Starting with MicroStrategy 2019 update 2 MicroStrategy has made changes in how to set up custom plugins for export to PDF. You can find details in the link below.
Export engine local resource set up
Troubleshooting PDF export issues
Please use the web version of VitaraCharts to deploy to the local resource folder (as required in the configuration in the above link). Please use version 4.4.4 (or newer) of VitaraCharts to ensure complete support for use of the local resource folder.
We have seen this at a couple of other customer environments and it is a network/configuration issue. You can easily test this by also trying the export of any other chart from the gallery (not just VitaraChart). They will fail the same way.
For export to work, the pdf engine needs to be able to connect to the Web server including access to all the plugin files. There may be access issues with connecting from the machine where the pdf server is installed. The access issues may arise from the type of user and authentication used on both machines. Here are a couple of relevant links from MicroStrategy that describe this problem and also suggest some workarounds.
Error while exporting
Window Auth error while exporting
The configuration issue is best dealt with from the MicroStrategy side (i.e opening a case with MicroStrategy) because they can provide the best way to set up the network.
The error seems to indicate that there is a configuration issue.
The export to work, the pdf engine needs to be able to connect to the Web server including access to all the plugin files. There may be access issues with connecting from the machine where the pdf server is installed.
The access issues may arise from the type of user and authentication used on both machines. If the VitaraCharts folder deployed on the web server has been set up with a different set of access rights than the rest of the MicroStrategy Web install. If so, you could also try to change these access rights to match the rest of the folders.
When the configuration is not done correctly, you will see that not just VitaraCharts but also any of the custom chart plugins will not work correctly.
The error being shown (401) implies that there is a permission issue in accessing the web server. The PDF export server needs to communicate with the web server in order to create the PDF document. So the first step would be to make sure that the PDF export engine (which should be on the same machine as the intelligence server) is able to (over the network) reach the web server.
When the configuration is not done correctly, you will see that not just VitaraCharts but also any of the custom chart plugins will not work correctly.
So it might be best to reach MicroStrategy for network configuration help in case the connectivity issues continue.
For custom visuals MicroStrategy unfortunately does not support exporting multiple pages. Essentially the export of custom visuals is like a screenshot; so whatever is presented within the context of the page will be exported. Of course during export you can change the page settings (as you have already tried) to make sure your page is as large as possible.
We have also logged a case with MicroStrategy to enhance their API to include multiple pages of custom visual export. The case ID is 358341.
Please check the following link for info on export engine logs
Troubleshooting the export engine
The problem due to the network configuration (or potentially configuration on the web server). Can you try accessing the vitaraGlobal.css from the server where the export engine is running. A sample URL how to do this is given below:
https://xyz.com/MicroStrategy/plugins/VitaraCharts/style/vitaraGlobal.css
You can just copy/paste the URL into the browser (this has to be done on the export engine machine). If that is returning a valid response (i.e either shows the css file in the browser window or prompts you to download the file), then the configuration is fine and we have to look elsewhere for the problem. If it fails to load, then this needs to be fixed first (by your web/network admin).
If this access problem is solved, the black background problem should go away.
You can also check MicroStrategy’s troubleshooting tech note for export:
Troubleshooting the new export engine
This talks about the ‘Request Failed’ errors and wants the user to check ‘to Make sure the account used to start the export engine has read-access to the file’.
1.Some Metric Value Data labels are missing.
2.Y-Axis values also change. The size of the page used in the pdf layout will be different from what is seen on the screen. With export, the summary view of the dossier is generated on one page and then a separate page is created for each chart on the same chapter/sheet. The separate page size (aspect ratio) will not exactly match the aspect ratio of the visual as seen in the dossier. For this reason sometimes vitara charts may include some extra data labels or disappear existing data labels in the PDF. Sometimes in the original view some rows are partially cut-off while they are seen in the pdf export.
MicroStrategy started supporting export of custom visuals only from version 10.6. Prior to that you would only see a grid exported. Export to PDF will work in vitara charts from web dossiers, web library, and workstation.
MicroStrategy does not support export of custom visuals from Documents. This is a limitation in MicroStrategy that we have requested a fix for several times.
It’s a simple one way transaction. VitaraCharts scope is completely within the web-server and doesn’t make any requests to the i-server or any other service. When you export a dashboard/dossier to PDF, the PDF service on the intelligence server runs the dashboard and gets a screenshot of the result for inclusion in the PDF.
A: i) MicroStrategy started supporting export of custom visuals only from version 10.6. Check your MicroStrategy version.
ii) In any custom visualizations export to PDF will work only with dossiers. If you try to export to PDF from Web documents you will get data in the grid format.
iii) You can try any other custom visual from the gallery (that is not offered by Vitara) and export it from a dossier.This helps to understand if this is an issue with exporting any custom visuals (i.e suggesting a configuration issue) or some problem specific to VitaraCharts.
No, Exporting to excel is not supported.