Renaming Columns Without Breaking the Schema
This is just a quick tip that came up in the Ask Bryan comments the other day that I thought was post-worthy.
MicroStrategy creates logical objects that relate to the database model for the schema to build off of. This includes logical objects for Database Tables and Columns. Unfortunately, this can mean that Database level changes can become cumbersome to apply. In 8.x, if you wanted to rename a column in the database, it required that you add the column as new so that you could manually move all of the Schema Objects (Attributes or Facts) to the new definition before you could delete the old. If you had a large schema, it could be a lot of work. Fortunately, in 9.x, there is a quick trick to do this change very fast.
MicroStrategy Architect is a graphical tool for quickly creating and maintaining the schema layer on top of the logical Database layer. While there are lots of useful features in here, perhaps the biggest life saver is the ability to rename the Database Column that a MicroStrategy Column Object is pointed to.
First, open up Architect by choosing it from the Schema menu in Desktop.
Next, locate the table in your project that contains the changing column (you can use the search in the top right). Click on the table that contains the column you want to change, and you can modify it’s Column property.