Appendix A. MicroStrategy Express

MicroStrategy Express is a hosted Cloud platform, and it is free for personal use. MicroStrategy also provides an enterprise version of the platform for user licensing and use, or a user may choose to set up on the premise Cloud. More details on the latest offerings and news on these offerings can be found at https://www.microstrategy.com/free/express.

In this book, we will use free MicroStrategy Express to learn the MicroStrategy BI capabilities. In order to enable the MicroStrategy Cloud platform service, the only software you need are an Internet browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer) and an Internet connection. You can enable the MicroStrategy Cloud platform using the following the steps.

Registering the Cloud service

In your web browser, access http://www.microstrategy.com/express and fill the Sign in and Sign up tabbed screens, as demonstrated in the following screenshot:

MicroStrategy Express Sign in and Sign up / registration page

Switch to the Sign up tab, type your full name, email address, select a password (your password must be at least eight characters long and should contain one of the following special characters: !, @, #, $, %, ^, &, +, =), and solve the mathematical problem (for human validation).

Activating your account

You will receive an e-mail with a link for the account activation, similar to the following screenshot:

Post-registration account activation page

Click on the link and the system will request more information about you, as shown in the following screenshot:

Welcome page

After finishing the capture, the system will redirect to the main page. Now you are set and ready to start working.

Note

The direct Internet address to access the system is https://www.microstrategy.com/express/#sign-in, and it is highly recommended to bookmark this address in your browser.