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 There have been very few
occasions in my long I.T. career when I see something that gets me so excited
that I need to shout about it from the rooftops. There was the Sigma 6
mainframe computer back in 1978 that filled a room and played “Stars and
Stripes Forever” when it went into idle mode. There was BusinessObjects 3.0
back in 1992, there was InfoBurst in 2002, and there was Xcelsius in 2005. Now
at the end of 2008, I am ready to shout out and sing the praises of another
amazing set of software —“Web Intelligence Integration Suite for Xcelsius”
(WIISX).
While there are a lot of nice new tools and functions in the new
BusinessObjects XI 3.x release, nothing comes remotely close to WIISX, which
includes some incredible new components developed by a company called Antivia,
that allows you to integrate the power of Web Intelligence into an Xcelsius
dashboard.
Now I’ve seen some pretty neat dashboards and features with Xcelsius (and I get
very excited about them, too), but just picture this: Take a Web Intelligence
document with drill down built-in, integrated as a component in an Xcelsius
dashboard, so that you can interact with the document within the dashboard
itself.
Now consider linking that document to other Xcelsius components so that, as you
navigate through data in the report, these other components are changing
dynamically and vice versa. It could be linked to maps, gauges, pictures,
internet content and tons of other stuff.
And that’s not all – the best is yet to come. The suite also includes a Web
Intelligence “Slice and Dice” panel component. You can actually drag and drop
objects and create multiple iterations of reports within this component in
Xcelsius. This just blew me away because it adds incredible new power and
capabilities to Xcelsius that takes dashboards to a whole new level. With this
suite, you can merge the power of Web Intelligence with Xcelsius into a single
powerful user interface.
 The more I saw, the better it got. You can
publish the dashboards into PowerPoint, PDF or Word with the embedded Web
Intelligence components, so now you could be dragging and dropping objects in a
Web Intelligence document, embedded in Xcelsius, embedded in PowerPoint – this
is mind blowing!
Another real gem about this suite is that the data for the Web Intelligence
components do not feed through the Xcelsius model unless they are connected to
other Xcelsius components in the dashboard. This means you could handle some
sizable Web Intelligence reports embedded in the dashboard.
The suite uses a framework that provides a collaboration component, allowing
you to instant message between other selected users who are viewing the
dashboard.
When Donald McCormick, Business Objects CTO, recently showed the suite at the
Business Objects User Conference in Dallas, people were literally wide-eyed at
what they were seeing and broke out into spontaneous applause.
I have a feeling a lot more people will share the excitement over the Web
Intelligence Integration Suite for Xcelsius — you just have to see it, and you
will join me, singing from those rooftops!
For a quick walk-through demonstration, go to
www.infosol.com.
For more information or a free web cast demonstration of Web Intelligence
Integration Suite for Xcelsius contact us at infosol@infosol.com.
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Xcelsius Q&A
QUESTION:
How can I turn my dashboard into an application that appears in the
list of a user’s programs?
ANSWER:
Xcelsius 2008 now comes
with a feature to package your .swf file as an .air application. AIR files are
one of the newest cross-platform solutions from Adobe. The idea is that, like
flash, the desktop user downloads their platform’s specific AIR “player” and
then programmers only have to program in AIR in order for their single program
to work on all platforms (Macintosh, Windows, Linux, Unix, etc…).
Click
here to view full tech tip...
Crystal Reports Q&A
QUESTION:
I have created several prompts in my
report. How do I display what was selected?
ANSWER:
This is a common request. Typically, parameters are used to let
someone filter the records that get pulled back. Sometimes they are used in
grouping or sorting. In any case, it is always nice to show what is selected on
the report. I will go one step further and state that showing everything
selected in a cover page is a best practice.
Click
here to view full tech tip...
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