My scenario is as follows: I’ve created a simple dashboard in Xcelsius (using a spreadsheet with 6 rows and 6 columns of data). The dashboard will be deployed either as a SWF or directly embedded on a page in the company intranet. We need the dashboard to refresh whenever we update the spreadsheet, so that if we login to the intranet, we’ll see an updated dashboard. The refresh needs to happen without having to open Xcelsius to refresh the connection.
Is this possible?
I’ve come across Debbie’s ASPX script to generate XML from an Excel data source and I plan on using that in some way to achieve the above. I was wondering if there’s another way?
If you have Business Objects running, you can attach connections to QaaWS or BIWS services. That’s all outlined pretty well in the documentation.
You could also generate your own web service in some other way. This would probably require leveraging someone who knows SOAP. The documentation outlines how to consume a generic service.
You could also use LiveOffice to connect the dashboard to another data source. I’ve never actually done this, so I’m not positive of the steps.
I guess the other constraint is that my client requires a solution with minimal cost. Ideally, they want to spend only on the purchase of Xcelsius and the labour for developing the dashboard. Having other database connection packages might complicated things in terms of the cost. Is there any way for an Xcelsius dashboard to be refreshed using an Excel XML map between Xcelsius and SQL Server?
Just use an XML map connection. Set it all up correctly and the user can update the spreadsheet, do a SAVE AS xml map and xcelsius will pick up the changes automatically.
(BOB member since 2005-03-01)