Optimal Environment for Running Xcelsius

Posted on March 11, 2009 by

In my day to day discussions with other consultants and customers who use Xcelsius, I have experienced common issues that you may find when building Xcelsius dashboards. While I often work within the constraints of the product I beat up Xcelsius pretty good and have found a suitable system configuration for building dashboards. I wanted to share my configuration and practices in hopes that you may be able to improve your dashboard building experience.

Troubleshooting an issue with Xcelsius can be a bit of a moving target with different versions and hot fixes of Windows, Excel, Flash player, and of course Xcelsius. Here is how my system is currently configured:

Design Time with Xcelsius Best Practices
As you launch Xcelsius, the following practices should be taken into account to set you up for success.

  • Do not run Excel while using Xcelsius. I have both 2007 and 2003 on my system, so if I need to get into Excel while using Xcelsius, I only use 2003.
  • Run 1 instance of Xcelsius at a time. If you need to copy and paste components between Xcelsius instances do so and then close the second instance of Xcelsius. UPDATE- With Xcelsius SP3.1 this works much better now
  • If Xcelsius crashes for whatever reason, open the task manager CTR + ALT + DELETE and shot down any Excel processes before re-starting Xcelsius.
  • Turn Excel auto save off while working heavily inside Xcelsius. In Excel 2003, this is located in Tools>Options>Save. In Excel 2007 this is located under Excel Options.
  • Shut down all Excel add-ins or any other applications that may use Excel or Office.
  • Save and version your dashboards every time you make major changes. It never hurts to have extra versions sitting around.
  • Don’t develop dashboards on Xcelsius running on Windows Server. I don’t believe that it is supported and does not work very well for heavy development.
  • Be aware that Xcelsius 2008 is designed with Flex 2 and designed for Flash Player 9. As new Flash Player versions come out, make sure you check up on forums or linked-in to find any potential issues.

If you have other contributions to this list feel free to add them in the comments section.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

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Next generation dashboards: Part 2- Opportunities

Posted on March 9, 2009 by

Continued from Part 1: Observations

With a general understanding of the basic concepts that collectively create dashboard value, there are certainly opportunities to improve on each concept. Before evaluating opportunities for improving dashboard development for Xcelsius, there are a few assumptions that we will make to narrow our focus.

  • Data quality is not an issue
  • The methods for monitoring performance are rationalized (performance indicators, metrics, supporting analytics, etc).

With these assumptions taken into account, we can focus specifically on dashboard development. Xcelsius does an amazing job of providing controls for painting a picture of business performance. As the software evolved into an enterprise dashboard development application for BusinessObjects, we have seen great improvements along the lines of:

  • Integration with BusinessObjects Enterprise, enabling the required heavy lifting for processing and serving up data through the semantic layer.
  • Streamlined Xcelsius development environment for faster easier authoring and maintenance of dashboards.
  • Extended global filtering, alerts, and aesthetics capabilities for an improved dashboard experience.
  • Addition of an SDK, allowing developers to generate new components, connectivity options, and logic.

The addition of the SDK is the best opportunity for you to maximize their investment in Xcelsius for dashboard development.
The SDK enables your customers or third party developers to extend Xcelsius’ capabilities far beyond what exists today. For each concept described in part one, the SDK opens up a new world of possibilities through:

  1. Automation- Unlimited opportunities to automate complicated procedures and logic through simplified point and click properties sheets within the Xcelsius development environment.
  2. Visualization- There are visualization mediums that have become synonymous with dashboards including spark-lines, bullet charts, and scorecards that would serve Xcelsius dashboards well.
  3. Navigation- There are advanced navigation paradigms including hierarchical, multi-select, and drag and drop that would extend end user’s ability to intuitively navigate information.
  4. Connectivity- Any data source that can be exposed via XML or web services should be integrated into an Xcelsius dashboard with the same point and click simplicity as Business Objects.
  5. Runtime Analysis- While Xcelsius makes what-if analysis a breeze to create using Excel logic, there are opportunities to improve the depth and breadth of runtime analysis capabilities.
  6. User Adoption- While end user’s appreciate the sleek looking graphics, and aesthetics, there is certainly room to improve customer’s ability to build professional looking dashboards.

Coming Soon: Part 3, Available Solutions
Next, I will recommend available solutions in the marketplace that you can download and integrate today.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

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