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For a humble BusinessObjects follower used to attending conferences where 3,000 attendees was considered big, stepping into my first SAP Sapphire event was somewhat like the small town guy going to the city for the first time.  With some 15,000 attendees, an exhibit and keynote area the size of half ...

Question: How can I get user-specific data results for Xcelsius dashboards viewed through BusinessObjects InfoView? Answer: There are a few application variables that BusinessObjects provides for use when a user logs into InfoView, one of which is BOUSER.  BOUser is the variable for the userId that is logged in and ...

On my last day in London, after being stranded for 10 days by the Icelandic volcanic eruption, I decided to go visit Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.  This is a neat reconstruction of what was thought to be a likeness of the original Globe theater of Shakespeare’s day built about 200 yards ...

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 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 ...

I arrived late at night at Copenhagen airport and headed for the taxi rank to get to my hotel. As I exited the terminal, there was a large sign pointing to “Danish Taxis” to the right and “Swedish Taxis” to the left. Not understanding the difference, I figured I should ...

Although Switzerland is a relatively small country, there are four distinctive cultures speaking four different languages within its borders. There are French, German, Italian and Rumantsch regions all speaking their respective languages. This leads to some interesting situations as I discovered when meeting with perspective partners there. The first partner ...

After my previous disastrous attempts to ski when I visited my son last year, he suggested I try snowboarding. When I told him I had heard it was more difficult than skiing, he just shrugged and said that I couldn’t do any worse. I figured he had a point and ...

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 ...

A weekend in the middle of my trip gives me the opportunity to visit my son who works and snowboards in the French Alps for six months of the year. He has to work on the Saturday so he sets me up in an Italian restaurant /pub with WiFi so ...

As I checked out of my hotel in Paris, I had finally figured out how to use my high-tech, multi-functional room key. When I checked in, I was given a room card key with some writing on it that I did not pay attention to until I got to the ...

A second day in Paris and another day full of meetings. The second meeting is over lunch at a classic French restaurant situated next to the famous Opera with elaborately painted ceilings and a platoon of waiting staff for every table.  Each of the menu choices requires a paragraph of ...

I arrive in Paris in the middle of a train strike and I am expecting the worst but as I step off the Eurostar train from London (not on strike – different company) and jump on the Metro (not on strike – different company), I notice nothing unusual.  I was ...

After only 2 hours sleep on the trans-Atlantic flight (I should never have watched that in-flight movie “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll”), I finally arrived at my sister’s house in London only to find nobody in.  With two suitcases and a backpack, I parked myself on her doorstep ...

A few years ago I was on vacation in the South of Spain staying at a small local hotel. After spending a day sightseeing I returned to my room to find a huge trail of ants had entered through a bathroom window. I walked down to the reception to report ...