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Explaining Data Connections of Xcelsius 2008 – Part 1: XML Data

This is the first blog of the blog series about all data connection types of Xcelsius 2008, about what you can do with XML Data connection, when and how to use it.  Most content is from {code:html}my latest book about Xcelsius{code} co-written with Evan Delodder published by SAP Press which is also available on {code:html}Amazon{code}.The user’s default web browser may cachethe URL defined in the XML Data connectivity. That’s, if you request data withthe same URL (its parameter included) twice within a short period (before theweb browser considers the cached URL as expired), the web browser will not sendthe request to the web application server. Instead, it returns the cached pagecontent. To avoid this, you can simply disable your web browser from caching. Abetter way is to append a redundant parameter with Rand() as its value. As anexample, you can update the URL for the XML Data connectivity by concatenating “+&redundant_param=RAND()+” to the realURL in the cell in the embedded spreadsheet.  h3. Property panel  The Property panel of an XML Dataconnection can be launched from Data Manager. h4. Definition tab  You can define the location and format ofthe XML Data connectivity in the Definition tab, as displayed in Figure 2:Definition tab

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      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Rich Heilman also did an excellent video blog on how to expose ABAP data via XML to an Xcelsius dashboard. You can see it here:
      http://enterprisegeeks.com/blog/2009/02/18/abap-freak-show-february-18-2009/

      So in your diagram above, there does not have to be a Java servlet between an ABAP-based system and Xcelsius.

      Cheers,
      David.

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      Former Member
      Blog Post Author
      Thanks David for the reply and the info:)

      When I was still in Business Objects I did an initiative to connect to R/3 and BW directly from Xcelsius, with the help of QUERY_VIEW_DATA and XML/A and also exposing bapi functions as web services.

      This blog shows an example usage of XML Data. I wish xcelsius designer can make more use of XML Data.

      Thanks,
      Ray

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      very detail and helpful!thanks a million!
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Do you know why load messages are persisting for at least 5 seconds after my data has been loaded and displayed?
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author
      I guess you are using a component with Dynamic Visibility to show loading status. If that component is still displayed after data has been loaded - could you check again how you set dynamic visibility of that component?

      Thanks,
      Ray

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      Former Member
      Ray,

      To see what was happening I display the load message and the idle message in a label.  Immediately after I take the action that launches the query, the load message appears.  However, the idle message isn't displayed until 5-10 seconds after I see the returned data displayed.