Here is a sneak peek of what to expect!

UPDATE (8/15) - IF YOU ARE A NON-ASUG MEMBER AND WISH TO ATTEND PLEASE SEND US AN EMAIL AT GURUS@EVERYTHINGXCELSIUS.COM BEFORE MONDAY (8/16) AT 10AM EST AND WE WILL MAKE SURE YOU ARE INCLUDED. THANKS TO ASUG FOR RESPONDING TO THE COMMUNITY!

Sorry for the late notice, but I wanted to be sure to invite you to a webinar that is being hosted by Ryan Goodman and I on Monday (08/16/10) entitled ‘Dashboard Xtreme Makeover’. I was not going to blog about this, but now that we’ve finalized the content I was so excited I had to give you a sneak peek. It’s the ‘never before seen stuff’ that Gurus do.

Webinar History – In 2008 Ryan hosted Part I of this same series. Due its popularity it was voted as the overall #2 webinar by the BusinessObjects community. For Part 2 we wanted to present a simple process that can be used by just about anyone.

The results? For the first time ever we are going to present a ‘5 Step Process to Design or Re-design your Dashboards’. Note, we did not say GUIDELINES but an actual easy to follow PROCESS. Below are the high level steps. You’ll have to attend for more details! See you there.

Step 1: Choose Layout Template (we provide up to 50 layouts!)

Step 2: Choose Data Visualizations (which chart, where?)

Step 3: Perform Cosmetic Surgery

Step 4: Solicit User Feedback

Step 5: Quality Checklist (Final Considerations)

NOTE: You must be an ASUG registered member to attend (remember all former GBN customers can join ASUG for free for a limitd time). You must login to ASUG.com first. Click here to register.

Mico Yuk is a 2010 SAP Mentor and the founder of the Xcelsius Guru Network and the Everything Xcelsius blog. To learn more about her, please visit our About Us page.

Aug

NEWS: Xcelsius PowerPoint & Adobe Flash 10.1 Issue

by Mico Yuk

Here is Adobe’s official announcement.

UPDATED: SAP JUST ANNOUNCED THAT ADOBE RELEASED THE FIX EARLY. CLICK HERE TO READ.

If you are the average Xcelsius user who demos dashboards on a regular basis via PowerPoint you’ve probably encountered the issue seen below when you try to view your dashboards in PPT after updating to Adobe Flash Player 10.1 As you can see this issue has been looming for about a month now, and there is finally a solution.

This week SAP informed us that they’ve finally been able to work with Adobe to create a patch. The good news? While Adobe will not be releasing the patch until another week or so, anyone who desperately needs it can contact SAP support to obtain it early!

Be sure to return and share your experiences with the community!

Mico Yuk is a 2010 SAP Mentor and the founder of the Xcelsius Guru Network and the Everything Xcelsius blog. To learn more about her, please visit our About Us page.

Jun

“Dear aBI” Advice Column on SCN

by Mico Yuk

3 Comments »

It is such a pleasure to be the first SAP Mentor to kick off this new “Dear aBI” series on the SCN Network. As a BusinessObjects reporting community evangelist, I was first humbled, but then excited about being asked to do this. I’m always amazed at how many questions we get from the community. The goal of this new column is to address the most common ‘important’ ones. While the answers are subjective, the opinions represented here are not only from experience, but also from a number of reliable sources both within and outside of SAP BusinessObjects. Kudos to Jason Cao and everyone involved in getting this kicked off! It goes to show, once again the commitment that SAP BusinessObjects has to getting the correct information to their users. I encourage everyone to submit their questions, small or big and we will do our best to address them.

My first post, Dear aBI: Dashboarding Must-Haves, was published today! I look forward to your comments!

Mico Yuk is a 2010 SAP Mentor and the founder of the Xcelsius Guru Network and the Everything Xcelsius blog. To learn more about her, please visit our About Us page.

3 Comments »

Jun

Breaking NEWS!!! Crystal Dashboard and Presentation Design (Xcelsius 2008) Fix Pack 3.2 (FP3.2) released!

by Mico Yuk

Hi Everyone,

We are happy to announce the release of the Crystal Dashboard and Presentation Design (Xcelsius 2008) Fix Pack 3.2 (FP3.2) (See the official post by Matt Lloyd here)!! We were the first to announce its release on twitter yesterday and wanted to follow up with an official post. The Fix Pack must be applied to Crystal Dashboard and Presentation Design (Xcelsius 2008) SP3 (version: 5.3.0.0) or FP3.1. If you don’t already have it installed, please click here.

Download FP3.2 now by clicking here. Please be aware…there are two different versions available to download:

The Xcelsius Present 2008 Fix Pack 3.2 patch is for Xcelsius 2008 SP3 Present only (note: this patch is not yet available).
The Xcelsius Enterprise 2008 Fix Pack 3.2 patch is both for Xcelsius 2008 SP3 Engage and Enterprise.

After the FP 3.2 is applied, the version number should change to version: 5.3.2.0

The documentation is delayed, but will be available shortly from the SAP help portal. All your Crystal Dashboard and Presentation Design (Xcelsius) guides can be found by visiting the SAP BusinessObjects Solution Portfolio Knowledge Center. As soon as the documentation is available, we will know, so YOU will know as well! STAY TUNED!!

Keep up with the Xcelsius Gurus on Twitter:

Mico Yuk is a 2010 SAP Mentor and the founder of the Xcelsius Guru Network and the Everything Xcelsius blog. To learn more about her, please visit our About Us page.

May

Mico’s 2010 Update – 3 New Xcelsius Gurus Must Have Books!

by Mico Yuk

Hi All,

I know it’s been some time since I’ve last posted and there is soooo much going on in the Xcelsius community. To start, we now have over 1,000 members in our LinkedIn group, over 600+ followers in Twitter and we just created a new LinkedIn group dedicated to the Xcelsius SDK, FleXcelsius…and the excitement continues! I was also recently nominated to be an SAP Mentor, the first to solidly represent Xcelsius in the SAP world, a huge honor. Most exciting is the opportunity to bring the Xcelsius Gurus network to the SAP Business Object Community (aka BOC). I will provide a separate blog post on how this will have a positive impact on the Xcelsius Gurus network and how I see things coming together. I invite everyone to benefit and be a part of it. Last but not least, I have spent most of the year getting the commercial side of EverythingXcelsius up and running and we are scheduled to go live before the summer. So this is quite exciting, as we have worked with so many clients, but now will have a separate presence to display what we’ve done.

Now that I got that mouthful out of the way, I have been adding to my book collection and had to share three exciting new books that you must purchase. These books were written by our fellow community members, and are MUST HAVES for Xcelsius and BI Developers. You can purchase all 3 on SAP Press under the BusinesObjects category, or if you’re like me and use Amazon, feel free to purchase directly from our new reading list!
(more…)

Feb

Xcelsius Advanced Developer Workshop on March 24-25, 2010

by Mico Yuk

No Comments »

Hi Everyone,

If you are anywhere online, you are probably starting to hear the buzz about the upcoming Xcelsius Advanced Developer Workshop, being held in Dallas, TX. I will be conducting the training along side, Mike Alexander, author of the popular book, Crystal Xcelsius for Dummies. Last year the training sold out early, so we encourage everyone to register early. Register before 2/15 and receive the early bird special $200 discount! This year, the training is filled with tons of surprises and prizes, along with breakfast and lunch with the us.

On the 1st day, the training will cover, Advanced Dashboarding Techniques. Mike and I will be giving techniques on how to design your Xcelsius dashboard. On the 2nd day we will cover Advanced Data Connectivity Techniques. For more information about the training agenda, please visit http://xcelsiustraining.com. You can also follow our FaceBook FanPage or the My Xcelsius Blog to see what others are buzzing about.

Remember, catch the early bird special by registering before 2/15. We look forward to seeing everyone there!!

Mico Yuk is the founder of the Xcelsius Guru Network and the Everything Xcelsius blog. To learn more about her, please visit our About Us page.

No Comments »

Oct

Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 2, Fix Pack 2.1 Officially Released

by Mico Yuk

It’s official!! Many sources have been pre-announcing it, but we are the first to confirm with SAP that the Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 2, Fix Pack 2.1 is ready for download.

You can access the download, Release Notes and Fixed Issues doc at the following link (please bookmark) – https://websmp230.sap-ag.de/sap(bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==)/bc/bsp/spn/bobj_download/main.htm

Note: If you originally downloaded it you have now have the ‘old version (build 12,2,1,66)’, and you will have to uninstall that version and re-install the current download. In Windows you can go to Add/Remove Programs, check Show Updates and then you can uninstall just the Fix Pack.

It was also just announced on SDN:
http://forumsa.sdn.sap.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1518318&tstart=0

DOWNLOAD HERE

Oct

GBN ‘Bringing the Xcelsius Community to Life Event’ 10/20 @ 5:30pm CST!

by Mico Yuk

See the PDF invite for instructions on how to RSVP.

Hi Everyone,

I know that I have been announcing this on twitter and my Linkedin status for some time, but it seems like the invites finally went out on 10/9 for the exclusive ‘Bringing the Xcelsius Community to Life Event’ this year at the GBN Conference in Dallas Texas. It is being sponsored by SAP and hosted by the Xcelsius Gurus.

Below are some details:

What: ‘Bringing the Xcelsius Community to Life Event’
When: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 @ 5:30 – 7pm EST
Where: Manchester Room, Hilton Anatole (you must RSVP to attend as it is by invitation only)
Attire: It’s a party!
How: Invitation Only (if you did not receive one and want to attend keep reading)

Here is a sneak peek of what to expect!

Exciting announcements from the Sap Xcelsius Team
Exclusive insight into 2010 from the Xcelsius Gurus network (you really don’t want to miss this!)
Over $8,000 worth of give aways from the Xcelsius Gurus including training, Xcelsius Templates, software, signed books (from Everything Xcelsius, Antivia,Analysis Factory, Centigon, Infosol, Cobi Systems and much more)
Networking with the Xcelsius Gurus, SAP Xcelsius Team, other Xcelsius customers, newbies and developers and much more!
Notable RSVP’d attendees:
- Saskia Battersby (Speaker) – Xcelsius Product Manager
- Mico Yuk (Host) – Founder, Everything Xcelsius.com / Xcelsius Gurus Network
- Ryan Goodman (Host) – Founder, Centigon Solution / Author, Crystal Reports 2008
- Loren Abdulezer – Founder, XcelsiusJournal.com / Author, Xcelsius 2008 Dashboard Best Practices
- Michael Alexander – Founder, DataPig Technologies / Author, Crystal Xcelsius for Dummies
- Many more!
Food and drinks
Xcelsius Community Volunteers (we have 5 listed who will usher you in at the door)

The event is by invitation only, and it went out to all ‘registered’ GBN members who indicated they were interested in ‘Dashboarding’. YOU MUST BE REGISTERED FOR THE CONFERENCE TO ATTEND!

Because it is sponsored event we do have very limited seats which are filling up quickly, so we hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Mico Yuk
Founder, Xcelsius Gurus Network

Oct

Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 2, Fix Pack 1 Pre-Released

by Mico Yuk

We first discovered it on Friday 9/25/09 ourselves. It’s true, Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 2, Fix Pack 1 is available for download on the SAP download site. See below:

When asked why it was not announced, SAP stated that they are waiting for the ‘Fixed Issues’ PDF to be posted on or before October 16th before making a formal announcement.

We are working to get more details, but for right now all you can do is install and test.

DOWNLOAD HERE