Difference OpenDocument Crystal Reports and WebI

Posted on 14 April 2010 9:53 am.Femke

I experienced some frustations when trying to open 2 different reports (Crystal Reports and WebI), however both were built on same universe and used same objects, from the same URL button in Xcelsius.

The OpenDocument statement for the WebI report was quickly set up, however the Crystal Reports took some time. Even after consulting chapter 3 Crystal Reports in the PDF Viewing Reports and Documents using URLs (for BOXI 3.1) I could not get it to work.

Finally I figured it out by reading several forum topics, in the end the URL was built as follows:

../../../OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?

Identifies Crystal Reports reportH stands for HTML, unfortunately in 3.1 pdf is not supported anymoreforces reports to open in new windowKeeps Xcelsius dashboard “alive”CustomerCode is name of prompt, 0019 is customer code value, note “” to identify stringfoldername in Infoview, don’t forget []identification type, preferred in OTAP streetsforces reports to open in new windowKeeps Xcelsius dashboard “alive”CustomerCode is name of prompt, 0019 is customer code valueYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Tips for Emailing from Xcelsius

I often get questions about sending emails from Xcelsius. In fact, I get them so often, I thought I’d take a moment to document what I know. Here, I’ll show you how to :

Send a basic emailSend an email to multiple recipientsAdd a Body to you emailPrevent that awful Browser window from popping up when sending an email from Xcelsius.

First, you’ll want to add a simple URL button onto your canvas and go to properties:

.

To start a basic email, enter this into the URL input box:

mailto:mike@someaddress.com?subject=Email To DataPig

This will start a basic email when URL button is pressed. The email will have the To line filled in and the Subject line filled in.

If you want to send the email to multiple recipients, you can include other addresses separating each with a comma. Like this:

mailto:mike@someaddress.com, mico@someaddress.com?subject=Email To DataPig

Want to use the CC and BCC lines? That’s easy. Simply add the cc and bcc parameters:

mailto:mike@someaddress.com?cc=mico@someaddress.com&bcc=ryan@someaddress.com&subject=Email To DataPig

Notice that you will need to use the ampersand (&) to separate the parameters

OK, let’s get fancier and add a body.

mailto:mike@someaddress.com?cc=mico@someaddress.com&bcc=ryan@someaddress.com&;subject=Email To DataPig&body=I ate too much salmon.

If you need to add a multi-lined body (meaning the text of your body is on multiple lines), you can use your own carriage return encoding %0D.

To be able to use this, you will need to uncheck the “Encode URL” option. This will tell Xcelsius that you will handle the encoding.

.

Once you’ve disabled Xclesius’s encoding, you can enter something like this:

mailto:mike@someaddress.com?cc=mico@someaddress.com&bcc=ryan@someaddress.com&subject=Email To DataPig&body= I ate too much salmon.%0DNow I have salmonella.

And as always, you can dynamically build your mailto url address in Excel with formulas and simply reference it in the URL button.

So what about that nasty browser window that pops up when you send an email from Xclesius?

You can get rid of it by changing the “Open In” option to ‘This Window’.

After doing this, the extra browser window doesn’t open when you export your final SWF and HTML. You’ll still see it when you are in Preview mode, but rest assured, it will be gone when you go to run-time.

There you have it! Happy emailing!

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: Crystal Solutions, SAP Crystal Dashboard Design, Xcelsius 2008, Xcelsius 2008 Tips, Xcelsius Gurus

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Conditional Formatting in Crystal Reports

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 crNoColor

Note 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 DefaultAttribute

The 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.

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Xcelsius Will Always Be Xcelsius

So what’s in a name? Some people will tell you “everything” while others will tell you it depends on what you are naming.

Some products have not only become defined by their name but have been so successful they end up defining all products of the same type like “Kleenex” and “Band-Aid” .  Others have found out that their product name can end up portraying the wrong image like Chevrolet’s Nova car – “No va” meaning “it doesn’t go” in Spanish! The French company Bull Computers also had a hard time with its “Bull” named products in North America.  However, Bull also launched a clever marketing campaign around the ambiguity of its name entitled “Know Bull” which did get some attention.

At this year’s Sapphire, Sir Richard Branson told this great story of how when he went to register the name “Virgin” for his company in the UK, the company registration official turned it down because they deemed the name as rude. So Branson returned the next day with a dictionary showing the definition of “virgin” as being pure and they accepted it.

So I have been somewhat intrigued about recent forum discussions surrounding SAP’s decision to rename Xcelsius – their amazing and very popular dashboard product.

Xcelsius already had some name recognition when Business Objects acquired Infommersion (the original developers) in November 2005 but then proceeded to rename it Crystal Xcelsius. This resulted in a lot of confusion as people started to relate the product to Crystal Reports and thought it was an add-on to this report writer product.  So when the next major release was developed, the decision was made to drop the Crystal name and so Xcelsius 2008 came to market.

For the last two years Xcelsius has become one of the most popular and prolifically used BI dashboard products in the marketplace and its name has become synonymous with data visualization and dynamic dashboards. 

So why would you take this very well known product with such a cool and catchy name as Xcelsius and rename it SAP Crystal Dashboard Design or SAP Enterprise Dashboard Design?

Well apparently this is because SAP uses a “master brand strategy” where SAP is the master brand and the product brand name takes a back seat. 

So why not SAP Xcelsius?

Well this is because SAP also uses “descriptive naming” for all its products so in the case of Xcelsius, the back seat has been completely removed!

Since “SAP Crystal Dashboard Design” is so long, it is bound to become abbreviated. However, I doubt this will be shortened to “SCDD” since a Google search points you to the “California State Council on Development Disabilities” .  It is more likely to become “Dashboard Design” since that is the new descriptive product name.  A Google search on “Dashboard Design” comes up with about 2.5 million results starting off with Qlikview, followed by Tableau Software then Corda and SAP Crystal Dashboard Design comes in at about number 14.  Interestingly, there is little ambiguity when you search on “Xcelsius”.

Translating Dashboard Design into other languages may also prove interesting.  Xcelsius will always translate into Xcelsius in all languages and I have a feeling the name will persist. At the end of the day, it is not just the name that counts, it’s the product itself. Xcelsius is as unique as a product as it is as a name. I will never forget that day in 2005 when I first saw it and was totally blown away. Infommersion created something truly amazing and ahead of its time. It remains top of its class and, for me, Xcelsius will always be Xcelsius.

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.

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Open document link in new window while dashboard does not re-initialise

Posted on 9 April 2010 4:31 pm.Femke

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.

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Upcoming Event – ASUG Arizona Chapter – October 29, 2010

 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"

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Possible Waterfall charts in Xcelsius

Posted on 1 October 2010 10:44 am.Femke

In Xcelsius a waterfall charts is not default available, however with a little imagination you can create one from a stacked bar chart. Below I have published 4 examples.

Waterfall Example 1A

Excel source

Use the columns for the series (= coloring) and the rows for the labels (= columns in chart) by setting the data range to “Data in Columns”. On the appearance tab set the Marker Gap to 0 and the Marker Overlay to 100. Apply the series coloring accordingly.
Note: remember how Xcelsius builts up the chart; from bottom up to top. If you want your bottom bar color to be white, you have to start your series with the white color data.

Waterfall Example 1B

Excel source

Same example as 1A only the less colors, thus less series used.

Waterfall Example 2A

Excel source

You want to show how your profit and loss accounts are related by showing each individual account and use the colors red and green for the contribution amount (cost = red, revenue = green).
Again use the columns for the series (= coloring) and the rows for the labels (= columns in chart) by setting the data range to “Data in Columns”. On the appearance tab set the Marker Gap to 0 and the Marker Overlay to 100. Apply the series coloring accordingly.
Note: Again the order of the data columns determines the coloring in the chart. The white amount is calculated on the basis of the total of the previous column only in case of a cost account, that cost amount is subtracted from the total.

Waterfall Example 2B

Excel source

This is based on the same principle as the previous chart only it gets more interesting as the total amount gets below zero, thus we have to deal with negative totals with a positive contribution. This can be achieved by creating extra series as the order of the negative positioned bar colors is different than when using positive bars.
Note: The coloring change in the y-axe can be changed by formating in Excel, see this post.

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