Going Live With Xcelsius - Options, Tricks, and Tips. Jackson Whitfield

Transcription

1 Going Live With Xcelsius - Options, Tricks, and Tips Jackson Whitfield

2 Learning Points Tips on designing an interactive, low maintenance dashboard. Understanding of various connection methods and security Best practices when promoting dashboards from a test to a production environment. 2

3 Return on Investment Following the tips in this presentation will reduce the labor hours spent maintaining dashboards. Ensure data can be accessed quickly by the right people. Give confidence in knowing dashboards released into production have been tested and properly promoted. 3

4 What is Xcelsius? A user friendly dashboarding tool Works with Excel to create interactive visualizations that can display data in real time Components are mapped to Excel, but data does not have to be contained in Excel Allows users to perform what-if analysis Looks really cool! 4

5 Best Practices The Design Phase Consider how your data will behave in the future and what can be done to account for that. 5

6 The Design Phase In Xcelsius, extend data selection beyond current data to account for future data 6

7 The Design Phase Use Ignore Blank Cells feature on charts and selectors to suppress blank values. 7

8 The Design Phase Notice what happens as blank values are filled in 8

9 The Design Phase Have a company logo or some other type of image? Not embedding the image will ensure the dashboard updates as the image does. 9

10 The Design Phase Add in a link to your company s website 10

11 Design Phase Remove the URL label and its background to create a hot spot over the logo 11

12 PPT Note Embedding Xcelsius SWF Files Slides with Xcelsius swf files embedded in them must be exported to PPT, and saved as PPT, not PPTX 12

13 The Design Phase Have multiple charts with a changing scale? 13

14 The Design Phase - Smooth out the Display Add an entry effect on the charts so they don t look as jumpy when toggling back and forth, and set manual scale. 14

15 The Design Phase - Smooth out the Display Add a background to make switching charts appear even more seamless 15

16 The Design Phase Maintenance Free Scale In Excel, use the Max function to return the largest data point in your data range Use the Round function on that value so your scale will have an even max value 16

17 The Design Phase Smoothing out the Display Have a single value component that should be used just as an output component? Add in a background. 17

18 Connection Methods Overview XML data Can load XML data directly into a Xcelsius dashboard to display data real time. Relies on a process to query data from the database and return it into an XML file. The dashboard refresh will be dependent upon the refresh of the XML file. 18

19 Connection Methods Overview Web Service Uses an existing SOAP web service to connect a Xcelsius dashboard to under lying data source. Allows for dashboard users to be able to perform real time queries against a data source. 19

20 Connection Methods Overview QaaWS Query as a Web Service works similar to the previous method of connecting to a SOAP Web Service. Real time queries against data source. Difference is, using the QaaWS builder, users actually create their own web services based off of SAP data. 20

21 Connection Methods Overview Live Office Xcelsius dashboards can connect to SAP data using a Live Office connection. Can use a preexisting Web Intelligence document, Crystal Report, or a new Universe query. 21

22 The Design Phase Incorporating Live Data If we have a prompted query, we can use the selectors in our Xcelsius model to respond to the prompt and trigger the refresh of the query. This can be accomplished with Live Office and Query as a Web Service. We will setup the yellow highlighted cell as the cell that triggers the input to the prompted query. Pink cells will display data 22

23 The Design Phase- Live Data - QaaWS The trigger cell for Query as a Web Service is setup in the connections properties. 23

24 The Design Phase- Live Data Live Office If using Live Office, we must first bind the prompt to what will be the trigger cell in Excel. 24

25 The Design Phase- Live Data - Live Office The Live Office object(s) and prompt(s) will be displayed 25

26 The Design Phase- Live Data - Live Office Choose Excel Data Range 26

27 The Design Phase- Live Data - Live Office Bind to trigger cell 27

28 The Design Phase Incorporating Live Data In Xcelsius the refresh trigger setup is the same for LO or QaaWS Connection Properties Selector Properties 28

29 The Design Phase- Live Data - QaaWS We can manipulate the data returned for a better fit with Xcelsius components. 29

30 The Design Phase- Live Data - QaaWS Using Ignore End Blanks in Xcelsius, the 0 s will still be plotted Hard coding text will prevent this, and the text will be overwritten when data exists 30

31 Best Practices Using the Final SWF How Live Office, Query as a Web Service, and SWF files work together Refreshing data Keeping the data secure 31

32 LO and QaaWS in the Completed SWF File SWF Originally known as Shockwave Flash and later changed to Small Web Format, uses a flash player to display interactive content. The completed Xcelsius model can generate a stand alone SWF file which can be sent out to users via , Infoview, a network drive, and embedded in Microsoft applications. Xcelsius will not be required at this point. All components and data connections will be contained in the SWF. SWF will be able to show real time data. 32

33 LO and QaaWS in the completed SWF - Security Unless viewing through Infoview, user will be prompted when refreshing the SWF: Must have a BO login with privileges to the Universe and Universe connection that the LO or QaaWS is based on. PC attempting the refresh must have access to the BO server. 33

34 LO and QaaWS in the completed SWF Refresh If SWF is created with best practices, a QaaWS dashboard can show the most up to date data each time a dashboard user triggers the refresh. With Live Office, the dashboard will refresh only to the extent that the underlying report is refreshed (unless setup with a binded prompt as in previous example). Dashboard cannot be scheduled but the underlying document can. In the underlying LO document, a last update function can be placed so the dashboard users will know the actual time of the refresh. 34

35 Best Practices - Promotions Before a dashboard is deemed production ready, it should be tested, often in a test environment. The following slides will illustrate how to move a dashboard that has been signed off on in a Staging environment to a Production environment. Focus on Live Office and Query as a Web Service. 35

36 Promotion Query as a Web Service Create the Query as a Web Service in the source environment and Import it into Xcelsius. 36

37 Promotion Query as a Web Service Remove the server reference from the Web Service URL. 37

38 Promotion Query as a Web Service Build your dashboard and export to Infoview. 38

39 Promotion Query as a Web Service Once tested and signed off on, run the Import Wizard to promote to the Production environment. 39

40 Promotion Query as a Web Service Create a biar file from the source content. 40

41 Promotion Query as a Web Service Select the following options to import. 41

42 Promotion Query as a Web Service Choose the QaaWS, SWF file, and universe. 42

43 Promotion Query as a Web Service Once the biar file is created, run the Import Wizard again to promote the biar to the destination environment, select same content. 43

44 Promotion Query as a Web Service No need to overwrite anything, but if you decide to, it is recommended that you take a biar file back up of the destination environment first. 44

45 Promotion Query as a Web Service After following the rest of the Import Wizard steps, the SWF, web service, and universe will all exist in the destination environment. SWF will now refresh inside of Infoview off of production data. For the SWF to work outside of Infoview, the server must be included in the Web Service URL in Xcelsius. 45

46 Promotion Live Office Create a Live Office enabled spreadsheet and import into Xcelsius. Build dashboard and promote to production using similar promotion steps as QaaWS. Select the report and universe that is being used, as well as the SWF file. Promote to a biar and then into the Production environment. SWF will refresh inside and outside of Infoview. 46

47 Key Learnings We have looked at a basic overview of connection methods Dashboard design Security and promoting of a dashboard Questions? 47

48 Thank you for participating Please remember to complete and return your evaluation form following this session. SESSION CODE: