I first met Mark Hudson and members of the Antivia team at the 2008 BOBJ user conference following a presentation, “Xcelsius Web Intelligence Suite”. From that presentation, I knew that Antivia was on a path to change how we think about enterprise connectivity for Xcelsius. Since then, each version of Xcelsius Web Intelligence Suite (XWIS) has significantly improved connectivity and navigation of data from BusinessObjects Enterprise.

With Xcelsius Web Intelligence Suite 2.5 (XWIS), Antivia has continued their innovation streak with so much compelling functionality, that I had difficulty picking out my favorite new features for this article. XWIS 2.5 simplifies the development process for building real, scalable, enterprise dashboards, which is something that organizations have struggled with Live Office and Query as a Web Service. For the first time, developers can meet complex business requirements without laying lots of data connectors with Excel logic. Instead XWIS 2.5 is a scalable solution designed from the ground up to address enterprise dashboard development using Xcelsius or SAP Crystal Dashboard Design as the development platform. The following list is my favorite new features, so make sure you obtain a full list from Antivia.com.

Point and click connectivity to WebI and Crystal Reports- XWIS provides a suite of components that provide direct connectivity to Web Intelligence and now Crystal Reports. With enhanced connectivity management, dashboard developers can re-assemble any combination of measures and dimensions from WebI and Crystal Reports to create true drilldown, hierarchical navigation, and adhoc analysis without data volume limitations or Excel logic.

Autowire- A new feature with XWIS 2.5 is an ability to automatically link standard Xcelsius charts to live data WITHOUT BINDING TO THE SPREADSHEET. Antivia has beat BusinessObjects to the punch, enabling dashboard developers to connect, navigate, drill, and visualize data without a single Excel binding. In addition, Autowire will either synchronize to multiple charts within the dashboard, or provide an in-line chart navigator allowing an end user to toggle between multiple chart types.

Autowire also features in-line chart drilldown while retaining a breadcrumb navigation to drill back up the hierarchy across all chart types.

Connectivity to any source with XMLA and JDBC- For customers who want to access OLAP data sources directly from Xcelsius, XWIS’ new XMLA connectivity option provides the flexibility that developers have been asking for a long time. In addition, an JDBC connectivity option provides and interface to inject your SQL queries directly into XWIS, while retaining the same functionality to navigate and drill they support against WebI or Crystal Reports.


Online/Offline and Bursting- Previously available with XWIS 2.0, dashboard end users can easily save dashboards for offline use, while retaining all of the data from XWIS. I get a ton of requests for this functionality, so I wanted to re-iterate its availability and importance for the future success of Xcelsius. To further expand offline capabilities, XWIS 2.5 now features dashboard bursting integration with BOE Publisher so you can now personalize and distribute Xcelsius dashboard to hundred if not thousands of users.

Custom Hierarchies- Within XWIS components, dashboard developers can create custom hierarchies from Crystal Report and WebI using a simple point and click interface. Now, dashboard developers can map custom hierarchies to match and synchronize non-hierarchical data with point and click ease.

Custom Variables- For dashboard developers who spend lots of time buried in Excel logic, this feature is a major enhancement. Abstracting custom variables to XWIS, developers can leverage report measures to create custom variables for use in the dashboard. This feature among others illustrates that Antivia truly understands how developers have struggled building scalable enterprise applications and delivered an important feature to make development and maintenance much better.


I have highlighted my favorite new features, but there is so much XWIS can do, and the guys at Antivia have many more amazing ideas to make connecting and navigating information in Xcelsius easier than ever.

If your organization is building dashboards on top of BusinessObjects, XWIS 2.5 is a must have. For more information, please visit Antivia.com.

Since Xcelsius version 3.0 I have tirelessly explained to customers how to manipulate a toggle button to achieve push button functionality. I am happy to say that those days have finally come to an end!

With Xcelsius 2008 SP3, they have introduced a push button component. For a new user who just needs a pushbutton or gurus who have long used icons for transparent hotspots, this is a long awaited addition. In addition to simplifying pushbutton capabilities, this component will allow you to push an entire data range into a destination with the click of a button.

If you ever used transparent icons as hotspots, this will be the new component for achieving the same functionality with less work. In the example below, I saved myself

As you can see in the example, I have shown all 3 examples. The first button pushes a single value into the yellow destination. The second button has a range as the source data and destination. Finally the third image has a transparent pushbutton overlaid. The other nice thing about this component is it will NOT insert on load, so if you have multiple push buttons that insert into the same destination, you no longer have to play with the order in the object browser to get the right result.

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I included the Xcelsius help SWF inside of the dashboard so you can see for yourself how this component is configured. This component should have gone into my top 10, since I have already used it several times with lots of success. Thank you Xcelsius development team for making my life easier and giving me new out of the box functionality to write about!

Xcelsius 2008 SP1 features an Add-On manager, located in the File menu. This is where you install Xcelsius plugin components.

To install add-ins,

• First, make sure you are running Xcelsius 2008 with a minimum of Service Pack 1 installed.
• While in Xcelsius, select File>Manage Add Ons.
• Click Install Add On
• Navigate to your hard drive and select an .XLX file.
• Click "Close" in the add on manager.
• Click "Save and Close" which will save the add-ons and close Xcelsius.
• When re-opening Xcelsius, your add ins will be available in the Components window, within the specific folder described in your add on documentation.

There is also a link within the Add On manager to the On-Demand store where. There are some Xcelsius add ons for free, and others that you pay for. The direct link to the store is: http://www.ondemand.com/information/xcelsius.asp

This week, Centigon Solutions Inc. released a collection of plug-in components for Xcelsius 2008. Though I am biased because of my involvement with Centigon Solutions, as an Xcelsius power user, I can’t imagine building dashboards without these components. Here is my analysis based on extensive use of these components. I will write a few articles illustrating how to get maximum utility from these components and how I have utilized them. For more information about the Centigon Solutions components, visit:

Xcelsius Add Ons Components

Dynamic Sort: My Excel sort workaround was one of the most downloaded templates and still was an ugly workaround to ranking data. The Dynamic Sort component provides the sorting/ranking capabilities we have longed for and does it extremely well. Every dashboard I build has required some level of ranking and sorting and now we can do it on the fly inside of the SWF.

Background Builder: Most of you do not have the luxury of working with a graphic designer for each dashboard project you produce, leaving you with the standard out of the box backgrounds that come with Xcelsius. While these are clean, we always want more. Background builder is a single component packaged with over 20 designs and textures that can be configured with detailed appearance properties. Bevel and drop-shadow properties are two of the many properties that allow for complete control over your design with little work. Now for most dashboards, I don’t need my graphic designer to produce great looking results.

Reverse Selector: This component is a simple solution to a long lasting problem that never had a workaround: We needed a way to re-use single value components, and input text components to control multiple cells. In the countless calculator applications that I have constructed, I always end up stacking many sliders on top of each other to get the same results, which takes for ever to setup, and limits the possibilities for complex calculators. Reverse selector fills this gap by introducing a new concept that literally works like a reverse selector. This new component evaluates 1 single cell, and inserts into multiple cells within a range based on an index/position number.

GMaps Plugin Beta: This is a great start to what will be an amazing addition to the Xcelsius product. This component is in the infancy stages as a completed component. Even as a beta, this component offers capabilities not possible with other mapping solutions for Xcelsius.

Click here to view these add ons for Xcelsius

Xcelsius 2008 introduced a global dual axis chart capability that works quite well. I put together a simple example below, illustrating the technology. A dual axis chart is relevant when you are trying to draw indirect correlations between two different measures. I have never seen an effective use of dual axis charts where same measure is displayed on both y axis. The Y Axis toggle in Xcelsius is locate in the general tab for most vertical oriented charts.

Here are a few best practices that make these charts easier to visually digest in Xcelsius:

1. Always include vertical axis labels for the left and right Y axis.
2. Always show the legend on the top or bottom of the chart to ensure there is enough room for both vertical axis labels and titles.
3. Use colors that make it easy to differentiate between each series.

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