Features of Narrowcast Server that do not Exist in Distribution Services

Features of Narrowcast Server that do not Exist in Distribution Services

Delivering a report to an email, shared drive or file server has always been one of the key requirements for Microstrategy business users. In earlier versions of MicroStrategy, Narrowcast component was the only option provided by MicroStrategy to deliver the reports. Narrowcast component is not completely integrated with MicroStrategy intelligent server. Narrowcast component should be installed and configured separately. Starting from MicroStrategy 9.x onwards, MicroStrategy introduced a new component for deliveries called ‘Distribution Services’ which is completely integrated with i-Server architecture.
MicroStrategy discontinued selling Narrowcast server to new customers and encourages existing customers to move as much delivery requirements as possible to Distribution Services, which includes several new features that do not exist in Narrowcast Server. However, existing customers continue using Narrowcast server in some cases because of the features that still do not exist in Distribution services Versions 9.4.x and 10. This blog details Key features of Narrowcast Services that are not yet available in Distribution Services.

Distribution Service & Narrowcast Architecture

Email/File Subscriptions Used Cases:

Used Case	Service Deliveries	Distribution Service Deliveries
Custom excel template to hold Multi-document	Custom excel template can be used in Narrowcast to export multiple documents/reports from various projects to custom excel template. Related Tech Note: TN18139: How to make new Excel templates with more than 10 pages in MicroStrategy Narrowcast server	This functionality is not available in Distribution services 9.4.x and 10.
Pre- and Post-service execution SQL	The Pre and Post Structured Query Language (SQL) statements are stored in the Subscription Set definition. This feature is useful for modifying or checking certain criteria that relates to the service execution to recipients. Related Tech Note: TN8972: What is the Pre- and Post-service execution SQL in MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server 8.x?	This functionality is not available in Distribution services 9.4.x and 10.
Order of Execution Related Tech Note: TN45393: Is it possible to control the order of execution for multiple subscriptions tied to the same schedule using Distribution Services in MicroStrategy 9.x?	Subscriptions tied to the same schedule can be prioritized using the service priority option	The subscriptions are processed in the order they are received from the metadata in DS 9.4.x and 10
Active/Inactive Subscriptions	Single subscriptions can be activated or inactivated.	Subscriptions can only be inactivated at the project level in metadata in DS 9.4.x and 10.The Subscription monitor has an “Unsubscribe” button, but that deletes the subscription.
Larger subscription base	For large number of subscriptions and alerts Narrowcast server is a better option, since it is independent of Intelligence server and does not increase the server load. Proper usage of options like Segment size, Execution timeout and work allocation settings give control to stabilize and improve performance.	Distribution services reside on the Intelligence server, hence large subscription base could decrease the performance of the overall Microstrategy tool. There are i-server options that can increase the performance of the Tool, but they are integrated with i-server.
Subscription List(Recipient List)	Subscription Lists can be used for multiple Services or subscriptions.	Individual users have to be selected for each subscription in DS 9.4.x and 10. As a workaround Email DLs can be created.
FTP	File Information transmitters can be set up for saving files to networked computers and remote servers using the Windows file system	FTP exists only for Bulk export in Microstrategy 9.4.x. MicroStrategy 10 provides the ability to schedule deliveries to FTP servers.
Deliver files to Microsoft SharePoint web folder	Ability to Deliver the report to SharePoint path through MicroStrategy Narrowcast 9.x. Related Tech Note: TN20390: How to deliver files to a Microsoft SharePoint web folder through MicroStrategy Narrowcast 9.x	This feature works when MicroStrategy Intelligence Server is on a Windows machine, but does not work when Intelligence Server in Unix/Linux platform. Related Tech Note: TN42796: Is it possible to delivery files to SharePoint folder via Distribution Services in MicroStrategy Intelligence Server 9.2.x and 9.3.0

Administration Used Cases:

Used Case	Narrowcast Service Deliveries	Distribution Service Deliveries
Bucketing	Bucketing is a concept of grouping all recipients who will receive the same content in one email. This feature will allow a recipient to reply-to-all users that received the original email. Related Tech Note: TN41340: What is the bucketing feature and how does MicroStrategy 9.x use this feature?	MicroStrategy Distribution Services 9.x and 10 doesn’t allow bucketing in subscriptions.Jobs executed for deliveries using the Distribution services feature can reuse Intelligence Server caches for previously executed jobs. However, a job will be created on the Intelligence Server for each email delivery and a separate email is sent to each recipient.
Error Handling Related Tech Note: TN19238: How to set up advanced Administrative notifications in MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server 9.x	Many a times Users complain that they have not received an e-mail. Looking at the log files and debugging the issue is the normal option. Narrowcast server has other methods to track. Transmitter can be set up to save a copy of every e-mail that is sends at a designated file location. Notification can be setup to provide detailed analysis of the error codes. Also has an option to include or exclude some specific error codes NClog allows one to browse the file logically. Predefined user alerts are flagged. Can also drill into a service and see only information related to the service of interest.	Distribution service also has the capability to set up customized e-mail notifications to administrator on failures with error codes included in the body of the mail, but cannot include or exclude any particular error codes from the notification.By default, there is no separate log for Distribution services, it writes to DSSErrors log ( i-server error log), hence making it more difficult to debug. However, a separate error log file can be set up for Distribution services by the administrator