What the heck is a Centigon?

Posted on July 28, 2011 by

Every once in a while someone will ask us where the name “Centigon Solutions” originated?

First I will define what a Centigon is:

One centigon of latitude represents approximately one kilometer on the earth’s surface, in the same way that 1 nautical mile represents approximately One minute of latitude in traditional navigation. It is not quite as sexy as “Google” but the idea was to use a location based measure for our name, and up popped “Centigon.”

So while we really liked ring of the name and the many design and product cues that we could draw from it, there was already a Centigon in existence who produces armored vehicles. Knowing that our product brand would overshadow our company name, and no one would ever mistake armored vehicles for software, we went for “Centigon Solutions.”

Its a mouthfull, but it is part of our company DNA now.

How was your company name created?

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Other | 13 Comments

SAP and Google Maps.. its official!

Posted on July 27, 2011 by

I have been chatting with customers and colleagues today over the big announcement that SAP is integrating Google Maps throughout their stack (click here). For me personally, it is a feather in my cap knowing that thought leadership at SAP shares my setiment that Google is a great strategic partner for integrating and delivering first class enterprise mapping. For Centigon Solutions, this announcement has created lots of buzz around what we are doing, so if you are interested to learn how and why Google Maps powered analysis is such a big deal, join me for this webinar next week:

Google Maps Powered BI for SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
Wed, Aug 10, 2011 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PDT

CLICK TO SIGN UP

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Location Intelligence, Xcelsius | 1 Comment

A new SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards version with many names

Posted on July 24, 2011 by

“The latest version of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards Design / Xcelsius that comes with SAP BusinessObjects 4 release.”

This is how I now describe the latest version of the product previously known as Xcelsius, now known as SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards or SAP Crystal Dashboard Design 2011 depending who I am talking to..

Other names or surnames I am hearing in the field?
none of the following names are official 

  • BI 4 Dashboards
  • SBOD 4
  • Xcelsius or SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards version 6 (the actual product version number)
  • SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 2011
  • Xcelsius 2011

As a community member, it can be frustrating because it causes confusion for new customers who are looking for information. As an independant software vendor it is even more frustrating because customers can’t figure out what versions we support.

So what do we do?

SAP is trying to create consistency for product names and versions. It is good to pull the band-aid now to ensure moving forward we are all on the same page.. For now it will be somewhat chaotic as legacy enterprise and channel customers research and upgrade to new versions.

All I can suggest is you be aware that the version of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards or Crystal Dashboard Design that you are talking about could be referred as any of the terms above; All of which mean the same thing… I wont start in on “editions” which is covered in detail at hackingsap.com.

What other ways are you hearing people refer to the latest

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Xcelsius | Tagged , | 36 Comments

Blog Migration is Complete!

Posted on July 16, 2011 by

I am happy to announce that the migration to WordPress is complete (Goodbye b2Evolution!)… Now my blog will be more social, mobile, and will get some nice upgrades moving forward to make information easier to locate.

You will notice that I have also updated the Webinars, Links, and Q&A.

Thanks for you patience, as I will start rolling out the posts that I have been holding onto this week.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Other | Leave a Comment

Current time in Xcelsis using Yahoo time service

Posted on July 9, 2011 by

If you need the current time in a dashboard, the Excel formula is NOW() is useful for many scenarios. If the local PC time is not adequate I found a slick Yahoo web service that will provide me with a single XML node with current time:

http://developer.yahoo.com/util/timeservice/V1/getTime.html

1. First I used XML Maps in Excel and Xcelsius to import the current time from the yahoo service.

2. The next problem is that the data is a UNIX timestamp, so I found a formula to fix this:
=C5/(60*60*24)+1/1/1970 WHERE C5 is the time retuned from the Yahoo service.

3. The results are in GMT so you may need to make adjustments.. In my requirement for PST, I took the resulting time and subtracted “7:00:00 AM” which is how you subtract 7 hours in Excel.

4. I took it one final step to subtract the expiration date from current time and then format it as “dd:hh:mm” This tells end users not the current time, but rather the difference from current time the expiration.

Hopefully this time I spent figuring this out will save you a little time of your own building dashboards.

CLICK HERE for excel source file. The Yahoo web service is not included because I couldn’t add it without giving up my ID:

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Did you like this? Share it:
Posted in Creative Workarounds, Dashboards, Excel Logic, Xcelsius | 4 Comments

Switch to our mobile site