuration section of the Portal
Administrator Wizard allows you to indicate the values to be used through
the settings described below.
Answer to another question
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This option is only appropriate when the personalization for the content
information object is on a single attribute and the user is restricted to
selecting a single attribute element. The attribute on which the user is
prompted should be the same attribute that is used in the page-by section
of the content information object. To allow the user to personalize on
multiple attributes or to select more than one attribute element, you
must use the storage mapping approach described below.
The SBR storage option is only available in two situations. First, the
alternate question that is selected must contain only a single prompt
object, which is an attribute element prompt, and the prompt definition
is not set to require the selection of more than one element. Second, it
could contain a single, constant value prompt. Additionally, user
preferences are disabled for this question, so users are not able to save
and reuse their answers to this question.
When the SBR storage option is used with a dynamic subscription set,
it does not mean that the user's answer is only stored in the SBR. The ID
of the attribute element that the user selects can also be written to the
warehouse when defining the mapping of the subscription information.
This is described in more detail in the Dynamic subscription sets
section.
For an example using this option, see Scenario 1: Basic personalized
page execution in chapter 9, Advanced Subscription Portal
Configuration.
Use a Storage Mapping: If you choose to store the answer to the
prompt question in the warehouse using a storage mapping, the actual
value or values that the user selects can be written to the warehouse. The
ID given to that answer is written in the subscription as the answer to
the page-by question. The storage mapping is defined to write to the
same warehouse that contains the information content for the content
information object. The ID of the answer object that corresponds to the
users selections for each subscription is used to select the page of data
that the subscription receives. The attribute on which the content
information object is paged by should correspond to the column in the
warehouse to which the answer ID is written.
This approach allows
the user to select more than one attribute element from each attribute
The question object that is selected can contain any number of prompt
objects, but each must be either an attribute element prompt or a
constant value prompt.
Services configuration
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User preferences are enabled for questions that use storage mappings,
so user answers are reusable. If the user picks an existing answer, or
preference, to answer the prompt for a subscription, nothing new is
written to the warehouse. The ID of the selected answer object is written
as the answer to the page-by question in that subscription. The
subscription ID is typically not included in the mapping of a question to
the warehouse table, but if it is included, user preferences functionality
is disabled for that question.
For an example using this option, see Scenario 3: Page-by Answer ID
in chapter 9, Advanced Subscription Portal Configuration.
Subscription ID
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Additional questions
Services configuration
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For an example using this option and a dynamic subscription set, see
Scenario 5: Personalized dynamic subscription in chapter 9,
Advanced Subscription Portal Configuration.
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Services configuration
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C H A PT E R
Supporting Diverse
User Populations
8.
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the speed of some user interfaces such as the Service Editor and
Publication Wizard.
The Service Wizard should support most of your needs when creating
services to support different devices. The one limitation is that you can
only create one publication per delivery method. For example, you cannot
create one publication for Microsoft clients and a second publication for
Internet-based clients and use the same information transmitter. If you
need to implement this type of functionality, you can either use the Service
Editor, which can add multiple publications for the same information
transmitter, or you can create multiple information transmitters and create
the appropriate devices for each information transmitter.
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Overview
Each user specifies a locale for which he wants to receive content. This is
done through the Subscription Portal when users subscribe themselves or
it can be set in an advanced options tab in the User Properties Editor
when an administrator controls users and subscriptions. When a
publication is created, either using the Service Wizard or using the
Publication Wizard, a specific locale is chosen. This is called the
selection locale. Users are then matched to publications based on their
chosen locale. In addition, each document is created to support one locale.
This is called the execution locale and is set in the Properties dialog box
for the document.
The execution locale controls how information sources, document
formatters, and information transmitters gather, format, and deliver
content for this document. Thus, if one document is created for the English
execution locale and a second document is created for a French execution
locale, information sources can retrieve content in the correct language and
character set and format numbers and dates according to the appropriate
regional characteristics for each document. Note that the MicroStrategy
information source supports locales, but it is up to the MicroStrategy
Desktop administrator to ensure that content in the appropriate languages
is available. Numbers and dates are formatted correctly automatically.
You must add appropriate static content for each language in documents.
As a result, locales typically require the use of multiple publications (one
for each locale) for the same information transmitter. This type of
application is best accomplished through the use of the Service Editor
since the Service Wizard can only create one publication per information
transmitter. For more information on using the Service Editor, see the
following Interfaces topic:
Service Editor
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Locale concepts
The following concepts related to locales are used in Narrowcast Server:
Locale (administrative object): defined by the System Administrator
to specify how information should be retrieved, formatted, and
transmitted for a particular region.
Selection locale for a publication (administrative setting): locale
selected within a service or publication to determine which content is
delivered to users from a service. If the users selected locale matches
the selection locale for the publication, the user receives that localized
content.
User locale (locale selected by user): locale chosen by end users to
indicate regional preference. If the users selected locale matches the
selection locale for a publication, the user receives that localized
content.
Execution locale (administrative setting): locale selected in a
document to determine which locale should be used during service
execution (content retrieval, document formatting, and delivery).
Locale processes
Locales are used in two processes within Narrowcast Server:
Selection determines who receives what content. The Application
Designer designs one service with multiple sets of content defined for
different sets of users with different regional preferences. If the
selection local for a publication in the service definition matches the
user locale, the users receive that content.
Execution specifies how localized content is retrieved, formatted, and
delivered. The execution locale in a document refers to the locale
administrative object, which controls how information sources,
document formatters, information transmitters, and compression (zip)
processes handle regional characteristics.
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Using locales
The following steps illustrate how locales can be configured and how they
work with respect to multiple languages and locales.
1.
Create two locales using the Locale Editor, one for English (US) and
one for French.
when document formatters are used (no settings are available for
PDF, HTML, plain text, or Excel)
in a locale definition (in the Locale Editor), the language selected in the
information source definition is used by default. Otherwise this setting
defined in the MicroStrategy information source is not used.
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selection process
execution process
selection process
execution process
selection process
selection process
default if locale is
not fully defined
Locales
Locale 1: French
Information Source setting: French
execution process
execution process
Locale 2: English
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execution process
execution process
C H A PT E R
Advanced
Subscription Portal
Configuration
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Warehouse setup
2.
3.
6.
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Narrowcast Server:
The following table summarizes the scenarios that are covered in this
section.
Scenario
Number
Scenario
Name
Subscription
Set
Page-By?
Alternate/
Additional
Question
Object?
Writing to
Warehouse?
User
Preference
Support?
Scenario 1:
Basic
personalized
page
execution
Static
On any content-related
attribute (not Subscription
ID or Answer ID); in this
example, Country
Yes
No
No
Scenario 2:
Page-by
Subscription
ID
Static
Yes
Yes; Subscription No
ID and the
alternate
question object
answer value
(Subscription_ID,
threshold)
Scenario 3:
Page-by
Answer ID
Static
Yes
Yes; Answer ID
and the alternate
question object
answer value
(Answer_ID,
Symbol)
Yes
Scenario 4:
Nonpersonalized
dynamic
subscription
Dynamic
None
No
Yes; Subscription
ID, Address ID,
and User ID
N/A
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Scenario
Number
Scenario
Name
Subscription
Set
Page-By?
Alternate/
Additional
Question
Object?
Writing to
Warehouse?
User
Preference
Support?
Scenario 5:
Personalized
dynamic
subscription
Dynamic
Subscription ID
Yes
Yes; Subscription
ID, Address ID,
User ID, and the
alternate
question object
answer value
No
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Note: Subscription Portal can only display the page-by attribute elements
to a user through a prompt interface. Therefore, an attribute-element
prompt for the page-by attribute must be created, and an alternate question
object report containing this prompt must be created and configured for
each personalized page question object.
Note: You should create a new subscription set for each service as
Subscription Portal does not recognize subscription sets that are used in
more than one service.
4.
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For storage of the alternate question, select the option to Use the
Subscription Book Repository (as opposed to defining a storage
mapping).
6.
Try it!
1.
2.
On the Subscriptions page, you see that there are now two
subscriptions to the service.
5.
6.
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How it works
1. When a user subscribes to this service through Subscription Portal,
Subscription Portal determines that there is an alternate question object
defined for this service. Subscription Portal retrieves the definition of the
attribute element prompt from MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and
shows that prompt to the user.
2.
necessarily returned in the report but is used to calculate which data are
returned. In this example, the subscriber chooses a stock alert threshold
percentage. The report has a filter that returns only symbols whose percent
change was greater than the threshold entered by the subscriber. The
threshold values must be stored on the Subscription ID level and are more
easily manipulated as metrics in the warehouse (rather than as preference
objects in the Subscription Book Repository).
You can choose this approach because you want to take advantage of the
performance of personalized page execution (only execute one query
against the warehouse). In this case, the user's personalization needs to be
stored in the warehouse. You might also want to have easy access to each
subscriber's personalization values, which is only feasible when the
personalization information is stored in the warehouse. In this case, you
choose to page by Subscription ID because that allows the personalization
to be at the subscription level, but the threshold value is not reusable (that
is, the User Preferences feature is disabled for this question in the
Subscription Portal interface).
This example assumes that your warehouse contains a populated table with
a list of stock symbols and associated facts. The table is assumed to have
the following columns:
SYMBOL, LAST_TRADE_PRICE, and PCT_CHANGE
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Note: You should create a new subscription set for each service as
Subscription Portal does not recognize subscription sets that are used in
more than one service.
Try it!
1.
2.
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4.
On the Subscriptions page, you see that there is now one subscription
to the service.
5.
7.
How it works
1. When a user subscribes to this service through Subscription Portal,
Subscription Portal determines that there is an additional question object
defined for this service. Subscription Portal retrieves the definition of the
value prompt from MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and shows that
prompt to the user (the threshold prompt).
2.
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to return duplicate data if the user subscribes to this service more than once
using the same set of stocks (stored in a user preference), as would be the
case if the page-by was by Subscription ID.
This example assumes that your warehouse contains a populated table with
a list of stock symbols and associated facts. The table is assumed to have
the following columns:
SYMBOL, LAST_TRADE_PRICE, and PCT_CHANGE
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7.
Note: You should create a new subscription set for each service as
Subscription Portal does not recognize subscription sets that are used in
more than one service.
4.
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Try it!
1.
2.
On the Subscriptions page, you see that there is now one subscription
to the service.
7.
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How it works
1. When a user subscribes to this service through Subscription Portal,
Subscription Portal determines that there is an alternate question object
defined for this service. Subscription Portal retrieves the definition of the
stock symbol prompt from MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and shows
that prompt to the user.
2. The user answers the prompt by selecting one or more stock symbols
from the list.
3. Subscription Portal inserts one record into the
REL_ANSWER_SYMBOL table for each stock that the user selects, as
specified by the Portal Administrator Wizard alternate question mapping.
Each record includes the Narrowcast Server User ID, the Subscription
Portal-generated Answer ID, and the stock symbol.
4.
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fields.
2. Create attributes based on the Subscription ID, Address ID, User ID,
and Subscription Set ID columns of the WH_SUBSCRIPTIONS table.
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3.
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Portal does not recognize subscription sets that are used in more than one
service.
3.
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Try it!
1.
On the Subscriptions page, you see that there is now one subscription
to the service.
5.
7.
How it works
1. When a user subscribes to this service through Subscription Portal,
Subscription Portal determines that there are no question objects defined
for this service, so the user does not need to answer any prompts.
2. Subscription Portal creates an entry in the Subscription Book
Repository for the new subscription.
3.
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fields.
2.
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4. Create attributes based on the Subscription ID, Address ID, User ID,
and Subscription Set ID columns of the WH_SUBSCRIPTIONS2 table.
5.
Create a report using the value prompt. Other than the prompt, the
rest of the definition of this report is irrelevant. (Suggested name: Report
Example 5 Additional Question Object)
For more information, refer to the MicroStrategy Basic Reporting Guide
and the MicroStrategy Advanced Reporting Guide.
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Note: You should create a new subscription set for each service as
Subscription Portal does not recognize subscription sets that are used in
more than one service.
5.
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Try it!
1.
On the Subscriptions page, you see that there is now one subscription
to the service.
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6.
7.
How it works
1. When a user subscribes to this service through Subscription Portal,
Subscription Portal determines that there is an additional question object
defined for this service. Subscription Portal retrieves the definition of the
value prompt from MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and shows that
prompt to the user (the threshold prompt).
2.
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SECTION II
Application Designer
Interfaces
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10
Choose Subscription
Sets Dialog Box
10.
10
What is it?
This dialog box appears automatically when you choose to run a service
immediately, and that service has multiple subscription sets associated
with it.
What can I do with it?
The Choose Subscription Sets dialog box allows you to select which
subscription sets to use with the running service. For information on
running a service immediately, see the following How Do I...? topic:
Service Operations
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In the Select a Subscription Set for Execution dialog box, you can select
only one subscription set to associate with the service you want to execute.
Select the subscription set and click OK. Click Cancel to cancel the
service execution.
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11
Desktop Document
Selector Dialog Box
11.
11
What is it?
From the New Document dialog box, select the option to link to an
existing MicroStrategy Desktop document. Then, select the appropriate
information source. Or from the Select Information Source dialog box,
select the appropriate source. Click OK.
What can I do with it?
Through the Desktop Document Selector dialog box you can select an
existing MicroStrategy Desktop document to include in your Narrowcast
Server service.
For instructions on the above topic, refer to the following How Do I...?
topic:
Publication Operations
What should I know before I use it?
Before you begin using the Desktop Document Selector dialog box, you
must understand how to use MicroStrategy Desktop documents within
your Narrowcast Server services.
For more information, refer to the following Concepts topics:
Documents
Desktop documents
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reports that have attributes in the page-by axis of the report and if the
service execution mode is set to personalized report execution.
If the Expand all pages check box is selected, the users receive all the
pages of the report or document, when the service is executed.
The Each page on a different worksheet check box is enabled only if
the document format is Excel and if the Expand all pages check box is
selected. This check box allows you receive each page of the report on
a different worksheet in the Excel report. This feature is available only
for Excel 2002 and later.
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Use the Include report title check box to include or exclude the report
title from the report exported in Excel format.
Note: The Formatting option is available only for the reports.
The Report Execution tab is displayed only if you link a report to the
service. It has the following sections.
Intelligence Server cache
Personalization Mode
Segmentation Properties
Formatting Information
Intelligence Server cache
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in the second and third sections of this tab, caching is not available. The
check boxes are disabled, new caches cannot be generated, and existing
caches cannot be used.
Personalization Mode
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The Document Execution tab is available only if you link a report services
document to a service. This tab has the following sections:
Document cache properties
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Document execution
Segmentation Properties
Document cache properties
In the Document cache properties section, you can select the Use report
cache during document execution check box. This applies only to
existing MicroStrategy Desktop documents that are linked to from
Narrowcast Administrator. Using the document cache speeds up document
execution, but limits the data to what has already been cached.
Document execution
The settings on the Error handling tab allow you to specify error handling
rules for the selected report or document. If the report or document returns
partial data, you can choose to either fail the document or use the partial
results. This tab is displayed only for File delivery services.
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Note: For Report Services documents in Flash format, neither of the error
handling options Fail the document and Use the partial result are
available.
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Dynamic Subscription
Set Wizard
12.
12
What is it?
The Dynamic Subscription Set Wizard allows you to create and edit
dynamic subscription sets in the Subscription Book.
How do I access it?
Before you begin using the Dynamic Subscription Set Wizard, you should
know which information objects you want to include for segmentation
and subscription resolution
know the SQL statements you want to include for pre-processing and
post-processing
For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
Subscription Preferences
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Segmentation
Subscription
Pre- and Post-SQL
Summary
Each page of the wizard includes some or all of the following buttons:
Cancel: closes the Dynamic Subscription Set Wizard
Back: returns to the previous page in the Dynamic Subscription Set
Wizard
Next: goes to the next page in the Dynamic Subscription Set Wizard
Finish: completes creation of the Dynamic Subscription Set and returns
you to the Narrowcast Administrator console; if creating a new
subscription set, you are prompted to select a location in which to save
the subscription set
Introduction
The Introduction page provides you with a summary of what you can do
in the Dynamic Subscription Set Wizard. Each step is identified on this
page.
Subscription
On the Subscription page, browse through the folders and click the
information object to use for subscription. Click Clear to remove a
selected information object. You can also create a subscription information
object from the Dynamic Subscription Set Wizard.
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following criteria, you should not use automatic segmentation. In this case,
you must create a segment information object to avoid errors during
segmentation.
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Segmentation
On the optional Segmentation page, browse through the folders and click
the information object to use for segmentation. Click Clear to remove a
selected information object. You can also create a segmentation
information object from the Dynamic Subscription Set Wizard. For
more information, refer to the following Concepts topic:
Information objects
Summary
The Summary page provides you with a summary of the definition for this
dynamic subscription set.
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13
Document Element
Properties Dialog Box
13.
13
What is it?
Through the Document Element Properties dialog box you can select a
different stylesheet and specify error handling rules for the selected
document element. You can use these error handling rules to fail
documents. When these documents are set as required in the Publication
Wizard, these rules can be used to control whether or not publications are
delivered to individual recipients based on the data returned by
information objects.
For instructions on the above topics, see the following How Do I...? topic:
Publication Operations
What should I know before I use it?
Before you begin using the Document Element Properties dialog box, you
must have created a document.
For more information, refer to the following Concepts topic:
Error handling
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Stylesheet selection
By default, MicroStrategy 8 information objects use a stylesheet that
preserves the formatting defined in the MicroStrategy Desktop or Web
products. Information objects from information sources other than the
MicroStrategy information source prompt you if a stylesheet is required.
The following stylesheets are available by default:
MicroStrategy information source
Text documents
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Note: In the report, if the metric is used in the rows, then the Metric
Excel documents
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MSTR7ToExcel-WithoutColumnAxisHeaders.xsl: This
stylesheet does not display the column axis headers on the report
template. The column axis headers describe the items on the report
columns. Column axis headers typically display the title Metrics or
the names of any attributes that are present on the report columns. In
Narrowcast Server 7.1 and previous versions, the column axis
headers were not shown by default, so this stylesheet is necessary to
achieve the default formatting provided by these product versions.
User information
When user information (first name, last name, and so on) is inserted in a
document, an appropriate stylesheet is automatically selected. You do not
need to select a stylesheet.
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Subscription information
Error handling
Error handling rules can be applied to three events:
if an information object returns no data
if an information object returns an error
if the document formatter is unable to format the document element
In each case, you can choose one out of the following options:
Fail the document
Use string
If you choose to fail the document, the document element raises an error
so that the document fails to be returned to the publication. If you choose
to use string, you can enter a string that is displayed in the document
contents in place of the information object results in the case of this event.
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14
Document Properties
Dialog Box
14.
14
What is it?
Through the Document Properties dialog box you can choose an execution
locale for the current document, specify document-level error handling,
and choose column width settings for Excel documents.
For instructions on the above topics, refer to the following How Do I...?
topic:
Publication Operations
What should I know before I use it?
Before you begin using the Document Properties dialog box, you must
have created a document and understand the purpose of execution locales
and error handling.
For more information, refer to the following Concepts topic:
Error handling
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15
Excel Document
Editor
15.
15
What is it?
Before you begin using the Excel Document Editor, you should
understand how documents are used in publications
know what document elements, information objects, and XSL
stylesheets are
understand the concept of imported files and know how to import them
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For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
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open a document
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Note: You cannot see any Excel macros included in the template.
Therefore, you need to know what the macros are, as well as where the
macros assume the text is placed.
Absolute means the item is offset from the top of the sheet.
Relative Top means the item is offset from the top of another row.
Relative Bottom means the item is offset from the bottom of another
row.
Row Reference: the row to use as the starting point for the offset; not
used for absolute row positioning, which is always offset from the top
of the sheet
Row Offset: the number of rows the item is offset from the top of the
sheet, if absolute row positioning is used, or from the Row Reference
Column Positioning: how the content item is placed in a column:
Absolute means the item is offset from the left of the sheet.
Relative Left means the item is offset from the left side of another
column.
Relative Right means the item is offset from the right side of another
column.
Column Reference: the column to use as the starting point for the
offset; not used for absolute column positioning, which is always offset
from the left of the sheet
Column Offset: the number of columns the item is offset from the left
of the sheet, if absolute column positioning is used, or from the Column
Reference
You can resize the width of the columns to view the entire contents of the
cells.
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Once you add a template file, you can insert information objects into it by
right-clicking in the body of the template and selecting from the resulting
menu to create a certain kind of information object or to insert an existing
information object.
Note the tabs that allow you to access different spreadsheets, if the
template file contains multiple spreadsheets. The sheet names default to
those of the template files. You can also change the name for each
spreadsheet independently in either of the following ways:
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Menu bar
The File and Insert menu bar options contain items unique to Narrowcast
Server. The following tables describe the contents of each.
File menu options
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Menu option
Function
New Document
Open Document
Save
Save As
Menu option
Function
Properties
Close
Function
List of available
information sources,
for example,
MicroStrategy Tutorial
or User Information
New Information
Object
Existing Information
Object
Static Text
Note: When you insert an XML information object that was created for a
MicroStrategy Information Source, an XSL stylesheet is automatically
selected.
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16
16.
16
What is it?
The Filter editor and governing setting dialog box allows you to restrict
the number of users or addresses and the number of subscriptions to
retrieve when you open the Subscription Book or a subscription set. It also
allows you to define filters for the Users and addresses list as well as the
Subscription list.
How do I access it?
To access the Filter editor and governing settings dialog box, open the
Subscription Book Editor or the Static Subscription Set Editor. From
the Tools menu, select Filter and governing editor.
What can I do with it?
Through the Filter editor and governing settings dialog box, you can
define the filters for the Subscription list and the Users and addresses
list
specify the maximum number of addresses and users to retrieve for the
Subscription Book
specify the maximum number of subscriptions to retrieve for
subscription sets (available only in the Static Subscription Set Editor)
For instructions on completing one of the above tasks, refer to the
following How Do I...? topics:
Subscription Set Operations
Subscription Book Operations
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Before you begin using the Filter editor and governing settings dialog box,
you should
know the total number of items in your Subscription Book
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know the total number of items in your largest static subscription set
determine the maximum number of items you can retrieve without
having to wait longer than you desire
For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topics:
Subscriptions and subscription sets
The Subscription Book
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17
HTML Document
Editor
17.
17
What is it?
The HTML Document Editor allows you to create and format HTML
documents to include in services.
How do I access it?
Before you begin using the HTML Document Editor, you should:
understand how documents are used in publications
know what document elements, information objects, and XSL
stylesheets are
For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
Publications
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a content definition pane that can be set to allow editing of the content,
display the HTML source, or preview the document
a menu bar that offers standard Windows menus (Edit and Help) as
well as File, View, Insert, Format, and Table menus that contain
Narrowcast Server-specific items
a toolbar that provides formatting and table options
In addition, some of the same options are offered via the right-click menu.
If you right-click in the content definition pane, you can insert information
objects. Also, you can double-click the objects in the document element
pane. If you double-click Document Element 1, Document Element 2,
and so forth, the Document Element Properties dialog box appears. If
you double-click the name of an inserted object, the Information Object
Wizard appears.
The Choose XML Information Object Destination dialog box is
accessed only when you select a document element containing an XML
information object, and then add another XML information object.
You can create the desired content for your HTML document within the
HTML Document Editor, in the content definition pane using the Editor
mode (select View, Editor) or by typing the source code directly with the
Source mode enabled (select View, Source). You can also create an HTML
template in an external application such as Microsoft FrontPage or Allaire
HomeSite and then copy the source HTML code from this application into
the HTML Document Editors content definition pane with Source mode
enabled. Within the HTML Document Editor, you can perform tasks such
as adding tables, changing fonts, and so on, using the Editor mode.
However, to accomplish more advanced tasks such as changing column
widths or inserting HTML hyperlinks, use the Source mode and directly
modify the HTML.
Menu bar
The File, View, Insert, Format, and Table menu bar options contain items
unique to Narrowcast Server. The following tables describe the contents of
each.
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Menu option
Function
New Document
Open Document
Save
Save As
Properties
Close
Function
Document Element
List
Editor
Source
Preview
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Menu option
Function
List of available
information sources,
for example,
MicroStrategy Tutorial
or User Information
New Information
Object
Existing Information
Object
Picture
Hyperlink
Note: When you insert an XML information object that was created for
Function
Font...
Choose
Bold
Italic
Underline
Alignment...
Left
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Menu option
Function
Center
Right
Outdent
Indent
Foreground Color
Opens the Color dialog box to set the color of the text
Background Color
Opens the Color dialog box to set the background color of the
text
Numbered List
Bulleted List
Function
Create
Insert Row
Delete Rows
Insert Column
Delete Column
Insert Cell
Delete Cell
Merge Cells
Split Cell
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Toolbar
The formatting and table menu options are replicated on the toolbar as
icons. Their use is described below.
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Toolbar icon
Function
Open
Cut
Copy
Paste
Insert
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Bold
Italic
Underline
Choose Font
Choose Foreground
Color
Opens the Color dialog box to set the color of the text
Choose Background
Color
Left Align
Center
Right Align
Outdent
Indent
Toolbar icon
Function
Toggle Hidden
Formatting Tags
Create Table
Insert Row
Delete Rows
Insert Column
Delete Columns
Insert Cell
Delete Cells
Merge Cells
Split Cell
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18
Imported Document
Editor
18.
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What is it?
Before you begin using the Imported Document Editor, you should
understand how documents are used in publications
understand that imported files must be associated with a document
before they can be used in a publication
understand how locales can be set for documents (locales are necessary
when an imported document contains a file that was imported using a
character set other than the system default)
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For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
Publications
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19.
19
What is it?
The Import File dialog box imports a file to use as a stylesheet, template,
or attachment. An XSL stylesheet is applied at the document element level
and transforms the XML returned by an information object into a format
that can be used in a document. A template is used as the basis for creating
a new document. For example, an Excel template file sets the number of
worksheets in the document and can provide Excel macros as well.You can
import a zip file, associate it to a document, and then attach it to a
publication.
Note:
After the file has been saved, the file type cannot be changed.
After a file is imported, the character set used to import the file cannot
be changed.
After a file is imported, the file path displayed is blank because the file
path is saved in the Narrowcast Server Repository as part of the
Narrowcast Server file object definition. The user can only reimport a
file to that object.
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For instructions on the above topics, refer to the following How Do I...?
topic:
Publication Operations
What should I know before I use it?
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Before you begin using the Import File dialog box, you should
understand how imported files are used in the Delivery Engine
know the location of the file to import
know the character set that was used to create the file if it differs from
your system character set
For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
Creating Services
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Plaintext
HTML
XML
XSL
TML
WML
Excel
Word
PowerPoint
Zip
GIF
JPEG
BMP
AVI
MPEG
AIFF
WAV
Other
US-ASCII
Western (ISO-8859-1)
Baltic (ISO-8859-4)
Arabic (ISO-8859-6)
Greek (ISO-8859-7)
Hebrew (ISO-8859-8)
Turkish (ISO-8859-9)
Kanji (Shift-JIS)
Japanese (ISO-2022-JP)
Korean (EUC-KR)
Cyrillic (KO18-R)
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Thai (WINDOWS-874)
UTF-7
UTF-8
Note: The following file types are considered text files: plaintext, HTML,
The character set that was used when creating the file should be
selected, because this character set is used to interpret the file and store
it in the Narrowcast Server Object Repository. When this file object is
used within an imported document, the locale for the document should
be set to a locale whose character set for relevant ITMs is the same as
or compatible to the character set that was selected when the file was
imported.
Note: You need to select a locale with this same character set (or a
compatible character set) for any imported document that contains this file
in the future for the file to be decoded correctly.
Click OK to continue.
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Information Object
Wizard
20.
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What is it?
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Before you begin using the Information Object Wizard, you should
understand what an information object is
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Role page
Choose how this information object should be used:
Content Information Object: The report results are used as content in
document elements.
Subscription Information Object: The report results provide the
subscription set, within a particular segment.
Segment Information Object: The report results define segment
boundaries for subscriptions.
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installed on the local machine to access New Report, New Filter, and Edit
Object functionality.
Click Advanced Options to access the Advanced Properties dialog box.
For more information on execution modes, see chapter 6, Page
Personalization and Dynamic Subscriptions.
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The Report Execution tab has multiple sections. In some cases, not all
sections are available or visible. The following sections may appear:
Intelligence Server cache
Personalization Mode
Segmentation Properties
Intelligence Server cache
in the second and third sections of this tab, caching is not available. The
check boxes are disabled, new caches cannot be generated, and existing
caches cannot be used.
Personalization Mode
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Segmentation Properties
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Format page
The Format page is used for content information objects only.
Report results can be returned in either a tabular format, ready for further
processing, or in a graphical format, which is a GIF file. If graphical is
selected, the image size can be customized.
Note: One graph is generated no matter how compact it might be. The
entire report results are scaled according to the graph size setting. To
ensure the graph is readable, check whether the report returns a suitable
graph with personalized data in the MicroStrategy Desktop interface using
the same settings as in MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server. The setting is
under Graph Preference Options in the MicroStrategy Desktop interface
when the report is running in graph mode. Ensure that the scrolling settings
(the maximum number of categories and the maximum number of series)
are large enough to cover the scope of the entire report results.
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Address ID
User ID
Locale ID
Subscription
Book
Subscription
Book
Subscription
Book
Report
Subscription
Book
Subscription Book,
report, or constant
Report
Subscription Book,
report, or constant
Constant
Subscription Book,
report, or constant
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Address ID
User ID
Authentication
and Security
Preference
Subscription
Book
Subscription
Book
Subscription
Book
Subscription
Book or report
Report
Subscription
Book
Subscription
Book
Subscription
Book or report
Report
Subscription
Book or report
Subscription
Book or report
Constant
Subscription
Book or report
Subscription
Book or report
Preferences page
The Preferences page is displayed only if personalization was set to be
generated by the report, on the User Properties and Personalization
page.
This page continues the specification of the personalization. For each
information source and question object combination, the reports page-by
attribute forms are provided in drop-down lists to be selected for the
preference object.
Summary page
This page provides a summary of the selections you made while building
the information object. Review the information and click Finish. The Save
XML Information Object dialog box appears so you can save the
information object and return to the Narrowcast Administrator.
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Modify Schedule
Queue Parameters
Dialog Box
21.
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What is it?
The Modify Schedule Queue Parameters dialog box allows you to modify
the schedule queue parameters.
For instructions on the above topic, refer to the following How Do I...?
topic:
Service Operations
What should I know before I use it?
Before you begin using the Modify Schedule Queue Parameters dialog
box, services must be scheduled.
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22.
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What is it?
The New Document dialog box allows you to choose whether to create a
new Narrowcast Server document or to link to an existing MicroStrategy
Desktop Report Services document.
How do I access it?
Before you begin using the New Document dialog box, you should
understand how documents are used in publications
know what document elements, information objects, and XSL
stylesheets are
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For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topics:
Publications
Documents
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Portal Administrator
Wizard
23.
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What is it?
To access the Portal Administrator Wizard, from the Start menu, select
Programs, MicroStrategy, Narrowcast Server and then choose Portal
Administrator.
What can I do with it?
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Before you use the Portal Administrator Wizard, you should familiarize
yourself with
the relationship between a portal and site
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Page Content
Options
Page Content
Options
Summary page
The summary page reviews the steps you completed in the System
Configuration section. Click Next to advance to the Site Management
section.
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Summary page
Welcome page
The Site Management pages allow you to establish your site definition,
portal, and database connections to the Object Repository and Subscription
Book Repository.
For instructions on completing one of the above tasks, refer to the
following How Do I...? topics:
Database Connection Operations
Site Operations
Site Definition
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Page Content
Options
Note:
If you create or edit a site definition you are returned to this page. Select
the site definition you just created or edited and click Next to proceed
to the Site Preferences section.
You can always jump directly to the active Subscription Portal by
clicking the portal name in the upper left corner of the page.
Page Content
Options
Note: After you create a new portal, the Site Definition page appears
again.
Page Content
Options
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Object Repository
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Page Content
Options
Page Content
Options
Summary page
The summary page reviews the steps you completed in the Site
Management section. Click Next to advance to the Site Preferences
section.
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The first area provides an overview of the task you will perform in this
section.
The second area displays Previous and Next buttons to navigate
through the various pages.
Site Preferences pages
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Page Content
Options
Page Content
Options
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Page Content
Options
Note: The channel name and description are visible to the subscriber.
Device Types
Page Content
Options
New Definition
Page Content
Options
This page is the same for editing a device type definition; however, when
editing a device type definition you cannot edit the device type name. The
following defines the fields on this page:
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E-mail requires that all addresses created for this device type follow
the standard electronic mail address format, for example,
yourname@company.extension
Numeric requires the end user to enter an address for the device type
using only numbers, parentheses, and dashes
Address Name shows the name given to each address by the user, for
example, My Email
Style displays the specific device for which each address was created
Address Name allows the end user to give a name to each address
(cannot be disabled)
Address Value allows the end user to enter the physical value of the
address (cannot be disabled)
Style allows the end user to select the device for which the address is
defined (cannot be disabled)
PIN allows the end user to enter a personal identification number that
is used when sending content to the address
Delivery Window allows the end user to enter a starting and ending
time between which services can be delivered to the address
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Device Folders
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Page Content
Options
Note: Any given device folder can only be used for one device type. Once
it has been used for one device type it is no longer shown as available for
other device types.
Device Settings
Page Content
Options
Note: When you select the default device you must select validation for
E-mail requires that all addresses created for this device type follow the
standard electronic mail address format, for example,
yourname@company.extension
Numeric requires the end user to enter an address for the device type
using only numbers, parentheses, and dashes
No validation allows the end user to enter any combination of text and
numbers into the address field
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Information Sources
Page Content
Options
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Preferences
Page Content
Options
after (nn) days: Selecting this option and entering a valid number in
this box indicates that all new user accounts expire after the given
number of days after being created.
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Interface settings
Default use DHTML: These options determine the use of DHTML for
the subscriber.
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disabling the DHTML settings on their Web browsers. The default option
of Determine Automatically should be used unless there is a reason to
change it to one of the other options, such as the DHTML is not working
properly.
Only when there is more than one question displays the summary
page only if multiple questions are asked of the end user.
Administrator information
E-mail allows you to enter the e-mail address of the technical support
contact.
Telephone number allows you to enter the telephone number for
technical support.
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Login mode
1. Narrowcast Server Normal (Login ID and Password): Select this
if the Subscription Portal users will use Narrowcast Server credentials
(NOT Intelligence Server logins or NT authentication).
2. MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Normal (Login ID and
Password): Select this if the Subscription Portal users will use
Intelligence Server credentials (NOT Narrowcast Server credentials or
NT authentication).
3. MicroStrategy Intelligence Server NT (NT Login ID): Select this
if the Subscription Portal users will use NT authentication (NOT
Narrowcast Server or Intelligence Server credentials).
4. Intelligence Server name: Provide a MicroStrategy Intelligence
Server name if you selected option 2 or 3.
This feature allows existing users of MicroStrategy Intelligence Server to
use the Subscription Portal interface without creating a new Narrowcast
Server user. When this feature is enabled, an Intelligence Server user can
log into Subscription Portal using the same login method he normally uses
to log into MicroStrategy Web. The first time a user logs into Subscription
Portal using this approach a Narrowcast Server user is created behind the
scenes and the two user accounts are linked together. This happens
transparently to the user, so the user is never aware of the fact that there are
technically two user definitions.
First you must enable Intelligence Server authentication (ISA) on this
page. You can enable either standard Intelligence Server authentication,
Intelligence Server-NT authentication, both, or neither. (If neither is
enabled, Subscription Portal users need to log in using their Narrowcast
Server login ID and password.) If either ISA option is enabled, you need
to enter the name of the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server to be used for
user authentication. Any combination of the three login options can be
enabled together or independently.
Depending on which of the three login modes are enabled, the Subscription
Portal login page is modified to reflect the available options. If either
Narrowcast Server authentication or MicroStrategy Intelligence Server
Normal is enabled, the login page shows text boxes for login ID and
password, and a login button. (If both are enabled, there is still only one set
of text boxes and one login button.) If NT authentication is enabled, a link
is displayed along with the text boxes and login button.
For example, suppose the text boxes are displayed, and the user types in a
login ID and password and clicks Login. If MicroStrategy Intelligence
Server Normal is enabled, Subscription Portal passes the credentials that
the user entered to the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server for
authentication. If the Intelligence Server authenticates this user, the user is
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Note:
Prompt settings
Number of items to be returned for element prompts: Specify the
maximum number of elements returned by an element prompt. The
default is 30.
Number of items to be returned for object prompts: Specify the
maximum number of elements returned by an object prompt. The
default is 30.
Note: Subscription Portal stores prompt information in temporary files.
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Summary page
The summary page reviews the steps you completed in the Site Preferences
section. Click Next to advance to the Services Configuration section.
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It is not necessary to use all of the services configuration pages. You only
use the services configuration pages when you are configuring a service
with page-by questions or dynamic subscription sets.
The Services Configuration pages allow you to establish your service
configuration, select services to be configured, establish static and
dynamic subscriptions, including alternate question objects, storage
mappings, tables and columns.
For instructions on completing one of the above tasks, refer to the
following How Do I...? topic:
Service Configuration Operations
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Services
Page Content
Options
Page Content
Options
Static Subscriptions
Page Content
Options
Once you have chosen to add or edit a service the Static Subscriptions page
appears. If the default settings have been configured you have the option
to edit the default settings.
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Page Content
Options
questions by clicking Browse in the lower left corner of the page and
continuing as if you were answering the page-by questions with an answer
to another question.
Once you are done configuring page-by questions for static subscription
sets you are returned to this page. Click OK to proceed.
Select Question
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Page Content
Options
Note: You need to navigate through the services folders until you find the
question object that corresponds to the specific question you wish to use.
Select Storage
Page Content
Options
If you have not created a storage mapping you must click Add a new
storage mapping and follow the steps necessary to create the mapping.
Once the mapping is created you are returned to the Select Storage page,
where you need to select the mapping and click Next to proceed.
Dynamic Subscriptions
Page Content
Options
If the default settings have been configured you have the option to edit the
default settings.
Note: You can edit the settings for an individual subscription set in
addition to the default settings. The settings for the individual subset
override the default settings for that particular service.
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Select Tables
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Page Content
Options
This page allows you to select the tables from the data warehouse where
you store the answers to your questions or the subscription information for
dynamic subscription sets.
Note: You can use the Filter table names box to restrict the list of table
names that is returned. You can use the percent sign (%) after the letter or
string to return all entries beginning with that letter or series.
Select Columns
Page Content
Options
This page defines how questions are stored each time a subscriber answers
the question through the Subscription Portal. The same page defines how
dynamic subscriptions get written to the warehouse.
Finish page
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Plaintext Document
Editor
24.
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What is it?
Before you begin using the Plaintext Document Editor, you should
understand how documents are used in publications
know what document elements, information objects, and stylesheets are
For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
Publications
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open a document
In addition, some of the same options are offered via the right-click menu.
If you right-click in the content definition pane, you can insert information
objects. Also, you can double-click the objects in the document element
pane. If you double-click Document Element 1, Document Element 2,
and so forth, the Document Element Properties dialog box appears. If
you double-click the name of an inserted object, the Information Object
Wizard appears.
The Choose XML Information Object Destination dialog box is
accessed only when you select a document element containing an XML
information object and then add another XML information object.
Menu bar
The File and Insert menu bar options contain items unique to the Delivery
Engine. The following tables describe the contents of each.
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Menu option
Function
New Document
Open Document
Save
Save As
Properties
Close
Function
List of available
information sources,
for example,
MicroStrategy Tutorial
or User Information
New Information
Object
Existing Information
Object
Note: When you insert an XML information object that was created for
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Subscription Set
Properties Dialog Box
25.
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What is it?
The Subscription Set Properties dialog box allows you to add and modify
SQL statements to be used before and after subscription sets are executed.
Pre- and Post-SQL statements are optional for subscription set execution.
How do I access it?
Before you begin using the Subscription Set Properties dialog box, you
should
identify the SQL statements needed both before segmentation and after
service execution
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On the Send Now tab, you must select the Enable send now delivery
check box to enable the Subscription Portal users to have the option for a
one-time immediate delivery similar to Send Now in MicroStrategy Web.
The subscription set, which has this check box enabled should be used only
with a schedule that has the On Demand Schedule property enabled.
Otherwise, it can result in slower performance due to loading of the
service. This subscription set deletes all the subscriptions in it once the
service is delivered.
Note: By default, the Enable send now delivery check box is cleared.
Description
Statement Name
Connection
Data Source Name
Login name
Password
Database
Test Connection
SQL Retries
Number of retries for failed
SQL statement executions
Pre SQL
Post SQL
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Box/Button Name
Description
Optional
Required
Error
SQL Definition
SQL Statement
Insert Parameter
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Publication Wizard
26.
26
What is it?
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Welcome
This page provides a brief summary of the steps required to create a
publication. You can choose not to display this page again in the future.
Delivery Method
This page identifies, in a drop-down list, every information transmission
module (ITM) registered in the system. Choose the delivery method that
will deliver the service. Once the publication has been saved, you cannot
change the ITM without redoing the entire publication definition. In effect,
it is the same as deleting the publication and starting a new one.
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Selection Locale
This page identifies, in a drop-down list, the locales available in the
system. Choose the Locale that this publication will support. This locale
defines which users will receive the content of this publication. It must
match the user locale (selected by either the subscription administrator via
Narrowcast Server or by the user via Subscription Portal). Once the
publication has been saved, the locale cannot be altered.
Supported Devices
The available devices for the delivery method chosen previously are listed
in the Available column. The Add button moves the selected device from
the Available column to the Selected column. The Remove button moves
the selected device from the Selected column to the Available column. The
devices in the Selected column are used for the publication.
Message Contents
The Available Documents browser on the left displays the Applications
folder. On the right, the Publication Sections are listed, which are place
holders provided by the ITM. For each Publication Section, select one or
more documents, which define the content of the publication.
You can create a new document by clicking anywhere in Available
Documents and clicking New. The New Document dialog box opens.
You can edit an existing document in both browsers by selecting it and
clicking Edit. The appropriate document editor opens.
Note:
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When you select a document from the browser, the sections to which it can
be added are displayed in bold type. Choose a section and click Add. If the
Add button is unavailable, the selected document-section combination is
not allowed by the ITM. Refer to the tips area at the bottom of the page
for helpful information. For more details, click Rules to display the
Content Definition Rules dialog box. This summarizes the rules specified
by the ITM. Until these rules are satisfied, the Next button is not enabled
and you cannot complete the publication. For example, if the E-mail
(SMTP) ITM must have at least one document in the Subject, Plaintext
Body, or HTML Body sections, the Next button is not enabled until you
add a document to one of those sections.
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Once a document has been added to a section, you can select the Do not
deliver if document fails check box under the Document Sections tree. If
this option is chosen, and the document cannot retrieve content from its
information source or the content cannot be formatted, the publication is
not sent.
The Remove button deletes the selected document from the document
section.
Note: The Publication Wizard does not support creating new zipped
sections or displaying the zip status of documents. This can only be done
when you create a service using the Service Wizard. However, if you add
content to a publication section that is already compressed, or zipped, the
new content can still be added and will also be zipped. See the following
Interfaces topic for more information:
Service Wizard
The Publication Sections available for the E-mail (SMTP) ITM are
subject
message body (Text)
message body (HTML)
text and binary attachments: used to attach any binary files such as
WAV, zip, and the like
execution control (advanced): overrides the default information
transmitter settings; see appendix A: E-mail and Wireless (SMTP) ITM
Execution Control Documents for more information
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Note: For the E-mail (SMTP) ITM, one document is required, but this
The Publication Sections available for the SMS (SMPP) ITM are
message body: required and limited to one plaintext document)
execution control document (advanced): overrides the default
information transmitter settings; this document is optional and limited
to one plaintext document; see appendix C: SMS (SMPP) ITM
Execution Control Documents for more information
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The Publication Sections available for the Web (Portal) ITM are
document body: can be one HTML or one plaintext document
attachments: can be any number and any type of documents)
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link rendering style: an XSL stylesheet file that transforms ITMgenerated XSML into hyperlinks. These hyperlinks are then added to
the bottom of the HTML message body for Subscription Portal
messages. By using a different XSL stylesheet, the appearance of these
hyperlinks can be changed.
Wireless (SMTP) ITM Publication Sections
The Publication Sections available for the Wireless (SMTP) ITM are
subject
message body (Text)
message body (HTML)
text and binary attachments: used to attach any binary files such as
WAV, zip, and the like
execution control (advanced): overrides the default information
transmitter settings; see appendix A: E-mail and Wireless (SMTP) ITM
Execution Control Documents for more information
Summary
This page provides a summary of the selections you made while building
the publication. Review the information and click Finish to create the
publication.
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Question Object
Dialog Set
27.
27
What is it?
The Question Object dialog set is a series of dialog boxes that allow you
to quickly create a new question object, either from a MicroStrategy or
User Information Source. A question object is a set of questions that the
end user answers to personalize the content of an information object. They
allow services to be personalized at the information object, or report, level.
Note: You do not see an interface named Question Object dialog set; it is
a term for a series of dialog boxes that allow you to perform an action.
Before you begin using the Question Object dialog set, you should
understand what a question object is and how it is used
ensure that the system administrator has defined an information source
ensure that, in the project source, a report has been set up to be
associated with the question object
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For more information on the above topics, refer to the following topics:
Publications
appendix B, MicroStrategy Objects in the MicroStrategy Narrowcast
Server Getting Started Guide
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Note: This validation only occurs for question objects created from
within the Information Object Wizard. Otherwise the question object is not
associated to any information object and the first attribute forms cannot be
compared.
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Service Editor
28.
28
What is it?
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Menu bar
The File and Edit menu bar options contain items unique to the Delivery
Engine. The following tables describe the contents of each.
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Menu option
Function
New...
Service
Publication
Schedule
Subscription Set
Open Service
Allows you to save and close the service you are currently
defining and open a different existing service
Menu option
Function
Definition
Message Contents
Selecting a locale from the drop-down list displays the list of devices and
the publications supporting the devices for that locale in the display pane.
This is useful for quickly determining what publications supports a
particular device for the locale.
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You can Add or Remove them from the Selected Subscription Sets and
Schedules grid to pair subscription sets and schedules. A pair is valid
when it contains one schedule and one subscription. A green check means
the pair is valid; a yellow and red X means that it is not valid. One
subscription set can be paired with multiple schedules.
You can sort paired subscription sets and schedules by clicking the
Subscription Set or the Schedule column header. This is useful when you
want to view all schedules paired with a subscription set or all subscription
sets paired with a schedule.
General Properties
The General Properties tab allows you to define the following:
Start Date and End Date (optional): the service executes between these
two dates on the interval determined by its schedule; if they are not
changed, the service starts today and runs indefinitely
The service execution period determines when a service will be run
automatically as scheduled. Outside of this time period, the service is
not executed even if scheduled.
Priority: determines which services will be executed first; higher
priority services run before lower priority ones
Segment Size: the number of recipients per segment; at run time, the
total number of recipients will be divided into segments of this size
Description: a description, up to 5000 characters, of the service
Segment Execution Timeout: specifies the timeout period for each
segment in this service; the default is 1 hour
The segment expiration period should be set according to how long the
service content is expected to take to be sent to the number of recipients
a segment can have. The purpose is to avoid hanging the system if a
segment does not execute. The system retries up to the number of times
set in the System Governing Settings dialog box. (See the MicroStrategy
Narrowcast Server System Administrator Guide for more information.)
Note: Segment execution timeout should be set longer than the time it
takes to run a segment. This prevents a segment from timing out while it is
being sent.
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A services start date and its schedule interact with each other to determine
an overall schedule for the service. Schedules define particular
periodicities (every week, every second Tuesday, every third month), and
a services start date is the starting point for the calculation of these
periodicities. Thus, two services that use the same schedule but have
different start dates can have very different overall schedules.
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For example, a quarterly update service that uses an Every Three Months
schedule and starts on January 1, generates messages on April 1, July 1,
October 1, and January 1. The same service starting on February 1,
generates messages on May 1, August 1, November 1, and February 1. The
only difference between these two services is that they have different start
dates, thus changing the starting point of the schedule calculation. Note
that in the case above, the best implementation of a quarterly schedule is
to build a schedule that explicitly states the months in which to run, thereby
avoiding the issue of having execution times that depend on the start date.
Tip: To verify that a service start date and schedule are interacting as
expected, activate the service. Then view the Scheduled Services folder
under the Administration folder when the system is running to see when
the service will be triggered in the future.
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Schedule Wizard
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What is it?
The Schedule Wizard allows you to quickly create a new schedule, which
is the definition of the times or frequencies a service is executed.
Note: The Schedule Wizard does not define a services start and end
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Recurrence Pattern
Interval
Summary
Click Next to advance to the next page of the wizard. Click Back to go
back to the previous page. Click Cancel at any time to exit the wizard
without saving any changes.
Introduction
This page provides a brief summary of the steps required to create a
schedule. You can choose not to display this page again in the future.
Recurrence Pattern
On this page you set the Recurrence Pattern, which is when the service
will occur, at the daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly level. Also select a Start
date for this schedule.
Note: If the start date is a valid execution day for the schedule, the
schedule is triggered beginning on that day. For example, if you specify the
schedule to run every Tuesday starting on Tuesday, October 17th, 2000,
the schedule runs on that day and every Tuesday thereafter.
When you specify a schedule to run on the 29th, 30th, or 31st day for every
x number of months, if the month does not have a 29th, 30th, or 31st day,
the schedule is triggered on the last day of the month.
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Interval
Time zone
On this page you select a Time zone to use as a reference point for the
service execution time. Choose the services Frequency and Starting
Time:
If the frequency is set at once a day, you must enter the services start
time.
If the frequency is executed multiple times a day, you must enter the
start time, finish time, and interval between executions.
If the service runs all day, you must set the interval between executions.
On Demand Schedule
For Send Now schedules, select the On Demand Schedule check box.
Select this check box for a Send Now schedule so that service execution is
stopped before the segmentation of a service is performed. Segmentation
is performed only when there is a subscription associated with the schedule
that is fired. This prevents unnecessary loading of the Distribution
Manager.
Important: An On-demand schedule must be paired only with a Send
Now schedule.
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Summary
This page provides a summary of the selections you made while building
the schedule. The next 20 occurrences that the service will run are also
listed. Review the information and click Finish to create the schedule.
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Static Subscription
Set Editor
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What is it?
The Static Subscription Set Editor allows you to add and delete
subscriptions to and from a subscription set.
How do I access it?
Before you begin using the Static Subscription Set Editor, you should
identify which addresses you want to include
identify which subscriptions you want to remove
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know the SQL statements you want to include for pre-processing and
post-processing (if any)
For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
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a menu bar that includes Subscription Set, Edit, View, Tools, and
Help menus
a toolbar that provides the ability to
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add users
delete users
add addresses
delete addresses
add subscriptions
delete subscriptions
You can sort addresses and subscriptions using an column by clicking the
desired column header. Clicking the column header a second time reverses
the sort order.
In addition, buttons appear between the Subscription Set and Subscription
Book lists. These can be used to move subscriptions in (Subscribe
Addresses) and out (Delete Subscriptions) of the Subscription Set.
The following topics discuss menu bar and toolbar options available in the
Static Subscription Set Editor.
Function
Save
Exit
Function
Subscribe Addresses
Delete Subscriptions
Edit
Subscription Set
Properties
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Menu option
Function
New User
Delete Users
New Address
Delete Addresses
Function
Status Bar
Refresh
Function
Sort...
Ascending
Descending
Remove Filter
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The toolbar
The most frequently used menu options are placed on the toolbar where
they are accessible by clicking buttons. Their use is described below.
Save and Close saves and closes this subscription set.
New User opens the User Properties Editor, allowing you to add a
new user to the Subscription Book.
Delete Users deletes the selected user.
New Address opens the User Properties Editor for the selected user,
allowing you to add a new address for that user in the Subscription
Book.
Delete Addresses deletes the selected address.
Subscribe Addresses adds the address highlighted in the Subscription
Book to the subscription set.
Delete Subscriptions deletes the selected subscription.
Edit opens the Subscription Properties Editor or opens the User
Properties Editor for the selected user.
Filter adds a filter to the list for the selected field.
Remove Filter removes the filter from the list for the selected field.
Refresh updates the list with the most current information.
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server Help accesses online Help for the
Static Subscription Set Editor.
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Service Wizard
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What is it?
The Service Wizard guides you through the steps of creating a new
service, including selecting a delivery method, developing documents with
dynamic content, and defining a schedule and subscription set. The Service
Wizard allows you to select as many delivery methods as are available in
your system. The resulting service will support users using the system
locale and all devices for the chosen delivery methods.
The Service Wizard creates a fully-functional service and all supporting
application objects required for a fully-functional Narrowcast Server
application. The following objects are created:
Service: A service is created with the name and description entered on
the Service Name page.
Documents: Any documents required to provide the chosen content can
either be created or selected using an object browsing interface.
Schedules: Schedules can be created or selected using an object
browsing interface.
Subscription Sets: Subscription sets can be created or selected using an
object browsing interface.
Use the Service Wizard to
create new documents, schedules, and subscription sets on the fly
be guided step by step through the process of creating a new service
using multiple delivery methods and the default devices and locale
edit existing service
Use the Service Editor to
add multiple publications to a service to support more than one set of
devices per delivery method or more than one locale
use existing publications, schedules, and subscription sets
create new documents, schedules, and subscription sets on the fly
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set service properties such as start and end dates, service priority
segment size, and service expiration
edit an existing service, whether it was created through the Service
Editor or Service Wizard
For more information on the Service Editor, see the following Interfaces
topic:
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Service Editor
How do I access it?
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Welcome
This section contains one page, Welcome. The Service Wizard guides you
through creating a service in three steps:
selecting the delivery method
specifying message contents
defining subscription sets and schedules
You can select whether to display this page in the future.
Delivery Methods
This section contains one page, Delivery Methods. Select one or more
delivery methods. The following are always available:
E-mail (SMTP)
Web (Portal)
Service Wizard layout
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Wireless (SMTP)
SMS (SMP)
Print
File
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Note: You must select at least one delivery method. E-mail (SMTP) is
selected by default.
Message Contents
This section contains the Message Contents page and a page for each
delivery method selected in the previous section. Each of these pages is
named <Delivery Method> Content, where <Delivery Method> is the
name of the selected method, for example E-mail (SMTP) Content.
Each content page allows you to specify the content for each delivery
method selected. For each delivery method, you can create new
documents, insert existing documents, edit existing documents, save the
document for use outside this service, verify the rules for content, and
specify error handling. Each delivery method must have a certain amount
and type of content specified for it.
Each content page includes a toolbar with the following buttons:
New: Click to create a new document for the selected section. Only the
appropriate document types can be created.
Use existing: Click to browse for an existing document to insert into the
selected section.
Edit: Click to edit the selected document.
Rename: Click to rename the selected document (for new documents
only).
Delete: Click to remove the selected document from this service.
Save As: Click to save the selected document and make it reusable in
another service. By default, new documents are embedded and not
available for other services.
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Specify Devices and Locales: Click to open the Devices and Locale
Support dialog box. Use this to specify the devices and locale
supported by the content.
Compression: Click to open the Compression Properties dialog box.
Use this to compress, or zip, documents in one content section in the
selected delivery method.
Rules: Click to open the Content Definition Rules dialog box. Use this
to verify the types of documents required for this delivery method.
Show Error Handling: Click to display the Error Handling dialog
box. Use this to review and specify error handling settings for each
document in this delivery method.
Below the toolbar is a box listing the content sections available for this
delivery method. To define content, highlight a section and click the
appropriate toolbar to create, insert, or edit a document. The section name
indicates both the types of document that can be used and how the content
will be used.
From the toolbar you can select the devices and locale to use for this
delivery method. By default all devices and the System locale are selected.
Right-click and select Specify Devices and Locale to change the
selection. For more information, see the following Interfaces topic:
Devices and Locale Support dialog box
You can elect to include a compressed, or zipped, file for one content
section using the selected delivery method. Several settings must be
specified to produce the zipped file. For more information, see the
following Interfaces topic:
Compression Properties dialog box
Below the box listing the sections a message appears that tells you the type
of content that must be included for this delivery method. Once you add
the appropriate content, the message disappears.
Select the Show advanced content sections check box to see additional
content sections. These are sections not needed for basic applications, but
which can provide additional power and flexibility for advanced users. See
the following Concepts topic for more information:
Publication Operations
To edit a document already inserted, highlight it and click Edit. You can
also right-click on a document to access the same functionality as that
provided in the toolbar.
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For more information on the rules and error handling settings, see the
following Interfaces topics:
Delivery Method Rules
Error Handling dialog box
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For more information on working with subscription sets, see the following
Interfaces topics:
Dynamic Subscription Set Wizard
Static Subscription Set Editor
Use an existing schedule dialog box
This dialog box allows you to select an existing schedule to insert into the
service. By default, the existing schedules in the Schedules folder are
displayed. Select a schedule and click OK to insert the schedule, and close
the dialog box.
Use an existing subscription set dialog box
The Use an existing subscription set dialog box lists the subscription sets
that you can add to a service. Select a subscription and click OK to use
thesubscription, and close the dialog box.
Save As dialog box
The Save As dialog box lets you to save the selected subscription set or
schedule. Choose the folder in which to save the file. Enter a name and
click Save.
Service Summary
This section includes one page, Service Summary. This page provides an
overview of the service definition, including a list of the content,
subscriptions and schedules, and general settings. If any red text appears,
you must go back to the appropriate wizard pages and complete the service
definition as directed. You cannot continue without doing this.
To change general settings for this service, click Modify General
Settings. The General Service Settings dialog box appears.
If no red text appears in the service definition, click Finish and save the
service and return to the Narrowcast Administrator. To run the service
immediately, highlight the service and click Run Immediately.
For more information on service settings, see the following:
General Service Settings dialog box
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Note: Red text appears if you have specified no subscription set and
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shown.
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The Error Handling dialog box displays the current error handling
settings for the documents that have been inserted as contents for this
delivery method. For each document, you can choose to fail the message
delivery or to remove the document on error. By default, the setting for
each document is Remove Document on Error.
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unnecessarily.
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The system tries to re-execute the segment for the number of times
specified in the Maximum failover count in the System Settings dialog
box. However, if this time taken exceeds the segment execution
timeout, the service fails.
For example, you have a service in which you have set the Segment
Execution Timeout as 10 minutes, and the Maximum failover count as
10. When the segment is assigned for the first time, it takes 10 minutes
to execute. If it fails and is reassigned, the segment time is reset. The
failover segment can use the whole segment timeout time, which is 100
minutes, to execute. As a result, the service has a total of 110 minutes to
successfully execute the segment.
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32
Subscription Book
Editor
32.
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What is it?
Before you begin using the Subscription Book Editor, you should
ensure that your system administrator has set up the appropriate
information transmitters and devices
ensure that your system administrator has set up the information sources
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collect the appropriate user information, including login ID, locale, and
personalization
collect the appropriate address information, including physical address,
device, and delivery window
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For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
The Subscription Book
The following topics address menu bar and toolbar options available in the
Subscription Book Editor.
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Function
Exit
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Function
New User
Delete Users
New Address
Delete Addresses
Edit
Function
Status Bar
Refresh
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Function
Sort...
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Ascending
Descending
Remove Filter
Removes the filter from the list for the selected field
The toolbar
The most frequently used menu options are placed on the toolbar where
they are accessible by clicking buttons. Their use is described below.
New User opens the User Properties Editor, allowing you to add a new
user to the Subscription Book and define personalization and other
characteristics for the user.
Delete Users deletes the selected user or users.
New Address opens the User Properties Editor for the selected user,
allowing you to add a new address for that user in the Subscription
Book.
Delete Addresses deletes the selected address.
Edit opens the User Properties Editor for the selected user, in which you
can edit the user login, address, preference, authentication and security,
and user information for this user.
Filter adds a filter to the list for the selected field.
Remove Filter removes a filter from the list for the selected field.
Refresh updates the list with the most current information.
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server Help accesses online Help for the
Subscription Book Editor.
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33
Subscription Book
Synchronization
Wizard
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What is it?
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For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topics:
The Subscription Book
Subscriptions and subscription sets
Synchronization with external sources
Note: If you do not already have a synchronization file to use and want to
export users from your MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, you can use the
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server User Export Tool to create a comma
separated values (CSV) file. See the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server
User Export Tool section at the end of this chapter.
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Welcome
The Welcome page provides you with a summary of what you can do in
the Subscription Book Synchronization Wizard. Each step is described on
this page.
Synchronization Options
The Synchronization Options page allows you to
select the source for synchronization
select the type of synchronization
The Synchronization Source section allows you to specify the source for
synchronization information. This can be one of two types of flat files:
Lightweight Directory Interchange Format (LDIF)
delimited
Note: To use a delimited file with the Subscription Book Synchronization
Wizard, each user must be unique. The column that contains the unique
strings representing the users identity need to be selected in the
Distinguished Name is in column number box.
Select the source type from the Source File Format drop-down list. Then
browse to and select your source file in the Source File Location box, or
enter the path and file name.
If you select Delimited File as the source type, you can select from a
variety of separators, including a comma, space or tab. You can specify the
column to use for the distinguished name.
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Two tables, a check box, and a drop-down list appear on this page.
The first table is in the User Property Mappings section. This table lists
all user properties in the first column such as name, locale, activate and
expire status, password, hint, and so forth. The second column in this table
provides a drop-down list in each row. Each drop-down list contains all
source file attributes where only one attribute can be specified for each
row. For first-time synchronizations, blank is selected by default. For
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Note: Physical Address and Address Name are required but the same
attribute can be used for both. The attribute name specified for the physical
address should be used along with the users distinguished name to
synchronize the address. Thus a table is created mapping address IDs in the
Subscription Book Repository to a concatenation of the users
distinguished name and the attribute name specified to contain the physical
address. This mapping is stored for each address mapping so that it is
available for resynchronizations. If this is a resynchronization, all existing
address mappings should be shown. Address Display is also required.
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Subscriptions
Subscriptions can be synchronized by defining subscriptions for the
available address mappings. The Subscriptions page allows you to
synchronize user subscriptions. If you choose to synchronize this
information, the import file subscription information is always used and
the chosen address is subscribed to the subscription sets indicated.
This page provides a drop-down list including all address mappings
defined on the User and Address Properties page. You must select an
address mapping to reset the default on the table (described below) and
map subscriptions in the table below. An address mapping must exist on
the User and Address Properties page to synchronize user subscriptions.
This page also provides a table to indicate which addresses should be
subscribed to which subscription sets. In the table, the first column lists all
subscription sets in the Subscription Book. The second column provides a
drop-down list in each column. Each list contains all synchronization file
attributes where only one can be selected for each row. For first-time
synchronizations, nothing is selected by default. For resynchronizations,
these items are preselected to represent the mappings used during the last
synchronization for the chosen address mapping. The third column is
enabled only if a mapping is chosen in the second column. You can enter
a string representing the value that indicates that the selected address
should be subscribed to this subscription set.
For example, if you want to subscribe a particular user to a subscription set,
you could select the attribute givenname and enter givenname=name
(where name equals the users given name. If you want to subscribe a
group of users to a subscription set, you could select a common attribute
such as language and enter language=English (if those users share that
value for the language attribute).
At run time, all addresses indicated (by selecting an address mapping) are
subscribed to the indicated subscription sets.Existing subscriptions of the
subscription sets are preserved unless you select Delete subscriptions
from the subscription book that are not found in the synchronization
source in the Synchronization Settings dialog box.
Preferences
User preferences can be synchronized by mapping synchronization file
attributes to each question object. The Preferences page allows you to
synchronize user preferences. This does not allow a user-by-user
specification of whether to use import file preferences information. If you
choose to synchronize this information, the latest information is always
used.
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This is accomplished in the table in which the first column lists all
information sources and the second column lists all the question objects for
these information sources. The third column provides a drop-down list in
each row. Each list contains all synchronization file attributes where only
one can be specified for each row. For first-time synchronizations, Not
mapped is selected by default. For resynchronizations, these items are
preselected to represent the mappings used during the last synchronization.
The string returned by the specified synchronization file attribute is passed
in directly as the user preference. The fourth column provides a drop-down
list in each row. This column is enabled only after the third column is
successfully mapped. Each list contains all synchronization file attributes
where only one can be specified for each row. For first-time
synchronizations, nothing is selected by default. For resynchronizations,
these items are preselected to represent the mappings used during the last
synchronization. The string returned by the specified synchronization file
attribute is passed in directly as the user preference name. The string
returned by the specified synchronization file attribute is passed in directly
as the user preference string, something recognized only by the particular
information source.
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<at did="8D679D4B11D3E4981000E787EC6DE8A4"
Note: The IDs represented here are IDs for report, attribute, and attribute
element. For more information on the MicroStrategy information source
preference string, refer to appendix E, Synchronization Data Types.
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Security
User security objects can be synchronized by mapping a synchronization
file attribute to each information source. The Security page allows you to
import user security. If you choose to import this information, the latest
information is always used. This is accomplished in the table, in which the
first column lists all information sources sorted alphabetically, and the
second column provides a drop-down list in each row. Each list contains
all synchronization file attributes where only one can be specified for each
row. For first-time synchronizations, nothing is selected by default. For
resynchronizations, these items are preselected to represent the mappings
used during the last synchronization. The string returned by the specified
synchronization file attributes is passed in directly as the security object.
At run time, the indicated security objects are created. If this is an existing
user, all existing user security objects are deleted.
Following is a sample security string for the user information source.
Authentication:AuthUserName="administrator"
AuthUserPwd="ODEJQGGC"
AuthUserID="54F3D26011D2896560009A8E67019608"
Security:SecurityObject="8D679D3811D3E4981000E787EC6DE8A4:5"
SecurityObjName="Country = Germany"
UserDetailPref:<UserDetail><First_Name Name="First Name"
Default="0"/><Last_Name Name="Last Name" Default="0"
Value="Eberle"/><Middle_Initial Name="Middle Initial"
Default="0"/><Suffix Name="Suffix" Default="0"/><Salutation
Name="Salutation" Default="0"/><Zip_Code Name="Zip Code"
Default="0"/><Title Name="Title" Default="0"/></UserDetail>
Authentication
User authentication can be synchronized by mapping a synchronization
file attribute to each information source. The Authentication page allows
you to import user authentication. If you choose to import this information,
the latest information is always used. This is accomplished in the table in
which the first column lists all information sources and the second column
provides a drop-down list in each row. Each list contains all
synchronization file attributes where only one can be specified for each
row. For first-time synchronizations, Not mapped is selected by default.
For resynchronizations, these items are preselected to represent the
mappings used during the last synchronization. The string returned by the
specified synchronization file attribute is passed in directly as the
authentication object. In other words, for a MicroStrategy Intelligence
Server information source, this string is a concatenation of user and
password.
Subscription Book Synchronization Wizard layout
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When new users that have not been previously synchronized are found in
a synchronization file, you can either add these users to the Subscription
Book, leave them out of the Subscription Book, or map them to existing
users in the Subscription Book. Use the User Addition or Mapping page
to determine which users are added. All users found in the synchronization
file and not in the Subscription Book synchronization tables are shown in
the Add Users table on the left side of the page. To add users, leave them
in the Add Users table. Use the arrows to move individual or multiple
(multi-select is enabled) users to the right-hand tables. Users moved to the
upper right table (Do Not Add Users) are ignored and are not added to the
Subscription Book or the Subscription Book synchronization tables. Users
moved to the lower right table (Users Available for Remapping) are
stored and made available in the next wizard page. When you click Next,
the changes are not committed but are stored until you reach the Review
Changes page.
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Select one of these users for each remapped user. When you click Next, the
changes are not committed but are stored until you reach the Review
Changes page.
Review
A summary of all changes to be made appears on this page. Three tables
list all users to be added, removed, and remapped. The User Removal or
Mapping table has two columns for existing and new users, which shows
you how existing users are going to be remapped. Review the summary of
changes and click Next to commit these changes or click Back to modify
these changes.
Finish
The Finish page indicates that you have successfully synchronized or
imported users. Click Finish to close the Subscription Book
Synchronization Wizard.
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User Settings
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Address Settings
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Subscription Settings
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Preference Settings
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Authentication Settings
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installed in the Delivery Engine folder where the program files are
installed. You can specify a different file in the wizard. For more
information, see the following section, Subscription Book Attribute File.
Default Attribute Values File: This setting points to the file that
specifies the default values for attributes when either no specific
attribute mapping is specified for the attribute or no value is found in the
source file and the attribute is not required. This file can be modified to
give different default values to attributes that are mapped to attributes in
the source file. For example, you can change the devices of addresses
by replacing the value in this file.
Note: By default, Narrowcast Server uses the file
Log File: This setting points to the location of the log file if the log file
is generated.
Logging Level: This setting determines how much logging is
performed when the Subscription Book Synchronization Wizard
imports or synchronizes the subscription book information. Select one
of the following:
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Log errors and information: logs all actions taken and errors
encountered
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The fourth item determines which user and address properties are used
to uniquely identify addresses once they are synchronized. This value
should generally not be changed and there must be only one True
value among all address properties and only one True value among all
user properties.
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By default, if the synchronization source file does not contain a user name,
physical address, address display name, or address name for a particular
user or address, the synchronization of the corresponding user or address
fails (not for all users or addresses, just for the user or address that is
missing information) and is logged. This is controlled by the fact that
SBRAttributeDefaultValues.txt does not contain default
values for the following properties:
MR_USER_NAME
ADDR_MR_NAME
ADDR_MR_PHYSICAL_ADD
ADDR_MR_DISPLAY
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If the synchronization source file does not contain these properties, the
user (for MR_USER_NAME) or address (for all other properties)
synchronization fails and is logged. For addresses, no address is added or
updated. For users, the user does not appear on the User Addition or
Mapping page and is subsequently ignored.
However, you can change this behavior and assign a default physical
address, display name, and address name by adding the corresponding
lines to the SBRAttributeDefaultValues.txt file:
ADDR_MR_NAME:Default Address
ADDR_MR_PHYSICAL_ADD:Physical Address
ADDR_MR_DISPLAY:Address Display
By default, the values specified in the file
SBRAttributeDefaultValues.txt are skipped. But in this case,
it is important to understand the following:
The synchronization process maps addresses in the synchronization
source with addresses in the Subscription Book based on user ID and
address name (note: not physical address).
The address name is missing in the synchronization source file.
When both of these are true, this address is added to the Subscription Book
as a new address using the default values specified in the file
SBRAttributeDefaultValues.txt.
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Port Number: the port number; this defaults to the standard port
number used by Intelligence Servers
User: the appropriate user name for this Intelligence Server
Password: the appropriate password for this user name
Click Connect. Note that the Status message, which originally is Waiting
for user input, changes to Connected to MicroStrategy Intelligence
Server when the connection is made.
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The second step is to export the users. You can use the default file location
and file name, or click the browse button to select a different one. Once you
are ready, click Export to export the Intelligence Server users to the
specified comma separated values (CSV) file. Once the export is complete,
the Status message becomes Status: XXX users exported to file where
XXX is the number of users exported.
Click Exit to close the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server User Export
Tool.
The CSV file that is created includes the following types of information for
each user: user name, password, address name, address display, physical
address, Web portal device ID, e-mail device ID, and authentication. Some
or all of this information can be used by the Subscription Book
Synchronization Wizard, depending on the needs of your application. For
more information, refer to the following Concepts topic:
Synchronization with external sources
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C H A PT E R
34
Subscription
Properties Editor
34.
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What is it?
Before you begin using the Subscription Properties Editor, you should
determine the appropriate preferences for this subscription
determine the correct transmission properties for this subscription
determine the appropriate status for this subscription
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For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
Subscriptions and subscription sets
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Preference tab
When you create a service using the Service Wizard and insert a
subscription set (either a new one you are creating on the fly or an existing
subscription set), you can edit the subscription properties. The Preference
tab allows you to specify preferences for this subscription based on the
information objects used in your services delivery methods. You can
specify settings for subscription preferences. After preferences have been
specified, you can modify or delete each setting.
The default user preference for each personalized object is listed next to
the information source if a default user preference exists for the
personalized object. Subscription preferences apply only to one
subscription, but they override any existing user preferences.
To create a subscription preference, highlight the appropriate personalized
object and click Define Subscription Preference.
If the personalized object is executed using personalized page execution,
the Select Attribute Form dialog box appears. In the Select Attribute
Form dialog box, select an attribute form from a list of available attributes
so that only the content corresponding to that attribute is sent to the
subscription recipient.
If the personalized object is executed using personalized report execution,
the Prompt Resolution Wizard appears.The Prompt Resolution Wizard
allows you to select elements that govern the options that are available
when selecting preferences and to set the first level of information
filtering. You answer a series of prompts to define the subscription
preference.
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Transmission tab
The Transmission tab allows you to specify transmission properties that
govern certain information transmitter settings. The transmission
properties depend on the transmitter used by the subscription.
For the e-mail transmitter, the transmission properties specify whether the
recipient name should be put in the To:, CC:, or BCC: fields. Click
the button next to the desired setting in the Recipient Field box to specify
where the recipient name should be displayed. By default, the recipient
name is entered in the BCC: field.
For the file transmitter, the transmission properties include the following
selections:
Overwrite files with the same name: Select this check box to
overwrite files when they have the same name. If it is not selected, the
file transmitter uses the device settings (specified by the system
administrator). If these settings are not available, the service fails.
Create required folders: Select this check box to create any folders
that are needed. If it is not selected, the file transmitter uses the device
settings (specified by the system administrator). If these settings are not
available, the service fails.
Append timestamp to file name: Select this check box to add the time
the file is saved to the end of the file name.
There are no subscription-level properties for the print transmitter, the
SMS transmitter or the Portal transmitter.
Status tab
The Status tab allows you to specify the following:
Status: whether this subscription is active or inactive
Expiration date: whether this subscription has an expiration date
Notification tab
The Notification tab allows you to notify the user when a file or print
delivery service has been completed. Choose from the following:
No notification required: Select this option if user notification is not
required.
E-mail: Select this option if a notification is to be sent through e-mail.
By default, the system sends the e-mail to the address of the user you
have specified in the User Properties Editor.
Subscription Properties Editor layout
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C H A PT E R
35
Subscription Dialog
Box
35.
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What is it?
The Subscription dialog box allows you to select the type of subscription
set you want to create: either Static Subscription Set or Dynamic
Subscription Set.
How do I access it?
Before you begin using the Subscription dialog box, you should know
which type of subscription set you want to create.
For more information on the above topic, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
Subscriptions and subscription sets
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36.
36
What is it?
The User Properties Editor allows you to add and edit users and
addresses in the Subscription Book, as well as define personalization for a
user.
How do I access it?
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Before you begin using the User Properties Editor, you should
ensure that your system administrator has set up the appropriate
information transmitters and devices
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ensure that your system administrator has set up the information sources
collect the appropriate user information, including login ID, locale, and
personalization
collect the appropriate address information, including physical address,
device, and delivery window
For more information on the above topics, refer to the following Concepts
topic:
The Subscription Book
For more information on locales, see the MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server
System Administrator Guide, chapter 1, MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server,
Locales section.
Login tab
The Login tab allows you to specify the following:
Login ID: an ID of your choosing. It must be unique and is limited to
127 characters. The \ character is not permitted. The default is New
User.
Password: a password for the user. This is especially useful for selfsubscription applications to preserve user account integrity.
Hint: a hint for the user to help remember the password.
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The Advanced Properties for User dialog box allows you to specify the
following:
Locale: defines which content the user will receive. It controls character
sets, number formats, date formats, and time formats. Your system
might support multiple locales, but a given user only has one locale.
This locale must match the selection locale for a given publication to
receive it. The default is System Locale.
Status: allows you to select either to Activate this user or to Expire
this user on, with an expiration date that you specify. When a user
expires, no services are sent to any addresses for this user.
It also displays Information showing when this user was created and
modified, and by whom.
Addresses tab
The Addresses tab allows you to create, delete, and rename addresses. To
create a new address, click New Address. To delete an address, select it
and click Delete Address. To rename an address, select it and click
Rename Address.
The Addresses tab allows you to specify the following:
Address Name: a name of your choosing. It is limited to 250 characters.
The \ character is not permitted. The default is New Address 1.
Available under Available Addresses option.
Physical Address: the actual address where the message is sent when
using this address. An example is yourname@yourcompany.com.
It is limited to 250 characters. The \ character is not permitted. The
default is Physical Address.
Address Display: appears in the To: box in e-mail services. An
example is Last Name, First Name. It is limited to 250 characters. The
\ character is not permitted. The default is Display Name.
Delivery Method: the way messages are delivered to this address. The
default is E-mail (SMTP). When you select this, the set of devices
associated with the selected delivery method becomes available.
Device: the device to use to format and transmit to a specific receiver
type. The default is Generic e-mail client.
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The Advanced Properties for Address dialog box allows you to specify
the following:
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Status: indicates whether this address is the default for this user (must
have one default address per user), whether this address is activated, or
whether this address should be expired and the date for the expiration.
Delivery Window: indicates the hours each day during which messages
can be transmitted to this address and the time zone being used for the
delivery window for this address. The default time zone is the time zone
specified in the local machine. In this manner, a user can specify that no
messages should be delivered until 9:00 am Eastern time, and the
delivery window automatically takes into effect time changes resulting
from Daylight Savings Time.
PIN: defines a personal identification number for this address.
It also displays Information showing when this address was created and
modified, and by whom.
Preference tab
The Preference tab allows you to specify user preferences for the selected
user. All information objects with question objects selected and all
question objects are listed, along with the corresponding information
sources and any previously-defined user preferences. You can create new
user preferences, modify existing ones, or delete user preferences that are
no longer needed.
Specifying preferences uses interfaces supplied by the information source.
Though these interfaces vary for each information source, the
MicroStrategy Information Source provides the following:
Define User Preference dialog box to define user preferences
Prompt Resolution Wizard to specify preferences for personalized
objects that contain prompts
Select Attribute Form dialog box to specify preferences for other
personalized objects
Multiple user preferences can be defined for a given personalized object.
After preferences are defined, you are asked to provide a name for this user
preference. As user preferences are defined, they are added to a drop-down
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list next to the question object to which they belong. The default user
preference is identified in the drop-down list with a (default) next to its
name.
User preferences apply to all subscriptions for this user.
If user preferences have already been set, select the user preference you
want from the drop-down list and click Modify to update it or click Delete
to remove it from the selected question object.
Note: This applies only for MicroStrategy information sources. Other
On the Define User Preference dialog box, click Answer to display the
Prompt Resolution Wizard. This dialog box opens only for personalized
objects with prompts.
The Prompt Resolution Wizard allows you to select elements that govern
the options that are available when selecting preferences and to set the first
level of information filtering. You answer a series of prompts to define
your user preferences.
Note: This applies only for MicroStrategy information sources. Other
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On the Define User Preference dialog box, click Answer to display the
Select Attribute Form dialog box.
The Select Attribute Form dialog box allows you to select the attribute
elements for an attribute. When the service is executed, the recipients
receive only the page of content that corresponds to the element that you
have selected. Click Purge cache to clear the Intelligence Server's element
cache.
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title
salutation
street address
city
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state
zip code
country
You can add or remove user properties within Narrowcast Administrator
by selecting Edit Available User Properties from the Tools menu.
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SECTION III
Application Designer
How Do I...?
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Channel Operations
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Click Next.
4.
5.
In the Site Preferences section, on the Channels page, click the Edit
link next to the channel whose folder you wish to change.
2. Select the folder that contains the services you wish to be displayed
in the Subscription Portal for this channel.
3.
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6. To display this channel to the end user, select the Channel Enabled
option.
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Click Next.
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Delete a channel
Steps
1.
2.
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Device Type
Operations
Select a folder on the left that you wish to make active for this device
type.
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3.
Using the toggle switch, move the selected folder to the right.
4.
5.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Click Next.
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3.
4.
Select the fields to use when displaying and editing. Selecting any of
the check boxes under Edit fields causes these fields to be displayed to the
end user when he edits an address of this particular device type.
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2.
3.
Click Rename.
C H A PT E R
39
Information Object
Operations
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Steps
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3.
Select an existing question object or create a new one and click OK.
You are returned to the Report page.
2.
3.
4.
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5.
7.
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Select the prompt from the drop-down list to use as the Segment
beginning prompt.
Select the prompt from the drop-down list to use as the Segment end
prompt.
12. On the Format page, select whether to return the report results in a
5.
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create the new information object. The Save XML Information Object
dialog box opens.
15. Choose the directory in which to save the object. Enter a name for the
4.
5.
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Save this question object as is. Then create or edit the intended
information object, and associate this question object with the
information object. Click Edit on the Advanced Options dialog box
to validate the report.
7.
Click OK. You are returned to the Question Object dialog box.
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Choose the directory in which to save the object. Enter a name for the
new question object and click Save.
4.
5. Select the report that contains the segment boundaries. The report
must have at least one prompt for segmentation by size.
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Note: If the selected report is not valid for this type of information object,
an error message displays in the middle of the page. If the report is valid,
a green check appears.
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9. Select the prompt which controls the Segment size returned by the
report.
10. Click Next. The Summary page opens.
11. Review the information on the Summary page and click Finish to
create the new information object. The Save XML Information Object
dialog box opens.
12. Choose the directory in which to save the object. Enter a name for the
new information object and click Save.
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5. Make the appropriate selection and click Next. One of the following
pages opens:
6.
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Note: If the selected report is not valid for this type of information object,
an error message displays in the middle of the page. If the report is valid,
a green check appears.
7. If you selected a report, to change how the server cache is used, click
Advanced Options. The Advanced Properties dialog box opens. In the
Intelligence Server cache section, make the appropriate selections.
8.
10. Click Next. The User Properties and Personalization page opens.
11. Select whether the Address ID is generated by the report or retrieved
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12. Select whether the User ID is generated by the report, retrieved from
the subscription book, or set to apply a constant.
If the user ID is set to apply a constant, a text box appears. Enter the
constant in it.
default, it is the ID form of the first page-by attribute in the selected report
template. You cannot change the Subscription ID.
14. Click Next. The Summary page opens. If the Address Properties
page opens instead, the Address ID has been set to be generated from the
report. See the following How Do I...? topic for information on this page:
15. Review the information on the Summary page and click Finish to
create the new information object. The Save XML Information Object
dialog box opens.
16. Choose the directory in which to save the object. Enter a name for the
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Address Display
Physical Address
Device
Transmission Properties
PIN
Time Zone
Delivery Window
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7. Once the Summary page opens, return to the previous How Do I...?
topic to continue creating an information object.
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Database Connection
Operations
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4. In the Database connection name text box, enter a name for the
database connection .
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11. In the Number of pooled connections text box, enter the connection
pool size.
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3.
Click Next.
3.
Click Next.
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2.
3.
Click Next.
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Publication
Operations
Note: If you are working in the Excel Document Editor and you click on a
spreadsheet tab before this step, the information object becomes the name
of the spreadsheet.
2. From the Insert menu, select Existing Information Object. The
Select Information Object dialog box opens.
3.
Select an information object and click OK. You are returned to the
document editor and a document element is automatically created.
Note: If this object is an XML information object created for the
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2. Select an XML information object and click OK. You are returned to
the document editor.
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Set the Error Handling Rules. For each type of error, choose
whether to send an error or a text string you define.
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10. Select an XML information object and click OK. The Choose XML
Information Object Destination dialog box opens.
11. Select Currently Selected Document Element and click OK.
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Click and drag the mouse on the worksheet Assign macro dialog box
is displayed.
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Click OK.
From this point on, whenever you click the new button, the macro is
executed. By incorporating the Excel workbook into a MicroStrategy
Narrowcast Server service, this macro can be sent to all subscribers for
quickly charting the data. For more information on importing this newly
created Excel workbook as a template in MicroStrategy Narrowcast
Server, refer the following topic:
Import a file
From the View menu, select Document Element Pane. This works as a
toggle, hiding and revealing the Document Element pane on the left.
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From the New Document dialog box, select the option to Link to
existing Microstrategy web or Report Services document and select the
appropriate information source. Or from the Select Information Source
dialog box, select the appropriate information source.
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Note: You can also create links to Desktop documents from within both
the Service Wizard and the Publication Wizard. Service Wizard documents
are embedded within the service and do not appear in Narrowcast
Administrator.
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Enter a name for the macro, press ENTER, and note that a recorder
symbol appears. Excel records all actions performed until you click the
recorders Stop button.
3.
Launch the Chart Wizard by selecting Chart from the Insert menu.
4.
5.
Click the recorders Stop button to end the recording session and
save the macro.
Note: To verify that a chart is correct, you can place dummy data that
closely matches the structure and content of the real data in the appropriate
cell ranges. This data should be removed from the template/workbook
before saving.
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3. Click Browse in the Excel Spreadsheet File box. The Open Excel
Spreadsheet File dialog box opens.
4.
Select an Excel document to use as the template and click OK. You
are returned to the Excel Document Editor.
Note: You do not see any Excel macros included in the template.
Therefore, you need to know what the macros are, as well as where the
macros assume the text is placed.
5.
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To add a dynamic text item, see the following How Do I...? topic:
8.
In the Content Definition pane, click the Row Positioning cell for the
document item to be positioned.
Relative Top means the item is offset from the top of another
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Note: Relative Top and Relative Bottom are not available for the first
9.
Relative Left means the item is offset from the left side of another
Relative Right means the item is offset from the right side of
Note: Relative Left and Relative Right are not available for the first
11. Click Save and Close. The Save Excel Document dialog box opens.
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12. Choose the directory in which to save the document. Enter a name for
the new document and click Save.
3. Click Browse in the Excel Spreadsheet File box. The Open Excel
Spreadsheet File dialog box opens.
4.
Select an Excel document to use as the template and click OK. You
are returned to the Excel Document Editor.
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Note: You do not see any Excel macros included in the template.
Therefore, you need to know what the macros are, as well as where the
macros assume the text is placed.
5.
6.
To add a dynamic text item, see the following How Do I...? topic:
8.
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In the Content Definition pane, click the Row Positioning cell for the
document item to be positioned.
Absolute means the item is offset from the top of the sheet. Enter
Relative Top means the item is offset from the top of another
Note: Relative Top and Relative Bottom are not available for the first
9.
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Relative Left means the item is offset from the left side of another
Relative Right means the item is offset from the right side of
Note: Relative Left and Relative Right are not available for the first
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11. Click Save and Close. The Save Excel Document dialog box opens.
12. Choose the directory in which to save the document. Enter a name for
the new document and click Save.
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1. Right-click anywhere in the Applications folder, point to New, then
choose Document. The New Document dialog box opens.
2.
Note: You can format the text, using the options in the Format menu.
They are similar to standard Windows formatting choices, such as font
selection, indents, and lists.
4.
To add a dynamic text item, see the following How Do I...? topic:
6.
From the Insert menu, select Image. The Picture dialog box opens.
Click Browse, select the image file, and click Open. You are returned
to the Picture dialog.
7.
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From the Insert menu, select Hyperlink. The Hyperlink dialog box
opens.
8.
To create a table,
From the Table menu, select Create. The Create Table dialog box
opens.
Change the Table Tag Attributes, if desired, to change the size of the
border, cell padding, and cell spacing.
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You can enter text, document elements, or images into the tables
cells.
9.
You can resize any item, except for static text, by clicking and
dragging one of the items handles. You can also move any item, except for
static text, by clicking on it and dragging it to the new position.
10. Click Save and Close. The Save HTML Document dialog box
opens.
11. Choose the directory in which to save the document. Enter a name for
the new document and click Save.
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Follow this procedure to import a new file and then associate it with a
document. If your file has already been imported, see the following topic:
Create an imported document from an existing imported file
Steps
1. Right-click anywhere in the Applications folder, point to New, then
choose Document. The New Document dialog box opens.
2. Double-click Imported Document. The Imported Document
Editor dialog box opens.
3. Select Create a new File object and click OK. The Import File
dialog box opens.
4.
5. The File Type is automatically set, but you can change it by selecting
a File Type from the drop-down list.
6. Click the browse button to locate the file. The Open dialog box
opens.
7.
Select the file to be imported and click Open. You are returned to the
Import File dialog box.
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9. Choose the directory in which to save the file. Enter a name and click
Save. The Save Imported Document As dialog box opens.
10. Choose the directory in which to save the document. Enter a name for
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Set the Error Handling Rules. For each type of error, choose
whether to send an error or a text string you define.
9.
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To add a static text item, type the text in the Content Definition pane.
4.
To add a dynamic text item, see the following How Do I...? topic:
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6.
7.
Click Save and Close. The Save Plaintext Document dialog box
opens.
8. Choose the directory in which to save the document. Enter a name for
the new document and click Save.
Create a publication
Steps
1. Right-click anywhere in the Applications folder, point to New, then
choose Publication. The Publication Wizard opens at the Welcome
page.
2. Read the introduction and click Next. The Name\Description page
opens.
3.
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4.
Note: Once the publication has been saved, the ITM cannot be altered.
6.
7. From the drop-down list, select the Locale that this publication will
support.
Note: Once the publication has been saved, the locale cannot be altered.
8.
9. From the Available list, select the devices to use and click Add to
add them to the Selected list.
10. Click Next. The Content Specification page opens.
11. Select a document in the Available Documents browser on the left.
Tip: Refer to the tips area at the bottom of the page for helpful information
on the status of your selections.
13. Click Add to assign the selected document to the selected section.
14. To require a document to be in this publication before the publication
will be sent, select the This document is required check box under the
Document Sections tree.
Note: If this option is chosen and the document cannot retrieve content
from its information source or the formatting fails, the publication will not
be sent.
15. Continue to add documents to document sections until your
publication is complete. The Next button will become available when all
the ITMs rules have been fulfilled.
Tip: For a summary of the ITMs rules, click Rules to access the Content
Definition Rules dialog box.
16. Click Next. The Summary page opens.
Create a publication
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17. Review the information and click Finish to create the new
publication. The Save Publication dialog box opens.
18. Choose the directory in which to save the publication. Enter a name
Import a file
Steps
1. Right-click anywhere in the Applications folder, point to New, then
choose Imported File. The Import File dialog box opens.
2.
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3. The File Type is automatically set, but you can change it by selecting
a File Type from the drop-down list.
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4. Click the Browse button to locate the file. The Open dialog box
opens.
5. Select the file to be imported and click Open. You are returned to the
Import File dialog box.
6.
7. Choose the directory in which to save the file. Enter a name and click
Save.
From the View menu, select Preview. The Content Definition pane (on the
right) now displays a preview of the HTML document.
To return to editing, select Editor from the View menu.
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Double-click the file to reimport. The Import File dialog box opens.
2.
Click OK.
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3.
5.
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5.
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1.
2.
One or more check boxes in the list of information objects. All the
selected information objects must fail for error handling to apply to
this document.
4. Select the appropriate check boxes to specify how to apply this errorhandling rule:
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Return no data: Select to apply the rule for information objects that
return no data.
Return an error: Select to apply the rule for information objects that
fail.
6.
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4.
For any situation where you selected Use String, enter the string to
use in the Use String box.
5.
6.
From the View menu, select Source. The Content Definition pane (on the
right) now displays the HTML source code underlying the document.
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Note: You can copy and paste HTML source code from other applications
into the HTML Document Editor in this view.
1.
2.
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Type
Owner
Creation Time
Modification Time
Description
Determine which reports you want to use for stylesheet testing. If you
plan to use reports with many different characteristics such as subtotals,
thresholds, different arrangements of metrics and attributes in the rows and
columns, and so on, select a representative sample of reports.
2. Create a simple e-mail service containing one or more of the reports
in an HTML message.
3.
Edit the document elements containing these reports and apply the
MSTR7ToHTML-ReturnXML.xsl stylesheet.
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4. Set the information transmitter used for this service to save messages
to file only.
5.
Execute the service and edit the message that is saved to file.
6. Copy the XML structures from this service and save to files with .xml
extensions.
7. From the Start menu, select Programs, MicroStrategy, Tools, and
then XML Test Tool.
8.
In the XML window, click Load and then browse for one of the XML
files that you created.
9. In the XSL window, click Load and then browse for the stylesheet
that you want to test.
10. Click Transform and then View Source.
11. Repeat steps 8 through 10 for as many reports (XML files) and XSL
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C H A PT E R
42
Service Operations
42
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Steps
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1.
2.
list.
3. Enter the name or macro for the zip file to be produced in the File
Name box. For more information on the use of macros, please see the
Compression Properties dialog box topic in the Service Wizard chapter.
4. To specify a password, select the Use Password check box and type
a password in the Password box.
5. Select the desired compression level from the Compression Level
drop-down list.
6.
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Create a schedule
Steps
1. Right-click anywhere in the Applications folder, point to New, then
choose Schedule. The Schedule Wizard opens at the Introduction page.
2.
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Daily: The service will run every x number of days or every weekday.
Weekly: The service will run every x number of weeks for any given
days.
Monthly: The service will run any given day or date every x number
of months.
Yearly: The service will run any given day or date in any given
month on an annual basis.
Tip: If you set a service to run yearly starting on February 29th, 2000, the
next run date of the service will be February 28th, 2001, not March 1st,
2001. Similarly, a monthly service starting on March 31st results in a next
execution date of April 30th, not May 1st.
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6.
7.
8.
Select the time zone on which to base the service execution time.
9.
Select how frequently your service will run during the day:
Executes once a day: The service will run once a day at the specified
time.
Executes multiple times a day: The service will run multiple times
at the specified interval between the selected start and end times.
Executes all day: The service will run all day at the specified
interval.
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3.
The Available Publications tree allows you to browse existing
publications.
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device, only the one with the highest priority is displayed in the
information transmitter/Device/Publications grid. A subscriber receives
the highest-priority publication with a locale and device that matches the
locale and device defined in the subscription. An icon is displayed next to
the publication to warn of a possible conflict.
6.
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To create a new subscription set, click New and build the subscription
set. Then click Add.
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7.
Select a schedule.
To create a new schedule, click New and use the Schedule Wizard.
Then click Add. A green check appears when the pair is valid.
Note: You cannot save the new service until your combined subscription
sets and schedules are valid.
8.
On the General Properties tab, you can change the Start Date by
selecting the check box and choosing a date from the drop-down calendar.
If you do not change the start date, the service begins today.
9.
You can change the End Date by selecting the check box and
choosing a date from the drop-down calendar. If you do not change the end
date, the service broadcasts indefinitely.
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10. Set the Priority and Segment Size for the service.
11. Enter a Description, up to 5000 characters long, for the service.
12. On the Service Execution Timeout tab, select an expiration option:
Time Out at Specific Time, and enter the time and time zone
Offset Timeout from Service Execution Start, and enter the length
of time, in days, hours, or minutes, to run the service
13. When you have completed all the tabs, click Save and Close on the
Review the information and click Next. The Delivery Method page
opens.
3.
4. Click Next. The first page of the Message Contents section opens. A
list of pages to follow appears on the left, one for each delivery method
chosen in the previous section.
5. Click Next. A page appears for the delivery method selected first,
with the name <Delivery Method> Content, where <Delivery Method> is
the name of the delivery method.
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8.
9.
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email deliveries.
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1.
Right-click the service and select Edit with Service Wizard. The
Service Wizard opens.
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2.
3.
Right-click the Excel file attachment and select Edit. The Desktop
Document Selector dialog box opens.
4. Click Advanced Properties. The Advanced Properties dialog box
opens.
5. On the General tab, clear the Include report title check box and
click OK to return to the Desktop Document Selector dialog box.
6.
7.
Note: For each project, supporting services are created in the Services for
Web Deliveries folder in the Narrowcast Administrator Folder List.
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3. On the General tab, clear the Include report title check box and
click OK.
4.
2.
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4.
5.
Click OK.
2.
2. Click the Scheduled Services object in the object browser folder list.
Services scheduled to execute the soonest appear in the object browser
folder contents window. The services shown depend on the service queue
parameters specified.
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services to be executed. Since the listing is not dynamic and does not
update to reflect recently executed services, it must be refreshed whenever
an accurate list of upcoming services is needed. However, the listing is
automatically updated whenever a service is activated or deactivated in the
object browser.
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43
Service Configuration
Operations
43
Click Next.
Note: If you have already configured one or more services, proceed with
the following steps. If you have not configured any services, skip step 3
and proceed directly to step 4.
3.
4. Navigate through the folders until you locate the application object
that represents the service to be configured. Select the object and click
Next to proceed to the Static Subscriptions page.
5.
6.
Note:
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7.
8.
Click Next.
9. Select the warehouse and tables in which you want to store the
subscriptions for the selected subscription set. Click Next.
10. Map the subscription information to the database tables. Click Next.
11. Repeat steps 6 through 10 for all dynamic subscription sets you wish
to configure.
12. Having configured all dynamic subscriptions sets, click Next to
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Steps
Click Next.
Note: If you have already configured one or more services, proceed with
the following steps. If you have not configured any services, skip step 3
and proceed directly to step 4.
3.
4. Navigate through the folders until you locate the application object
that represents the service to be configured. Select the object and click
Next to proceed to the Dynamic Subscriptions page.
5. Click the configure link next to the dynamic subscription set to be
configured.
6.
Note: For each question for which you choose answer to another
question, you need to select an alternative question by following the steps
described in Select an alternate question.
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7. Configure any additional questions you want the user to answer when
creating a subscription (optional).
8.
Click Next.
Note: If you have already configured one or more services, proceed with
the following steps. If you have not configured any services, skip step 3
and proceed directly to step 4.
3.
4.
Navigate through the folders until you locate the application object
that represents the service to be configured. Select the object and click
Next to proceed to the Static Subscriptions page.
5.
Note: For each question for which you choose answer to another
question, you need to select an alternative question by following the steps
described in Select an alternate question.
7. Configure any additional questions you want the user to answer when
creating a subscription (optional).
8.
page.
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Note:
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2.
Select one or more question components and drag them each to one
of the table columns on the right.
Note: A question component is the answer ID for each question in the
service.
3.
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Notes:
The name of the storage mapping is initially generated from the list
of tables for this data warehouse as shown in the Select Tables page.
2.
Select one or more general components and drag each of them to one
of the table columns on the right.
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Important:
Note: A question component is either the answer value for each prompt or
the answer ID of the question.
4.
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3.
Select whether you would like to store the answers to this question in
the Subscription Book Repository or in a warehouse.
4. To store the answers in a warehouse, you can either select an existing
storage mapping that has previously been created for this question object,
or you can create a new storage mapping.
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5. Continue with the steps to Select tables for question mappings and
subscription mappings and Map question object information to data
warehouse tables and return to this screen
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6.
4.
Using the toggle switches, move the tables to the left and right until
all the desired tables are present in the Selected Tables box.
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Note: You can use the Filter table names box to restrict the list of tables
names that is returned. You must use the percent (%) sign after the letter,
that is, a%, to return all entries beginning with that letter or series of
letters.
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C H A PT E R
44
Site Operations
44
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2.
3.
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4.
Click Next.
5.
6.
the check box and click Next. On the Subscription Book Repository
page, enter the database connection where the Subscription Book
Repository (SBR) is stored and the table prefix for the SBR.
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2.
3.
Click OK.
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Steps
1.
2.
3.
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2.
Click Delete.
3.
2.
3.
Click Delete.
4.
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Steps
1. In the Site Management section, on the Site Definition page, select a
site from the list.
2.
Click Edit.
3.
4.
Click Next.
5.
6.
Click Next.
7.
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C H A PT E R
45
Subscription Book
Operations
45
2.
3.
Select the user for whom you want to add a new address.
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4.
From the Edit menu, select New Address. The User Properties
Editor - Addresses tab opens.
5.
9.
Select a delivery method from the list in the Delivery Method box.
17. To change the time zone, select from the list in the Time Zone box.
18. To add a Personal Identification Number for this address, enter a
number in the Enter PIN box. Enter the same number to confirm the PIN
in the Confirm PIN box.
19. Click OK to save your changes and return to the Addresses tab.
20. Click OK to finish and return to the Subscription Book Editor. You
might not see the new address if the filter being applied to the list excludes
it.
21. From the Subscription Book menu, select Exit to return to the
Narrowcast Administrator console.
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Steps
1.
2.
3.
4.
On the Login tab, enter a login ID for the user in the Login ID box.
5.
6.
To provide a password hint for the user, enter text in the Hint box.
7.
8. Select a locale from the list in the Select locale box or use the default
suggested.
9.
To deactivate this user, clear the Activate this user check box.
10. To specify an expiration date, select the Expire this user on check
box and choose a date.
11. Click OK to save your changes and return to the Login tab.
12. To add an address for this user, click the Addresses tab. See Add an
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2.
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3.
Double-click the user you want to modify, or create a new user. The
User Properties Editor opens.
4.
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10. Make the appropriate selections and click Finish. The wizard closes
and you are returned to the User Properties - Authentication and
Security tab.
11. Click OK to finish and return to the Subscription Book Editor.
12. From the Subscription Book menu, select Exit to return to the
Narrowcast Administrator console.
Steps
1.
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2.
3. Double-click the user you want to modify, or create a new user. The
User Properties Editor opens.
4.
7.
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2.
3.
4.
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2.
3.
4.
5.
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1.
2.
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3.
4.
5.
6. From the Selected Address list, select the address you want to
modify.
7.
8.
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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1.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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19. Select source file attributes to use for the other address properties, as
desired.
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To add all the users to the Subscription Book, do nothing; leave them
in the Add Users table.
To exclude any users in the import file from being added to the
Subscription Book, highlight and move them to the Do Not Add
Users table.
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25. Review the information and click Next to run the synchronization
and go to the Finish page.
26. Click Finish to return to the Narrowcast Administrator console.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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Wizard.
16. Click Next to go to the Authentication page.
17. Select an import file attribute to use for each information source.
18. Click Next to go to the Review page.
Import user authentication
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19. Review the information and click Next to run the synchronization
and go to the Finish page.
20. Click Finish to return to the Narrowcast Administrator console.
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3.
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4.
5.
6.
7.
Source Authentication.
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Wizard.
16. Click Next to go to the Preferences page.
17. Select an import file attribute to use for each question object.
18. Click Next to go to the Review page.
19. Review the information and click Next to run the synchronization
and go to the Finish page.
20. Click Finish to return to the Narrowcast Administrator console.
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1.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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Wizard.
16. Click Next to go to the Security page.
17. Select an import file attribute to use for each information source.
18. Click Next to go to the Review page.
19. Review the information and click Next to run the synchronization
and go to the Finish page.
20. Click Finish to return to the Narrowcast Administrator console.
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1.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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Source Authentication.
14. Under Security Settings, select Do Not Define Information Source
Security.
15. Click OK to return to the Subscription Book Synchronization
Wizard.
16. Click Next to go to the Subscriptions page to define subscriptions
2.
3.
From the Tools menu, select Filter and governing editor. The Filter
editor and governing settings dialog box opens.
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Synchronize users
Steps
1.
3.
4.
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5.
6.
7.
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To add all the users to the Subscription Book, do nothing; leave them
in the Add Users table.
To exclude any users in the import file from being added to the
Subscription Book, highlight and move them to the Do Not Add
Users table.
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20. Review the information and click Next to run the synchronization
and go to the Finish page.
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Synchronize users
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C H A PT E R
46
Subscription Set
Operations
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3.
4.
5.
6.
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3.
4.
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4.
Type a name for the subscription set and select a folder to save it in.
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3.
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5.
Click Save and Close to display the Save Subscription Set dialog
box.
6.
Type a name for the subscription set and select a folder to save it in.
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3.
4.
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In the Subscription Set Properties dialog box, click the Send Now
tab.
3. Select the Enable send now delivery check box to enable one-time
immediate delivery similar to Send Now in MicroStrategy Web. By
default, this check box is cleared.
Note: The subscription set, which has the Enable send now delivery
check box selected should be used only with a schedule that has the On
Demand Schedule property enabled. Otherwise, it can result in slower
performance due to loading of the service.
4.
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7.
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Note: This tab is available only if you select File or Print as the delivery
method in the Service Wizard, and the User Properties Editor.
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3.
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4.
Select the E-mail option if you want to send a notification through email after the service has been delivered.
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5.
section, 50 is the default and also the smallest number allowed. A number
smaller than 50 automatically reverts to 50.
6.
Note: You can also open the Filter editor and governing settings dialog
box from the Subscription Book Editor by selecting Filter and governing
editor from the Tools menu. However, you will not see the Subscription
Set section.
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SECTION IV
Application Designer
Appendixes
IV
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Appendixes
APPENDIX
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Syntax
CustomHeaders= CustomHeaderList
The text field can be any text including the space, tab, and colon
characters. A maximum of 75 characters per line is recommended to
prevent an old SMTP gateway from truncating the text.
To extend a text field to any length, multiple lines are allowed. Each new
line must start with a tab or space.
If any header in the list is malformed, the message fails.
Example
CustomHeaders=X-FirstHeader: This is a sample header,
add any information you want here
x-SecondHeader: more data
X-EmptyHeader:
Syntax
BCC= Addresses List
Example
BCC=rcver@server1.com;rcver2@server2.com
Note: Control line feeds, spaces, and tabs are not accepted in this list.
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Syntax
ChangeAttachmentName =
ORIGINAL_DOC_NAME.EXT1=NEW_FILE_NAME.EXT2
Examples
ChangeAttachmentName = MyAttachments.txt=Sales Report.txt
ChangeAttachmentName = MyAttachments.txt=Sales Report.csv
ChangeAttachmentName = MyAttachments.txt=Sales
Report.txt|MyExcelAtachments.xls=Profit Report.xls
ChangeAttachmentName = MyAttachments.txt=Sales
Report.txt|MyExcelAtachments.xls=Profit_Report.xls
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Example1
You want to create a service to be named dynamically according to the
details of the report filter contained in the report. The high level steps to do
this are as follows:
1.
2.
3.
5.
When you execute the service, the attachment is created with the name
Region_Northeast.html.
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Example2
You want to create a service to be named dynamically according to the
attribute called Manager which is contained in the page-by field of the
report. The high level steps to do this are as follows:
1.
2.
5.
When you execute the service, the file is created with the name Manager
- Aoter_Barbara.html.
Syntax
ChangeAttachmentName = My Attachment.xls=NewName.xls | My
Attachment.pdf=[IO].pdf | My Zipped File=NewZipName.zip
Replace NewName with the new name of the file. Replace [IO] with the
Information Object.
The following syntax rules apply to the control documents:
Single quotes are used, not double quotes.
Document names are case sensitive.
The separator for renaming multiple documents is the pipe symbol (|).
Invalid characters in the new name are replaced with underscore
characters at run-time.
Renaming a non-existent attachment has no effect.
Dynamically renaming zip files in e-mail attachments
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renaming the files that you want to zip. To rename a file, use static strings
or information objects.
Example
ChangeAttachmentName = My Attachment.xls=MonthlySales.xls |
My Attachment.pdf=[IO].pdf | My Zipped
File.zip=MonthlySales.zip
Other properties
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Syntax
SenderDisplayName=XXX
SenderEmailAddress=XXX
ReplyToDisplayName=XXX
ReplyToEmailAddress=XXX
Importance=normal/high/low
DeliveryStatusNotificationEmailAddress=XXX
RequestDeliveryStatusNotificationOnSuccess=yes/no
RequestDeliveryStatusNotificationOnFailure=yes/no
The syntax is a subset of the XML definition for tag attribute lists, the part
that is inside tags:
Single quotes are used, not double quotes.
Text is case sensitive.
White space can be any character, including tabs, spaces, carriage
returns, or line feeds.
The order of parameters is arbitrary.
480
Examples
SenderDisplayName=MicroStrategy
ReplyToDisplayName=MicroStrategy
Importance=high
RequestDeliveryStatusNotificationOnSuccess=yes
RequestDeliveryStatusNotificationOnFailure=no
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Other properties
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APPENDIX
Syntax1
SaveDocumentAs=HTMLDocument1.html=NewFileName.html
SaveDocumentAs=HTMLDocument1.html=NewFileName.html|HTMLDocu
ment2.html=NewFileName2.html
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Example1
SaveDocumentAs=HTMLDocument1.html=Sales Report.html
SaveDocumentAs=HTMLDocument1.html=Sales
Report.html|HTMLDocument2.html=Sales Report2.html
SaveDocumentAs=HTMLDocument1.html=Sales Report.htm
Syntax2
You can create an Execution Control Document that uses an Information
Object to rename a service dynamically. The syntax in a Control Document
is as follows:
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where [IO] is the placeholder for the Information Object icon. To add the
Information Object, choose Existing Information Object from the Insert
menu of the File Execution Control editor.
The Information Object used in the control document refers to a
MicroStrategy report to generate the file name.
You must modify the XSL used by the Information Object in the Control
Document so that the Information Object returns the attribute name and the
attribute element name.
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Example2
You want to create a service to be named dynamically according to the
name of the Distribution Center that the information object returns. The
high level steps to do this are as follows:
1. Create a report just using the attribute "Distribution Center" and filter
it on one single distribution center Washington so that the result will be
one row only.
2.
3.
Create a service that uses the File ITM and use a control document
with the following syntax:
SaveDocumentAs='DistributionCenter.html=[IO].html'
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When you execute the service, the file is created with the name
DistributionCenterWashington.html.
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Example1
You want to create a service to be named dynamically according to the
details of the report filter contained in the report. The high level steps to do
this are as follows:
1.
2.
3.
Create a service that uses the File ITM and this Information Object.
4.
5.
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When you execute the service, the file is created with the name
Region_Northeast.html.
Example2
You want to create a service to be named dynamically according to the
attribute called Manager, which is contained in the page-by field of the
report. The high level steps to do this are as follows:
1.
2.
3.
Create a service that uses the File ITM and this Information Object.
4.
5.
When you execute the service, the file is created with the name Manager
- Aoter_Barbara.html.
Syntax
SaveDocumentAs = My Saved Document.xls=NewName.xls | My
Saved Document.pdf=[IO].pdf | My Zipped
File.zip=NewZipName.zip
Replace NewName with the new name of the file. Replace NewZipName
with the new name of the zip file. Replace [IO] with the Information
Object.
The following syntax rules apply to the control documents:
Single quotes are used, not double quotes.
Document names are case sensitive.
The separator for renaming multiple documents is the pipe symbol (|).
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renaming the files that you want to zip. To rename a file, use static strings
or information objects.
Example
SaveDocumentAs = My Saved Document.xls=MonthlySales.xls |
My Saved Document.pdf=[IO].pdf | My Zipped
File.zip=MonthlySales.zip
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5 = Alphanumeric
6 = Abbreviated
7 = Reserved
Valid NPI values are the numbers in bold to the left of their description
below:
0 = Unknown
1 = ISDN/Telephone (E.164/E.163)
3 = Data (X.121)
4 = Telex
8 = National
9 = Private
10 = ERMES (ETSI DE/PS 3 01-3)
15 = Reserved
Syntax
ReturnAddress=XXX
TON=XXX
NPI=XXX
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Replace XXX in ReturnAddress, TON, and NPI with the actual values you
want to be used.
Example
ReturnAddress=60000
TON=1
NPI=1
Expiration/Validation Date
The expiration/validation date serves as the date up until which an SMSC
(the server) continues trying to send an SMS message to a mobile device.
The default behavior is no expiration if a date is omitted. Dates are in the
following format defined in the SMPP 3.4 protocol specification section
7.1.1 YYMMDDhhmmsstnnp and explained below.
490
In this interface, all time/date related fields will be in ASCII with the
following format:
YYMMDDhhmmsstnnp where
YY = last two digits of the year (00-99)
MM = month (01-12)
DD = day (01-31)
hh = hour (00-23)
mm = minute (00-59)
ss = second (00-59)
t = tenths of second (0-9)
nn = time difference in quarter hours between local time (as expressed
in the first 13 octets) and UTC (Universal Time Constant) time (00-48)
p - + = local time in quarter hours advanced in relation to UTC time
- = local time in quarter hours retarded in relation to UTC time
R = local time relative to the current SMSC time
Note: Where responses are reported by the SMSC the local time of the
Syntax
Expire=XXX
Replace XXX in Expire with the actual expiration date you want to be used
by the SMSC for all messages sent in the publication that contains your
execution control document.
Example
Expire=021201000000+
Expiration/Validation Date
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6
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
5
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
Meaning Notes
SMSC Default Alphabet
IA5 (CCITT T.50)/ASCII (ANSI X3.4) b
Octet unspecified (8-bit binary) b
Latin 1 (ISO-8859-1) b
Octet unspecified (8-bit binary) a
JIS (X 0208-1990) b
Cyrllic (ISO-8859-5) b
Latin/Hebrew (ISO-8859-8) b
UCS2 (ISO/IEC-10646) a
Pictogram Encoding b
ISO-2022-JP (Music Codes) b
reserved
reserved
Extended Kanji JIS(X 0212-1990) b
KS C 5601 b
reserved
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
1
1
1
0
1
0
1
1
x
x
x
x
1
x
x
x
x
1
x
x
x
x
1
x
x
x
x
reserved
GSM MWI control; see [GSM 03.38] d
GSM MWI control; see [GSM 03.38] d
reserved
GSM message class control; see [GSM 03.38] e
Notes:
These coding schemes are common to Global System for Mobile
Communication (GSM), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) and
Code-Division Multiple Access (CDMA). The SMPP protocol allows
client applications to use the same DCS value (that is, the GSM 03.38
value) for all three technologies.
In cases where a data coding scheme is defined for TDMA or CDMA
but not for GSM, SMPP uses GSM 03.38 reserved values.
492
Syntax
DataEncoding =XXX
Replace XXX in DataEncoding with a valid data coding value that you want
to be used.
Example
Expire =00000000
Priority
The priority can be set for messages to indicate to the SMSC that a
particular message has a low or high priority. If a mobile user has more
than one message waiting at an SMSC, messages with a high priority are
sent to the user before messages that are nonpriority. A 0 specifies
nonpriority and a 1 indicates high priority. All messages are nonpriority by
default.
Syntax
Priority =XXX
Example
Priority =1
Priority
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APPENDIX
This appendix describes the format of the XML structures used by various
components of Narrowcast Server. This information can be used to
develop custom modules such as information source modules, and to write
custom XSL stylesheets that control how information is rendered and
delivered by Narrowcast Server. The term tag is used instead of the XML
term element to avoid confusion with MicroStrategy object elements.
XML is used throughout Narrowcast Server to share information between
modules. The MicroStrategy Information Source Module uses XML to
represent reports that are displayed in grid mode. The plaintext and Excel
document formatting modules expect XML in a certain format that
represents how data should be rendered or arranged in the documents they
produce. The Web (Portal) Information Transmitter uses XML to
communicate the attached documents for which links need to be provided.
By using custom XSLs that handle these specific XML formats, you gain
more control over how information is rendered and how it is delivered.
For information on the format of the XML structure for the MicroStrategy
Information Source Module, see the MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server
SDK Guide, available in the MicroStrategy Developer Library, which is
sold as part of the MicroStrategy SDK.
Organization
This appendix provides the following pieces of information about each
XML specification:
Overview: a list of all of the tags in the specification and a diagram
showing how they relate to each other in the XML tree structure
Tags: detailed information about each tag, including the attributes that
apply and whether the tag or any of these attributes are required
Example: a fragment of XML meeting the specification
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Overview
This section summarizes the XML representation of document elements
expected by the plaintext DFM. It details the characteristics of each tag and
the attributes within it.
A plaintext XML document element can have two types of content: text
and table. The only processing performed on text content is character
replacement. For example, if a specific pager cannot support the
<Carriage Return> character, it might be useful to replace that
character with a blank space to maintain the white space arrangement of
the content. This replacement process is applied to both text and table
content.
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row
Tags
All the tags allowed in a plaintext XML document element are listed
below, along with their meanings. None of the tags have attributes.
Tag Name
Purpose
pt-container
text
table
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Tag Name
Purpose
row
cell
pt-container
None
Child tags
text, table
text
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Parent tags
pt-container
Child tags
None
table
pt-container
Child tags
row
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row
An individual row of data in a table. There must be at least one row in each
table. At least one of the rows in each table must contain at least one cell.
A row with no cells can represent a blank row.
Parent tags
table
Child tags
cell
cell
An individual field or cell of data in a row. Cells with the same ordinal
position in different rows are considered to be part of the same column.
There must be at least one cell in each table.
Parent tags
row
Child tags
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None
Example
This is an example of a valid plaintext XML document element.
<pt-container>
<text>Northeast Sales Report</text>
<table>
<row>
<cell />
<cell>2000</cell>
<cell>1999</cell>
</row>
<row>
<cell>New York</cell>
<cell>$150k</cell>
<cell>$138k</cell>
</row>
<row>
<cell>Boston</cell>
<cell>$82k</cell>
<cell>$86k</cell>
</row>
<row>
Plaintext XML format
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<cell>Providence</cell>
<cell>$91k</cell>
<cell>$76k</cell>
</row>
</table>
</pt-container>
1999
New York
$150k
$138k
Boston
$82k
$86k
Providence
$91k
$76k
Overview
This section provides an overview of the XML representation of document
elements expected by the Excel DFM. It details the characteristics of each
tag and the attributes within it.
Note: All aspects of this XML specification, including element (tag)
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pt-container
table
fonts
font
styles
style
formats
format
row
cell
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Tags
This section lists all the tags that are allowed in an Excel XML document
element, their meanings, and the attributes each tag can have.
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Tag Name
Purpose
pt-container
table
fonts
font
styles
style
formats
Tag Name
Purpose
format
row
cell
pt-container
None
Parent tags
None
Child tags
table
table
A collection of data cells arranged in rows and columns, along with the
formatting instructions for each cell. There must be exactly one table and
it must be a child of the pt-container tag. This table must contain at least
one non-empty row and cell. It must also contain exactly one fonts, one
styles, and one formats tag.
Optional attributes
pt-container
Child tags
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fonts
None
Parent tags
table
Child tags
font
font
The definition of a specific font including typeface, size, color, weight, and
modifiers. There can be any number of font tags.
Required attributes
name = the name that a style in this document element uses to reference
this font. It can be any XML-compliant string that does not include the
following characters: &, <, >, ", ', space.
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color = A number between 8 and 63. If not specified, the default font
color for the cell is used.
size = A number between 1 and 409 representing the font size in points.
If not specified, the value 10 is used.
style = A string representing the modifiers to the font such as italics.
Possible values may include any combination of: ["italic", "strikeout"].
If not specified, no modifiers are used. The strikeout attribute overrides
this attribute.
underline = A string representing the type of underline to apply.
Possible values: ["none" | "single" | "double" | "single accounting" |
"double accounting"]. If not specified, the value "none" is used.
weight = A string representing the weight of the font. Possible values:
["bold" | "normal"]. If not specified, the value "normal" is used.
strikeout = A string indicating whether or not the strikeout modifier
should be applied. Possible values: ["yes" | "no"]. This attribute
overrides the style attribute.
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Parent tags
fonts
Child tags
None
styles
None
Parent tags
table
Child tags
style
style
name = the name that a cell in this document element uses to reference
this style. It can be any XML-compliant string that does not include the
following characters: &, <, >, ", ', space.
Optional attributes
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styles
Child tags
None
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formats
None
Parent tags
table
Child tags
format
format
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Positive Number
Negative Number
Format String
1234.567
-1234.567
1235
-1235
#,##0
1,235
-1,235
0.00; (0.00)
1234.57
(1234.57)
0%
123457%
-123457%
00.0,
01.2
-01.2
# ??/??
1234 55/97
-1234 55/97
For date and time formatting, the following character combinations have
special meanings:
"m" represents months as 1-12 and minutes as 0-59
"mm" represents months as 01-12 and minutes as 00-59
"mmm" represents months as a three-character string such as "Jan"
"mmmm" represents months as the full month name such as "January"
"mmmmm" represents months by their first letters such as "J", "F", or
"M"
"d" represents days as 1-31
"dd" represents days as 01-31
"ddd" represents the day of the week as a three-character string such as
"Mon"
"dddd" represents the day of the week name such as "Monday"
"yy" represents years using 2 digits
"yyyy" represents years using 4 digits
"h" represents hours as 0-23
"hh" represents hours as 00-23
"h AM/PM" represents hours as 12 AM, 1 AM, 11 PM
"s" represents seconds as 0-59
"ss" represents seconds as 00-59
For example, to display the date and time as "Monday, January 3, 2001
4:01:05 PM", use the string "dddd, mmmm d, yyyy h:mm:ss PM".
For more information about Excel format strings, refer to Microsoft Excel
online help.
Attributes
formats
Child tags
None
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row
None
Parent tags
table
Child tags
cell
cell
An individual field or cell of data in a row. Cells with the same ordinal
position in different rows are considered to be part of the same column.
There must be at least one non-empty cell in each table.
Optional attributes
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type = A number indicating the type of data being returned by the cell.
Possible values:
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1 is not used
2 is a two-byte integer
3 is a four-byte integer
6 is not used
7 is a date
8 is a string
Parent tags
row
Child tags
None
Color definition
Color is defined three ways for Excel XML.
Excel color index
RGB color
Named color
Excel color index
Colors are predefined in Excel. Each of them has an index. The numbers
you can use are from 8 to 63, as shown below:
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8-Black
9-White
10-Red
11-Bright
Green
12-Blue
13-Yellow
14-Pink
15Turquoise
16-Dark
Red
17-Green
18-Dark
Blue
19-Dark
Yellow
20-Violet
21-Teal
22-Gray25%
23-Gray50%
40-Sky
Blue
41-Light
Turquoise
42-Light
Green
43-Light
Yellow
44-Pale
Blue
45-Rose
46Lavender
47-Tan
48-Light
Blue
49-Aqua
50-Lime
51-Gold
52-Light
Orange
53-Orange
54-Bluegray
55-Gray40%
56-Dark
Teal
57-Sea
Green
58-Olive
Green
59-Olive
Green
60-Brown
61-Plum
62-Indigo
63-Gray80%
RGB color
RBG color uses values from 0 to 255. The following syntax is used:
"rgb(RED,GREEN,BLUE)"
where RED,GREEN,BLUE are the desired values of red, green, and blue.
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Named color
You can use named values instead of indexes. The names correspond to the
indexes in the table in Excel color index. An example using named colors
is:
border-top-color = "bright green"
Example
Here is an example of a valid Excel XML document element.
<pt-container>
<table>
<fonts>
<fontname="Header"
color="8"
family="Arial"
size="12"
weight="bold"
style="italic"
underline="none" />
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<fontname="Body"
size="10"
weight="normal" />
</fonts>
<styles>
<stylename="CHeader"
background-color="22"
align="right"
border-bottom="style:medium;color:8"
font="Header" />
<stylename="RHeader"
background-color="22"
align="left"
border-right="style:thin;color:8"
font="Body" />
<stylename="data"
align="right"
font="Body" />
</styles>
<formats>
<format id="1">0000</format>
<format id="2">$?,??0, k</format>
</formats>
<row>
<cell style="CHeader" />
<cell style="CHeader" type="2"
format="1">2000</cell>
<cell style="CHeader" type="2"
format="1">1999</cell>
</row>
<row>
<cell style="RHeader" type="8">New York</cell>
<cell style="data" type="5"
format="2">1350300.0</cell>
<cell style="data" type="5"
format="2">1338100.0</cell>
</row>
<row>
<cell style="RHeader" type="8">Boston</cell>
<cell style="data" type="5"
format="2">820200.0</cell>
<cell style="data" type="5"
format="2">861300.0</cell>
</row>
<row>
<cell style="RHeader" type="8">Providence</cell>
<cell>912800.0</cell>
<cell>760100.0</cell>
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</row>
</table>
</pt-container>
1999
New York
$1,350 k
$1,388 k
Boston
$ 820 k
$ 861 k
Providence
$ 913 k
$ 760 k
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Overview
The XML structure used to represent the attachment list is a fairly simple
one. Two tags make up this XML specification:
The atts tag is the root-level tag. This tag is required.
Each att tag contains information about one attachment. The
information is stored in various attributes, all of which are required.
Depending on the publication definition, there can be zero to many
attachments in the list.
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Tags
All the tags allowed in an attachment list XML are listed below, along with
their meanings.
Tag Name
Purpose
atts
att
atts
None
Child tags
att
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att
atts
Child tags
None
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Example
This is an example of a valid attachment list XML.
<atts>
<att name='doc1.txt' type='text/plain' docId='12345'
index='1' />
<att name='doc2.htm' type='text/html' docId='23456'
index='2' />
</atts>
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Example
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<UniqueMsgID>0AC6A72F989D4184B13E34BCA30D0D2F23</UniqueMsgID
>
</SubsInfo>
Example
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APPENDIX
Synchronization Data
Types
E.
User properties
Login ID
Password
Password hint
Data type:
text
Restrictions:
Sample:
user1
Data type:
text
Restrictions:
250 characters
Sample:
pwd
Default:
password
Data type:
text
Restrictions
250 characters
Sample:
hint
Default:
password hint
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Locale
User status
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Data type:
GUID
Restrictions:
32 characters
Object Repository
Sample:
FBBF7C1E37EC11D4887C00C04F48F8FD
Default:
FBBF7C1E37EC11D4887C00C04F48F8FD
Data type:
Boolean
Restrictions:
0 (inactive) or 1 (active)
Sample:
Default:
Data type:
date
Sample:
12/30/9999
Default:
12/30/9999
Address properties
Address name
Physical address
Address display
520
Data type:
text
Restrictions:
250 characters
Sample:
work e-mail
Default:
Default Address
Data type:
text
Restrictions:
250 characters
Sample:
user1@work.com
Default:
Physical Address
Data type:
text
Restrictions
250 characters
Sample:
User 1
Default:
Address Display
Device
PIN
Delivery window
Time zone
Address status
Data type:
GUID
Restrictions:
32 characters
Object Repository
Sample:
1D2E6D168A7711D4BE8100B0D04B6F0B
Default:
1D2E6D168A7711D4BE8100B0D04B6F0B
Data type:
text
Restrictions:
250 characters
Sample:
5555
Default:
0000
Data type:
binary
Sample:
0x000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Default:
0x000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Data type:
integer
Restrictions:
Sample:
21
Default:
21
Data type:
boolean
Restrictions:
0 (inactive) or 1 (active)
Sample:
Default:
Data type:
date
Sample:
12/30/9999
Default:
12/30/9999
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Address properties
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Subscription set
Subscription set
Data type:
text
Sample:
finance department
Data type:
xml
Sample:
Preference
Preference
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Authentication
Authentication
Data type:
xml
Sample:
AuthUserName="Administrator" AuthUserPwd="pwd"
AuthUserID="54F3D26011D2896560009A8E67019608"
Data type:
xml
Sample:
SecurityObject="A6DE4BA111D3ADA0C0002B91E22B284F:8"
SecurityObjName="Sector Group = T"
Security
Security
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City
Constant
(GMT+04:00)
(GMT+09:30)
Adelaide
(GMT-09:00)
Alaska
(GMT+06:00)
Almaty, Dhaka
10
(GMT+01:00)
40
(GMT-07:00)
Arizona
55
(GMT+02:00)
26
(GMT-04:00)
(GMT+12:00)
Auckland, Wellington
(GMT-01:00)
(GMT+03:00)
(GMT+04:00)
Baku, Tbilisi
(GMT+07:00)
(GMT+08:00)
15
(GMT+01:00)
12
(GMT-05:00)
43
(GMT+05:30)
30
(GMT-03:00)
Brasilia
20
(GMT+01:00)
11
(GMT+10:00)
Brisbane
18
(GMT+01:00)
58
(GMT+02:00)
Bucharest
19
(GMT-03:00)
42
(GMT+02:00)
Cairo
22
37
5
A
P
P
E
N
D
I
X
E
S
46
523
A
P
P
E
N
D
I
X
E
S
524
Time zone
City
(GMT+10:00)
50
(GMT-04:00)
Caracas, La Paz
44
(GMT)
Casablanca, Monrovia
28
(GMT-06:00)
14
(GMT+06:00)
Colombo
49
(GMT+09:30)
Darwin
(GMT-05:00)
21
(GMT+05:00)
Ekaterinburg
23
(GMT-12:00)
Eniwetok, Kwajalein
16
(GMT+12:00)
24
(GMT)
27
(GMT+10:00)
60
(GMT+02:00)
Harare, Pretoria
48
(GMT-10:00)
Hawaii
29
(GMT+02:00)
25
(GMT+10:00)
Hobart
52
(GMT-05:00)
Indiana (East)
54
(GMT+05:00)
59
(GMT+02:00)
Israel
32
(GMT+04:30)
Kabul
(GMT+11:00)
13
(GMT-06:00)
34
(GMT-02:00)
Mid-Atlantic
35
(GMT-11:00)
45
(GMT+03:00)
41
(GMT-07:00)
36
Constant
Time zone
City
Constant
(GMT+03:00)
Nairobi
17
(GMT-03:30)
Newfoundland
38
(GMT+09:00)
53
(GMT-08:00)
39
(GMT+08:00)
Perth
57
(GMT-06:00)
Saskatchewan
(GMT+09:00)
Seoul
33
(GMT+08:00)
Singapore
47
(GMT+08:00)
Taipei
51
(GMT+03:30)
Tehran
31
(GMT+10:00)
Vladivostok
56
(GMT+09:00)
Yakutsk
61
A
P
P
E
N
D
I
X
E
S
525
A
P
P
E
N
D
I
X
E
S
526
Index
A
activating subscriptions 463
adding
addresses 447
channels, new 385
database connections 399
documents, zipped 425
dynamic text to documents 403
personalization to users 449, 450
site definitions, new 443
SQL for post-service execution 464
SQL for pre-service execution 464
subscriptions to subscription sets 463
users 448
XML information objects, multiple 404
zipped documents 425
additional questions option, Portal Administrator Wizard 171
Address IDs, as preference object 170
addresses
adding 447
deleting 451
display 84
editing 452
formats 283, 284
names 84
overview 83
properties 520
user property 83
Advanced Properties dialog box 263
advanced segmentation control techniques 149
alert-based applications 105
alert-based services
application design 109
importance 105
process flow 106
alerting, edge-triggered 93
alternate questions 168, 174
alternate questions, selecting 440
answer to another question setting, Portal Administrator
Wizard 168
application design
hierarchy 18
requirements 142
application designer tasks xx
applications, defining with security 39
architecture, component-based 18
associating
macros with events 405
question objects to information objects 389
attachment names, changing 477
attributes, importing user and address 453
authentication 33, 522
authentication and security
adding to users 449
authentication, importing user 455
automatic charts, creating 407
B
blind carbon copy (BCC) list 476
C
changing
device folders associated with device types 387
folders of services associated with channels 385
views in document editors 405
channels
adding new 385
deleting 386
description 161
folders 162
names and descriptions 162, 282
selecting folder 281
Site Preferences page 281
chart creation in Excel documents 54
charts, creating automatic 407
Choose Subscription Sets dialog box 209
clearing question objects from information objects 389
clients see devices
column widths
in MicroStrategy Web or Desktop 77
setting 231
upgraded systems 78
compressed documents 15
Compression Properties dialog box 338
configuring
dynamic subscription sets 435
page-by questions for dynamic subscription sets 436
page-by questions for static subscription sets 437
Subscription Portal, different 444
Index
I
N
D
E
X
527
I
N
D
E
X
528
Index
deleting
addresses 451
channels 386
device types 388
site definitions 444
Subscription Portal 445
subscription sets 467
subscriptions 466
users 451
delivery information, defining for subscription information
objects 397
delivery methods
definition 84
E-mail (SMTP) 9
File 10
multiple 175
overview 3
Print 10
SMS (SMPP) 10
Web (Portal) 10
Wireless (SMTP) 9
delivery see Web delivery
delivery windows 85
Desktop Document Selector dialog box 211
Desktop documents
creating links to 406
overview 68
device type definitions, reconfiguring 388
device types
changing device folders for 387
creating new 387
deleting 388
name 283
new 163
new definition 282
overview 162
renaming 388
specifying 282
devices
content selection 5
default 164
definition 84, 163
description 22
device file 176
folders 163, 284
multiple end-user 175
multiple sets 175
portal 164
settings 163
Devices and Locale Support dialog box 338
dynamic subscriptions
description 125
implementing 147
non-personalized 196
personalization 108, 117
personalized 200
dynamic text, adding to documents 403
E
edge-triggered alerting 93
edit fields 283
editing
addresses 452
site definitions 445
users 452
EIS interfaces, building in Excel 56
E-mail (SMTP) delivery method 9
E-mail (SMTP) ITM Publication Sections 306
E-mail and wireless (SMTP) ITM execution control
documents 475
blind carbon copy (BCC) list 476
changing attachment names 477
custom e-mail headers 475
other properties 480
e-mail headers, custom 475
e-mail transmitters, transmission properties 371
error handling
alerts 14
document element-level 12
document-level 13, 230
Excel documents 14, 64
properties 12
publication-level 13
specifying rules for document elements 421
specifying rules for documents 420
Error Handling dialog box 340
event-triggered service execution 107, 109, 110
event-triggered services 105
Excel Document Editor 233
I
N
D
E
X
Index
529
Excel documents
accommodating reports of different sizes 62
automatic chart creation 54
building EIS interfaces 56
building pivot tables 57
converting URLs into hyperlinks 61
creating 407, 410
data placement and formatting 53
editor 233
error handling 64
overview 52
preserving leading zeros 62
reports from Intelligence Server 63
strategy 52
using macros 60
VBA macros and viruses 63
Excel XML
color definition 511
formats 500
tags 502
execution control documents
E-mail and Wireless (SMTP) ITM 475
File ITM 483
SMS (SMPP) ITM 489
execution locales 177, 178, 230
execution periods see schedules
Executive Information System 56
expiration 82, 85, 86, 371
expiration dates, setting for subscriptions 470
expiration/validation dates 490
external sources 89
F
File delivery method 10
File ITM execution control documents 483
File ITM Publication Sections 307
file transmitters, transmission properties 371
files
imported versus document 14
importing 418
reimporting to update 419
folders, changing for services associated with channels 385
I
N
D
E
X
G
General Service Settings dialog box 340
530
Index
governing 85, 95
setting limits for subscriptions 471
setting limits for users and addresses 459
H
HTML (Desktop) documents 68
HTML Document Editor 47, 241
HTML documents
creating 412
development strategy 48
editor 47, 241
overview 47
previewing 418
techniques 50
HTML source code, viewing 421
hyperlinks in Excel documents 61
I
image information objects 27
Import File dialog box 253
import tasks 95
Imported Document Editor 249
imported documents
creating from new imported files 414
overview 67
versus imported files 15
imported files 14
importing
files 418
user and address attributes 453
user authentication 455
user preferences 456
user security 457
user subscriptions 458
users and addresses 96
information delivery platforms xix
Information Object Wizard 257
locales
advanced user properties 377
content 5
description 22
execution 178
multiple languages and nationalities 177
objects 178
selecting for documents 419
selection 33, 178
user 83, 178
using 179
login IDs 82
Login Information dialog box 380
information objects
adding multiple XML 404
content 26, 129
creating 28
creating content information objects with personalized page
execution 390
creating content information objects with personalized report
execution 391
creating in documents 415
creating segment information objects 393
creating subscription information objects 394
description 23
error handling 398
image 27
limiting information returned 42
overview 25
role in execution 41
roles 26
segment 27, 149
subscription 26
text 27
types 27
XML 27
information sources
overview 164
security 38
site preferences 285
Use Project Credentials 165
Use User Credentials 165
information transmission modules 164
information transmitters 4, 175
ITM see information transmission modules
macros
associating with events 405
in Excel documents 60
mapping
dynamic subscription information to data warehouse
tables 438
question object information to data warehouse tables 439
messages see services
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server User Export Tool 367
MicroStrategy Web delivery 23
Modify Schedule Queue Parameters dialog box 271
modifying
schedule queue parameters 432
subscription preferences for each information source 468
transmission properties for address display 469, 470
MSTRSubscriptions table 173
L
languages see locales
languages, multiple 176
large icon URL 283
leading zeros in Excel documents 62
links to Desktop documents, creating 406
locale objects 178
O
Object Repository
overview 160
Portal Administrator Wizard page 280
selecting 400
I
N
D
E
X
Index
531
objects
devices 22
documents 22
information objects 23
locales 22
publications, description 21
question objects 23
schedules 21
services 20
subscription sets 21
viewing properties 422
XSL files 23
organization of guide xix
I
N
D
E
X
page-by
answer ID 191
questions 167
subscription ID 186
page-by questions
configuring for dynamic subscription sets 436
configuring for static subscription sets 437
passwords 82
personal identification numbers 85
personalization
adding to users for authentication and security 449
adding to users for preference 450
advanced techniques 34
description 32
dynamic subscriptions 108, 117
to support alert services 109
types 32
users 83
personalized page execution
advanced Subscription Portal configuration 181
basic 183
configuring 167, 168
creating content information objects 390
implementing 147
implications 128
overview 123
versus personalized report execution 126
with dynamic subscriptions 143
with static subscriptions 145
532
Index
Q
Question Object Browser dialog box 310
Question Object dialog box 310
Question Object dialog set 309
question object information, mapping to data warehouse
tables 439
question objects
advanced techniques 35
advantages 35
associating to information objects 389
clearing from information objects 389
creating 392
description 23
personalization 36
prerequisites 36
role in execution 41
validation 311
queues 271
R
recipients see subscriptions
reconfiguring device type definitions 388
reference material xx
regional preferences 176
S
Save Desktop Linked Document dialog box 216
scalability 130
schedule queue parameters, modifying 271, 432
Schedule Wizard 321
scheduled services, viewing 433
schedules
creating 426
definition 21
delivery, specifying 17
overview 17
security
description 33
importing user 457
information objects 40
information sources 38, 39
objects 44
question objects 40
synchronization data type 522
upgraded reports 45
user personalization 45
segment information objects
advanced segmentation control techniques 149
creating 393
overview 27
segmentation
advanced segmentation control techniques 149
application design implications 133
processes 131
Select Information Source dialog box 259, 310
Index
I
N
D
E
X
533
I
N
D
E
X
selecting
alternate questions 440
locales for documents 419
Object Repository 400
Portal Repository 400
stylesheet files for documents 419
Subscription Book Repository 400
tables for question and subscription mappings 440
selection locales 177, 178
self subscription 155
send now 467
Service Editor
creating services 427
using 313
Service Wizard
creating services 429
using 331
services
configure with page-by question 167
creating 3
creating with Service Editor 427
creating with Service Wizard 429
description 20
event-triggered 105
overview 3
running immediately 433
specifying recipients 16
viewing schedules 433
services configuration, Portal Administrator Wizard 290
setting
expiration dates for subscriptions 470
governing limits for subscriptions 471
governing limits for users and addresses 459
site definitions
adding new 443
deleting 160, 444
editing 445
Site Management, Portal Administrator Wizard 278
Site Preferences, Portal Administrator Wizard 280
sites
definitions 158
names and descriptions 159, 279
preferences 166
slicing and segmentation 130
slicing attributes 136
small icon URL 283
SMS (SMPP) delivery method 10
534
Index
Subscription ID
as preference object 170
requirements 141
versus slicing attribute 136
subscription imports see synchronization
subscription information
description 137
location 137
overview 31
store in the Subscription Book Repository 125
subscription information objects
creating 394
overview 26
personalizing content information objects 129
Subscription Portal
advanced configuration 181
application 157
configuring different 444
creating new 444
deleting 445
site, default 155
system 156
user self subscription 155
subscription preferences 34
Subscription Properties Editor 369
subscription sets
concepts 86
configuring 292
configuring page-by questions 436, 437
creating dynamic 465
creating static 466
definition 21
deleting 467
dynamic 89
introduction 16
SQL statements 92
static 88
synchronization data type 522
subscriptions 16, 86
activating 463
adding to subscription sets 463
deactivating 463
deleting 466
importing user 458
subscriptions and subscription sets 86
supporting diverse user populations 175
synchronization
importing or updating users and addresses 96
overview 95
synchronizing users 96
tutorial 97
updating user personalization and subscription 97
with external sources 95
synchronization data types
address properties 520
authentication 522
preferences 522
security 522
subscription set 522
time zone constants 523
user properties 519
Synchronization Settings dialog box 357
synchronizing users 460
System Configuration Wizard 155
System Configuration, Portal Administrator Wizard 276
system performance 34
T
table prefixes
description 158
Object Repository 160
Portal Repository 157
Subscription Book Repository 161
tables, selecting for question and subscription mappings 440
tasks
application designer xx
overview xx
portal administrator xxi
subscription administrator xxi
text documents
creating 416
overview 65
text information objects 27
time zone constants 523
TON see type of number property
touch points see devices
transmission properties
e-mail transmitters 87, 371
file transmitters 87, 371
modifying for address display 469, 470
overview 87
print transmitters 87
Subscription Properties Editor 371
transmissions see services
Index
535
I
N
D
E
X
U
updating users and addresses 96
URLs in Excel documents 61
user and address attributes, importing 453
user authentication, importing 455
User IDs, as preference object 170
user locales 178
user preferences, importing 456
User Properties Editor 375
user security, importing 457
user subscriptions, importing 458
users
adding 448
credentials 165
deleting 451
editing 452
export tool 367
information 30
login IDs 82
management 81
overview 82
preferences 33, 170
properties 519
self subscription 155
synchronizing 460
V
VBA macros and viruses in Excel documents 63
viewing
HTML source code 421
object properties 422
scheduled services 433
XSL stylesheet results 422
views, changing in document editors 405
W
I
N
D
E
X
536
Index
XML
Excel 500
for Narrowcast Server objects 495
format 495
information objects 27
plaintext 496
XML information objects, adding multiple 404
XSL files 23
XSL stylesheets
advantages 69
default Excel documents 74
default HTML documents 71
default stylesheets provided 70
default Subscription Portal attachments 77
default text documents 75
developing and testing 78
using 68
viewing results 422
XML for Narrowcast Server object 495
Z
zipped documents
adding to services 425
overview 15