Microstrategy Interview Questions and Answers

Q1 : How many types the MicroStrategy license can be bought?
A : Two types: – named users or CPU license.

Q2 : Is it possible for the users to define the compound metric with the other metric objects in the Microstrategy environment?
A : Yes, it is possible and generally, this is done to using the various arithmetic operations which are present in default in the Microstrategy. The users can freely choose the combination or a group of any two operations for performing this task reliably.

Q3 : Write the components MicroStrategy metadata?
A : MicroStrategy metadata consists of project settings, MicroStrategy object definitions, and data warehouse connection information.

Q4 : Define metadata?
A :
It is a database repository in which definitions of all MicroStrategy objects are kept. Metadata is the heart of MicroStrategy.
Q5 : Write different kinds of objects in Microstrategy?

A :

  • Public Objects
  • Schema Objects
  • Configuring objects

Q6 : Name the type of Facts in Microstrategy?

A :
  • Simple facts
  • Derived facts
  • Implicit facts

Q7 : What is Microstrategy Narrowcast server?
A : Microstrategy Narrowcast Server is a software product which monitors and delivers individualized information to users through e-mails, web portals and wireless devices like pagers, PDAs, and phones. Users determine what information they want, when and how they want to receive it, through an easy to use web page.

Q8 : What security does Microstrategy provide?
A : Microstrategy provides many security options to make sure that data is kept private and confidential.  To make easy access and minimum maintenance, Microstrategy desktop synchronize with Windows NT and 2000 security and with Novell directory.  Due to those users who have logged into these systems does not have to log on again.

Q9 : What is Microstrategy?
A : Microstrategy is an enterprise business intelligence application software vendor.  It supports scorecards, interactive dashboards, ad hoc query, high formatted reports, etc.

Q10 : Explain how intelligent cubes are different from ordinary cubes?
A : Intelligent cubes are generated automatically when a new report is run against the data warehouse. Users don’t have to mention the cube to which they want to connect. Within the Microstrategy platform, the logic to match user requests with the proper intelligent cube is automatically handled. Subsequently, the requests made by other users can seamlessly hit this new intelligent cube.

Q11 : Describe Implicit Attribute?
A : An implicit attribute is a practical or same attribute that does not actually exist in the database because it is made at the application level.

Q12 : Define compound attribute?
A : A compound attribute has its value resolute by an expression that join two or more columns in a database to make a new column.

Q13 : List out the end user products that delivers OLAP Services?
A : End-user product that delivers OLAP services includes
  • Microstrategy Web
  • Microstrategy Desktop
  • Microstrategy Office

Q14 : What is the difference between the Report filter and Report limit?
A :

  • Report limit: It determines a set of criteria used to restrict or limit the data returned in the report data set after the report metrics are calculated
  • Report Filter: It applies the where condition to the query sent to the warehouse to retrieve the results.

Q15 : What is Smart Metrics in Microstrategy?
A : Smart metric is referred when a compound metric is defined with other metric objects using arithmetic operations like sum M1/M2.
For example: Simple or Compound Metrics Total (profits/unit sold) Smart Metrics: Total (profit)/ Total (sold)

Q16 : What is the Logical view in Microstrategy?
A : In Microstrategy, logical view is a table that you create by writing the SQL in Microstrategy instead of pulling it out from warehouse catalog.

Q17 : What is the scope of testing in the Microstrategy and in which domain they are generally conducted?
A : It is actually considered for finding the bugs and the errors in the tasks performed by the users like in all the testing procedures. In Microstrategy, this task is generally carried out in the reports for finding the information which is not relevant to the output and is present for another purpose.

Q18 : What are Listeners?
A : Listeners allows us to view the result of samplers in the form of trees, graphs, tables or simple text in some log files.  They offer visual access to the data collected by JMeter about the test cases as a sampler component of JMeter is executed.

Q19 : What is the difference between Schema object and Public object?
A : Schema objects are availed to create Application objects like Attributes, functions & operators, Hierarchies, Tables, etc. While, Public objects are used to create other application objects like Filters, Metrics, Consolidations, etc.  Using architect permission schema object can be created while the public object can be created by using a schema object only.

Q20 : Why the Implicit Attribute does don’t physically appear in the database in Microstrategy?
A : Simply because it is not created in the database, instead, it is created at the application level.

Q21 : With Microstrategy, is it possible for the users to update a record in the database?
A : Yes, this is possible and the users are free to get the results in the desired manner with this. The ODBC test tool present in the Microstrategy simply let you keep up the pace with the same. The table specifications can also be modified up to the desired extent through the same tool.

Q22 : Name a few algorithms which Microstrategy support?
A : There are some of the very important algorithms in the Business Intelligence and they all are compatible with the Microstrategy. They are Clustering; Tree, Regression, as well as the widely adopted Neural Networks Algorithms.

Q23 : What are report caches and how many types are there?
A : A report cache is a result set from an executed report that is stored on MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. 4 types: matching caches, history caches, matching-history caches, and XML caches.

Q24 : What are Level Metrics? And why are they required?
A : Level metrics are advanced metrics which are set to be evaluated at a specified attribute level. These are required when in the same report you need to roll up a metric at two different levels side by side. An example is a comparison of “Revenue from a Region” to “Revenue from a Country”. Here Region and Country are the two different levels.

Q25 : How will Project Sources be configured in MSTR Office?
A : By editing the projectsources.xml, new project sources can be added.