The Full Monty – Part 14 – Dashboard Design (Xcelsius) & Live Office Install & Configure

Previous blog The Full Monty – Part 13 – BObj Integration Kit SP3 Install & Configure.

As I read more, it seems there are a few aliases for this product: Xcelsius, Xcelius Designer, Dashboard Design, Crystal Dashboard Design, Presentation Design. In an attempt to stay current and simple, I think I will simply use the term “Dashboard”, from now on.

I will now require Microsoft Excel, because the “Dashboard” levers some of Excel’s functionality. But I have not bothered to document the Excel install.

The Enterprise version of the Dashboard Design has native/direct connectivity to any SAP BW System, eliminating the need Excel or Live Office. If you require any other source for the Dashboard Design, then Excel and Live Office is required.

Downloads 

I downloaded the “Dashboard” files from the Home Page SDN->Downloads(tab), toward the bottom, under “FREE DOWNLOAD CATALOG”, there was a “BusinessObjects Product Trials” link which I clicked. This popped up the familiar BObj trials page, from which I could see two offerings

• SAP Crystal Dashboard Design starter package
• SAP Crystal Dashboard Design personal editon

I clicked the “Free Trial” links next to them, filled out the on-line form, and downloaded both. At 540MB each, I extracted them to two different directories “Xcelsius_Engage_30day_trial” &  “Xcelsius_Engage_30day_trial pe”. They were identical.

Based on my earlier experience downloading “Crystal Reports” and the “BObj Integration Kit”, I thought I would take a look at the “SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS PORTFOLIO” on the “SAP Market Place” to see what was there. I found “BOBJ XCELSUIS ENGAGE/ENTER 2008 SP WINDOWS” Object #51038212, which I downloaded.

After comparing all three downloads, I can tell you that they are all the same SP3 version and contain a ProductID.txt file with a single line “BuildVersion=12.3.0.670.”

When it came to entering the License Key, it looked like the keys are the only mechanism to determine what version does what, hence, all the links eventually download the same information. This is just my belief. I am open to suggestion.

Obtain License Key

A license key is required, and can be obtained by downloading an excel file, from the SAP Market Place, Main Page, tab “Keys & Requests”->”License Keys”.

 

Save the file, and unzip it, to reveal an excel spreadsheet contained, e.g. “Temporary Keys & Information 08-07-2010.xls”, with all the necessary keys, among other information. We will return to this file soon.

MS Excel Installation 

To begin with, I installed “Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007”, containing Excel. Nothing interesting there. I also installed the “MS Office SP1”.

Dashboard Installation

Next I installed my “Dashboard”

From the unzipped location, I ran the “setup.exe” file.

 

The installation wizard began, I chose not to create a log, and kept the defaulted language

 

continue through

 

at the “User Information” screen, I navigated to my License Key file downloaded earlier, and entered the License Key associated to “SAP Crystal Dashboard Design, Departmental Edition”

 

I had no further languages to install

 

I chose to see what the “Custom” option did

 

I chose the “SDK” option for no other reason than, I may need it

 

the installation was soon underway

 

the installation was underway

 

five minutes after, the installation finished successfully

 

I looked under Windows Programs

 

and started “Xcelsius 2008”, and continued through the “Xcelsius 2008 Trial” message by pressing the “Continue” button

 

at the main screen I navigated to the menu Help->About Xcelsius…

 

to see what I had. Notice the “SAP” menu bar too.

Live Office Installation

Live Office is a BObj Product Add-On for Microsoft Office Products. It can be used to access data directly from an SAP system, e.g. Tables, SAP Queries.

Installing Live Office will add a menu bar to the Office Suite Products. For example, before installation Excel looks like this

 

after, it will look like this, with the “Live Office” menu tab

 

After making sure I do not have any Microsoft Office products open, I ran the “setup.exe” from the “Live Office 3.1” directory, which I downloaded

I chose not to create a log file

 

a couple of minutes later, the installation wizard showed up

I accepted the License Agreement

 

No extra languages to install

 

“Next” to the “Destination Folder”

“Next” to begin the installation

installation was underway

10 minutes later, the installation finished

There was no Windows Program Group or executable, as suspected, but the “Live Office” menu was now present in Excel.

 

I rebooted my system

Live Office Testing

I started Excel, and pressed the “Crystal Reports” button from the “Live Office” menu, and was presented with a once off logon prompt & configuration setting for my BObj.

I gave it my administrator user and the “Web Service URL:”     http://pc:8080/dswsbobje/services/session

 

I then navigated to my “Flights” Report, and started to construct the Excel data

 

I pressed the “Switch to Fields”

 

chose all fields/data

 

did not choose any filters

 

I kept the default name

and then “Live Office” started to extract the data

and finally represented in Excel

 

That’s the job of “Live Office” done