Creating a Visual Insight analysis

Visual Insight allows you to quickly create and design a Visual Insight analysis, a customized, interactive display that can be used to explore business data. You can use the data from an existing report or Intelligent Cube, perform manipulations on the data to customize which information is included in the analysis, and add visual representations (called visualizations) to the analysis to make the data easier to interpret. Analyses can be viewed in the Analysis Editor, Express Mode, or Flash Mode in Web, or on an iPad with MicroStrategy Mobile.

An analysis is similar to a document in that you can display the data in grids, graphs, and interactive widgets that you have added to the analysis. However, the process of designing and creating an analysis is streamlined, allowing you to create these objects quickly from an existing report or Intelligent Cube. For example, you create an analysis from an existing report. Once you select the data from the report to display in the analysis, the analysis is automatically created with an empty Grid visualization. You can drag and drop report objects from the analysis's dataset to display data, then immediately begin customizing the display by adding attribute and metric filters to the Filters panel, defining thresholds on the data, and adding additional visualizations to the analysis.

You can create an analysis from:

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• A report, including Intelligent Cube reports and MDX reports. For steps to create a report, see Creating a report.

• An Intelligent Cube, including Intelligent Cubes created from imported data. For steps to import data from a file or database, see the Advanced Reporting Guide. For an introduction to Intelligent Cubes, see the MicroStrategy OLAP Services Guide.

Once you have created an analysis, you can add visualizations to display the data in the analysis's dataset. You can switch between visualizations by clicking the visualization's tab at the top of the analysis. For background information on visualizations, and general steps to add, modify, or delete visualizations in an analysis, see About visualizations.

You can perform the following tasks when creating and editing an analysis:

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• Adding attributes and metrics to the Filters panel

• Editing filters and the Filters panel

• Determining whether to filter attribute selections in the Filters panel

• Adding derived metrics to an analysis

• Adding a threshold to an analysis

Prerequisites

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• You must have the MicroStrategy Report Services product.

• You must have document designer privileges.

• You must have the Web Visual Insight, Web Create Analysis, and Execute Analysis or Document privileges.

• This procedure assumes that you have already created the report or Intelligent Cube you want to use to create the analysis. For steps to:

• Create a report, see Creating a report.

• Create an Intelligent Cube using attributes, metrics, and report objects from a project, see the Desktop Help.

• Create an Intelligent Cube using imported data, see the Advanced Reporting Guide.

To create an analysis from a report or Intelligent Cube

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1. Navigate to the folder location of the report or Intelligent Cube.

2. Right-click the report or Intelligent Cube, then select Create Analysis. The Select a Visualization dialog box opens.

3. Click the icon of the visualization you want to use to display your data. The visualization is automatically created and added to your analysis:
   
   Note: Some visualizations can be displayed using different subtypes. For example, if you want to represent your data as a bar graph, you can choose to display it as a vertical bar graph or a horizontal bar graph. Click the icon of the visualization you want to create, then click the icon for the subtype you want to use to display your data. For a list of the subtypes for each of the visualizations available, see Graph subtypes.

4. To add attributes and metrics to the grid, from the Dataset Objects panel, click and drag them to the Drop Zones panel, as follows:
   
   Note: If the Dataset Objects panel is not displayed, click the Dataset Objects icon in the analysis toolbar.

• To add an attribute to the rows of the grid, drag the attribute to the Rows area.

• To add an attribute to the columns of the grid, drag the attribute to the Columns area.

• To add a metric to the grid, drag the metric to the Metrics area.

5. You can create new metrics using the metrics in the analysis's dataset, change the display of data by adding thresholds to the analysis, and so on. For steps to perform a specific task, see the appropriate topic below:

• Adding attributes and metrics to the Filters panel

• Editing filters and the Filters panel

• Determining whether to filter attribute selections in the Filters panel

• Adding derived metrics to an analysis

• Adding a threshold to an analysis

6. You can add additional visualizations to the analysis. To do so, click the Add Visualization icon . The Select a Visualization dialog box opens. Repeat the appropriate steps above to define the visualization you want to add.

7. Click the Save icon . The Save As dialog box is displayed.

8. Navigate to the location in which you want to save the analysis, then type a name and description for the analysis in the Name and Description fields.

9. Click OK. The analysis is saved.

Related topics

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• About Visual Insight

• About visualizations

• Creating a Grid visualization

• Creating a Graph visualization

• Creating a Graph Matrix visualization

• Creating a Heat Map visualization

• Creating a Google Map visualization