August 17, 2010 2 minute read

Xcelsius Running on Apple Devices

By introducing new concepts about user interface experiences, Apple in fact has changed the way of people around the world interact with information using touch screen features present on their own devices.

Is not a fact isolated, but the history tell us that hardware has promoted software changes, what does main software companies review their strategies to follow or not that wave.

Fortune’s analysts estimate that Apple will end Q3 in 2010 selling about 3 million iPads. Not only to follow Apple trajectory, but moreover to follow this mobility momentum, it’s not too complicated understand why SAP is entering in this arena. This can be reinforced with the Sybase acquision.

Xcelsius 2008 is tied to Adobe technology (Flex and Flash), thus is not possible to generate something that can be run on Apple devices because iPads and iPhones use Safari browser that is built on top of Webkit (HTML5 enabled). In a row, Xcelsius is not runnable in Apple devices.

However, I started a research by myself on how to enable my old (not too much) Xcelsius dashboard on Apple devices? For my surprise, Yes! We Can!

The good new is that Adobe is not stopped. Adobe Labs has an initiative that makes possible generate a new Apple application (ipa) from a Xcelsius dashboard to be synchronized with iPads and iPhones.

In the following posts I describe required steps to have a Xcelsius dashboard running on Apple devices.

Step 1 – Preparing the Development Environment

Step 2 – Working with iPhone Developer files

Step 3 – Distributing a Hello World iPhone application

Step 4 – Turning a Xcelsius Dashboard into AIR (optional)

Step 4 – Turning a Xcelsius Dashboard into AIR

Step 5 – Turning a Xcelsius Dashboard into IPA

By now you can download a sample Xcelsius App to your own iPad/iPhone. http://tiny.cc/r4n5u

I would really appreciate suggestions for further blogs and would like to hear what is the most interest to people. I will then try to provide the information in the form of a short blog entry. Stay tuned for more on SAP BusinessObjects BI suite.

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32 Comments

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Former Member

August 17, 2010 at 11:23 pm

Looking forward to seeing blogs and info on how to get XCelsius-dashboards on the iPad.

Miguel Figueiredo

Blog Post Author

August 18, 2010 at 5:54 am

Yes, I'm sure that this is a good starting point to share knowledge about it.

Miguel Figueiredo

Blog Post Author

August 2, 2011 at 6:38 pm

Hi everyone,

Here a good post http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/sdnweblogs/postweblog published by Nic Smith about EXXOVA solution enabling SAP BO content on iOS and Android. Check it out.

Miguel Figueiredo

Blog Post Author

August 2, 2011 at 6:39 pm

Ops...see correct url below:
Xcelsius Dashboards on the iPad

Best, Miguel

Former Member

August 18, 2010 at 1:28 am

Hi Miguel,

I can't wait to read your blog. It's very interesting for our business.

Miguel Figueiredo

Blog Post Author

August 18, 2010 at 5:51 am

Yep! I'll try conclude these steps to post them by this weekend.

Former Member

August 19, 2010 at 1:53 am

Thank You for this information. Could You please send a link (if existing), where I can find more information about that?

Best regards,

Andrei

Miguel Figueiredo

Blog Post Author

August 19, 2010 at 4:37 am

I All,

I re-post this adding a url to let you guys download a sample Xcelsius App. Enjoy! 😉

Lars Bangemann

August 25, 2010 at 4:29 am

Hi, i am not able to sync. the demo app (btw. which sounds really interesting!) on my iPhone via latest iTunes. "signature not valid"
Any idea?
BR, Lars

Altuğ Dağlı

August 26, 2010 at 3:41 am

Hi,

I got same message "signer not valid".
could you help us.

Thanks, Altug

Former Member

October 16, 2010 at 5:15 pm

Hi, the sample ipa link says it is invalid or expired!

Miguel Figueiredo

Blog Post Author

October 19, 2010 at 4:00 am

I All,

I re-post an IPA demo file (tinyurl) to let you guys download it. Enjoy! 😉

Former Member

October 19, 2010 at 3:12 am

Hi, this works out for me with a little help from Adobes site:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/as3/iphone/WS144092a96ffef7cc-33e1d8031250a54a821-7fff.html

Especially the developer files / certificates etc. are a big hassle probably because I'm using windows.

I guess there is no link for the ipa-File because this won't work at all. He'll need your iPad/iPhone identifier and provide a special provisioning file for these particular iPad/iPhone.

Miguel Figueiredo

Blog Post Author

October 19, 2010 at 4:05 am

The tiny link provides only a Xcelsius demo already converted to IPA file format. To generate such certificate try navigate using Safari (works better) even on windows platform. Finally for a development step we usually include UDID of testing devices before deploy final app into the Apple Store.

Former Member

October 19, 2010 at 6:43 am

yeah you are right, the whole 9 yards of setting up the mac/windows for app install. It did work for a basic hello world type of app. But It never worked for my Xcelsius application. I tried it on the ipad and the application just crashes, have to check the device log files in xcode to see whats going on.

Former Member

October 19, 2010 at 10:19 pm

I converted a complex Xcelsius Cockpit on a Windows machine. So follow the Adobe link and install OpenSSL. This will generate the needed certifacte-files etc.

Former Member

October 19, 2010 at 6:46 am

hey BTW the adobe link you posted is cool, ran into many issues generating the p12 file, the link has steps to get the job done using key chain mac program.

Altuğ Dağlı

October 19, 2010 at 4:41 am

Hi Miguel,

Can you send the provisioning file?
I can not sync IPA file.

Miguel Figueiredo

Blog Post Author

October 19, 2010 at 7:21 am

Hi Dagli,

The provisioning file includes the UDID of an Apple device, so every developer has your own certificate attached to his devices. The way is subscribe Apple as iPhone developer and then you will be able to generate your own provisioning file.Sorry 😉

Former Member

October 19, 2010 at 6:50 am

is it a requirement to adjust the swf doc ssize to the iphone/ipad screen resolution size, i hope that is not what is crashing my app.

Miguel Figueiredo

Blog Post Author

October 19, 2010 at 7:26 am

Hi Sudhir,

Former Member

October 27, 2010 at 8:11 am

I got it running finally, all my simple xcelsius apps are running on ipad, but the very first one with sizable data is still crashing.

Some points to note:

1. Very slow ( probably the packager is not translating the code efficiently).

2. Cursor visible. ( the all infamous hand cursor symbol is visible on the app!!!) it is very annoying to see a cursor on the multi-touch user interface.

3. touch is not responsive. ( again can attribute this to cross compiling efficiency)

4. Hover becomes Tap. ( All the Hover sensitive features that you have enabled for your dashboard now becomes a Tap, and ofcourse defeats the whole purpose of Hover without drill-down, you will actually end up drilling down on the components when all you wanted is to Hover.)

5. Have tried basic QAAWS calls, did not try Live Office connections yet. ( So far so good on connectivity).

Former Member

November 8, 2010 at 7:35 am

It's working great, it does not look good and Xcelsius is not made for touch based interaction so I cannot imagine any of my customers prefer this in stead of RoamBI for example..

Former Member

November 8, 2010 at 3:39 pm

you probably already checked out the BOE app for iphone/ipad, i think its cool, can get the xcelsius dashboards & stuff on it without much effort.

Former Member

November 8, 2010 at 3:43 pm

yes I did and I LOVE it! Great app, great performance and a good user interface. My favorite Mobile BI analytics app.

Former Member

January 12, 2011 at 8:01 am

Dear Mr van Ulden,

actually I would also like to know how do you get the Xcelsius dashboards to work within the Business Objects Explorer App? Or did I get you wrong and you meant the Explorer Data? Is there a way without the flash conversion?
Thank you very much for your support
Best regards
Michael Wecker

Former Member

January 12, 2011 at 8:04 am

you probably got something wrong. You can convert xcelsius dashboards to an ipad/iphone application. this has nothing to do with the bo explorer.

Kevin Joyner

January 7, 2011 at 12:36 pm

how exactly do you get the dashboards to work in the business objects explorer app? wouldnt they still be flash and need conversion?

Former Member

November 25, 2010 at 1:58 pm

has anyone tried drilling on Xcelsius to a webi report on iPad? I have my doubts this would be successful.

Kevin Joyner

January 13, 2011 at 6:35 am

I tried downloading the sample app on ipad and safari denyed the download saying it wasnt a valid file. I can download it on my PC ok so I assume there is some security involved blocking it. Any ideas?

Former Member

January 13, 2011 at 6:46 am

Hi you would need a developer license to use the apps on your ios device & that too this app needs to be signed by your key, so its not going to work this way unfortunately!

your device said its invalid because you have to use itunes to install the app on your ios, which again takes you back to the license thing!.

🙁

-Sudhir.

Former Member

March 15, 2011 at 7:48 am

Hi Miguel,

The link to download the app has expired (sample Xcelsius App to your own iPad/iPhone. http://tiny.cc/r4n5u).

Could you please re-post? Thanks...

Xcelsius Running on Apple Devices

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