Studio Overview

What is MHC Studio?

MHC Studio is NorthStar CCM's design and authoring suite: a set of Windows desktop applications for building the templates, data models, and dashboards that NorthStar CCM uses to produce customer communications.

Where the NorthStar CCM tiers govern how documents are generated and delivered, Studio governs how they're built. It gives template designers, data modelers, and business analysts dedicated tools for the parts of the process they own.

Studio is an onPrem suite that can be combined with any NorthStar CCM license (Essentials, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus). To compare Studio with the NorthStar CCM tiers, see NorthStar CCM Solutions.

Licensing

To use the Studio applications, your NorthStar CCM administrator must assign a Studio license to your account. You can view your license type and expiration date from the File > Account page in any Studio application.

The Studio Applications

Studio includes four applications. You choose which of the three main applications (Publisher, Modeler, and Analyst) to install. MHC Drive is installed automatically with any of them.

Application	Use it to...	File type
Publisher	Design document templates and content fragments.	Templates: `.epr` (legacy: `.xfd`) Content fragments: `.epb` (legacy: `.xfc`)
Modeler	Build data models (diagrams) that combine, clean, and transform data.	`.edx`, `.edo`, `.edm`, `.ede`
Analyst	Design interactive dashboards that visualize and filter data.	`.bid`
Drive	Sync templates, diagrams, and dashboards between your computer and the NorthStar CCM Platform.	—

Legacy file types

.xfd and .xfc files come from the legacy design version of Publisher. Publisher still opens them, so you can keep working with them if you haven't finished converting to .epr and .epb.

Publisher

MHC Publisher is a visual design tool for creating document templates. Templates control the layout, styles, colors, and dynamic content of every document NorthStar CCM renders.

With Publisher, you can:

Start from a built-in template, create your own, or import an existing DOCX, PDF, HTML, FO, XSL, or XSLT file as a starting point.
Connect a data source and add data-driven content, including repeating content, conditional content, and conditional formatting.
Design with text and paragraph styles, tables, grids, images, barcodes, charts, and forms.
Build reusable content fragments to share across multiple templates.
Manage document translations, review documents, and add signatures.

For more information, see the Publisher User Guide.

Modeler

MHC Modeler is a visual tool for designing data schemas and data retrieval processes. Both Publisher templates and Analyst dashboards depend on a well-structured, clean data source, and Modeler is where you build it.

Modeler can use multiple data sources, in any combination, as part of a single data model. You can start with files (.csv or .xlsx), database objects, or a direct connection to Salesforce, then map that data into the output structure you need.

When you create a new diagram, you choose one of four diagram types:

Diagram type	Use it when you need to...
Reporting and Mass Printing	Create an XML schema of fields to populate document templates, such as monthly statements or marketing materials.
BI In-Memory Analytics	Create or update an in-memory database that feeds dashboard widgets designed in Analyst.
Data Transformation and Ingestion	Update, append to, or create database tables from multiple data sources.
Excel	Aggregate multiple data sources into an Excel spreadsheet.

Modeler also includes data set commands, functions, SQL queries, and scripts for cleansing and transforming your data.

For more information, see the Modeler User Guide.

Analyst

MHC Analyst is a dashboard design tool. A dashboard is a collection of widgets that visualizes enterprise data on a single screen, helping viewers consolidate data, spot trends, and filter information to analyze what matters to them.

With Analyst, you can:

Build a dashboard step by step with the New Dashboard Wizard, using a data model (.edm), .csv, or .xlsx file as input.
Add visualization widgets and filter widgets, then customize, include or exclude, and reposition them.
Perform advanced analysis on your data.
Configure layout, page, and dashboard options, and generate previews.

For more information, see the Analyst User Guide.

Drive

MHC Drive is a synchronization tool that connects the Studio applications to the NorthStar CCM Platform. It keeps the files on your computer and the files on the server in sync, so you can edit assets locally and share your changes with your team.

With Drive, you can:

Connect to one or more NorthStar CCM accounts, using your Enterprise Website URL and credentials.
Browse your workspaces and open any file directly in the matching Studio application.
Sync your changes automatically, or sync manually using check-out, check-in, undo, and get-latest-version operations.
View, restore, and download previous versions of a file.

Note

In the Windows Start Menu, the taskbar, and the Studio ribbons, MHC Drive currently appears as EngageCX Drive.

For more information, see the Drive User Guide.

How the Studio Applications Work Together

A typical authoring process uses each Studio application in turn:

Model the data. In Modeler, combine and transform your source data into a clean data model.
Design the output. In Publisher, design a document template that uses the data model. Or, in Analyst, design a dashboard that visualizes it.
Share and sync. Use Drive (or the Repository tab in any Studio application) to check your files in to the NorthStar CCM Platform, where your team can access them.
Generate documents. NorthStar CCM renders documents from your templates, whether through the Enterprise Website or through API calls to NorthStar CCM Essentials.

Using Studio with Essentials

In Essentials installations, templates are stored on the Essentials server's file system and managed from the Management Console under the default workspace. See Template management in the Essentials API Guide.

Getting Started

Check the requirements. Confirm your workstation meets the hardware and software requirements, including the .NET 10 runtime, the Visual C++ Redistributable, and .NET Framework 4.8. For larger templates, review the recommended workstation specifications. See Requirements.
Install Studio. Run the MHC Studio setup wizard and select the applications you need. See the Installation Guide.
Connect to NorthStar CCM. Open MHC Drive, select Connect, and sign in with your Enterprise Website URL and credentials. See Signing in.
Start designing. Open Publisher, Modeler, or Analyst. If you're new to Publisher, open one of the built-in templates under Samples and Tutorials to get familiar with the tool.

Studio Guides

Guide	What it covers	Intended for
Requirements	Installation requirements and recommended workstation specifications.	Administrators, all Studio users
Installation Guide	Step-by-step setup and component selection.	Administrators, all Studio users
Publisher User Guide	Creating, designing, and managing document templates.	Template designers
Modeler User Guide	Designing data diagrams, connecting data sources, and transforming data.	Data modelers, developers
Analyst User Guide	Designing dashboards with visualization and filter widgets.	Business analysts
Drive User Guide	Connecting accounts, managing assets, versions, and syncing.	All Studio users