Xcelsius as standalone reporting element

[Former Member]

Hi all,

I have a potential contact interested in using Xcelsius to replace their spreadsheet for data analysis. They are not looking into deploying the BOE platform at all but only obtaining the Xcelsius license if possible to minimize cost. Currently they would capture all the market / project management numbers from Oracle via HTML onto Excel then do manual reorganization to fit the data for presentation to senior level management. They are investigating to see if Xcelsius can help reduce the exhaustive time and effort spent and streamline some of the data processing.

Has anyone have experience coming across with a similar situation? I know it is possible still using XML data connections and their own web services (if available). But what overall capabilities are still present and what limitations will there be from a user's perspective for a deployment like such?

Thanks.

[Former Member]

XML Data, XML Maps, and QaaWS/WS are good for allowing Xcelsius to access data sources, up to allowing some aggregation. If you can write QaaWS/WS and are able to modify a database, that allows very good data handling.

There are also the FS Command and EIC connections. These allow reading from and writing to flat files via Javascript. With Javascript, a developer can write any amount of custom code, up to and including direct database queries.

[Former Member]

My organization is in the same situation as you describe. I am new to the company (3 months) and they had been tracking various metrics via Excel. Their spreadsheet got corrupted and I set up a sql database backend/Access front end for them to track their metrics. I am also new to xcelsius (1 month) and using xcelsius 2008 via excel 2003 xml maps to graph their data.

It works fine, but I've found that any new data does not get picked up unless I open up my dashboard and refresh the xml data in xcelsius. I posted something about this to this board, but I have not had any responses.

If this were not a problem, I think it would be a fine solution.

[Former Member]

Regarding your question, are you using the XML Data connection from Xcelsius? If so, you can enable "Refresh On Load" from the "Usage" tab so everytime the dashboard is opened the connection(s) will be triggered to refresh. So assuming you can schedule the sql server/access end to fire off the new XML data on regular intervals (daily, weekly, etc) this should help solve your problem. Or you could set the iteration yourself at "Refresh Every".

Edited by: Sherman Kong on Oct 9, 2008 8:12 PM

[Former Member]

Sherman:

Its really dependent on how extensive your data is and the complexity of your xcelsius model. The dynamic data through web services gives you ongoing ease of updates (no manual steps to re-import a spreadsheet model with fresh data.) However you could get by without web services if your model is not very complicated and the data refreshes are not required very often.

Gregory:

In the "data manager" panel you should be able to select your xml map instance and then by clicking on the "usage" tab you should be able to set the option called "refresh on load." This will trigger the xcelsius swf to call the web service and get fresh data every time the swf is loaded.

[Former Member]

To help clarify, the "xml data connection" is different from an "xml mapping" connection.

-The "xml data connection" is a connection option within Xcelsius (much like the web service option)

-The "xml mapping" connection is a connection that is in Excel. By setting the connection up in excel it is imported along with the rest of your excel file as part of your model.

It is also important to note that both off these can be triggered to pull updated data in the data manager panel using "refresh on load" or other refresh options.

[Former Member]

I have that set and it works fine if I change data, but doesn't work if I add new data.