Creating subscriptions

This section provides detailed instructions for subscribing to a report or document. It also provides information on the following:

• Prompted reports and subscriptions
• Using a report to specify the recipients of a subscription
• Personalizing email and file subscriptions
• Delivering parts of reports across multiple files: Bursting file subscriptions
• Delivering parts of reports across multiple files: Bursting file subscriptions to subfolders

You can create subscriptions in the following ways:

• You can subscribe to an individual report or document from the Report Editor or Document Editor in Developer or through MicroStrategy Web (see To subscribe to a report or document in Developer or To create a subscription in MicroStrategy Web).

Use this method to create WebDAV folder update subscriptions.

A History List message is generated when a report or document is executed in Web by a schedule.

• If you have a Distribution Services license, you can subscribe multiple users to an individual report or document through MicroStrategy Web (see To create a subscription in MicroStrategy Web).
• You can create multiple cache, History List, Intelligent Cube, or Mobile subscriptions at one time for a user or user group using the Subscription Wizard in Developer (see To create multiple subscriptions at one time in Developer).
• If you have purchased a license for Command Manager, you can use Command Manager scripts to create and manage your schedules and subscriptions. For instructions on creating these scripts with Command Manager, see Automating Administrative Tasks with Command Manager, or see the Command Manager Help. (From within Command Manager, select Help.)

Prerequisites

• To create any subscriptions, you must have the Schedule Request privilege.
• To create email, file, FTP, or print subscriptions, you must have a MicroStrategy Web license, a Distribution Services license, and the appropriate privileges in the Distribution Services privilege group. For example, to create an email subscription you must have the Use Distribution Services and Subscribe to Email privileges.

To create an alert-based subscription, you must also have the Web Create Alert privilege (under the Web Analyst privilege group).

• To create mobile subscriptions, you must have a MicroStrategy Mobile license.
• To subscribe other users to a report or document, you must have the Web Subscribe Others privilege (under the Web Professional group). In addition, to subscribe others in Developer, you must have the Administer Subscriptions, Configure Subscription Settings, and Monitor Subscriptions privileges (under the Administration group).
• To subscribe a dynamic address list to a report or document, you must have the Subscribe Dynamic Address List privilege. For information about dynamic address lists, see Using a report to specify the recipients of a subscription.

To subscribe to a report or document in Developer

Only History List, cache, Intelligent Cube, and Mobile subscriptions can be created in Developer.

1 In Developer, select the report, document, Intelligent Cube, or WebDAV folder to be delivered according to a schedule.
2 From the File menu, point to Schedule Delivery To, and select the type of subscription to create. The Subscription Editor for that type of subscription opens. For a list of the types of subscriptions, see Types of subscriptions. For detailed instructions on using the Subscription Editor, click Help.
3 Type a name and description for the subscription.
4 From the Schedule drop-down list, select a schedule for the subscription.
5 Click OK to save and close the Subscription Editor. The subscription is created and the report or document is delivered, or the Intelligent Cube is updated, according to the schedule.

To create multiple subscriptions at one time in Developer

Only History List, cache, Intelligent Cube, and Mobile subscriptions can be created in Developer.

1 In Developer, from the Administration menu, point to Scheduling, and then select Subscription Creation Wizard. The Subscription Wizard opens.
2 Step through the wizard, specifying a schedule and type for the subscriptions, and the reports and documents that are subscribed to. For detailed instructions, click Help on any page of the wizard.
3 When you have reached the Summary page of the wizard, review the subscription information and click Finish. The subscription is created and available for viewing in the Subscription Manager.

To create a subscription in MicroStrategy Web

1 In MicroStrategy Web, on the reports page, under the name of the report/document that you want to create a subscription for, click the Subscriptions icon .

This icon becomes visible when you point to the name of the report or document.

2 Select Add Subscription for the type of subscription you want to create. For a list of the types of subscriptions, see Types of subscriptions. For detailed instructions on creating a subscription, click Help.
3 Type a name and description for the subscription.
4 From the Schedule drop-down list, select a schedule for the subscription.
5 To add additional users to the subscription, click To. The Recipient Browser dialog box opens. Select the users or groups and click OK. The Recipient Browser dialog box closes and the users and groups are added to the recipient list.
6 Click OK to save the subscription. The subscription is created and the report or document is delivered, or the Intelligent Cube is updated, according to the schedule.

Prompted reports and subscriptions

A subscribed report can contain prompts. How and whether the report is executed depends on the prompt definition. For additional information about how prompts are defined, see the Prompts chapter in the Advanced Reporting Help.

To ensure that a prompted report in a subscription is executed properly, the prompt must be required and must have either a default answer or a personalized answer. The following table explains how Intelligence Server resolves the different possible scenarios that can occur for each prompt in a subscribed report.

Prompt Required?

Default / Personal Answer present?

Result

No

No

The prompt is ignored because it is not required; the report is executed, but it is not filtered by the prompt.

No

Yes

The prompt and its default or personal answer are ignored because the prompt is not required; the report is executed, but it is not filtered by the prompt.

Yes

No

The report is not executed. No answer is provided to the required prompt so MicroStrategy cannot complete the report without user interaction.

Yes

Yes

The report is executed. The prompt is answered with a personal answer if one is available or with the default answer if a personal answer is not provided.

Using a report to specify the recipients of a subscription

If you have a Distribution Services license, you can use a report to dynamically specify the recipients for a subscription.

To create a dynamic recipient list, you first create a special source report that contains all the necessary information about the recipients of the subscription. You then use the source report to define the dynamic list in MicroStrategy Web. The new dynamic recipient list appears in the list of Available Recipients when defining a new subscription to a standard report or document. When the subscription is executed, only the addresses returned by the source report are included in the delivery.

The information in the source report includes email addresses, user IDs, and chosen devices to which to deliver standard MicroStrategy reports and documents. Each address in the source report must be linked to a MicroStrategy user. Any security filters and access control lists (ACLs) that are applied to the address's linked user are also applied to any reports and documents that are sent to the address.

If you have existing Narrowcast Server subscriptions, this feature contains an option in the Select Reports dialog box that allows you to use Narrowcast Server source reports. Narrowcast Server source reports contained subscription information in the page-by elements. When you create a source report to support a dynamic recipient list, you can designate the page-by elements as the location where the system should locate subscription information, thus enabling you to reuse your existing Narrowcast Server source reports. Steps to choose this option when creating a dynamic recipient list are in the MicroStrategy Web Help.

The procedure below describes how to create a source report that provides the physical addresses, linked MicroStrategy user IDs, and device type information necessary to create a dynamic recipient list. For steps to create a dynamic recipient list using this source report, see the MicroStrategy Web Help.

Prerequisites

• You must have a Distribution Services license.
• To create a dynamic recipient list, you must have the Create Dynamic Address List privilege.
• To subscribe a dynamic address list to a report or document, you must have the Subscribe Dynamic Address List privilege.

To create a source report to support a dynamic recipient list

1 In MicroStrategy Web, create a grid report containing at least three columns. The columns correspond with each of the three required subscription properties:
• Physical address. For example, this might be provided by a customer email attribute form of the Customer attribute.
• A MicroStrategy user ID to be linked to the address. For example, this might be provided by a customer ID attribute form of the Customer attribute.
• Device. This attribute form uses a 32-character hexadecimal string. For example, this may be provided by a preferred format/device attribute form of the Customer attribute.

The data type for the user ID and device columns must be VARCHAR, not CHAR.

2 Save the report with a name and description that makes the report's purpose as a source report for a dynamic recipient list clear.
3 You can now use this source report to create a new dynamic recipient list in MicroStrategy Web. For steps to create a dynamic recipient list using this source report, see the MicroStrategy Web Help.

Personalizing email and file subscriptions

You can personalize your email and file subscriptions with macros in the File Name, Subject, Message, ZIP File Name, and Subfolder fields. These macros are automatically replaced with the appropriate text when the subscription is delivered.

For example, you create an email subscription to a report named Daily Revenue. You want the subject of the email to include the name of the report. In the Subscription Editor, in the Subject field, you type Subscription To {&ContentName}. When the report is delivered, the subject of the email is Subscription to Daily Revenue. Later, the report is changed to include profit, and the name of the report is changed to Daily Revenue and Profit. The subscription is now delivered with the subject Subscription to Daily Revenue and Profit, without any change to the subscription.

You can also use macros to personalize the delivery location and backup delivery location for a file device. For details, including a list of the macros available for file devices, see Creating and managing devices.

The following table lists the macros that can be used in email and file subscriptions, and the fields in which they can be used:

Description

Macro

Fields

Date the subscription is sent

{&Date}

Subject, File Name

Time the subscription is sent

{&Time}

Subject, File Name

Name of the recipient

{&RecipientName}

Subject, File Name

User login

{&UserLogin}

All fields

Name of the subscription

{&Subscription}

All fields

Project that contains the subscribed report/document

{&Project}

All fields

Name of a prompt in the subscribed report/document

{&Prompt Number &}

(where Number is the number of the prompt)

All fields

Name of the subscribed report/document

{&ContentName}

All fields

Report or document details for the subscribed report/document

{&ContentDetails}

Subject, Message

Name of the attribute used for bursting (file subscriptions)

{[Attribute Name]@[Attribute Form]}

File Name

Name of the attribute used for creating subfolders when bursting (file subscriptions)

{[Attribute Name]@[Attribute Form]}

Sub-folder (bursting)

Delivering parts of reports across multiple files: Bursting file subscriptions

Large MicroStrategy reports and documents are often broken up into separate pages by attributes. In a similar way, with Distribution Services, you can split up, or burst, a report or document into multiple files. When the subscription is executed, a separate file is created for each element of each attribute selected for bursting. Each file has a portion of data according to the attributes used to group data in the report (page-by axis) or document (group-by axis).

For example, you may have a report with information for all regions. You could place Region in the page-by axis and burst the file subscription into the separate regions. This creates one report file for each region.

As a second example, if you choose to burst your report using the Region and Category attributes, a separate file is created for each combination of Region and Category, such as Central and Books as a report, Central and Electronics as another, and so on.

When creating the subscription for PDF, Excel, plain text, and CSV file formats, you can use macros to ensure that each file has a unique name. For example, if you choose to burst your document using the Region and Category attributes, you can provide {[Region]@[DESC]}, {[Category]@[DESC]} as the file name. When the subscription is executed, each file name begins with the names of the attribute elements used to generate the file, such as Central, Books or Central, Electronics.

To burst a file subscription across multiple files

1 Create a file subscription in MicroStrategy Web by following the steps in To create a subscription in MicroStrategy Web, or edit an existing file subscription in MicroStrategy Web.
2 In the Subscription Editor, click Burst… The Select Bursting Criteria options are displayed. All attributes used to group data in the report or document are shown in the Available Attributes list.
3 From the Available Attributes list, select the attributes to use to break up the data, then click the right arrow to move those attributes to the Selected Attributes list.
4 To change the order of attributes for bursting, select an attribute in the Selected Attributes list, then click the up or down arrow.
5 In the File Name field, type a name for the burst files. You can use macros to ensure that each file has a unique name.
6 Click OK to save the subscription.

Delivering parts of reports across multiple files: Bursting file subscriptions to subfolders

Large MicroStrategy reports and documents can be divided into separate pages by attributes. In a similar way with Distribution Services, you can break, or burst, a report or document into multiple subfolders, with each subfolder containing report or document with a portion of data divided by the attributes in the report's page-by or the document's group-by axis. When the subscription is executed, subfolders are dynamically created, if they do not already exist, with the names of the attribute elements. To do this, you provide macro text as part of the bursting subfolder name when creating the file subscription. Each attribute in the macro uses the syntax {[ Attribute Name ]@[ Attribute Form ]}.

For example, if your report has Manager in the page-by axis, you may burst the report into subfolders using the Manager's last name. In this case, you provide macro text {[Manager]@[Last Name]} as the bursting subfolder name.

You can create multiple levels of subfolders if your report or document is grouped by multiple attributes. As a second example, you could have Manager folders with Category subfolders in each. This macro text may be entered in the subfolder name as {[Manager]@[Last Name]}-{[Manager]@[First Name]}\{[Category]@[DESC]}. The result of this bursting example is shown in the image below. One of the subscribed reports with books data is in the Books subfolder in the manager's subfolder named Abram-Crisby.

In the example above, the Reports\FileDev1 path was defined as part of the file device used for the subscription. The file name has the date and time appended to the report name because the file device definition has the Append timestamp to file name check box selected.

To burst a file subscription across multiple subfolders

1 Create a file subscription in MicroStrategy Web by following the steps in To create a subscription in MicroStrategy Web or edit an existing file subscription in MicroStrategy Web.
2 In the Subscription Editor, click Burst… The Select Bursting Criteria options are displayed. All attributes used to group data in the report or document are shown in the Available Attributes list.
3 From the Available Attributes list, select any attribute to use to create the subfolders, then click the right arrow to move the attribute to the Selected Attributes list. The Sub-folder field displays below or to the right of the File Name field.
4 To change the order of attributes for bursting, select an attribute in the Selected Attributes list, then click the up or down arrow.
5 In the File Name field, type a name for the files to be created. You can use macros to ensure that each file has a unique name.
6 In the Sub-folder field (the one below or to the right of the File Name field), type a macro to dynamically create the subfolders.
7 Click OK to save the subscription.