Have you ever used the Highlighting Expert in Crystal Reports? Chances are your response is no, and you are wondering what it is. The Highlighting Expert is a button on the Experts Toolbar. The button looks like this: 
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The Highlighting Expert is also on the shortcut menu of the right-click. Once you choose this Expert, this dialog box opens:
Try it out, the Highlighting Expert is fast and easy to use!! It gives the “wow” to your report.
Happy Reporting!
In my previous post I demonstrated how to pass data from a parent to child SWF with the use of Flash Variables and the SWF Loader component. Today, I’m going to demonstrate how to accomplish the same functionality leveraging a free add-on component from Inovista.com called the “Data Sharer”.
One of the noticeable difference in this solution compared to the use of Flash Variables is that the child SWF does not have to load and initialize each time the parameter is changed.
How to do it:
1. Go to Inovista.com and download the free data sharer component
2. Add the data sharer component with Xcelsius’ Add-On Manager GUI or see Kalyan’s post “Using the command-line version of the Add-On Manger in Xcelsius 2008” to add using command line
3. Using the same child.xlf as in my previous example I have kept the same cell (E6) reserved for my parameter
4. Next add the data sharer component found under the “Inovista Other” category in your components list. Note that the component will not be visible at run time.
5. Give the data sharer a connection name. In my example I have used “salesman”
6. Check the “Import Values” box
7. Select the range of cells for the “Import Data Cells”. In my example it is cell E6
8. Save and export your child SWF
9. Using the same parent.xls as in my previous example I have made a few changes to the underlying excel sheet.
a. Cell B5 should have the URL to your child SWF (Note that your SWF Loader Component will link to this URL)
b. Cell B7 should be reserved for the parameter that is going to be passed
10. Add the data sharer component to your canvas
11. Use the same connection name that you used in your child SWF. I used “salesman” in my example
12. Check the “Transmit Values” box
13. Select the range of cells for the “Transmit Data Cells”. In my example it is cell B7
14. Save and export your parent SWF. Note that the parent and child SWF should be located on the same server or file directory.
There you have it. Passing data from a Parent to Child SWF leveraging what I feel to be one of the best free components available to the Xcelsius community. There are a few quirks with this component so be sure to read the supporting documentation when implementing into a more complex model.
As always, please feel free to download the source files.
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.
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" When you connect an OpenDocument statement to a URL button in Xcelsius and you apply the option New Window in the button properties, a new window is opened to show your WebI report (or Crystal report for that matter). However the report is not actually opened in that window, it is opened in your dashboard window, thus after closing or going back it forces the dashboard to reload again.
Solution:
add the following commands to the opendocument url:
sWindow=New&isApplication=true
the first command forces the link to open in a new window, the second command keeps your dashboard in the state it is in.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.More and more, dashboards are playing an increasingly pivotal role in organizations with a growing demand for new ways of delivering and consuming these dashboards. Users are no longer content with having dashboards delivered via a corporate portal or BusinessObjects InfoView. In fact, to use a rather overused BI cliché, users are demanding dashboards that deliver “the right information, at the right time, in the right place”.
This means, that organizations are now looking at ways to make dashboards available offline, delivered by email, or accessible on their users’ mobile devices. They also want to focus the information within the dashboards so that it can be personalized and distributed to users in a simple file format. However, many organizations have concerns about data security, encryption and scalability, and also the work required to customize dashboards. These concerns have prevented them from pursuing what could be a very effective way to extend the use of business intelligence to new users.
Antivia will be hosting a webinar on Thursday, November 18 at 2:00pm EST, demonstrating how you can utilize the power of XWIS and the BusinessObjects Enterprise platform to distribute personalized, offline Xcelsius dashboards, in a secure and scalable way to new users and new devices.
You can register for the webinar here. Space is limited so register today.
For those of you who missed the previous webinar: “Accelerate your Xcelsius Dashboards”, the recording is now available here.
Soo Tang Yuk fosters and evangelizes the ‘Xcelsius Gurus Network” and its communities. To find out more about her, please visit the About Us page. (posted on behalf of Andrew Smith, VP of Antivia, North America)
Tags: Antivia, Business Objects, BusinessObjects, Xcelsius 2008, Xcelsius Webinars
Par for the course really. How often do you get told the deadline is tight and cannot be shifted as the media slot has been booked?
When I was told I had 2 weeks to develop the Careers24.com Salary Survey Results Dashboard I thought to myself, “no problem”. The stats guy had 4 weeks to do his thing and I needed to supply him with my data requirements.
Salary Survey 2008The client contact person came from a project management background and as such she nearly exploded when the data guy came with one excuse after the other for being late. First the data quality was bad because they added the dreaded “Other” field to the survey. This caused most participants to just type in their jobs instead of looking for them on the list. So he had to manually go through 20,000+ records to fix this.
That wasn’t the end of it, his second excuse for not being on time was that his computer was hit by lightning. This meant that while I could do the foundation work on the dashboard I couldn’t integrate the data. We were not sure if he could deliver the aggregated data in the format I required.
So instead of having 2 weeks to develop the dashboard I had 1. Just 1 week to design, populate and test. There was no turning back, I had to deliver and deliver I did.
Squeezing 2 weeks into 1, working round the clock. I had to use Skype and email to communicate. PowerPoint slides with screenshots and annotations were sent back and forth, long hours on the phone and then, right as the client was about to crack I pulled through. The dashboard was finished.
I delivered in 1 week what the previous year’s flash developer took 3 months to do. The client didn’t believe me at the start that Xcelsius could deliver on my promises but it did. I had saved the day and the launch party was a blast.
Using Xcelsius 2008 I could deliver all but one of their requests, I could not display values above the bars of the charts. Now as of SP3 I can 
If you think you can’t, you usually can.
Time can slow down given enough Redbull.
Being a report developer can be quite exciting.
Pressure can turn a lump of coal into a diamond.
