What is Dashboards? By: Wase Siddiqui

Introduction Dashboards is an innovation designed to bring the flexibility and power of Excel with the visualization of Flash. What this meant for Business Intelligence is that user could now produce flash animations with the use of Excel. The full name of Dashboards is: SAP Business Objects Dashboards which used to be known as Xcelsius. Dashboard is apart of the SAP Business Intelligence module which is used for a large part of Business Analytics. “Dashboards allows for rapid development of data visualizations through a flexible GUI”(1).

About Dashboards Xcelsius was the original version of Dashboards. It paved the way to build visualizations using Excel and dashboards for more interactive experience. “Over the years SAP Business Objects has enhanced Xcelcius into a full-featured enterprise ready dashboard solution that works with any data source”(2). Xcelsius isn’t a relevant name anymore which why dashboards has taken place. This is now a pivotal part to the Business Intelligence module in SAP.

About Dashboards Cont’d: What makes Dashboards a pivotal part of the Business Intelligence is that it offers customers an enterprise solution that customers were using Xcelsius for but connected multiple users. By changing the name from Xcelsius to SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, SAP shows their commitment to make the best solutions available to its customer in need of Business Intelligence functionality. “SAP is showing its commitment to delivering a solution that serves the needs of all BI customer as well as aligning the name to the product’s growing capabilities and roadmap”(2).

Intro Cont’d: Like stated before, Dashboards is also know as Xcelsius. Which can accomplish many things: It can create interactive dashboards that have a more unique look and adds more value to the design compared to other competitors. It can connect dashboards to multiple other data connections, the maximum being 12. It can embed dashboards into different formats which allow for users to share their data with each other. “the Ability to create add-on components using the Dashboard Design SDK”(1). “Integration and Interoperability with the existing SAP BusinessObjects BI content”(1).

What the Book teaches us about Dashboards There are multiple pieces of content the book exposes us to, here are a few: The book covers best practices on using the SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards spreadsheet, the data model and connections with the components on the canvas”(2). Data visualization is talked about to present users on how to use different kinds of charts, tables and graphs to visualize the dashboard. Interactivity is covered, where the section shows how to add interactivity to their work by showing selectors, maps, buttons, drilldowns, ETC. Dynamic visibility is also something that is taught in the book where it shows how to make components visible or invisible and shows why visibility is important.

What the Book teaches us about Dashboards cont’d: There are more pieces of content the book exposes us: Alerts are a big part of dashboards which the book shows different examples of. Advanced components are covered in the book as it shares different formulas on how to create more complex dashboards. A whole chapter is dedicated on the look and feel of a dashboard, by teaching users how to tweak and customize the look of the components used. Connectivity in dashboards explains users how to use external data sources to execute their dashboards. Exporting and publishing and 3 rd party add-ons also are explained in the book as well.

What the Software Brings The SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards software gives you a list of other programs that you need or programs that come with the software. It claims users need Basic Data Presentation Component, the computer needs the ability to export to Adobe and PowerPoint. Dashboards creation components and export to the web and flash is supported by the software. Crystal Reports server connectivity is supported by the software as well as platform integration. There is also access to SAP ERP and SAP BW data.

Review of Dashboards Dashboards overall is a great tool for IT. It allows users to integrate multiple databases. It also integrates excel and other Microsoft programs to be used to access systems. Dashboards is designed to go hand in hand with crystal reports which can create a large tool for Business Intelligence systems. Dashboards is great part of Business Intelligence is pivotal to make the module a very important function in Business Analytics.

Bibliography “SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook”, Hacking Xavier, Lai David. Packt Publishing 2011.