Author Archive

Sep
21

Reportapalooza Challenge Check in!

by Mico Yuk No Comments »

And Reportapalooza continues! Two weeks ago I wrote my first blog post about this exciting SAP BusinessObjects virtual competition. Since then, THANKS to YOU, I won Challenge #1 with my Coffee Consumption Calculator. I can’t thank everyone enough for the overwhelming support and feedback that I received! I am cooking something up in the form of a free giveaway, to show my appreciation, once the competition ends for all of you.

The bad news? I did not fare as well in Challenge #3, “Lessons from a Reporting Maestro”, but a huge CONGRATS to the winner Brian Durning (ASUG Crystal Reports SIG Chair). He did an awesome job, including, providing some direction on my beginner video (along with my colleague and Crystal Reports Guru, Mike Garrett).

So what’s next? Below is a quick review of the past and upcoming Reportapalooza events:

So what’s Challenge #2? Many folks have asked me about getting involved with Reportapalooza not realizing that this is exactly what the “Report Hero” challenge is all about. It’s simple, submit your heroic experience with SAP Crystal Reports or Dashboards by October 8th, 2010, and you may become the next superstar! Not only can you register to win prizes, (I was shocked to see that 3 of my twitter friends won $25 ITunes gift cards for Challenge #1!) but if chosen, your story will be turned into a collectible music poster and highlighted in the competition and community.

My advice? Don’t walk, Run to submit your story NOW. If you are an SAP BusinessObjects report writer/developer or consumer this is a no brainer! It takes 5 minutes to submit your short story, so do it now! In addition, we will feature the winning story on our blog as well.

Thanks again for all the great support!!

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.

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Sep
8

Reportapalooza Challenge One Results!

by Mico Yuk 13 Comments »

Hi Folks,

As winner of Challenge #1, and on behalf of not just myself but the other 4 experts, I just want to say THANKS to everyone for your ongoing support and participation in this Reportapalooza competition. It’s really YOU the community, (the partners, customers, fellow reporters)… who make this exciting for us!

I can’t even express in this message what fun it is working with such fine fellow experts. It’s incredible the amount of expertise we have in this competition and I am just humbled to be a part of such an elite cast. It’s quite a learning experience for me and the support from the fellow experts, Jamie Oswald, David Deitch, Brian Durning and, Jim Brogden has been unparalleled.

As you can see, we all put in a great deal of time and work so that you would be happy with our entries and based on the feedback, we succeeded. We look forward to putting out more exciting dashboards and videos in the next few weeks so continue to flood us with your input.

It’s only just begun so let’s get the Fall kicked off. We are ready for Challenge #2! :-)

I originally posted this on SAP Crystal Reports and Dashboard Design Facebook Fanpage, but wanted to extend my thanks here as well…

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

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Aug
16

Introducing Reportapalooza – SAP 1st Virtual Reality Show!

by Mico Yuk 1 Comment »

If you are on twitter following the @XcelsiusGurus you’ve probably heard the new buzz word #Reportapalooza, SAP’s new virtual reality show where 5 Crystal Reports / Xcelsius experts will compete for prizes. The cool part?  All challenges will be judged by YOU, yes YOU the community who will also have the chance to participate and win fun prizes.  Think ‘American Idol’ except instead of singing we are building reports. Oh yeah,  no one gets voted off, points are tallied each week and at the end of the competition.

Talk about neat?  Outside of being excited that SAP is entering THIS century with their marketing efforts :) take a quick peek at the impressive TOP 5 EXPERT LIST below which you can also follow on twitter here.

  1. Mico Yuk – yes that’s me, so hopefully you are somewhat biased in your voting LOL! SAP 2010 Mentor, Founder of this blog / Xcelsius Gurus Network, Xcelsius fanatic/blogger
  2. Jamie Oswald – fellow SAP 2010 mentor, former GBN Ambassador, long-time BOE Specialist
  3. David Deitch –   Owner of largest Linkedin Crystal Reports Group, long-time Crystal Reports Guru
  4. Jim Brodgen – SAP BOE Webi Author, Xcelsius 2010 Winter Olympics winner, long-time BOE Guru
  5. Brian Durning – ASUG Crystal Reports SIG Chair, long-time Crystal Reports Guru

The competition officially starts today so be sure to visit the site and sign up for email updates to win prizes!  I will be blogging throughout and offering some specials to our community as well. :-)

GET STARTED NOW – Vote on our first challenge poll today to pick which dashboard you want us to build and win a $25 Itunes gift card. Click here!

Here are some related articles:

  1. Official Press Release
  2. Social Media Today Article

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

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Aug
16

Webinar Alert! “Dashboard Xtreme Makeover Part II”

by Mico Yuk 8 Comments »

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.

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Aug
11

NEWS: Xcelsius PowerPoint & Adobe Flash 10.1 Issue

by Mico Yuk 2 Comments »

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!

Here is Adobe’s official announcement.

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.

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Jun
20

“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.

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Jun
18

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

by Mico Yuk 2 Comments »

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:

  1. The Xcelsius Present 2008 Fix Pack 3.2 patch is for Xcelsius 2008 SP3 Present only (note: this patch is not yet available).
  2. 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.

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May
11

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

by Mico Yuk 2 Comments »

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…)

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Feb
4

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.

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Oct
30

Xcelsius 2008 Service Pack 2, Fix Pack 2.1 Officially Released

by Mico Yuk 6 Comments »

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.

X2008_SP2_FP2.1

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

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