Dashboard Migrator to Design Studio – Recent Webcast

Hi Tammy,

Thanks for the informative post.  It's certainly an interesting concept, which reminds me of Flash Islands for embedding Xcelsius objects into Web Dynpro and Visual Composer applications in the past.

I'm going to play devil's advocate with the following questions and comments related to the various use cases:

Use Case 1:  Use of analytic components from pre-existing Xcelsius dashboards to eliminate the need to build them in Design Studio

This seems to offer an alternative to developing components with the Design Studio SDK.  While this approach may require less effort in the short-term compared to developing Design Studio SDK components, ultimately I think it generates more rework because these embedded Xcelsius components will eventually need to be replaced anyway with either standard or custom SDK components.  Embedding Xcelsius components in Design Studio simply perpetuates the reliance on Xcelsius as a legacy product rather facilitating a true migration away from Xcelsius to Design Studio;

Use Case 2:  The ability to allow 'what-if' analysis currently not available in Design Studio

One of Xcelsius' advantages has been the sophisticated, yet easy to implement 'what-if' analysis capability based on an Excel calculation engine.  Considering SAP's communications so far, it seems unlikely that a comparable calculation engine will be introduced in Design Studio.   Such what-if analysis would need to be developed via scripting in Design Studio.  Even if the scripting capabilities are enhanced in Design Studio, replicating the more sophisticated what-if scenarios are likely to be much more complex and not always possible in Design Studio.  So again, as in Use Case 1, I think there is the risk that reliance on Xcelsius is actually perpetuated instead of moving away from it;

Use Case 3:  Using an Xcelsius analytic as a filter against Design Studio

Admittedly, Design Studio does have the capability to handle larger data sets compared to Xcelsius.  If the existing filter components in Design Studio are not sufficient, then I would think a more effective approach would be to develop them with the Design Studio SDK, or wait for new enhanced standard components to be developed, rather than risking the inevitable rework that will be necessary when the time comes for a complete transition to Design Studio;

Use Case 4:  Ability to utilize legacy data source connections from Xcelsius

As in the given example, Qwaas has been a popular and effective data connectivity method applied in Xcelsius.  Many of the important connectivity methods are already covered by Design Studio.  However, I think if SAP were to give greater priority to new connectivity methods, such as BI Services, this would address the requirements of Qwaas users and also facilitate a more direct transition to Design Studio;

Use Case 5:  Ability to continue use of 3rd-party or in-house custom Xcelsius components

While it may require more effort to begin with, I would say that in the long-term it would make more sense for developers to simply port these custom components to the Design Studio SDK, again to facilitate a more direct transition to Design Studio rather than simply deferring the issue and risking inevitable rework in future.  I think the Design Studio SDK has great potential for innovation.  If SAP is able to accelerate ironing out some of the kinks in this SDK and enhance it's features, this would certainly aid in a quicker transition from Xcelsius to Design Studio.

Conclusion

The above are my own opinions for the purposes of feedback and discussion.  In my view, creating hybrid Design Studio applications with embedded Xcelsius dashboards merely delays the transition and actually creates a risk of additional work down the track.

Furthermore, such hybrid applications may detract from the user experience because the mixed styling and interactivity may result in an inconsistent look and feel.

Also, given SAP's promotion of the APOS Dashboard Migrator, I'd be interested to know if SAP still intends to provide their own conversion utility to migrate Xcelsius dashboards to Design Studio?  Considering the complexity involved in the Xcelsius Excel engine and the likely heavy reliance of most dashboards on this, it seems that it would not be feasible (or at the very least extremely difficult) to develop a meaningful direct conversion utility, and that ultimately legacy Xcelsius dashboards will simply need to be manually recreated in Design Studio.

I'll leave it at that as food for thought.

Regards,

Mustafa.