Software as-a-service applications like Salesforce.com and Google Maps Premier enable organizations of all sizes to offload operational and infrastructure costs associated with on-premise software. Organizations that have made significant investments in on-premise business intelligence are now mashing up data from web-based solutions thanks to powerful APIs. In the last year, Salesforce.com and Google Maps integrations for Xcelsius have popped up making it easier than ever to integrate these technologies without any coding. Third party software solution providers like Centigon Solutions and Moss Solutions are bridging the gaps between these powerful web-based platforms and Xcelsius.

-Read more about this dashboard at EverythingXcelsius.com

Last week, Centigon Solutions release a new data connector for Xcelsius enabling direct connectivity to csv (comma separated values) files. Geared toward customers who require a simple method for updating Xcelsius dashboards, CSV Connector adds value by streamlining dashboard development and connectivity to external data.

Until now, Xcelsius required XML data and web services for live connectivity. CSV Connector is an optimal component for your developer toolbox to connect a dashboard to a flat file located on your desktop or web server.

Since I started using this data connection, CSV Connector has proven to be a perfect low cost solution for building dashboards against legacy reporting systems and databases. In several projects where I have successfully injected csv connectivity, I saved a tremendous amount of development resources previously expended in writing redundant .NET or J2EE services. Even when web services are required to meet customer requirements for live personalized data, I use CSV connector while refining the dashboard design. In several cases I have used a combination of csv connectivity and web services to enable a customer to mashup data from different data sources.

From a property sheet data preview to a simple row filter property, CSV Connector is optimized to make development a breeze while enabling direct connectivity without any additional server-side installation. Try CSV Connector using the free trial and feel free to post any comments or questions.

This week I was working with Live Office on XI3.1 and was racking my brain over a 26306 error when running the SWF: " Failed to fetch data provider data. (LO 26306)"

After a quick Google search I recalled that this error is common when you have a Live Office query with a report prompt that is not identified. Here are a few tips to make sure you don't pull your hair out as you troubleshooting and fix your Live Office/Xcelsius issue.

1. Make sure you refresh your report inside of Live Office before trying to identify and bind your prompts. This will ensure that you not only have the latest report data, but also that you are not looking at cached report data. If your WebI report itself is not setup to refresh on load, Live Office will used the cached data which will cause the LO 26306 SWF runtime error.

2. If you get the error and have to go back and define your prompts, either by hard-coding or binding them to cells, remember to DELETE AND RE-IMPORT YOUR LIVE OFFICE CONNECTIONS IN THE DATA MANAGER!. When you make changes to your Live Office connection inside of the nested Excel instance, the data manager wont detect and apply changes to your Live Office configuration. Simply deleting and re-adding your Live Office connections in the data manager will solve the problem if you modify the Live Office objects or prompts.

Keep these two guidelines in mind for as you build Live Office enabled dashboards and you can keep your sanity.

This year, the Xcelsius community has experienced rapid growth in the number of developers and vendors who create add-on solutions for Xcelsius. One of the most important innovations that will ultimately hold Xcelsius in place as a leading enterprise dashboard tool is Antivia XWIS (Xcelsius Web Intelligence Integration Suite). With thought leadership both in the BusinessObjects Enterprise and Xcelsius technologies, Antivia took a step back to recognize some of the fundamental problems that developers face with the existing enterprise integration, and then designed a solution that provides functionality that customers have always asked for.

While Live Office and Query as a Web Service (QaaWS) both provide data connectivity to Xcelsius using BusinessObjects Enterprise, customers have long grappled with performance, navigation/drill down, and true ad-hoc capabilities.

Not only does XWIS streamline connectivity to BOE, but it also integrates new Xcelsius controls for presenting and navigating data in a way that has never been possible with Xcelsius. The result is true point and click integration between BusinessObjects Enterprise and Xcelsius without fancy SQL statements or crazy Xcelsius black magic:

• Re-use existing reports: When implementing Live Office enabled dashboards, customers regularly write reports that are formatted and optimized specifically for Xcelsius. Because XWIS manages the connectivity and data delivery to Xcelsius, you no longer need to create “Xcelsius friendly” reports. This allows traditional WebI report designers to speed up the development process previously hampered by un-necessary focus on report formatting and data volume that could create performance implications to Xcelsius.
• Performance: Many Xcelsius dashboards benefit from scheduled WebI reports as a data source for Xcelsius dashboards. To this day, I still believe this to be a perfect marriage of technology, because a scheduled report serves as a virtual data repository that offloads the heavy processing so dashboard users can access data quickly. XWIS builds upon this concept while providing a significant performance boost because XWIS communicates directly with BOE, bypassing the Live Office/QaaWS services.
• Data Volume: A common design consideration for Xcelsius is data volume. Developers are inclined to load large volumes of data into a SWF which can impact performance. XWIS takes full advantage of the Xcelsius SDK by loading data directly from the XWIS platform into XWIS components, by-passing Excel data volume limitation. This communication coupled with Antivia’s innovative Xcelsius add-on components create an interface for end users to analyze large data sets better than ever, while still benefiting from standard Xcelsius visualization.

If you are using WebI in your organization, Antivia' XWIS is a solution that you should consider before tackling dashboard development with Xcelsius. I have been using XWIS since version 1.0 so if you have any questions about my experiences, I am more than happy to share them. Next week, I will review the XWIS add-on component suite for Xcelsius that enables: Ad hoc analysis, Drill Down and hierarchies, and Collaboration.

If you run a SWF on your desktop that communicates with data sources on your local PC, you will probably get an error. As I have found with Xcelsius over time, the two most common causes for connectivity errors other than user error is the absence of a cross domain policy file, or the flash player security settings not being set. To access Flash player security settings, go to the following URL:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager04.html

Inside, you will see the following:

If you are concerned with security, you can define a specific directory on your PC or Internet that Flash player can access. As you can see in the screenshot, I define "C:/", which ensures that I can run SWFs anywhere on my PC that may use local XML files.

After you make changes you can close the browser window... There is no save or execute button. When you re-open your SWF, the new security settings are enabled.

For more information on this topic, you can go to:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html#117164