Xcelcius Learning

[Former Member]

We are planning to do use Xcelcius to build dashboards. I have the following questions with respect to Xcelcius. I am very new to this product. So you can consider me as a Starter to Xcelcius.

(1) How is it different from Dashboard Manager

(2) How easy is to deploy Xcelcius. We are looking at deploying the output in an intranet Webpage

(3) What is the server side impact? What do we need to have to deploy the product?

(4) We are planning to use Xcelcius 2008. We are looking at Web service call from the Product and refresh the current data in the Dashboard. How compatible is Web service calls from the product.

(5) How Simple is to develop a report

(6) How good is the UI of the product?

(6) Fast Deployment

(7) Refresh Rate

Is there a quick start guide or a Book that you recommend that we can use?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

There is a book available: Xcelsius 2008 Dashboard Best Practices by Loren Abdulezer.

(1) How is it different from Dashboard Manager

Dashboard Manager is no longer available, do you mean Dashboard Builder?

If so then you Xcelsius to create a dashboard. You then can use Dashboard Builder to create a composite dashboard with multiple content types (like Crystal Reports, WebI, Xcelsius, etc).

(2) How easy is to deploy Xcelsius. We are looking at deploying the output in an intranet Webpage

You can export to HTML from in the Xcelsius designer which creates a basic HTML page for you.

(3) What is the server side impact? What do we need to have to deploy the product?

That depends, will your web services run on the same server as you deploy the Xcelsius dashboard onto?

If yes then every time you make a call from Xcelsius to your web server there will be a hit as your web service runs.

If no then there is a small overhead to initially download the SWF from your server.

If your live data comes from a different web server then you need to watch out for cross-domain policy issues - covered in the book I mentioned above...

All users who want to view the dashboard need the Adobe Flash Player version 9 or later (9 is the supported version for Xcelsius right now).

(4) We are planning to use Xcelcius 2008. We are looking at Web service call from the Product and refresh the current data in the Dashboard. How compatible is Web service calls from the product.

Xcelsius can connect to Query as a Web Service otherwise it tends to prefer simple web services with simple data types and a single schema...

When in doubt I prefer to call a dynamic web page (ASP/JSP, etc). Xcelsius can use the XML Data connector to pass values to a web page and to read values back (using a simple XML format). You can see an example ASP in the Xcelsius built-in help, look for XML Data in the Index.

(5) How Simple is to develop a report

That depends on your experience and the complexity of what you are trying to build. Xcelsius is best for high-level pre-aggregated summary information, generally speaking you think along days and weeks as opposed to months...

See the [Xcelsius General Best Practices|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/a084a11c-6564-2b10-79ac-cc1eb3f017ac].

(6) How good is the UI of the product?

You can make some amazing dashboards with Xcelsius.

(6) Fast Deployment

See (5)...

(7) Refresh Rate

This can be set for each connector (refresh on load, refresh on trigger of user interaction or refresh on interval).

Regards,

Matt

[Former Member]

Hi,

1] Login to

http://help.sap.com

2] Go to fourth tab 'SAP BusinessObjects'

3] SAP BusinessObjects Overview : click on 'All Products'

4] Select the product from drop down list 'Xcelsius' and selct the release i.e. 2008 or 4.5,etc...

You will get the list of PDF ( documents) which will helps you.

Regards,

Deepti Bajpai