Difference between Xcelsius and dashboard

[system]

What is Differance between Xcelsius and dashboard?

---

sunchega (BOB member since 2008-04-23)

[system]

Foe dashboard understanding, you can read below post:

120×120 10.4 KB

Hi We have some Webi Reports (BO XI R2 SP2 WebI)which needs to be build as a Dashboards. Now there are some issues like: I have only client machine and was accessing reports through the web link given to me. I don’t have access to production Database. I don’t have access to Universe. So Keeping this criteria s in mind, I need some help to start with it: First and foremost thing, do I need to have access to Performance Management so that I can build Dashboards, if yes then I must have Licen…

Also some days back I red:

Xcelsius is a standalone product with a Windows Designer tool that allows you to create highly visual and very attractive looking dashboards. The format of the final output is usually a Flash file (.swf) but can be others. You can directly publish this file into your BO XI environment for viewing.
Dashboard Builder is part of the XI framework which allows you to create a menu tabs system and place various existing content onto a dashboard set of pages. So it allows you to take say existing Crsytal Reports or WebI docs and place them onto a dashboard layout with tab menus. You can also add additional content such as speedos etc by getting the data from a Universe query.

---

aniketp (BOB member since 2007-10-05)

[system]

…Good Thanks for this informaton.

---

sunchega (BOB member since 2008-04-23)

[system]

I would like to clarify that Xcelsius is NOT a standalone product. Although most people are still using Xcelsius with “standalone datasources”, it can use the existing Universes and can integrate with BOE. Xcelsius can also link to existing WebI report in the system.

The Enterprise Performance Management (which includes Dashboard Manager) in Release 2 was a massive failure. It appears that Business Objects is trying to repackage it in 3.x. But I believe most people have already moved on to Xcelsius for their dashboarding solution.

Hope this clarifies.

---

substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)

[system]

@substring

The Enterprise Performance Management (which includes Dashboard Manager) in Release 2 was a massive failure.

Is this true?

---

Muna (BOB member since 2008-08-05)

[system]

Performance Manager as a product will be sunsetted by 2011 and SAP will replace that with SAP Strategy manager. Dashboard Manager will still be available with Premium license. Xcelsius is a product that SAP BO is pushing as dashboard product and as substring said,the product is integrating well with BOE.

---

dcdas (BOB member since 2002-06-17)

[system]

oh ok… can you tell how powerful is this Xcelsius tool when integrated in BOE?? Can we link each analytic with detail reports and pass parameters as we do with dashboard manager analytics??

---

Muna (BOB member since 2008-08-05)

[system]

Yes…it can use Query as web service or live office to get data from BOE and you can link analytics to reports also…

---

dcdas (BOB member since 2002-06-17)

[system]

@naaz

oh ok… can you tell how powerful is this Xcelsius tool when integrated in BOE?? Can we link each analytic with detail reports and pass parameters as we do with dashboard manager analytics??

The best way is to connect with the existing universe, using QaaWS. And yes, Xcelsius can pass report parameters to launch existing WebI reports. But it has to be within the Business Objects Enterprise environment though.

Just off the top of my head, one of the upcoming webcasts produced by GBN (Global BusinessObjects Network) is going to cover Enterprise integration for Xcelsius. You can go to gogbn.org for more information. if you are big in dashboarding, I strongly recommend you to join the Dashboarding SIG (Special Interest Group) which will be launched this Thursday. You can find more information on their web site as well.

---

substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)

[system]

I strongly recommend you to join the Dashboarding SIG (Special Interest Group) which will be launched this Thursday. You can find more information on their web site as well.

Thanks for the information… i will surely join SIG for dashboards. and are you talking abt SAP website?

The best way is to connect with the existing universe, using QaaWS.

Thats great… any limitations identified while using query as a web service to build dashboard in Xcelsius?

---

Muna (BOB member since 2008-08-05)

[system]

There are some limitations with using Query As A Web Service. The main ones I see are :

1. It can’t output data in a crosstab format, which is useful for drill functionality in Xcelsius.

2. It cannot cache data, it’s always on-demand. Live Office enables you to use the output of scheduled reports.

---

cashworth (BOB member since 2005-02-09)

[system]

Over the last 2 months I have been working with Xcelsius extensively.
One can accomplish a lot, when one heeds guidelines for good and effective visual design.

If indeed you are “big” on dashboarding:

• visit www.perceptualedge.com
• read some books by Stephen Few and Edward R. Tufte
• look at different products such a Tableau software or Spotfire, etc.

The three main drawbacks in my opinion are:

• Too many bugs in Xcelsius 2008
• Xcelsius cannot handle large volumes of data, one has to fetch the data in small packages (max of few thousand rows) via QaaWS etc.
  This leads to potentially slower response times, when clicking through the dashboard as one has to wait for the query/queries to return the result set(s).
• Xcelsius is always based on a MS Excel spreadsheet (this is just poor architecture, but has historical reasons).

---

Andreas (BOB member since 2002-06-20)