Good morning to you all! Once again, here we are in #BestInMicro, our corner for the MicroStrategy curious with stories, hints, tips and tricks.
This week, I bring you a twist on a tool we are used to, for a functionality that is not specifically related to BI: Using Dossiers for presentations.
Yes, yes, you heard right, and I am not talking about the pure and simple data analysis we are used to. Let’s analyse a bit: We use presentations and PowerPoint to defend an idea, to explain something, to make a proposal, to present results, etc?
The truth is that PowerPoint is a tool that we have already internalised, and we are used to using it. Although it is a long-standing application and is specifically geared towards slide presentations (as opposed to a dossier), there are many points where we can take advantage of using a MicroStrategy dossier as a presentation. And as the older we get, the harder it is to get out of the comfort zone of using the familiar, but I invite you to think this a little “out of the box” and see who is encouraged to look at this idea from a different point of view.
So, without further ado, today I bring you 8 functionalities and tips on how to use MicroStrategy dossiers to make presentations, which, combined with the techniques we saw in the article on the Gestalt laws, can make you become the master of meetings.
This functionality allows us to customise the design of the presentation in detail. The ability to use different layers in a dossier to define an order and position of the objects we have in the presentation facilitates and gives flexibility to what we are creating and how we arrange the objects.
Sometimes, in the need to put information on a single slide, it ends up being cramped, too close together or divided into different slides. With the ability to scroll through a tab, we can include the information we want without going through these problems.
From version 2021 onwards, panels can already be used in the dossiers. This allows us to analyse different aspects on the same “slide” (or window) and navigate them, without the need to jump from one slide to another.
Playing with filters is one of the big differences that a dossier offers. Playing with the data and making it interactive allows us to give it a dynamism that a static presentation does not have, giving way even to a deeper analysis of information at the time of the presentation. This point is key if data and results are to be presented.
Another design strategy is to add small images and text, which are used as links to navigate between the different pages and chapters of a dossier.
Being able to set a personalised background or theme for presentations is very important when designing a slide. By importing images and applying transparency, we can define the background we want to have in the presentation, without it contaminating the content.
Having the possibility to generate a channel of communication, debate and notes in a presentation, in a shared way, allowing to ask questions, share bookmarks (for those who don’t know, we can make a “photo” of all the filters and visualisations we have made and then share it in a comment) and give feedback on the presentation.
This is where the magic and creativity can be infinite. Imagine embedding, video boards or even external content. If you think this doesn’t give it a super fun dynamism, check out Len O’toole’s board and tell me if you don’t find it original how he uses gifs and images in containers!
I would like to emphasise one point again. Dossiers is not intended to replace a presentation, but many of the functionalities I mention above can be a great advantage if we compare it against the classic PowerPoint, it can even give a touch of freshness to the presentation by adding dynamism to the results, allowing a live interactive analysis and better use of the slide with panels and scroll… it is simply a matter of being aware that it is a tool that can be more useful than the ones we are used to in certain scenarios, and that implementing it is even free for almost all the functionalities I mention above.
That’ s it for another week, I hope you find it useful and I will see you again in a future post. See you next time!
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