Leveraging Embedding and Rest API Capabilities for Seamless Website Integration

Starting when MicroStrategy Library was released in 2019, the MicroStrategy team has been tirelessly working on building the best tools possible to allow customers to not only white label the product, but integrate visualizations, folder browsing, and even admin services into pre-existing webpages and software. In this article, we will go through the different services MicroStrategy offers, when to use them, and who you can reach out to in order to create the most effective solution for your own environment.

MicroStrategy Rest API

In 2019, MicroStrategy released their own Rest API framework that eliminated the cumbersome need to manipulate the out-of-the-box product or provide a customization for thousands of business cases.

The Rest API is language agnostic, meaning it can be interacted with by ANY coding language, and is maintained by the MicroStrategy Technology team, meaning it is rigorously tested before a new version is deployed. This stable way of interacting with MicroStrategy from the outside has opened doors for website development and integration that many companies have already begun utilizing.

Key Functional Uses

With the Rest API, there are some very effective strategies we have seen customers leverage via product integration. MicroStrategy provides endpoints for folder browsing, viewing a user’s current library, pulling report or dashboard details, and even prompting and returning the underlying data behind a report or cube.

When paired with a front-end web development team, these endpoints allow raw MicroStrategy data to be integrated into any experience with any look and feel desired, heightening the end users’ overall experience and adaptation.

Integrating user management

One common integration tactic is integrating MicroStrategy user management into existing administrative systems.

The ability to create, manage, and manipulate user and group objects in MicroStrategy can all be accomplished with the Rest API, meaning any existing processes to setup a new user can also configure the user within MicroStrategy. This is also true for removing access. When a user is terminated, these endpoints can be triggered along with other existing processes to remove that user’s access the moment the termination notice is received.

Third-party data collection

Another common tactic involves connecting third-party data into a single location for analysis. It is common to utilize third-party software across a company, and though many may have their own reporting systems, it can become tedious to switch between them to view specific information.

Instead of working with complicated ETLs and maintaining multiple database connections for small amounts of data, the Rest API allows for a direct connection from the source to a MicroStrategy cube. Want to pull data from Workday to display in MicroStrategy? Easy. Want a full list of Service Now tickets with MicroStrategy visualizations and KPI tools? Simple and straightforward.

The Rest API has the capability of moving thousands of rows of data in seconds between the source and a MicroStrategy cube, allowing cross-platform analysis and connecting user information into a single location.

MicroStrategy Embedding SDK

The Embedding SDK is more than an old-school iframe. Yes, you can still utilize iframes to display MicroStrategy within your webpages, but the embedding framework MicroStrategy offers extends the capabilities past showing stagnant data.

The webpage surrounding the embedded view can interact with the data and visualizations within the view, allowing for a fully integrated experience. Want a filter bar outside of MicroStrategy that can manipulate a visualization, or want to mix visualizations and webpage information freely? The embedding SDK allows for this kind of functionality and more.

Utilizing this framework, developers have the power to choose specific visualizations or interactions they would like inside MicroStrategy vs. outside, granting the ability to build fully integrated experiences users can easily adapt to.

Review: Best Times to Use Each

Though MicroStrategy on its own has a very robust system to view and manipulate reports and dashboards, sometimes its styling does not adhere to the way users are accustomed to. By combining both the Rest API and Embedding SDK, companies can create their own navigation experience that fits with their current website design.

Rest API for report lists

Let’s say a company would like a user to see a list of MicroStrategy reports that adheres to their webpage design and shows more information on the report when a user hovers over the item. Utilizing the Rest API, it is possible to pull the report list and separately develop the webpage interface and inter-activity. These are the best experiences to utilize the Rest API for, since the MicroStrategy-provided endpoints allow for the raw data from MicroStrategy to be manipulated to look and feel like a completely different product.

SDK for displaying results

Now let’s say the same company wants a user to select a category in a custom popup after they choose a report to filter the data. This can be a combination of the Rest API to “prepare” the report behind the scenes with the user’s choices (in the case of utilizing prompts), then the embedding SDK to display the resulting report within the same webpage.

Any filter changes the user makes after the fact can go through the embedding SDK to manipulate the report data on the fly.

Conclusion

The most important part of any software and service is user experience. If users are not using a system because they are not familiar with its UI/UX flows or too much training is required, it can significantly hurt a company’s efficiency. By utilizing MicroStrategy’s Rest API and Embedding services effectively, users can be seamlessly introduced to new services in a system they are already familiar with.

Not only does MicroStrategy offer these services to tap into, but they also partner with companies like Active Cyber who have a team of skilled MicroStrategy developers familiar with architecting these integration systems. By leveraging the skills of these teams and MicroStrategy tools, you can produce an industry-leading seamless experience powered by your data and MicroStrategy.