Delivering interactive dashboards to groups of end users for offline use is a key functionality of the Strategy platform. In previous versions, Strategy leveraged the benefits of commonly available Adobe Flash to implement interactive dashboards that could be consumed offline. This was achieved by embedding the full dashboard Flash viewer along with the dashboard data into a portable file in PDF or MHT format.
As the general use and investments in Flash technology diminish, Strategy has also realigned its technology investments into a more robust and long running approach by implementing a proprietary portable file format, namely the .MSTR file format.
MSTR Files are designed to be self-‐contained, portable files that can be shared with users and consumed via the Strategy Desktop, a lightweight yet powerful, easy-‐to-‐use BI analyst tool. The .MSTR file format is a more robust and complete solution than interactive PDF and MHT files because they enable full interactivity of the dashboard, including filtering capability, which is limited in the current interactive PDF and MHT files.
As of Strategy 10.4, .MSTR files have been available as an export format for individual Visual Insight dashboards, both from Web and Desktop. In subsequent versions, files will also be available for personalized subscriptions, via email or file via Distribution Services. This capability is intended to replace the delivery of Interactive PDF and MHT files with embedded Flash dashboards.
Strategy is addressing this requirement via a phased initiative what will span multiple releases.
The first phase will address the basic scenarios where the entire dataset can be fully embedded into the MSTR file, generating a self-‐contained file for offline consumption. This is a common scenario where the data sources of the dashboard are reports or view reports that would yield a limited amount of data that can be included as an email attachment or file. In this scenario, a security filter may be applied for each user.
A second phase will address data volume intensive scenarios in which embedding the full cube dataset is not feasible due to one of the following reasons:
When the full initiative is implemented, users will be able to subscribe to dashboards with large cube datasets. The .MSTR file delivered by the system would only contain the slice of data corresponding to the current interactive filter values and any user level security filter. When consumed with the Strategy Analytics Desktop, users will be able to see the current slice of data and, as they interact with the filter panel, the application would seamlessly connect back to the server to fetch the requested data when network is available. If the user is disconnected from the network, interactive requests for additional slices of data will not be available.
Strategy Desktop
As part of the solution to address the broad distribution of self-‐contained dashboards, Strategy will make Desktop application available to all end-‐users of the application at no additional cost for the purpose of consuming .MSTR files either delivered by the system or shared by other users.
Once the Analytics Desktop is installed on the user’s computer, the experience would be similar to the current PDF or MHT workflow. Opening an .MSTR file will launch the Strategy Desktop application and the dashboard will automatically open in presentation mode, optimized for viewing and consumption of the dashboard.
Customer feedback
As part of our commitment to addressing our customers needs, Strategy is committed to partnering with customers who would like to test early versions of the solution in order to validate the capability as well as to provide feedback. Please contact your Account Executive if you would like to partner with Strategy and test early versions of the capability.
