Clean up your MBI Account

Whether you have been with MBI for 6 months or 6 years, maintaining a tidy account is paramount to your organization getting the most out of the platform. Over time, it is natural for there to be users, dashboards, reports, metrics, and columns that are no longer needed. Perhaps you created a report for one-time use and forgot about it, or a user who left your company never had his or her account deactivated.

In conjunction with standardized, clear naming for all elements) of your MBI account, the account audit steps below will help you reduce the clutter and unnecessary analyses for your users. One additional benefit includes potentially faster update cycles.

Step 1: Identify Your Non-Active Users

The first step in cleaning up your account is to deactivate the accounts of your non-active users, such as people who have left the company or no longer use MBI in their current roles.

You can do this by clicking your company’s name in the top-right corner of the top navigation bar, then selecting Manage Users. Next, select the user you want to deactivate, and click Deactivate User.

NOTE

You need Admin permissions to do this.

WARNING

Deactivating a user will also remove the charts, dashboards, and other assets created by that user. If you want to preserve these assets, reach out to the MBI support team before deactivating the user. Support can help you transfer these assets to another user.

Reactivate a User

To reactivate a user, reinvite the user by recreating their account with the same email address that was deactivated, and their access and the data they owned will be restored upon login.

Step 2: Delete Unused Dashboards and Reports

The next step in auditing your account is to delete any unused dashboards and reports.

NOTE

You need Admin or Standard user permissions to do this.

Every user with Admin or Standard access can create reports and dashboards. For that reason, everyone with these permissions must follow the steps below to identify and remove unused reports.

Review Your Dashboards and Reports

Before you delete anything, you should review your reports and dashboards to assess what is currently in use. While you can use the find unused reports feature described below, any initial review will make your cleanup efforts much more productive.

Deleting Dashboards and Reports

After you access your dashboards and reports, you can then begin cleaning up your account.

To Remove a Report from a Dashboard

  1. Locate the report you want to remove on the dashboard.
  2. Select Options in the top-right corner of the report.
  3. Click Remove From Dashboard.

To Delete an Entire Dashboard

  1. Select Manage Data, then Dashboards.
  2. Click on the dashboard you want to delete.
  3. Click Delete Dashboard.

You can also select Dashboard Options, then Delete from the dashboard itself.

NOTE

Deleting a dashboard does not delete the reports within it, so you will have to take one more step to delete the reports.

To Delete Unused Reports

  1. Select Manage Data, then Reports.
  2. Check the Only show unused reports box located beneath the metrics list. This will create a list of reports that are not used in a dashboard or email summary.
  3. Select the reports you want to delete. You can select all by clicking the checkbox above the report list.
  4. Click Delete Selected.

Here is a look at the unused report deletion process:

Step 3: Delete Unused Metrics

After you have cleaned up your users list, dashboards, and reports, you can move onto auditing your list of metrics. This will help you identify anything that might be outdated - for example, a new metric was created with a different definition - or not in use.

  1. To generate a list of dependent reports for a metric, go to Manage Data, then select Click Metrics.
  2. Click Edit next to a metric.
  3. At the bottom of the page, you will see a section called Dependent Charts. Click the link to generate a dependent reports list for this metric.
  4. After the system completes the check, MBI displays a list of dashboards, reports, and users utilizing this metric.

If you decide that the metric is no longer needed, navigate back to the Metrics page by clicking Back to Metric List at the top of the page and find the metric you want to delete. Click Delete.

Step 4: Assess Your Synced Columns

The last step is to assess the columns currently being synced in your data warehouse. Not only can unsyncing columns declutter your account, it can also potentially reduce your update time.

If you would like to pursue this, reach out to MBI Support. The Support team can create a report that includes all columns that are not being used in any dashboard for any user and that are not used in email summaries, excluding SQL Reports. You can then use this report as a guide for selecting columns to unsync via the Data Warehouse Manager.

NOTE

You can always start syncing these columns again in the future. Unsyncing a column will not remove any data from your data warehouse; it only means this column will not be checked for new or updated values during the update cycle.

To Unsync a Column (or Columns)

  1. Go to Manage Data, then Data Warehouse.

  2. In the Synced Tables list, navigate to the table that contains the column.

  3. Check the box(es) next to the column(s) you want to unsync.

    NOTE

    You cannot unsync a Primary Key column without dropping the entire table.

  4. Click Remove to unsync the column(s).

Here is a look at the whole process:

Wrapping up

That is it! Your MBI account should now be tidier and easier to navigate for you and your team.

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