Here is an interactive calculator to predict the future President of the USA. Design concept from the Wall Street Journal Electoral College calculator. I tried my best to replicate the functionality. Hope you’ll alll like it. Please leave a comment as a feedback.
Click Here for the calculator.
In Xcelsius, the Object Browser is your new best friend. It stores and displays all of the components that are on the canvas and allows you to hide them and/or lock them into position. Xcelsius allows you to design a dashboard by placing components on the canvas. It adds exciting visualization to Excel data– trends, what-if, projections and much more.
To add a component to a canvas of the visualization:
Open the spreadsheet that contains the data you want to use.Decide which type of component you need. ( Selectors, Containers, Charts, Gauges.)
Select the component and click on the canvas to insert the object.Use the Object Browser to control the component.Click on the eye to hide temporarily.Click on the padlock to lock the component position on the visualization.Once you have completed the components layout, you save it. The process of saving converts your visualization of the Excel data to an .xlf file. Click on preview and and a .swf file is created. This file then can be placed in a web page, PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Acrobat.
Xcelsius creates a dynamic, interactive and visual presentation of Excel data and a wow factor to your presentations!
Learn more about the Object Browser and other cool Xcelsius features in our 2-day Xcelsius class.
The InfoBurst team at InfoSol is relocating their Infoburst2009 site to a new web address. Visit the new product blog at infosolblog.com/infoburst
Yolande Grill is the Vice President of Business Development at InfoSol Inc. I would like to think of myself as the Chief Transformation Officer. My favorite quote to ponder is one from Trina Paulus. "How Exactly does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so badly, that you are willing to give up being a catterpillar" The following is a list to our upcoming webinars… Follow the link next to the webinar date to register.
InfoBurst Webinars
November 5 – 11A PST – http://goo.gl/EZpQ
November 8 – 11A PST – http://goo.gl/036g
November 10 – 11A PST – http://goo.gl/8ewE
November 12 – 11A PST – http://goo.gl/6yYs
November 15 – 11A PST – http://goo.gl/vhW2
360 View Webinars
November 4 – 11A PST – http://goo.gl/hCj7
November 9 – 11A PST – http://goo.gl/CdRc
On facebook, follow InfoBurst at www.facebook.com/infoburst
Yolande Grill is the Vice President of Business Development at InfoSol Inc. I would like to think of myself as the Chief Transformation Officer. My favorite quote to ponder is one from Trina Paulus. "How Exactly does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so badly, that you are willing to give up being a catterpillar" SAP finally announced on September 14, 2010 that it was getting onto the pre-packaged analytics bandwagon. SAP announced ten applications in this first release for six industries (Consumer Products, Healthcare, Financial Services, Public Sector, Retail and Telecommunications) in its BusinessObjects offering.
Building on the rapid-marts offering that the then BOBJ used to have and leveraging SAP’s industry and line of business expertise, these new applications are based on the SAP Business Objects XI platform – WebIntelligence, Crystal Reports and Dashboards (formerly Xcelsius). Bill McDermott, the joint CEO of SAP, described it as “complete and ready-to-go” and claimed the applications can be deployed in as less as eight weeks.
You may remember the brouhaha created by SAS last year , when it kicked off the controversy on Business Analytics being the future, rather than Business Intelligence. Going back even further, Oracle already had this in its Siebel Analytics pre-built analytic applications for various industries. Therefore, it would seem that SAP is already late in the game, but considering that neither Microsoft nor IBM have similar offerings, it may not be too bad for SAP. Better late than never…
Under the hood:
The pre-packaged analytic applications are based on the BusinessObjects XI platform – with the universe as the semantic layer or metadata model. It can be based on both SAP and non-SAP data, OLTP and data warehouse, relational and unstructured. SAP would work with its partners HP and Teradata to optimize the analytic solutions on their hosting and data warehousing solutions.
Business Analytics dashboards are Xcelsius flash files which can be used with web services/QAWS to deliver real-time analytics. It may also be possible to use these with SAP Business Objects Explorer (formerly Polestar) and/or SAP BW Accelerator or the SAP high-performance analytic appliance (HANA).
Business Analytics vs. Business Intelligence – Revisiting the controversy:
When SAS created this controversy last year, an important point noted by many was the SAS home page titled:
SAS | Business Intelligence Software and Predictive Analytics
It’s important to see how the rebranding has reflected in a change to the SAS home page a year hence. It now reads:
SAS | Business Analytics and Business Intelligence Software
SAS Institute was always viewed as a niche vendor, operating in the pure-play statistical and predictive analytics space and this marketing was to re-brand SAS’ offerings to move it mainstream. In effect, it signaled the market assessment by these major vendors, that in tough times, customers were seeking shorter lead times and demanding better tools which are quick and easy to introduce and provide quicker return on investment. As we come around the downturn, with SAP still focusing on this segment, it is clear that traditional BI is clearly seen as complex, costly and difficult to implement.
Open questions:
There are several questions open at the moment, given that this is an initial launch. SAP plans to offer more applications over the next year-18 months in collaboration with customers and its partners. The partners include Aster Group, Blueprint, Capgemini, Column5, CSC, Fusion Consulting, The Glenture Group, LSI Consulting and syskoplan and surely it would take quite a while for the ecosystem to develop. It remains to be seen whether the prepackaged analytics catches on like Xcelsius dashboards did for BOBJ.
It is not clear whether the prepackaged analytics would be positioned at the bigger enterprises or the SME segment only, as its success could cannibalize revenues from the flagship Enterprise XI suite.
There are also questions around the scalability of the framework the analytic applications are built on. The extensibility APIs and reference architectures for partners to build their own add-ons and plugins / applications of their own is not yet out (planned in 2011), so it’s not quite like the iPhone/iPad app store yet. It is also not clear how customizations to the applications would be supported or to what extent these could be customized. The long awaited universe rewrite including data federation might be a part of plans if the analytic applications turn out to be truly backend-agnostic and do support future in-memory data structures (SAP’s acquisition of Sybase would indicate likely support for the Sybase ASE in-memory database). If this happens, it would be in line with earlier plans to roll-out in-memory EPM and OLTP solutions.
Skip to Content ?HomeShowcaseVideosVideos from SAPContactAuthorsArchivesHow to create a Radar animation using Xcelsius?Nov 16th, 2010by Joshua Tapley. TweetShareEmailTweetShareEmailIn designing a UFO Tracking dashboard for the Reportapalooza guest challenge, I decided that I needed to create a radar simulation. The math to get the radar to spin past zero wasn’t overly hard, but really through me for a loop at first (no pun intended)!
How to Create:
1. Setup play selector data
2. Insert play selector
Source: A2
3. Setup pie chart data
Section 1 – Scanner when spanning across zero
4. Insert pie chart
5. Pie chart options > Behaviors > Animations and Effects: Turn off data animation (or the scanner will spin backwards after hitting 100%)
6. Make data series 1 and 3 blue and make series 2 and 4 black
7. De-select the show lines option for the data series
8. Insert 2 ellipses over the pie chart to create inner rings
9. Spice it up. I used a dot that fades in when the scanner crosses that area (i.e. 60-70%). Kalyan used sequencing numbers to create a film reel countdown.
Source File
Tired of following instructions from the User Guides? Trying to find an old video on Xcelsius? MyXcelsius.com has a solution. They recently launched Xcelsius Videos page which has all the Xcelsius Videos that you can find on the web. They all are captured on high resolution and can be viewed on any browser.
2010.05.17-19 dienomis vykusio SAP SAPPHIRENOW renginio metu buvo paskelbta apie Crystal Reports ir Xcelsius pavadinimu ir marketingo principu pakeitimus. SAP, ivertinusi Crystal Reports ir Xcelsius sprendimu sekme bei perspektyvas, nutare apjungti šiuos sprendimus i vieninga sprendimu paketa – SAP Crystal Solutions, o kiekviena iš produktu pavadinti jo paskirti ir funkcijas apibendrinanciu pavadinimu:
SAP Crystal Reports (anksciau Crystal Reports) – Crystal Reports ataskaitu kurimo programa SAP Crystal Interactive Analysis (naujas sprendimas paremtas WebIntelligence Rich Client programa) – užklausu pagal poreiki (Ad-Hoc) bei informacijos analizes irankis SAP Crystal Presentation Design (anksciau Xcelsius Present) – vizualiu ir interaktyviu prezentaciju kurimas SAP Crystal Dashboard Design (anksciau Xcelsius Engage) – interaktyviu rodikliu rinkiniu vizualiu ekranu (angl. Dashboards) kurimo irankis SAP Crystal Reports Server (anksciau Crystal Reports Server) – serverine Crystal Reports platforma, leidžianti prie sistemos prisijungti bei analizuoti informacija per interneto naršykleNaujasis SAP Crystal Solutions apima ataskaitu kurimo, informacijos analizes, užklausu pagal poreiki ir vizualiu ekranu kurimo galimybes, šios informacijos paviešinima placiam vartotoju ratui per vieninga organizacijos analitini portala bei automatini informacijos išplatinima vidiniams bei išoriniams vartotojams naudojant ataskaitu publikavimo priemones.
Sekmes naujajam SAP Crystal Solutions!
Here is a workaround to install and run Crystal Xcelsius 4.5 on Windows Vista 64-bit edition. Although Vista 64-bit is not listed under the Supported Operating systems in the user documentation, Xcelsius 4.5 still works.
Click here for the complete article.
Be the first to like this post.As usual, before getting started I want to provide a quick recap of where we are with the Reportapalooza competition. This is the last week of voting before the final winner is announced on Nov 22th!
Challenge #1 (Done) – Winner , Mico Yuk (Check out my Coffee Consumption Calculator)Challenge #2 (Done) – Winner, Mico Yuk (based on traffic sent to Report a Hero Page)Challenge #3 (Done) – Winner, Brian Durning (voted best Crystal Reports Video by Community)Challenge #4 (Done) – Winner, David Deitch (voted best Charity Dashboard by Community)Challenge #5 (In Progress) – What this series of blog post is about.Community Dashboard Challenge (In Progress) – Vote until Nov 12th, 2010 for your favorite community dashboard.In Part 1 of this series I went over some Q&A on what it would take to embed your Xcelsius visualization (in this case a map) into your Crystal Report, as well as some pros and cons. In Part 2 I am going to cover how to set up your map in Xcelsius so that it can be consumed by Crystal Reports. For this example we will be using Google Maps (compliments of Centigon Solutions) as it much more robust than the out of box maps in Xcelsius.
1. Install Google Maps Plug-in for Xcelsius (more details on how to do this here)
2. Add the GMaps Plugin to your Xcelsius dashboard
3. Configure your Excel spreadsheet to hold 2 columns of data for the Google Map: 1) Map Address 2) Map Labels
4. Go to Data Connections in Xcelsius -> Add the ‘Crystal Reports Data Consumer’ Connection
5. Configure the ‘Crystal Reports Data Consumer’ Connection so that the ‘Row Headers’ are bound to the Excel cell area you created in Step #3
In Part 3 I will focus on the final step: Bringing your Xcelsius Map into Crystal Reports.
One last thing, please don’t forget to cast your votes on the 3 dashboards that were submitted by the community to show your 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.
Tags: Business Objects, BusinessObjects, Centigon Solutions, Reportapalooza, SAP Crystal Dashboard Design, Xcelsius 2008, Xcelsius 2008 Tips
Problem A: I have data that could be in the 1000s but sometimes could be 1 or 2. Users do not want to see a division of 1.5 (or any part of a whole) since the data is tracking incidents and there are never “half incidents.” How do I force the values to integers without losing the divisors for the high numbers (i.e. when there is 1000 maximum, I want to still see 250, 500, 750 divisors)?
Solution: Set a manual calculated maximum
{ =IF(MAX(AE15:AE26)<100,100,MAX(AE15:AE26)) } and then set the division number to 1. With the division number to 1, it often also looks better to remove the grid lines (in case the data for the charts sometimes is much higher).
Problem B: I want to display a line chart on top of a stacked bar chart because there is no combination chart with this option. My data for the stacked bar chart, however, is sometimes over 100 and sometimes under 100 and the extra space shifts the chart so that the two do not align. How can I make the layered charts always align?
(Layered line chart does not line up with stacked bar chart when maximum is less than 100)
(Layered line chart lines up with stacked bar chart when the maximum is over 100)
Note: If the charts are less than a magnitude different, the following method is a not-so-elegant-but-perhaps-acceptable workaround. In the example above, I have emphasized the issue of alignment by making the different much greater in which case a more-involved display control of multiple charts may be the only acceptable option.
Solution: Set a manual calculated maximum within an if() statement so that the maximum is always 100 or greater even if the stacked bar chart total is less than 100. (See above note for exception)
This “fix” may not be acceptable for the right visual consumption. What may need to be done when the data is more than a magnitude of 10 different is to work with display properties for two charts with different widths based upon the maximum chart height formula instead.
On Monday October 18th, Reportapalooza introduced the entries to it’s fourth installment of the “virtual” reality show style campaign in a challenge dubbed “Dash for Charity”. In this challenge, the experts were paired with a charity to design and develop a visual model using SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (Xcelsius). The goal of each dashboard was to help promote and spread awareness for each expert’s chosen charity.
For me, this has been the highlight of Reportapalooza. And I’ve been looking forward to this challenge since the beginning of the campaign. I love the idea of donating my time and energies on a project that could potentially make a difference in someone’s life. Hopefully all of our dashboards will be used to help the people that actually “help people” – long after the campaign is over.
As someone passionate about education, City Year Greater Philadelphia was an ideal selection for me because of their significant work with students in the Philadelphia area. City Year corps members are real life hero’s in the lives of thousands of students every year. With tutoring, mentoring, and positive “near peer” interaction, more students are graduating in Greater Philadelphia every year!
Please take a look at every dashboard entry then vote for your favorite. All are very worthy of your consideration. Use this link to access the showcase of entries. The winning dashboard wins $1,000 for their charity – so please choose wisely.
Below is the list of entries in no particular order:
City Year Greater Philadelphia - by Jim Brogden
NPower Pennsylvania – by Brian Durning
Career Wardrobe – developed by Jamie Oswald
Academy of Hope – developed by David Deitch
Ronald McDonald House BC – developed by Mico Yuk
Please feel free to email me with any questions.
Thank you!
Jim Brogden - jim.brogden@daugherty.com
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!The 2010 ASUG BusinessObjects User Conference provided a lot of interest not just for the 1,100 registered attendees but also for the additional 600 attendees of the SAP Fall Focus who shared the same venue. Judging by the number of attendees in the various sessions, it appeared a large number of SAP Fall Focus attendees decided to attend the BusinessObjects tracks. The same was true in the exhibit area as many of the BusinessObjects sponsors were swamped with excited and interested customers.
This year Xcelsius dashboards shared the limelight with Mobile Business Intelligence in terms of the most popular topics being discussed amongst attendees.
There was also some buzz around the new BusinessObjects XI 4.0 release promising to be the first truly integrated business intelligence platform. While there were a few small demonstrations of some of the new XI 4.0 products in the general session, most of the other sessions stuck to slides and pre-recorded Camtasia demonstrations. With the release moving to “ramp up” stage in November, the kimono was only half opened on some of the new features and functions. These included the new Data Services that will now incorporate Text Analytics in addition to Data Integrator and Data Quality in a single engine solution. Also, there is the new Universal Metadata Layer that not only combines Business Views and Universes but also now provides direct access to Multidimensional OLAP data sources.
Part of the integration approach with XI 4.0 is to provide common services across all the main content provider tools like Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, Xcelsius, Explorer. These include a common query panel for accessing data through a universe so in the new Xcelsius Enterprise 4.0 developers would have access to universe objects while building the dashboard.
An updated Web Intelligence brings new charting libraries from the Explorer product and an update Crystal Reports delivers a new grid view with drag and drop on graphics capability.
Common platform services like Auditing and Life Cycle Manager now extend across all the content provider tools including Xcelsius.
SAP’s new solution for in-memory analytics, known as HANA (High performance ANalytical Appliance), was also discussed.
Once the ramp up period gets underway, we will have a better chance to more thoroughly explore the new features and functions but based on this sneak preview, there appears to be some promising new functionality in XI 4.
Paul Grill started his career in Information Technology in the U.K. in 1978, as an Executive Data Processing Trainee for Honeywell. More than thirty years later, he still has a voracious appetite for learning as Information Technology continues to advance at an ever accelerating pace. He was first introduced to the world of Business Intelligence in 1991, in France, when he saw a demonstration of an early version of BusinessObjects on Windows 2.1. He returned to the U.S. to rave about this phenomenal product, but it was many years before BusinessObjects made it into the mainstream. Paul founded InfoSol in 1997, and made Business Intelligence one of the key solutions offered by the company. Today, InfoSol is a leading SAP BusinessObjects solutions partner, known for its expert consulting, education and innovative add-on solutions. Paul is well known within the SAP BusinessObjects community for his extensive knowledge of Business Intelligence, and he has lectured and written many articles on the subject. Paul enjoys writing, running and coaching kids soccer, and is passionate about Ancient Egyptology. Following SAP’s free download offer for SAP Crystal Presentation Design, there’s now an excellent offer on the grown up product: SAP Crystal Dashboard Design. This extends functionality to make all the widgets available, plus live data, web services, all singing and dancing! If you have Crystal Reports Server with Named User Licenses, you can even publish dashboards for all your users to play with.
Headline offer is 45% off, I’m hoping to make that half price once I can get a confirmed cost price.
For those who’ve been struggling to keep up with the name changes, this used to be called Xcelsius.
Prices through, managed to trim to half price:
Single license £395 + VAT
Discounts available on 3+. Extra discounts for Government, Non-profit, Education
Order on 01759 369827 or via Pursuit Technology
What exactly is Conditional Formatting in Crystal Reports?
Conditional formatting, put simply, is formatting (e.g, font color, font style, etc.) applied to data that meets certain rules or conditions. For example, the person requesting the report would like the Total Sales field to have a green background if the amount is greater than $5000.
But how is this conditional formatting magic done?
Select the field to be formatted.Right-click and choose the border tab – background color is in the center of that tab.Do not click in the color checkbox, rather click on the X+2 box directly to the right of the background color. The Formula Editor will open.In the Operators column choose Control Structures for the If Then Else.Double-click to bring that down to the work area. At the top of the functions column, you’ll see two new categories associated with formatting text/numbers: Formatting FunctionsColor ConstantsNow the tricky part: you have to construct a formula. I’ve included a couple of examples below.if Sum ({Orders.Order Amount}, {@GroupSort})>5000 then crGreen else crNoColorNote that the colors are preceded by cr in lower case – Crystal Reports needs this, so do not enter a color name without it. Also note that the else argument is followed by crNoColor. The else could also be followed by DefaultAttribute, like so:
if Sum ({Orders.Order Amount}, {@GroupSort})>5000 then crGreen else DefaultAttributeThe results would be the same but the second formula would revert back to whatever the formatting color was that did not meet the condition. Of course, the formulas could be much more complex but the logic remains the same. If the formula returns true do this othewise do something else.
Happy formatting!
We cover conditional formatting in our Introduction to Crystal Reports class.
Hands-on immersion training can be tough but when your classroom looks out on to the Pacific Ocean of Southern California and during the breaks you can walk out on to the balcony and watch surfers riding the waves, it’s not so bad.
IBIS 2010 Beach viewThis year’s InfoSol Business Intelligence Seminar (IBIS) was just packed with high quality and in-depth boot camps and seminars covering Xcelsius, Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, Data Services, BO XI 3.1 Administration and lots more. It was also located at the beautiful Ritz Carlton, Dana Point on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean which was the perfect remedy after a day of absorbing tons of knowledge.
The Welcome reception on Sunday night, entitled “Seeing Beyond Business Intelligence” was set in the Solutions Showcase area where sponsors demonstrated and discussed some of their latest business intelligence solutions. I delivered the keynote the following morning on the same “Seeing Beyond” theme and highlighted some interesting business intelligence customer case studies. The keynote on the Tuesday from Santiago Becerra, CEO of Mellmo, was quite fascinating as he took the audience through “the Evolution of Think” and cleverly demonstrated how putting fun into regular tasks can change people’s habits as well as their adoption of solutions. Showing Roambi, the latest business intelligence solution for the iPad, really brought the point home well.
The 2010 Best Xcelsius Awards demonstrated how far many companies have come in applying Xcelsius in very complex and powerful applications and inspired many others to go even further so I would watch out for next year’s awards.
I had the opportunity to meet with many people during the event and dive into some great discussions on both existing challenges in various BI implementations as well as future directions. In general, it appeared that most companies lag about 3 to 5 years behind the latest releases of SAP BusinessObjects and other BI solutions. Occasionally there is some critical new functionality that will compel a company to adopt a new release sooner but that tends to be the exception to the rule. Many customers expressed that having reliability, stability and consistent performance are more important than most new functionality. Some of the newer solutions like Xcelsius dashboards and Roambi mobile business intelligence appear to circumnavigate this pattern since they can often be deployed and highly effective outside of the main business intelligence and production applications. A further big factor here is cost as many companies are more hesitant, due in part to the recent global recession, to spend large amounts of time and money on new software until they have conclusively proven a solid return on investment. For this reason incremental software purchases and pilot projects have become very popular in the BI space.
This was evident at IBIS as customers expressed a lot of interest in Xcelsius, XDM, Roambi, XWIS, GMaps, 360View, Version Manager and SAP BO EDGE solutions for very specific business issues and needs.
All in all, IBIS 2010 was a great BI gathering and information exchange and continues to grow in popularity. A couple of lucky attendees won iPads and a couple of not-so-lucky attendees dropped their phones in the ocean, but judging by the feedback everyone can’t wait to do it again.
Here are a few of the comments received back on IBIS 2010 :
“The IBIS conference was terrific this year. I can’t wait to incorporate write-backs into our dashboards, and InfoBurst 2009 with dashboard bursting opens new doors for delivering customer information. I also really enjoyed Aluchemie’s customer demo with all of their challenges they had to overcome!”
Kim Marshall, Waldinger Corporation
“I wanted to commend you and your team on the wonderful seminar. My colleagues are very enthusiastic about their boot camp and the knowledgeable instructors they have met. You and your team have been wonderful throughout the past few days and everyone’s terrific attitudes have made the seminar a great success”
Melinda Dennis, Aluchemie
When asked, “What was the best part of the seminar for you?”, here are some of the responses :
“User Panel – excellent recognition of organizations with creative solutions”
“The class time. The first time I have ever been to a seminar where I was asked right from the beginning to reverse engineer an example”
“ The chance to talk and network with pros, find out what SAP doesn’t tell you about the product and get the best practices from people who have been in the trenches”
“…invaluable talking with other companies and knowledge sharing”
“… the workshops were excellent and very exercise intense so there was no boredom factor”
“Meeting with other users of the tools – It is a great way to get new ideas”
“The tips on real life best practices were extremely valuable – something that you cannot always get from other conferences”
“Size of the event led to good instruction and interaction”
“The training far surpasses any other training in the BI field. InfoSol has created a habitat for intensive training efforts at an economical price”
“The fact that I am learning things that are actually going to help me solve current problems – which also helps me sleep better at night”
Paul Grill started his career in Information Technology in the U.K. in 1978, as an Executive Data Processing Trainee for Honeywell. More than thirty years later, he still has a voracious appetite for learning as Information Technology continues to advance at an ever accelerating pace. He was first introduced to the world of Business Intelligence in 1991, in France, when he saw a demonstration of an early version of BusinessObjects on Windows 2.1. He returned to the U.S. to rave about this phenomenal product, but it was many years before BusinessObjects made it into the mainstream. Paul founded InfoSol in 1997, and made Business Intelligence one of the key solutions offered by the company. Today, InfoSol is a leading SAP BusinessObjects solutions partner, known for its expert consulting, education and innovative add-on solutions. Paul is well known within the SAP BusinessObjects community for his extensive knowledge of Business Intelligence, and he has lectured and written many articles on the subject. Paul enjoys writing, running and coaching kids soccer, and is passionate about Ancient Egyptology. Hi folks,
I’ve been getting tons of emails asking when and where our webinar recordings will be posted. I have finally been able to edit and post the last two recorded Xcelsius webinars at the links below:
Xcelsius 101 (for Beginners)
Xcelsius Advanced XML Connectivity (not XML Maps)
Note that each recorded webinar is FREE to view. The embeded video will automatically start as soon as the video buffers..
If you are not able to see the video, you are probably missing the Windows Media Player ActiveX plug-in. Just email me and I’ll help you get set up.
Enjoy!
Mike Alexander is the author of several books on advanced business analysis, including Crystal Xcelsius For Dummies. You can find Mike at Datapig Technologies, where he serves as principle contributor and shares free video tutorials with the Microsoft Office and Xcelsius communities.
Tags: Guru Videos, SAP Crystal Dashboard Design, Sap Xcelsius Webinar, Xcelsius 2008, Xcelsius Training, Xcelsius Video, Xcelsius Webinars
Some of you who love living on the bleeding edge of technology may be bleeding a bit when installing the latest Life Cycle Manager (LCM) and Xcelsius servers. Of course these servers should be installed when you install LCM or BusinessObjects XI 3.1 Service Pack 3. The only problem is that they aren’t.
They aren’t in the CMC, they aren’t in the CCM, and you can’t add them. For some reason you have to go in and run a script that tells Business Objects to go looking for them. From a command prompt you have to run a script that looks something like:
[BOE_install location]\win32_x86\scripts\addnode.bat -name [NODENAME] -siaport [Port Number] -cms [CMS Name] -user [User Name] -password [Password] -authentication [Type] -platform win32_x86 -update
EXAMPLE:
C:\Program Files\Business Objects\Business Objects Enterprise 12.0\win32_x86\scripts\addnode.bat -name BOXISERV -siaport 6400 -cms BOXISERV -user Administrator -password [Administratorpassword] -authentication secEnterprise -platform win32_x86 -update
For better or worse BOTH the new Xcelsius servers and LCM server seem to be troubled by the same problem, with the same fix.
Please let me know how this works for everyone out there!
Thanks to Dallas Marks and Matt Hawkins at Consultancy by Kingfisher for help with the Xcelsius Server information.
Tired of constantly formatting your fields in Crystal Reports? Frustrated because you have to do it for every report? Crystal Reports uses default fonts provided in the database and they are not usually what you would consider attractive for your report. You can change the default fonts so that when you design a new report, Crystal will use your preferred fonts in the new report.
Before you start your next report, take the time to set your default fonts for all future reports by following these steps:
From the File Menu, select Options.Choose the Font tab.Select each field category, select the font face and size. (For example: for Group Names, you may like Arial 12 and Bold.)Consider making the Summary Fields the same style, so the Subtotals will automatically match the Group Names.Fields are the record data, so a smaller size would be appropriate (e.g, 10 or 11).Field Titles are the Field Names or Labels that automatically go in the Page Header so you may want to Bold and Underline them. Maybe make them a size larger than the fields.Remember, Crystal Reports is a professional presentational reporting tool. Your reports should appear professional, but they do not have to be difficult or time consuming for the report designer. The main goal is to provide the correct data, but it’s nice if you can do it with a little style.
Hope this makes your reporting easier for you!!
Formatting Reports is covered in our Introduction to Crystal Reports 2008 class.
In the fifth and final challenge of Reportapalooza, I’ll be writing a three part series of blog posts about the product at the heart of the SAP Crystal product line – SAP Crystal Reports Server.
My experience with BusinessObjects software goes back to versions 6.1 and 6.5 and the days of Application Foundation and the BOMain.key. Then in 2006, I had the good fortune of being introduced to BusinessObjects XI and the new CORBA architecture. This led to an ongoing string of (mostly) enjoyable experiences installing, deploying, migrating to, and administering BusinessObjects XI R2, XI 3.0, and XI 3.1. These experiences also included many years of developing Universes, building Desktop Intelligence reports, Web Intelligence documents, and finally Xcelsius 4.5 and 2008 dashboards. But my experience with SAP Crystal Reports only goes back to version XI and I’ve never had the opportunity to even see SAP Crystal Reports Server. So I jumped at the opportunity to install and peruse SAP Crystal Reports Server as part of the “Reporting Remix” and Reportapalooza.
Diving right in, I installed “SAP Crystal Reports Server 2008 V1” on my favorite box. My first attempt failed though because I tried to install it on a machine that already had SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 installed. My mistake, I should’ve known better. 
Not a problem, I moved to another PC.
As the installation began, I started noticing some very familiar screens. These were some of the same exact windows and options that are offered when SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.x is installed. Below is a description of a few of the dialog screens presented during installation.
Install Type selection – Provides the option to install a MySQL Database Server.Server Component Configuration – CMS Port selection and administrator account setup.Server Intelligence Agent – An “umbrella” service that helps manage services (or servers) by automating starting, restarting, and stopping of servers.Web Application Server selection – Java Web Application Server is the default and “WACS” is recommended deployment type. However, the option to install a Tomcat server and deploy to it is provided. Additional options are also provided, such as:Allowing you to deploy to a pre-installed Web App ServerThe option to manually deploy the WAR file web components after installationInstall an IIS Web App Server (assuming ASP.NET v1.1 already exists)MySQL Database Configuration – Used for storing system data.Web Application Container Server Configuration – HTTP port setting. 6405 is the default.After making it through the initial series of settings, installation is ready to begin. The screens continue to remind me of installing BOE but they all say “Crystal Reports Server 2008 V1 Setup”. Pictured below is the Server Intelligence Agent dialog screen showing the option to rename the Node Name and manually adjust the Port number. I changed the Node Name but kept the default Port #.
The screenshot below shows the Web Application Server deployment options.
The two screen shots below show the installation in progress. Expect installation to take from 30 minutes to 1 hour.
As my installation moved very close to completion, I was prompted (on Vista) by my Windows Firewall to either Keep Blocking or Unblock “BusinessObjects Enterprise”. “BusinessObjects Enterprise”? Wow, so far, it’s almost exactly like BOE!
Suddenly I remembered the driving force behind the architecture change from BusinessObjects 6.5 to the smooth, elegant, and .WAR filled CORBA architecture in XI. It was because of the powerful and stable SAP Crystal Reports Server.
Installation complete! It’s time to click Start and have a look at what was installed. The screen shot below shows full list of tools installed. The items that jumped out to me are:
Central Configuration Manger (CCM) – Windows based server management utilityCentral Management Console (CMC) – Web based administrative consoleImport Wizard – Tool for migrating objects from one environment to anotherJava Infoview – The reporting portal (and same favicon used by InfoView in BusinessObjects)
The first thing I did was click “Java Infoview” and logon as the administrator. At first glance, it’s identical to SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1. But within minutes I began to notice a couple subtle differences. For one, there were a couple key products missing that I’m used to seeing. Such as:
Universe DesignerWeb IntelligenceThen I realized how long Crystal Reports has been around. And how many clients use Crystal Reports to develop highly refined pixel perfect reports. What is the best method for delivering reports to users in a zero-client environment and not requiring the installation of Crystal Reports on every users PC? The answer is SAP Crystal Reports Server.
In my next two posts I will begin describing some of the common features and primary functions in SAP Crystal Reports and how it relates to an enhanced user experience.
Thank you,
Jim Brogden
jim.brogden@daugherty.com
Paul Grill from INFOSOL will be presenting Xcellent Xcelsius at the upcoming meeting of the ASUG Arizona Chapter.
Date: Friday, October 29, 2010
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Location: Intel
5000 W. Chandler Blvd. Building CH3, Conference Room
Chandler, AZ 85226 – 112
For complete information about this meeting refer to your Arizona Chapter Quarterly Update email.
Arizona Chapter Discussion Forum
Yolande Grill is the Vice President of Business Development at InfoSol Inc. I would like to think of myself as the Chief Transformation Officer. My favorite quote to ponder is one from Trina Paulus. "How Exactly does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so badly, that you are willing to give up being a catterpillar" Before getting started, I want to provide a quick update on the Reportapalooza competition:
Unfortunately, I fell a bit behind while attending 2 SAP Conferences back to back this month. Sorry if I let anyone down but I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the support. I also want to give a huge CONGRATS to our current leader David Deitch who is an Xcelsius beginner turned Guru in this competition!
Now to Challenge #5. Labeled the ‘Report Remix’ challenge, I am tasked with learning more about Crystal Reports 2008 and sharing it with YOU the community, hence the ‘remix’ which is to take you on the journey with me of learning a new Crystal product . Below is my official public statement:
So let’s get started with a few simple questions?
Q. How can you integrate Xcelsius flash files into your Crystal Reports?
A. It’s a 2 step process. You first have to configure the Crystal Reports Data Consumer connection in Xcelsius (seen below) and then use the .swf button in Crystal Reports to embed the Xcelsius flash file. (More details on how to setup each will be provided in the next article)
Q. What are the Pros and Cons?
A. Pros – It is no secret that Xcelsius’ ability to handle large amounts of data is VERY limited. By embedding your Xcelsius flash file into Crystal Reports you get to leverage the power of the Crystal engine while utilizing the beautiful graphics in Xcelsius. It’s like having the best of both worlds. In fact, in my next blog posts I am going to show how to integrate a map in Xcelsius into a Crystal Report.
A. Cons – If your not as familiar with Xcelsius you may have some issues using the ‘Crystal Reports Data Consumer’ connection. It could use some fine tuning (note to the Product Team )
One more thing! This is your last week to submit your dashboards to the community Reportapalooza competition. Hope you read this far down, because if you have something worth seeing I am opening the door to review any entries that you send via email to gurus at everythingxcelsius.com and provide feedback if sent by 10/31 @ 12am EST.
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.
Tags: Business Objects, Reportapalooza, SAP Crystal Dashboard Design, Xcelsius 2008
Business Objects Started off Offering Crystal Xcelsius as a single edition. Later with 4.5 they came up with 2 editions, Designer and Workgroup. Starting 2008, they have significantly increased in terms of various flavors of the software. Now they have 4 editions, allowing the customers to choose whatever they want based on the Price and requirements. The 4 editions are below. Detailed Comparison here.
Xcelsius PresentXcelsius EngageXcelsius Engage ServerBusinessObjects Xcelsius EnterpriseBe the first to like this post.SAP is closing in on their release date of the next major release of BusinessObjects… and as with any release, marketing want to get the name just right. We’ve seen quite a few changes over the years.
Remember all those changes in Windows naming? Windows 3.1, Windows 95, then Windows XP? Now finally it’s back to numbers with Windows 7? There’s probably someone out there that’s written a book about how to name your next software release.
Here’s a look at where we’ve come from in the last 7 years of BusinessObjects Product Names… starting back in 2003 with the combination of BusinessObjects 6 and Crystal Enterprise 10 into the new XI… Xtreme Insight!
BusinessObjects Product Names… the more they stay the same. It is so true… and the upcoming release will include some additional name changes. Here are some names on the horizon.
XI Product Name4.0 Product NameSAP BusinessObjects EnterpriseSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence PlatformSAP BusinessObjects Web IntelligenceSAP BusinessObjects Web IntelligenceSAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius EnterpriseSAP BusinessObjects DashboardsSAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAPSAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for ExcelFor more information on the whys check out Jon Reed’s blog post.
It’s amazing how some product names take on a life of their own even before the product is released. Pioneer is a great example. It is the first release of the legacy SAP BEx Web Analyzer and SAP BEx Analyzer for Excel. Pioneer was simply the code name for this yet to be release product. We can now retire that code name and begin using the actual product name, SAP BusinessObjects Analysis.
Some name changes like Xcelsius were introduced even before a major new release. Earlier this summer, I had someone call me to ask me about SAP Crystal Dashboard Design. I’d never heard of it. It wasn’t until I googled it that I discovered that we weren’t offering a new product. SAP had just renamed some Xcelsius packages. SAP Dashboard Design and SAP Presentation Design had formally been known as Xcelsius Engage and Xcelsius Present, respectively.
Thinking back, Xcelsius has also been through a number of changes: Xcelsius 4.5, Crystal Xcelsius 4.5, Xcelsius 2008… It will be interesting to see if the Xcelsius Designer, aka Xcelsius 2008 keeps it’s name and becomes Xcelsius 2010.
Did you know that SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Excel has already been released? Yep! The plug-in for Excel is completely stand-alone and can be used without interfering with your existing BusinessObjects XI 3.1 environment. If you have SAP and want to get the best possible connectivity within Excel without waiting for your entire environment to be upgraded, you can. Today.
«Good BI»
There was a lot of trepidation amongst the BusinessObjects community when SAP acquired Business Objects in January 2008. We had all seen how Oracle had consumed Hyperion (which had, in turn, consumed Brio) to the point of losing its identity as an independent BI solution. The question was would SAP do the same to BusinessObjects?
On the day of the acquisition, I was attending a joint sales and partner meeting for BusinessObjects in Las Vegas listening to a mix of top Business Objects and SAP Executives delivering presentations to motivate sales for the coming year. There was really very little of substance until this man named Leo Apotheker took to the stage. He was engaging and passionate as he explained that Business Objects would remain an autonomous division of SAP so that it could effectively continue to sell Business Intelligence to all. He then went on to explain who SAP was and the core values of the company and how those would benefit the BusinessObjects employees, partners and product suite. He painted an exciting vision of both the direction for SAP and BusinessObjects. I believe he impressed and inspired a lot of people in the room that day.
The global financial crisis followed later that year and into 2009 and Apotheker had his work cut out for him to steer SAP through a difficult time but he continued to push Business Intelligence to the forefront of SAP as well as actively support the Sustainability solution initiative within SAP.
So at the beginning of 2010 as we emerged from that difficult period, I was both shocked and sad to see Leo Apotheker leave SAP. Of course, what he put in place has borne remarkable results with now more than 50% of SAP’s license revenues coming from Business Intelligence (not bad when you consider SAP was eight times larger than Business Objects at the time of acquisition) and SAP a clear leader in the Sustainability solution arena.
Leo Apotheker is now the CEO of Hewlett-Packard ( a company eight times larger than SAP – HP Press release ) and I think they are very fortunate to have such a visionary leading them. Unfortunately, we will not see how much further he could have taken SAP but, from where I sit, he certainly set them on the right track.
In searching for a picture to post on this blog, I found the following blog post from Feb 7, 2010 http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/12079/news-analysis-saps-ceo-leo-apotheker-resigns/ which has many links including one to the official SAP press release.
Paul Grill started his career in Information Technology in the U.K. in 1978, as an Executive Data Processing Trainee for Honeywell. More than thirty years later, he still has a voracious appetite for learning as Information Technology continues to advance at an ever accelerating pace. He was first introduced to the world of Business Intelligence in 1991, in France, when he saw a demonstration of an early version of BusinessObjects on Windows 2.1. He returned to the U.S. to rave about this phenomenal product, but it was many years before BusinessObjects made it into the mainstream. Paul founded InfoSol in 1997, and made Business Intelligence one of the key solutions offered by the company. Today, InfoSol is a leading SAP BusinessObjects solutions partner, known for its expert consulting, education and innovative add-on solutions. Paul is well known within the SAP BusinessObjects community for his extensive knowledge of Business Intelligence, and he has lectured and written many articles on the subject. Paul enjoys writing, running and coaching kids soccer, and is passionate about Ancient Egyptology. Several years ago, I saw an exhibition of surrealist paintings in Paris including works by Salvador Dali and Joan Miro. I found the Dali paintings visually stunning as well as fascinatingly compelling whereas I had a hard time understanding the Miro ones. Others, who were with me, expressed the complete opposite opinion and loved the Miro work but had little time for the Dali pieces.
We all have different likes and dislikes to visual images whether they are paintings, cars or even business intelligence dashboards. I can personally testify to the dashboards since our company has developed over 400 of them in the last four years and they come in all shapes, sizes and visual tastes. I remember one particular dashboard that we developed for a transportation company that I thought was very visually stunning and provided multiple levels of drill down and some very powerful “What if?” scenarios. While the manager at the company also liked it a lot, his director felt it was not stunning enough and wanted different colors and more 3-D components. They both felt the dashboard met their functional needs but for the look it really just boiled down to a matter of personal taste.
The beauty of a dashboard tool like Xcelsius is that it allows you to design and cater to all these different tastes. You have a wealth of components, colors, themes and templates available and, if this is still not enough, you can develop your own.
While some people prefer simple dashboards with clear sharp components, others may prefer a more complex and richer look. If you do not like pie charts and certain colors, you do not have to use them.
Dashboard design is an art but the key to designing an effective, as well as a visually pleasing, dashboard is not to read books about the subject and it is also not to hire a graphic artist. The key is to sit down with the people who are going to be using the dashboard and to understand what they want to see and how they want to view and interact with it. While this may sound too simplistic, it is not. Of course, there can be room for visual enhancement and “cool” features but only if they serve a purpose.
There are many dashboard products on the market today that provide limited views and components so that you often have to force fit your requirements into what is available within the product. Xcelsius, on the other hand, allows you to design and create dashboards in an almost infinite number of ways and you are only limited by your imagination (or your user’s requirements). As to how they look, it is doubtful you will ever please everyone but remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
For a gallery of Xcelsius dashboards designed by INFOSOL and defined by customers, visit INFOSOL’s Dashboard Gallery
Paul Grill started his career in Information Technology in the U.K. in 1978, as an Executive Data Processing Trainee for Honeywell. More than thirty years later, he still has a voracious appetite for learning as Information Technology continues to advance at an ever accelerating pace. He was first introduced to the world of Business Intelligence in 1991, in France, when he saw a demonstration of an early version of BusinessObjects on Windows 2.1. He returned to the U.S. to rave about this phenomenal product, but it was many years before BusinessObjects made it into the mainstream. Paul founded InfoSol in 1997, and made Business Intelligence one of the key solutions offered by the company. Today, InfoSol is a leading SAP BusinessObjects solutions partner, known for its expert consulting, education and innovative add-on solutions. Paul is well known within the SAP BusinessObjects community for his extensive knowledge of Business Intelligence, and he has lectured and written many articles on the subject. Paul enjoys writing, running and coaching kids soccer, and is passionate about Ancient Egyptology. Let’s suppose that a third party designed the report you need, but you have to modify it. Where to begin? Follow this checklist to give you, as the report modifier, answers that you may need to go forward.
Save the report with a new name so you keep the original. (Work on the copy for your own mental health.)Go to the Database Expert. Check the connection type on the Data Tab - that will tell you only the type of connection (e.g, local, OLE DB, SQL etc).Still in the Database Expert, click on the Links Tab. Check to be sure the tables used for the report are linked correctly.Now check with the Select Expert to see how the records are filtered.What fields did they use?? What restrictions did they put on the records? For example, did they filter for only records with an order date of 2009?If any or all of the filters are no longer valid, delete them by clicking on the tab and clicking on Delete.Refresh the report. You probably will get more records than the original report as you have removed the filters.Now, you may need to filter for the new report you are designing. You will use the Select Expert. Choose the database field you need to use and design the filter using the two dropdowns on each tab, the first is the operators and the second is the criteria.For example, your report needs to show the data for NM, ID, and AK. The operator: is one of and the criteria: NM, ID, AK.
Remember, everything takes practice. The more you work in Crystal Reports, the easier it will become. Take your time and practice.
Happy Reporting!
