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

I recently worked on a project with Xcelsius 2008 where we used the XML maps connectivity option load data into a dashboard. I have used this feature for a long time in Xcelsius 4.5, but found some challenges that I had to work through so I will share them with you below.

• If you are using Excel 2003, by default you can not get access to the XML maps dialogue. You have two options: Do your XML maps in Excel, and import into Xcelsius, or insert the XML Source menu item. To get the XML Source menu button, right click in your Excel toolbar and click Customize and navigate to the Commands tab. Select Data, and scroll down to the XML Data source option. You will click and drag the XML Source button into your toolbar.

• If you are using Excel 2007, you will need to enable the Developer tab within your toolbar/ribbon. To do this, open Excel 2007 outside of Xcelsius, click on the Office icon (the round button in the upper left corner), and select Excel Options. In the first tab you will see a tab labeled "Show Developer tab in the Ribbon." Check this box and you will now have access to the XML source option, within Xcelsius. From there, the process for configuring XML maps is the same in both Excel 2003 and 2007.

• If you use XML maps inside of Xcelsius, I found some odd behaviors when I try to re-import XML maps. I have not yet pinpointed the cause, but I found that if I re-bound my XML maps after changing the XML structure slightly, that items were miss-matched. The result was me having to create a new Excel tab and re-importing my XML maps there. That said, I would recommend having a separate tab for each XML map source you import.

• Make sure the application server containing your XML file or script has a cross domain policy file. If the XML source is on your desktop PC, you shouldn't have any problems.

Hopefully these tips will get you going in the right direction. If you have any experiences with this feature, please post them as a comment and we can add them to this best practices sheet. Thanks.

Like many of you, I cracked open Xcelsius 2008 dove right into the Data Manger to make sure all of my existing connections work. When trying Xcelsius out with Xport Wizard, I got Error #2032 which for some reason didn't surprise me since there have been major changes to the Flash Player security since the previous version of Xcelsius. After double checking my crossdomain.xml file, I set out to figure out what security setting Adobe has changed with Flex. I quickly found that the cross domain policy file requires some minor changes, which actually provides a lot more control over who has access to your data from a SWF. The cross domain policy should look like the following:

In the XML file, I have used a wildcard (*). This allows a SWF located on any machine to access your data source. You can certainly use an IP address or domain name to restrict access rather to opening it up completely. I always start with the wildcard to make sure my dashboard works, then start restricting access as necessary.

Save this code as crossdomain.xml and place it in the root directory of the application server that provides data to your SWF.

Here is a whitepaper with everything you need to know about Flash player security:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/flash_player_9_security.pdf

For those of you who are not aware, one of the huge benefits of the Xcelsius re-architecture is that customers can integrate custom components. Since all Xcelsius components and properties sheets are written in Flex, Business Objects/SAP have provided some basic documentation for Flex developers to write components. I have longed for this capability for a long time and intend to create some components to fill in missing Xcelsius functionality. It seems the first release of Xcelsius SDK has not exposed too much functionality but it is up to us to push the envelope.

Please add your component wish list here and I will see what I can do to making them happen as we learn the new SDK. Here are a few ideas to stimulate some ideas.

• Tree control selector
• Bullet chart
• Spark Lines
• Video component
• Enhanced maps
• Built-in caclulations
• Scorecard component (table with built in icons)
• Waterfall Chart
• Timeline Chart

The final part on my dissection of the Xcelsius <OBJECT> is a variable called CEWebServiceURL. This Flash Variable is used specifically with the Live Office component and overwrites the “Live Office Web Services URL.”
Regardless of what you enter inside the input box shown above, when the SWF is loaded inside of Infoview, the Live Office connector component will dynamically consume a webservice URL originating from the CEWebServiceURL flash variable. In this case, you do not need to do any configuration of Flash Variables for this to work, similar to CELogonToken.

What does this mean for Life Cycle Management?
For quite some time, I have heard Xcelsius users complain about the inability to bind the Live Office component URL, and how that makes life difficult for migrating Xcelsius objects between BOE repositories. The good news, is with the CEWebServiceURL, the bindable URL is no longer needed. *Note, that this option is only available with BOE XIR2 SP2 and up.

What about QaaWS?
The bad news is a Web Service connector is not configured by Xcelsius to consume the CEWebServiceURL. The good news, is that since the URL for this component is bindable, you can easily leverage the CEWebServiceURL to provide the system name. I have mocked up a simple Excel sheet that evaluates the CEWebServiceURL, then matches it to the correct system name. For those of you not using SP2, you could just as easily use the CELogonToken, since it also contains the server name. All you need to do is declare and bind the Flash Variable inside of Xcelsius then use similar logic that you can download here.

Another Option for QaaWS
If you always plan on using your Xcelsius dashboard inside of BOE, you can drop the system name and port number from the URL. This will work, assuming you don’t use a reverse proxy or some non-standard application server configuration. I have used this method many times since it alleviates the need for any fancy logic or consumption of Flash Variables.

I hope that this 3 part series has helped you in gaining better understanding of how Xcelsius generated SWFs leverage basic Flash variables and BOE.