Xcelsius Archive

Xcelsius Dashboards – Best Practices – Data Layout

By
Roxanne
Published: April 22, 2010Posted in: InfoBurst-XDS, XDM, XcelsiusTags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

In addition to the Xcelsius Dashboard Maintenance – Best Practices – Using Labels in Excel I wanted to share other important aspects of making Xcelsius dashboards easy to maintain and for other developers to understand.  One such practice is having some kind of conformity in your approach to how you lay out the data for your Xcelsius project. 

In this blog I will discuss 2 methods, both of which are valid and are useful ways to organize dashboard data.  Deciding as an organization which approach you adopt can help with the process of taking up someone else’s project. 

 Some Xcelsius developers like to use a method of having all the data that is being used in the dashboard on one (or more) tab/s of the Excel spreadsheet, and then as you need to use data for display, using a series of vlookups or match & index functions for displaying data on charts, which they layout on other tabs of the spreadsheet.

My preferred method is to spread the layout in such a way that the names of the Excel tabs generally correspond to the functional area on the Xcelsius dashboard, perhaps even the same name of the Xcelsius  tab (Either the Tab Set Container or the Label based menu, is what I’m thinking of), so that all the data being expressed on that “page” of the dashboard is on one tab in the Excel spreadsheet behind the scenes. 

  

I like to have the data insert & any manipulations I have to do for expressing that data nearby the loaded data, so that it is all in one place & I can find it easily.  The only difficulty with this is when you have many components on one “page” or you have to create several aggregate levels to display.  Spreading it out & spacing it can become an issue, and this is where again, labeling the spreadsheet is so important.  (But aren’t we glad that if we move data around on the spreadsheet that the links follow, for those of you who have been using Xcelsius since the 4.5 days!). 

This approach, of course, assumes you have the aggregated data to work with!  Which leads back to my previous blog regarding data connectivity options.   If I have to use QaaWS, I end up having to do a lot of manipulation in the universe to get the data to look or be ordered the way I want to use it in Xcelsius.  I usually have to end up making many of what I call, “dimensionalized measures” when I want to end up with a crosstab result.  So I have a measure for Jan Sales, Feb Sales, etc.  Very tedious.  Sorting is another  issue that is often easier addressed in the universe, but also can be labor intensive.  

Live Office gives me the option to create crosstabs and sort the data in any way I wish and I can also have multiple tabs to aggregate the data at different levels (YTD, MTD,  past 30 days, etc).  The problem that I so often bump into with this approach is the amount of data when we get down to the detail level.  We have all experienced poor performance any time we go over the 512 row default and horrible performance when we approach 1000 rows. 

All of these are reasons why I enjoy using the InfoBurst XDS or XDM option, as it addresses all these issues, plus gives me many more options.  The Intelligent Cache syntax of this tool is by far the most exciting feature, in my opinion.  Using their syntax, I can pass parameters to the XML url call and only return the rows of data I wish to display.  For example, within my xml url call, I can add syntax that returns …. YEAR=2009;DIVISION=HPD;DEPT=23.  This ability to extract just the rows of data I want to display helps keep my dashboards very responsive, since I am not loading it down with too much data.  It also gives me the ability to go to a much more detailed level than I would have been able to with QaaWS or LiveOffice.

XDS or XDM also has syntax to return unique values of a particular column from an xml data set which I can use for  my selector.  My selector will always have accurate values, as it is loaded from the current xml cache, rather than from a hard-coded list in my Excel spreadsheet which may not be up-to-date.

And, I have the flexibility to create these large XML data sets from a Web Intelligence document or by writing a query, directly to the database, or even from an Excel spreadsheet, and any combination of all three!

Data Quality Dashboards

By
Moksh
Published: April 20, 2010Posted in: Business Intelligence, Infoburst 2009, XcelsiusTags: , , ,
Data Quality Dashboards

The stream of articles, white papers and videos desperately trying to convince the business community of the negative impact of poor data quality on their bottom line seems to be never ending.  It almost seems like the IT brigade is marching into a cul-de-sac at the end of which is a brick wall with three large letters written on it – ‘ROI’.  Data Quality projects share their dreaded fate with all other projects emanating from the IT division and including the geeky word ‘data’ in their title.  While the management continues to remain blissfully ignorant of the unsettling financial and human consequences of bad data, customers, employees and business itself continues to suffer from ‘Data Quality Blues’.

The one technology in recent years that has managed to captivate the business users in organizations across the globe is undoubtedly – Dashboards.  Dashboards speak to them in a language which they are familiar with, the language of graphs, charts and metrics.  The BI Dashboard serves as an abstraction layer that shields the business users from the intricate and unwelcoming world of the ‘Data Churners’.  It is this instrument therefore, that should be leveraged to enlighten the management of financial losses that are incurred due to a seemingly trivial typo error or a misplaced digit in the sales figures.  Although this may not be the panacea one is looking for, creating a real-time dashboard which attaches a price tag to every data quality issue and extrapolates the figures to demonstrate their long term impact, may just act like a sip of coffee that will stimulate their business senses.

 Here’s an example of a Data Quality Dashboard

 This dashboard was the outcome of the convergence of three technologies: BO Data Quality,  InfoBurst 2009,  and Xcelsius.  Bundling a DQ dashboard with DQ Services benefits in the following ways: 

  • Getting the initial buy in from the senior management
  • Understanding the DQ issues that are creating havoc
  • Tracking the performance of the DQ initiative itself
  • Displaying the relevant financial metrics to answer the ROI question
.
Photo Credit: Sieve photo in this post from Wikimedia

Xcelsius Dashboard Maintenance – Best Practices – Using Labels in Excel

By
Roxanne
Published: April 16, 2010Posted in: XcelsiusTags: , , ,

In this post I will share with you a sample of what I consider to be one of many “best practices” to help in the ongoing maintenance of Xcelsius dashboards; Using labels in your Excel Spreadheet.  Some of the content in this post is extracted from the Excel for Xcelsius course offered by InfoSol. 

 Whether you find yourself having to update one of your own dashboards after a period of time of not working on it, or having to hand off the maintenance of the dashboard to a colleague, the initial effort of good documentation will save valuable hours and ensure continuity and success.  In this post some of the graphics will speak for themselves – you know the cliche of ‘a picture paints a thousand words’. 

The graphics show examples of: 

  • good labeling,
  • use of color to enhance visual cues
  • and the use of comments within Excel. 

Use of Color and Labeling

Below are samples of Excel spreadsheets that incorporates the use of visual cues like color coding with simple, clear and easy to follow labels showing where components derive their inputs.

Using Excel Comments

Another helpful option is to use the built in Excel feature of Inserting a Comment.  This leaves a small red triangle in the top right corner of a cell to indicate that a comment has been added to that cell. When the mouse hovers over the cell, the comment pops up. 

 

Helpful tips can be included within the comment.

Comments can be added to any cell by right-clicking on a cell and selecting “Insert Comment”.  Once a comment has been added to a cell, the small red triangle will appear.  A comment can be edited or deleted by right-clicking on the cell.

Using a Legend

There are many ways to document your Xcelsius Dashboard Excel Spreadsheet. 

I would love to hear about your “Best Practices”.

There is an Xcelsius Bootcamp being offered in Track 4 of this year’s IBIS 2010 event June 6-9 - Seeing Beyond Business Intelligence. 

Comparing Xcelsius Connectivity Choices

By
Roxanne
Published: February 5, 2010Posted in: Business Intelligence, InfoBurst, InfoBurst-XDS, XDM, XcelsiusTags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Comparing Xcelsius Connectivity Choices

As more people deploy Xcelsius dashboard solutions, Xcelsius connectivity options has become a hot topic and I am often asked to compare the most popular methods used by BusinessObjects customers which are Query as a Web Service (QaaWS), Live Office and InfoBurst-XDS (or XDM for non-BOE deployments).

This is a brief summary of the differences between these 3 options which may be helpful.

QaaWS is a BusinessObjects web service that access BusinessObjects universes (and only universes) to pull back data.  Each time a dashboard is opened and selections are made, a real-time query is launched against production data, which, depending on the amount of data requested, can take many long seconds or minutes.  I have not found it to be very effective, and the few companies that do use it, have highly summarized tables in their data warehouse to use for this purpose (i.e. lots of preparation work).  The only upside I see to this method is that security is already in place based on BO user ids, and, real-time data retrieval (if that is the requirement). Large amounts of data (i.e., more than 500 rows of data) returned by the web service will significantly slow down the performance of the dashboard.  

With Live Office you can access Web Intelligence or Crystal reports as your data source and use the functionality of these reporting tools to summarize, crosstab and format your data.  The advantage is that you can schedule these reports to refresh in BO (InfoView) and then use the latest instance of that report for your Xcelsius data source, without waiting for it to refresh.  The disadvantage is that it requires users to log into BusinessObjects every time they access the dashboard.  (Supposedly you can use single-sign-on with this, but I have not seen it working anywhere).  Obviously, if you want to deploy this solution outside of BusinessObjects, like hosting the SWF file on SharePoint or an Intranet, most companies do not like having to sign on again.  Also, it would not work if you want to deploy outside the network (outside a firewall).  There have been many posts on the forums about the “flakiness” of LiveOffice, often losing connections and unable to refresh reports.  Since Live Office has to hold the data in the Xcelsius spreadsheet, the amount of data returned will have a negative impact on dashboard performance.  This last item has been the biggest barrier to our customers, who often wish to show granular data in their dashboards, or a significant amount of historical data.

InfoBurst XDS and XDM were designed to overcome these obstacles.  XDS can use Web Intelligence or Desktop Intelligence reports as data sources for pulling data, which it can refresh overnight (based on a schedule) and convert this data to xml.  XML is the fastest way to load data into Xcelsius.  XDS does not require a BusinessObjects login.  XDS also has the option of accessing a database directly (any database that can be accessed via an ODBC connection) through SQL queries, which can also be scheduled and converted to XML.  XDS also provides options for distributing the dashboard (putting on a network share, an intranet site, or as an email attachment or embedded in an in-line html email).  The biggest advantage, though, is the Intelligent Cache feature which allows dashboard developers to “cache” a very large set of data (I am currently working on a data set of over 18,000 rows of data), and then pass parameters through the xml code, based on selections the user makes on the dashboard, which then returns the small data set needed for that particular chart.  (On the above example I am passing parameters, based on drop-down menus, for Division, Plant, Department, Day and Shift, which returns the 6 rows of data I need to display – shift hours per day per Department.)  Since the dashboard is only loading these 6 rows of data, obviously the performance is very fast.    We recently converted a QaaWS dashboard where the data loading time when changing customers went from 2 minutes or so to less than 10 seconds, using Intelligent Cache filtering.

Xcelsius Festival

By
Paul
Published: October 27, 2009Posted in: Business Intelligence, Paul Blogs on BI, XcelsiusTags:
Xcelsius Festival

The 2009 GBN Conference, held in Dallas this past week, was more of an Xcelsius Festival than a Global BusinessObjects Network event. As Saskia Battersby, Product Manager for Xcelsius, mentioned in her Xcelsius Roadmap session…“four years ago, we had to fight to get one Xcelsius session accepted at the Annual BusinessObjects Conference. Today more than half the tracks and sessions are about Xcelsius.” Even more impressive was that her session was the last session of the conference, when most people were heading for the airport in a heavy rainstorm and yet, despite that, the room was packed. The first ever “Xcelsius Gurus” social gathering organized by gurus Mico Yuk and Ryan Goodman, and sponsored by SAP, was held the evening before. It was easily the highlight of the entire conference with 150 happy, energized people in attendance experiencing the type of excitement and fun we have not seen since Business Objects was a young and exciting company – remember those days? Xcelsius is definitely the hottest product at SAP right now, and it is spreading faster than the swine flu virus. It is being integrated into the front-end of SAP’s ERP modules while it is also being bundled into hundreds of OEM applications – just popping up everywhere. What makes it so different to other SAP BO products, with the exception of Crystal Reports, is that it can easily and inexpensively be deployed outside of the SAP and BO Enterprise platforms, as well as within them. This has also made it very challenging for SAP to control it, but that is one of the reasons why it is so popular; following in the footsteps of Microsoft Excel, Adobe Acrobat Reader and Crystal Reports. Hopefully this is intentional on the part of SAP, because Xcelsius is one of the best things going for them right now.

View Slideshow of Pictures

Xcelerate Your Xcelsius Xcellence with Dynamic Dashboard Development Services from InfoSol

By
Yolande
Published: April 10, 2009Posted in: Business Intelligence, InfoSol, XcelsiusTags:

With more than a dozen Xcelsius Black Belt specialists on staff, InfoSol provides a complete range of Dashboard development, deployment and support services including:

  • Proof-of-Concept Services
    Building and delivering Xcelsius dashboard solutions in your environment to demonstrate the value prior to a full deployment
  • Dashboard Design and Planning Services
    Assistance in designing and planning effective dashboard solutions
  • Dashboard Solution Development Services
    Developing complete dashboard applications, including connectivity, distribution, refresh and security
  • Dashboard Knowledge Transfer Services
    You drive, we navigate, as we work along side you to show you how to develop and maintain effective dashboard solutions
  • Dashboard Education
    As a Business Objects Authorized Education Partner, we offer a complete range of scheduled,
    on-site and e-learning offerings on BusinessObjects Dashboard solutions

Visit our company website at www.infosol.com

Other blog posts on Xcelsius Dashboards

Rock Star

By
Paul
Published: August 25, 2008Posted in: Business Intelligence, InfoBurst-XDS, Paul Blogs on BI, XcelsiusTags: ,

A few months ago, my two youngest kids received this Rock Band game for Xbox 360 from their aunt. It came with a drum kit, guitar and microphone and basically lets you play and sing along to famous songs by famous rock bands. It also allows you to create your own rock star characters which you can see prancing around the stage to a wild crowd of fans while you are belting out David Bowie’s “Suffragette City” or laying down some mean riffs from Deep Purple’s “Highway Star.” 

Of course, both my kids are really good at it, but their greatest enjoyment is getting their Dad to participate. They literally roll on the floor in hysterical laughter as I sing (sorry, attempt to sing) “I think I’m Paranoid” by Garbage. When my mother-in-law visited a few weeks back, they insisted I sang “Black Hole Sun” while they accompanied me on guitar and drums.  Apparently, she still cannot tell anyone about it without tears of laughter running down her face!

I think many of us have dreamed of being a Rock Star at some point in our lives and, if not a Rock Star, then some other type of Superstar. Unfortunately, only a few people ever “make it,” and the rest of us are left to dream and play Rock Band. However, I believe that desire to be a Superstar lies just under the surface in most of us, and we are always looking for an opportunity to shine and be famous even in our day-to-day “non Rock Star” jobs. I saw some of these unexpected Superstars at the recent IBIS 2008 conference in Lake Las Vegas receiving awards (very similar to the Grammy Awards!) for their amazing integrated Business Intelligence Dashboard solutions. Banner Health Systems won the Most Valuable Dashboard award for a sensational solution that allows monitoring of Glucose levels in patients and is being rolled out to over 4,000 health care professionals at multiple hospital locations. What makes this solution, and the team that created it, so incredible is the ingenious integration of multiple Business Intelligence technologies and tools to provide an application that will literally help to save people’s lives.

The intricate work using the BusinessObjects Data Integrator ETL tool to extract, transform and load all the necessary patient and clinical data into the Data Mart every 24 hours was a milestone accomplishment. Then there is the Xcelsius dashboard that allows clinicians to intuitively and interactively check the overall Glucose initiative compliance ratings at different facilities.  This, then, can trigger Web Intelligence drill down reports to look at the values by individual nursing unit, and even individual patient, and then monitor the trend in that patient over 24, 48 and 72 hours. But the coolest piece of all is the InfoBurst-XDS report and dashboard management tool that automatically refreshes the Xcelsius dashboard from a Web Intelligence report and creates data ranges in cache that allow this application to be used by thousands of people with excellent response times. So “hats off” to this remarkable team of people at Banner who are definitely Superstars in my book. All I can say is “You rock!”

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