Which phone do you like best? iPhone? Android? Blackberry?
The example below integrates several techniques to come up with an interesting concept: an Xcelsius based live poll. This sample integrates Xcelsius with ajax to store your vote in the database table, xml feed to report the results of the current poll, and eic (external interface connection) to fire the xml connection when after firing the vote ajax function. By the way, i voted for the iPhone… (This example was tested on firefox)
Back in January, i wrote about Google Charts, and how they stand to shake the BI and data visualization world. Well, over the past months, not only the charts collection has grown substantially and now includes many nontraditional charting options, like maps, and dynamic icons, google gwt now includes a data visualization library that can produce quite stunning results. But even with no programming skills, google charts url api continue to provide any web developers with a simple way to mashup and extend their application by integrating interesting chart images. SAP Dashboards (Xcelsius) can certainly benefit from this as well. Using the Slideshow component, which can render images located on the web, you can add new kinds of charts, dynamic icons, and even data driven maps to your dashboard. In this example, you can see maps, box charts, venn charts and QR codes generated via google charts and integrated via the slideshow component into an Xcelsius dashboard. Of course, any web based reporting tool, webi or crystal included, as well as obiee and many others, can benefit from this technique. You can find the xlf for this example here. If you found an interesting way to use google charts in your BI or data visualization project, please feel free to share.
After almost three days of down time from my prior service provider, blog.com, i moved my blog to godaddy hosting service. I don’t expect to have this kind of down time ever again.
With SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 going GA, SAP will now have two full version number to support 3.x and 4. This spells the end of any support options for those who are still running BusinessObjects XI R2. XI R2 has been on extended maintenance since June 2010, so there are no surprises here, but still, the clients who are running on this version are feeling quite uncomfortable now that SAP will no longer “pick up the phone” if they call for help.
Those who are still running BusinessObjects XI R2 and are looking to get back to a supported version, face tough choices now: upgrade to the latest and greatest version 4.0, or upgrade to version 3.x (3.1 SP4 is the most recent release at the moment). Both choices have pros and cons, and IT and BI managers and professionals should think through these aspects before making the plunge either way.
BusinessObjects 4.0 has several exciting new functionalities and features. Significant improvement in the UI, 64bit support, multi-source universes and a new and improved Designer, strong mobility offerings and more. Not to mention, it is the most current version of the product and will remain in support a lot longer then 3.x. However, as we all well know, any major dot release of any big vendor software is bound to have bugs and suffer from issues. The 4.0 ramp up period offered many of us a glimpse into that with respect to this release. Stability issues on the UI, “spotty” performance and things that simply don’t work might be some of the issues some clients may experience at least until the first service pack is released, probably in six months of so. So those who are thinking about replacing a proven and tried platform that has been in operation for many years with a spanking new version must be comfortable with the fact that they may experience problems due to the “new” factor of any big enterprise system.
On the other hand, upgrading an enterprise platform such as BusinessObjects is not an easy or cheap undertaking. From an IT perspective, on top of standing up a new environment, most of the work will evolve around implementing new security models and upgrading reporting content. From the users and adoption perspective, there is a lot of work to train and educate a large global community about the new features and functionality of the new software. While an upgrade always provide new and exciting possibilities, it is not an easy task, and making a conscious decision to upgrade to a version that will be end of life sooner than 4.0 by a year or more is not easy either.
So, what should you do if you are still running on XI R2? First, consider your organization culture and users community. Will your users generally accept a few wrinkles in favor of new and exciting functionality, or will they reject a package that has any defects? Will your organization be able to “stomach” another upgrade to 4.0 a short year or so from now? What is the system usage like? How much reporting content is involved? Armed with the answers to these kinds of questions, a clearer answer will begin to emerge regarding which is the right option for your organization.
And of course, XI R2 clients can choose to remain on an un-supported (but working perfectly fine) platform, and wait for the first 4.0 service pack to upgrade…
I have not been able to post any new blog entries for the last week and a half due to a family medical problem i am attending. I will post new content soon, stay tuned, I promise my next post will be very interesting…! Thanks -Ron
