Embed horizontal bar charts in a spreadsheet table component

One of the important features that SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards lacks right now is to be able to embed charts in a table. This is a very powerful feature as we are able to present a lot of meaningful information with little real estate when embedding charts inside a table as shown below. In Xcelsius SP3, SAP took the first step in creating the scorecard component which allows embeddable trending...

February 5th, 2015 by David Lai 

SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards vs SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio

After working with both SAP Business Objects Dashboards and SAP Design Studio, and seeing the pros/cons of each tool, I’d like to give my 2 cents on both tools since many people are wondering what the difference is between the 2 tools. (more…)
November 13th, 2014 by David Lai 

My Xcelsius Rant – Is there any hope for SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards in the next little while?

In this article I’d like to express my concerns about SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard Design AKA Xcelsius for what I’ve seen in the last 2 years. With SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards FP3 I was hoping to see some light; unfortunately it’s been quite dismal. When I first started using Xcelsius in 2006, it was leading edge and produced dashboards that had the WOW factor that other dashboard...

June 18th, 2012 by David Lai 

Using Xcelsius and Webservices to insert comments into a database

A common request that I have seen with my clients, is the ability to enter comments into a dashboard and then view those comments when they re-open the dashboard in the future. Unfortunately Xcelsius does not have a native mechanism to send data back to the database, as a dashboard’s main purpose to read data and not write back to the database.  However, I do see the value in being able to persist...

January 26th, 2012 by David Lai 

All you need to know about Open Document (opendoc) Part 2

I’ve been getting a lot of emails lately on how to setup opendocument (opendoc), so I’d like to post this tutorial on how to do so which works for Business Objects XI 3.1. Unfortunately my previous tutorial at http://davidlai101.com/blog/2008/11/04/all-you-need-to-know-about-opendoc/ only works with Business Objects XI R2 Please note that the tutorial was taken from SAP BusinessObjects...

September 29th, 2011 by David Lai 

Congratulations to our tweetaway contest winners!

I’d like to give a big thanks for everyone who participated in the SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook Tweetaway contest! I was very impressed with the huge amount of tweets so Thanks everyone! I’d like to congratulate the 2 lucky tweeters who have won an eBook copy of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook They are …….. rodri_m_d montoyainigo We’ll be contacting...

July 26th, 2011 by David Lai 

SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards Cookbook now available!

I’m very proud to announce that SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards Cookbook is officially available.  For the past year, Xavier Hacking and I together with Packt Publishing have carefully compiled over 90 recipes on transforming your data into highly effective dashboards. We cover the ins and outs of using the Dashboard Design components, connecting to different data sources, as well as providing...

June 8th, 2011 by David Lai 

Using Charles to help you debug!

In this article I would like to state the importance of how useful it is to use a traffic monitoring tool such as Charles or Fiddler when debugging connection type errors. In this example, we’ll go through a quick scenario on solving a crossdomain.xml related issue. You will need to Install Charles on your machine and install the Charles addon for Firefox. (more…)
March 18th, 2011 by David Lai 

Embedded Charts inside an Xcelsius Spreadsheet Table

One of the important features that Xcelsius lacks right now is to be able to embed charts in a table. This is a very powerful feature as we are able to present a lot of meaningful information with little real estate when embedding charts inside a table as shown. Embedded Bar Chart in Table (more…)
February 8th, 2011 by David Lai