Archive for the ‘Dashboard Design (Xcelsius)’ Category

Apr
23

Recording and Book Giveaway: Most Important Xcelsius Webinar of 2012

by Mico Yuk 2 Comments »

Hi Everyone,

We first want to say thanks for attending the Most Important Xcelsius Webinar of 2012! Consider  this to be one of three upcoming blog posts discussing the details of the webinar. Please be sure to read it all the way through before previewing the video to view some great outcomes from the webinar.  Enjoy!

10 Amazing Webinar Facts

  1. Registration soared to a record 1086! (30+ countries)
  2. 64% show up rate with over 700+ attendees
  3. 400+ Questions received
  4. 96% Attendee approval rate from feedback survey!
  5. 500+ tweets on our twitter hashtags #AllAccessSAP and #XcelsiusSOD reflected the traffic of a mini conference (and still going BTW)!
  6. 48% of the customers on the call had both SAP BW and Business Objects when polled
  7. 82% of the attendees had no idea what SAP Zen was (though Zen reflected 30% of the questions asked and is the next most requested AllAccessSAP Webinar)
  8. #SAPZen twitter hashtag has been bred into life!
  9. SAP BI Commnity Response was historical and overwhelming! To date we have 7 blog posts, 1 podcast and 1 semantic analysis and counting…
  10. 6 Amazing SAP BI panelist, namely Mani Gill, Ty Miller, Jason Rose, Ian Mayor, Scott Leaver and Mani Srinivasan did an AMAZING job answering questions!  Big thanks to them for participating and making this a success. :-)

Anticipated Xcelsius Book Giveaways!

You couldn’t possibly think that we forgot the BOOK GIVEAWAY from our friends at SAP Press?!  CONGRATS to our winners (check your emails for more details).

  • Winner #1 – Marc Teixido Ibarz (SP)
  • Winner #2 – Ruby Norley (US)
  • Winner #3 – Bala Seetharaman (IN)

I wrote the foreword for this book and can personally recommend that you buy it now, especially if BI4 is on your plate.  Electronic versions available for non US folks too!

AllAccess SAP Xcelsius Webinar Recording (60 mins of No BS)

Sit back and turn up the volume…

If you are having trouble viewing the video, please click the direct link: http://youtu.be/vMVnBnr0PHY

Useful Links & SAP BI Community Webinar Responses

Additional Responses from the Community post this blog:

Our Fav Tweets – Share the Community Passion!

What’s Next?

I will follow up with 2 more blog posts in the next week. One that seeks to get even deeper answers from SAP on the most pressing questions not covered in the webinar. My 2nd blog post will focus on my thoughts on the Xcelsius SOD and what it means for SAP customers and their existing and future dashboards.

Your Feedback is Required

We want to hear from you! Do post your comments below or on twitter using our hashtags #AllAccessSAP and #XcelsiusSOD to keep the conversation going. Remember big brother is reading. :)

Mico Yuk is a SAP Mentor and SAP BI Influencer, co-founder of Benchmarkers Business Intelligence and founder of the Xcelsius Gurus Network, the Everything Xcelsius blog. To learn more about her, please visit her about page.

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Jan
10

Intro to Guest Blogger, Leonid Koyfman & what he has planned for Us!

by Soo Tang Yuk 2 Comments »

Welcome to my first post on Everything Xcelsius. I’m Leonid Koyfman, a Database Architect at AKQA in San Francisco. Although my primary responsibilities are in a database domain, data visualization and dashboard design in particular have always been in the area of my interests. In my career I completed many reporting projects using Crystal Reports, Actuate and various Microsoft products.

Creating reports and dashboards in Excel prepared me well for transition to Xcelsius. Its mashup of art and technology impressed me from the moment I opened a trial version and I enthusiastically promoted Xcelsius in the company I worked for then.

Starting with Xcelsius 4.0 we developed a line of web analytics dashboards for financial institutions. Our clients loved them. Instead of hundreds static slides in PowerPoint decks, they received interactive dashboards with intuitive navigation and the level of detail not supported in the legacy reports.  While the data preparation on the database side and in Excel was the bulk of the work, using Xcelsius for the presentation delivered the knockout punch. The resounding success of the project made me even stronger proponent of Xcelsius. It also inspired me to be creative and look for workarounds when Xcelsius doesn’t support needed functionality out of the box.

While getting better with every new release, Xcelsius still needs more popularization. Everything Xcelsius is one of the major players in that field. I’ve been a big fan of the website for many years, regularly visiting the site, learning new techniques and developing new skills. I’m glad to have a chance to share some of my ideas, tips and tricks here.

In the next several posts I’m going to examine various applications of customized Push Button controls in Xcelsius. Stay tuned!!

Leonid Koyfman is a BI professional with over 10 years of experience in a database design and development and in delivering reporting solutions using enterprise reporting technologies. He is a big Xcelsius enthusiast passionate about dashboard design and other kinds of data visualization. In his leisure time Leonid enjoys solving mental puzzles and hiking in the Bay Area with his family.

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Dec
6

Advanced Printing for Xcelsius is Here… Finally!

by Ryan Goodman 9 Comments »

A few months ago, I received an email with a subject, “check out this print component” from Gabriel Braun at DataSavvy Tools. When I fired it up, I had a smile ear-to-ear because I was sitting in front of exactly what every customer has been asking me for the last 5 years… A robust print button capable of letting me choose what I want to print, control layout, and print to landscape or portrait. So I am happy to say that thanks to the Data Savvy Tools ingenuity, the community now has a fantastic option for printing: Dash Printer

While we try to keep promotions to a minimum on EverythingXcelsius.com, we could not resist posting about this new component because it is so heavily requested among customers. While some would argue that a basic function like printing should be taken care of by SAP, history has told us that they prefer to use the ecosystem to fill in certain gaps. Frankly, I don’t think that it could have been done any better than this.

After clicking on the print icon, you can click and drag to draw the area for which you will print. This way if you only want a portion of your dashboard printed, you can do so.


While still inside of your dashboard, you can instantly toggle the scale, margins, layout, and alignment of your image to print exactly what you want. This way every user is presented with the same visual print setup regardless of operating system.

So if you need an advanced print button for Xcelsius, you can now look to DataSavy Tools for a sound solution moving forward. Get the Dash Printer NOW!

Ryan Goodman is the Founder of Centigon Solutions, an SAP® software solution partner, that is strategically focused on developing add-on products for use with Xcelsius®. To learn more about him, please visit our Gurus page.

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Sep
27

ASUG SBOUC BI4 Release Party OFFICIAL RSVP!

by Mico Yuk 2 Comments »
Steve Lucas and Adam Binnie

Steve Lucas and Adam Binnie of SAP

Hi Folks,

The most anticipated event of the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects conference is finally here and its BIGGER and BETTER!

We are excited to formally announce the Official SAP BI4 Release Party (aka the 3rd Annual Xcelsius Gurus Reception), hosted by none other than myself Mico Yuk (founder of Benchmarkers.com and EverythingXcelsius.com) and the infamous Steve Lucas, Global GM & Senior Executive of the SAP Business Analytics & Technology Portfolio!

If you attended our event in previous years, you probably know that it looks more like a Vegas nightclub on Friday night than a regular ‘boring’ corporate event.  We plan to keep it that way (just don’t tell our sponsors at SAP :) ).

Now for the long awaited details:

  • Location: ASUG SAP BusinessObjects User Conference (Orlando, FL)
  • Hosts: Steve Lucas & Mico Yuk
  • Date/Time: Tuesday, October 11, from 6:30-9:30pm EST
  • Room – (Final details will be sent in confirmation email on 9/29)
  • Attendee Count: 250 (space is limited)
  • Special Guests – Bridgette Chambers (ASUG CEO) and much more!
  • Prizes – 3 door prizes (just drop your business card in at the door to enter), BI4 Video Confession prizes!
  • BI4 Video Contest - Submit your videos now, or take them at the event to gain a chance to win an iPad2.  More details by clicking here!
  • Features – 2 Open Bars, Open Buffet, networking tables..
  • How to RSVP: Please send an email with ‘RSVP’ in the subject to events@everythingxcelsius.com by Wednesday, October 5, 2011.
  • IMPORTANT! –  You MUST be REGISTERED for the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects conference to attend this event. Space is limited and we are always booked to capacity within 48 hours of this notice, so please send in your RSVP as soon as possible. Confirmation details will be sent out via email prior to the event with instructions on where to pickup your wrist band. All registered guests will be required to show a wristband upon entrance without exception.

Sponsored in part by SAP, the event promises to provide a host of surprise guest, as well as a BI4 video confession booth where customers can tell their story to win exciting prizes, a chance to network with fellow SAP BusinessObjects community members and the SAP BI team, door prizes, 2 open bars and an open buffet! Let’s also not forget it’s ASUG’s 20th Anniversary celebration!

We would also like put in a call for volunteers, if interested please send an email to gurus@everythingxcelsius.com. We can’t wait to see you! Thanks!

A SPECIAL THANK YOU to Kurt Bilafer, Jason Rose, Sanjay Poonen and of course my wonderful co-host Steve Lucas of the SAP BI Team, and Bridgette Chambers and her right-hand man Richard Zepeda of the ASUG team for making this event possible! Thanks for supporting our community!

Mico Yuk is a 2010 SAP Mentor and the founder of the Xcelsius Guru Network, the Everything Xcelsius blog, and co-founder of Benchmarkers Business Intelligence. To learn more about her, please visit her about page.

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Sep
26

Xcelsius Bootcamp Tour Special!

by Mico Yuk 13 Comments »

I know I have not blogged in a while on EX (this will change in 2012), but I wanted to share some exciting news.  The Xcelsius Gurus have joined forces with SAP Wispubs to do a 4-city Xcelsius Bootcamp tour (Chicago, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, and Copenhagen).  We had a sold-out crowd in Chicago last week, and boy was it intense and fun!  I seldom sell anything (including the fact that our consultants build the best Xcelsius dashboards in the industry), but after being a part of the first bootcamp I am encouraging all customers, who can get to 1 out of the 3 last bootcamps, to attend before we sell out again, as I’ve honestly not seen so much solid content in one 3-day Xcelsius boot camp.  Best of all, if you read to the end we have a special gift just for those who sign up now from our community.

Here are 3 reasons why you should attend (IMO):

  • Mico’s Part – In case you have never heard me speak, I love to rock the crowd.  This is no different.  I get to open the event by introducing all of the other speakers and also laying the foundation down on how to scope and plan one’s dashboards.  The feedback I got form the first hour from a few attendees was simple: “This was worth the entire cost Mico”.
  • Two Hands-On Sessions: It also features 2-hard core hands on sessions that include building a dashboard and using other exciting features in BI4.0 with SAP’s very own Matt Lloyd and Decision First Technologies, Chris Hickman
  • World Class Speakers – fellow Xcelsius Gurus, Chris Hickman of Decision First Technologies (who is an SAP BusinessObjects ace and provides deep insight on all BOE related topics), Dr. Bjarne Berg of Comerit (who is an SAP BW and Xcelsius specialist), Matt Lloyd of SAP (not sure there is anyone who knows the Xcelsius platform better, we go back many years), Emily Mui of SAP (another old friend who handles the marketing of the product and has deep insight and answers for customers regarding the roadmap), then myself Mico Yuk (just the biggest Xcelsius groupie that ever lived)
  • I must add the 100% Money-back Guarantee though I can assure you, NO ONE will use it. We had a 97% referral rate from the Chicago event!
  • Much more – Panel discussions, Governance and Performance Tips

Here is a pic from the Chicago event, just so you can see how packed and intense these sessions were.  Energy was amazing.  Even I learned a few things!

Philadelphia is coming up in just 7-days and we are almost sold out. Same goes for Vegas as far as I know.  As you know we always want to ensure our community is well taken care of.  So for those of you who sign up from reading this blog by 9/30 to ANY of the locations, you will get a complimentary free 6-month membership to the new BusinessObjects Expert website (high quality content) as a THANK YOU from EverythingXcelsius.com.  We created this deal especially for you and it is NOT available elsewhere, not even on the actual registration website. Sign up now!

Complimentary FREE 6 month Subscription to the BusinessObjects Expert Website (using our URL)

Note you MUST USE the specific URL in this blog to get the FREE membership.  Cut and paste into your browser if it is not working:  http://www.xcelsiusbootcamp.com/homePage.cfm?usergroup=bbi-us. (Please note, upon completion of  registration to the bootcamp, you will receive a notification within 24-48 hours with instructions on how to signup for the free 6-month subscription.)

I look forward to seeing all of you, so drop me a line if you plan to attend. I have another huge announcement this week for the ASUG SAPBusinessObjects User Conference attendees about our exclusive BI4 Release Party and how to RSVP. Stay tuned!

Ciao,

Mico Yuk

Mico Yuk is a 2010 SAP Mentor and the founder of the Xcelsius Guru Network, the Everything Xcelsius blog, and co-founder of Benchmarkers Business Intelligence. To learn more about her, please visit her about page.

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Aug
24

The value of the SAP BusinessObjects Ecosystem

by Donald MacCormick 6 Comments »

Ryan Goodman’s last post, Understanding BI4 Dashboards and XWIS, drew a couple of comments (here and there) expressing frustration that capabilities of third party extensions ought to be delivered as a native part of the SAP Business Objects product.

To my mind this is a glass-half-empty view of things. Although the BI4/XI3 platforms come with numerous connectivity options for Xcelsius, no software is ever 100% feature complete (that is what upgrades are all about), so inevitably there is room for people to dream up ways in which features could be better. The great thing about SAP BusinessObjects is that (through both their Crystal and BusinessObjects histories) they have had the foresight to make sure their products are open to third-party developers to extend and enhance their BI platform through an ecosystem of innovation. So the glass-is-half-full view is that rather than having to wait for SAP BusinessObjects to provide a particular feature in a future release there is a product which fills them today.

(As a side note, the nature of third-party extension means that this also follows Vishal Sikka’s vision of “innovation without disruption”, with extension products integrating seamlessly with existing versions of the platform.) As I mentioned in a recent post on BI standardization, this partner ecosystem is one of the key advantages of choosing a large BI platform vendor.

In one of the comments the concern was that customers have to spend more money on such partner extensions. Again this is a glass-half-empty view because, whilst extensions will usually come at a cost (third-parties have to make a living too) they will also usually be designed to provide a return on investment. Anything else is just too hard to sell, so using the right extensions should be a financial saving rather than a financial drain.

The other comment seemed a bit confusing, it started by asking “why are we looking for different products to try and integrate with one another” and ended up suggesting a jump to a completely different dashboarding environment, which would require much more integration effort with the core BI platform, than any well designed platform extension would need. This comment is doubly ironic as many platform extension products are specifically designed to add features which avoid the need to jump to new non-integrated environments.

Overall I would recommend you resist the urge to be indignant and reject third party tools because they “should have come in the box”, this is a classic instance of being “right rather than effective”, make full use of the power of the ecosystem around your BI platform, assess extensions on the ROI they generate for your current situation and only when you run out of options inside your ecosystem consider non-integrated tools outside it.

Donald MacCormick is the Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Antivia, an SAP® software solution partner, and creator of XWIS the Xcelsius-to-SAP BusinessObjects connectivity solution. In past years, he was a long term member of BusinessObjects and Crystal, and part of the team that brought Xcelsius into the BusinessObjects portfolio.

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Jul
12

Xcelsius and Business Intelligence Web Services (BIWS)- Part 2

by Scott Strool 9 Comments »

As a follow up to my blog on BIWS, I created two videos to show you the concepts of creating and consuming BI Web Services. The demonstrations were done using BI 4.0.

In this first video, I create a web service and demonstrate how to validate it from an already developed Web Intelligence report.



In this second video, I create a simple dashboard using SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 that connects, consumes, and filters the data via the web service connection.



The demos were built using the efashion universe, so if you have that around, you can follow along.

Scott Strool is a Senior BI Consultant for Benchmarkers Business Intelligence, where he helps customers obtain their BI visions. He presented at the 2010 SAP BusinessObjects User Conference in Orlando, FL, and has led many dashboard initiatives. You may follow him on twitter at @scott_strool.

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Jun
15

The Five “Unorthodox Principles for Dashboard Success”

by Donald MacCormick 5 Comments »

Over the past several years, in my time at SAP BusinessObjects and more recently with Antivia, I’ve been privileged to witness many dashboard projects at many different organizations around the world. Looking back on these, I realized that aside from the mainstream Business Intelligence principles which most people talk about (e.g. involve the business users, make sure you have a high level sponsor, data quality matters, etc., etc.), there are also some rather less orthodox principles which help to deliver business benefit through dashboards.

These five “unorthodox principles for dashboard success” are :

  1. Definitions don’t always help
  2. Visuals matter
  3. Users always want more
  4. Beware of end-users and large data sets
  5. Knowing is nothing, doing is everything

And, they are explained in detail in a new Antivia eBook (registration required).

Together, the 5 principles provide a bit of a sideways look at the world of dashboards, and although they might seem a little tongue in cheek at times, each principle contains advice that I believe will genuinely help you to deliver dashboards more successfully and more valuably across your organization.

Donald MacCormick is the Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Antivia, an SAP® software solution partner, and creator of XWIS the Xcelsius-to-SAP BusinessObjects connectivity solution. In past years, he was a long term member of BusinessObjects and Crystal, and part of the team that brought Xcelsius into the BusinessObjects portfolio.

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Jun
13

NEWS ALERT! Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 4 (SP4) is now available to everyone!

by Soo Tang Yuk 20 Comments »

Hi Everyone,

Last week on Twitter we saw an annoucment that Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 4 (SP4) with support for Windows 7 and Office 2010 (32-bit) was available from the Service Marketplace. Today we were notified that SAP has officially announced its availability on the general download site (see the official announcement from Matt Lloyd).

This Service Pack is a cumulative patch, so it incorporates all the patches to-date and delivers new fixes and features. All files must be extracted and downloaded from the zip file and ran directly from your hard drive. After Service Pack 4 (SP4) is installed, the version number in the about box will change to: 5.4.0.0.

As noted by Mico on twitter last week, here are a few noted additions to start:

  • Waterfall charts
  • Combination charts can have alerts for multiple series
  • Added alerts into the spreadsheet components

The documentation will  be available shortly on the SAP Help Portal and include the following:

  • What’s Fixed in Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 4
  • What’s New in Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 4
  • Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 4 Release Notes
  • Xcelsius 2008 SP4 Supported Platforms

Once the document is officially released, we will make another announcement, so be sure to keep updated by following us on:

Soo Tang Yuk is the ‘Xcelsius Gurus Network” community manager and evangelist. To find out more about her, please visit the About Us page.

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Jun
8

Xcelsius SDK Tips

by Evan DeLodder 1 Comment »

During everyday development with the Xcelsius SDK there are quite a few things that can be taken for granted once you get comfortable with the technology and process. These “for-granteds” can often be points overlooked by developers getting started with the SDK and can cause considerable pain if they’re not properly evaluated and accounted for up front.

Here are 3 points to be aware of that I’ve been meaning to cover. I was reminded of all of them again this week while fielding various related questions from people getting started with the SDK. Hopefully they can help you out.

1. Flash Shared Local Objects just got more slippery

With the most recent release of Flash Player 10.3, users can now delete Shared Local Objects with ease. Individuals could always clear out SLO’s but the most recent player release made it quick and easy to accomplish. In short, if you’re developing custom components for Xcelsius that rely on the use of SLO’s, you may want to brace for more support calls and also document and alert your users on how SLO’s are leveraged. You can bet people will be inadvertently deleting them.

2. XLP’s and XLX’s should be archived

XLP’s, or Xcelsius Add-On Packager Files, generate unique XLX installer files so that end users can install your custom components in their Xcelsius environments. XLP’s stamp XLX’s with unique ID’s that are used by the Xcelsius Add-On Manager to determine if a component that is attempting to be installed already exists in that Xcelsius environment. Long story short, if you lose your original XLP file that you used to generate and distribute your original XLX file(s) and you have to create a new XLP file and generate new XLX files for subsequent distribution to end users, you’re likely going to encounter installation issues that require any preexisting component by the same fully qualified name to be uninstalled before the new one can be installed. This obviously isn’t the end of the world but it can create confusion and should be avoided if possible.

3. Common Component Classes – First in Wins

If you have multiple add-ons that you maintain and some or all of those components leverage a set of base classes and those components and the base class functionality that they rely on can potentially or do evolve (get released) at different paces, be keenly aware that the Flash Player operates using first-class-loaded-wins. This means that any components that rely on a common class will be using the first version of that class that was loaded by the Player. If there are any inconsistencies between the first class loaded and the class functionality that a given component is actually expecting, this can create some obvious and not so obvious behaviors and/or bugs at runtime. Be sure to nail down a strategy that allows all of your components to coexist and evolve peacefully.

Evan DeLodder is CTO at Centigon Solutions, an SAP Partner focused on the development of cutting edge mapping technologies in the Business Intelligence space. To learn more about him, please visit our Gurus page.

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