hi,
I am new to this forum and to BOxi . excuse me if anything is stupid
i have the evaluation package of BOxi to play around but i couldn’t find the dashboard manager to create dashboard.is there any other source i can create dashboard. is this functionality not available in the evaluation package.
i am asked to check the capabilities of BOxi if anyone can help me with dashboard it should be great.
thanks
Ferns (BOB member since 2007-08-09)
Dashboard Manager requires additional license. If you want to evaluate Dashboard Manager, talk to your sales rep or account manager and he/she can hook you up.
In my humble opinion, Dashboard Manager is a piece of trash. If you are not using it already, don’t bother.
Xcelsius is supposed to be a better alternative. I have installed it but I have not tried it, therefore, I cannot comment on it…yet.
Again, you need to talk to your sales rep or account manager for this kind of help. After all, they are making a lot of money from you and you should utilize them as much as possible.
substring 
(BOB member since 2004-01-16)
Well, pardon me, but Dashboard Builder (not sure if this is the correct term nowadays…) is a nice addition and is now included with XI R2 as far as I am aware.
The Performance Management suite is nice, but flaky and not easy to setup nor to customize. I do not expect for Xcelsius to ever replace Performance Management. Sure it is nice using MS Excel as a data source (not sure what else can be used as a data source in the latest version), and it is really flashy and glitzy, but glitzy distracts from the real content (see my recommendation: “Information Dashboard Design” by Stephen Few). The only thing is that glitzy & flashy is a quick and easy sell…
To the contrary, I expect that there will be some revamp/re-design of the Performance Management product suite now that Business Objects has purchased Cartesis.
Andreas 
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
Xcelsius is all about visualisation and allows a bit of what-if analysis.
Performance Manager (although a bit flaky) allows you to create metrics, goals and assign responsibility to user/groups. It also has some other visualisations like speedos, thermometers but the Xcelsius graphics are slowly making there way in there.
Xcelsius is much more than an Excel add-in, in fact it is not recommended to use Excel for data. Excelsius (if my memory serves me right) can connect to XML file (can refresh every x seconds to give real time), it can sit on top of Sharepoint and SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, Live Office and use Query As A Web Service to build webi reports and access them as a web service.
SteveMS 
(BOB member since 2003-04-03)
From what I understand the latest excelsius versions can access data sources other than excel, and that the excelsius widgets will become part of the PM suite, and it does require additional licenses (at least mine does).
I tried the PM dashboards for a while and found it flaky at best. Its clumsy to fit the things you want on the screen, its refresh engine is worse than the old BCA - I could never trust that it refreshed anything.
Personnally I think my reports are more intuitive and nicer than anything I could generate in PM. I also can’t imagine many folks in my company playing and interacting with the widgets.
my tuppence worth.
dessa 
(BOB member since 2004-01-29)
Yupe. That is what our account manager, the GS on site, and the pre-sales engineers told us and convinced us (eh, our management) to purchase Xcelsius to replace our EPM.
The latest Xcelsius is supposed to be able to use our universes, and not just external datasources. Metrics and goals are all table-driven. So it should work…in theory. But of course, I am skeptical about everything and I have to see it to believe it.
One possible downside is that you have to upgrade to SP2 and Productivity Pack in order to use Xcelsius because of the Query as Web Service feature.
I agree that BOBJ is not going to give up on EPM. But the challenge is to completely integrate with Enterprise. It might take them a couple releases to accomplish that, especially when their R&D resources are not focus on EPM. By then, most customers will be using something else for their dashboards.
substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)
Hi Guys i got an opportunity to work with Xcelsius and i find it more interactive as it is developed with flash. I feel that Xcelsius will be more comfortable with endusers as they can play with it.
Harish
harishreddy 
(BOB member since 2006-05-11)
Thank you very much for all your replies it was of geat help…
Ferns (BOB member since 2007-08-09)