Crystal Xcelsius

Introduction

Crystal Xcelsius complements all types of Portal initiatives, Business Intelligence programs, Executive Dashboards, Balanced Scorecard projects, Marketing Reports, and day-to-day reporting and presentation requirements. Xcelsius does this by letting users participate in the report creation process and analysis.

Crystal Xcelsius Designer 2008 enables to create interactive presentations from Managed Enterprise Data. Using the new Live Office Connector in Crystal Xcelsius Designer and the new Live Office Web Services in BO Enterprise XI R2, can create and refresh Xcelsius Visualizations against managed Enterprise data.

This document outlines the process of creating a dashboard. You import a snapshot of an Excel file that lets you build a visual model. You link the component to the Excel data and then publish the model as a PDF, MS-PPT, MS-Word and SWF file apart from BO Platform.

Crystal Xcelsius is designed to work with Excel XLS files. The Excel spreadsheets can be any size, but the amount of data in your dashboard can affect the overall performance.

Prerequisites

This content is for the technically-oriented user. You should have a solid understanding of the following technologies

Excel A basic understanding of how to navigate and how to create formulas.
Xcelsius A basic understanding of Xcelsius and experience in creating dashboards in Xcelsius. You should be familiar with the work area.

Xcelsius File The XLF file that is created during the development of an Xcelsius dashboard or data presentation. The file is the working development file that is used in the work area.

Excel model -the source spreadsheet that contains the data that is represented in the dashboard.

Visual model - The visual model is a blank area on which you add the components that visually represent the data that you import from the Excel model. The visual model is saved as an XLF file.

Dashboard The dashboard is the finished product of the Xcelsius development. After you have created the visual model and saved it as a Flash file, then you have created a dashboard.

Component The object that gives the dashboard its utility and purpose. You build the visual model by adding a component and then linking the component to the data from the Excel model
You should understand how Crystal Xcelsius works with Excel and why you should connect to an external data source.

The first step to creating a Crystal Xcelsius dashboard is to import an existing Excel spreadsheet into the Crystal Xcelsius work area. The imported spreadsheet has all of the data, formulas, formatting, mapping and any other features and loads the information into an Xcelsius-embedded Excel spreadsheet as an XLF file. You do not need the original Excel spreadsheet after you import it.

After you create the dashboard in the work area, Crystal Xcelsius converts it into a PDF file. The finished dashboard does not contain the entire spreadsheet. The PDF prototype file only contains the range of cells and any dependencies that you have selected for each component.
When a user opens the dashboard, all of the necessary data is either contained within the dashboard or is dynamically retrieved by connecting to an internal source.