Xcelsius 2008 Dashboard Best Practices 1st Edition

I've spent a lot of time in 2008 and 2009 creating Xcelsius dashboards for various clients. A book that I have found very helpful is Loren Abdulezer's Xcelsius 2008 Dashboard Best Practices. According to the bio on the back of the book, Loren is editor-in-chief of Xcelsius Journal, the online magazine for Xcelsius users.Loren's book provides a comprehensive view on Xcelsius 2008 functionality including samples, which can be downloaded here from the Xcelsius Journal web site. The book contains 16 chapters organized into three sections: Xcelsius 2008 Fundamentals, Xcelsius 2008 Best Practices and Techniques, and Advanced Features. As an IT professional who didn't use Excel much before Xcelsius, I really appreciate how Loren brings his extensive knowledge of Excel to the material. This includes treatment of statistics, financial analysis and "less-than-optimal" (uh, dirty?) data.In the "Advanced Features" section, Chapter 15 deals with XML and Data Connectivity. I would have preferred a more robust treatment of Query as a Web Service (QaaWS) and Live Office. But "rather than attempt a cursory across-the-board discussion, this chapter outlines from a hands-on perspective pragmatic issues and techniques for accessing XML data, particularly Excel XML maps". Of course, treatment of QaaWS and Live Office would have required a big investment in sample universes, reports, BIAR files, etc.The last chapter, Chapter 16, is about "Creating Custom Components for Fun and Profit" using the Xcelsius Component SDK. Many Business Objects professionals don't code applications, but the chapter helps Xcelsius developers stick their toe into the water with Adobe Flex Builder and ActionScript/Flash/SWF development.The bottom line? If you're an Xcelsius 2008 user, this book belongs on your shelf.

I've been working with Xcelsius since 3 years now and I have not seen a book on Xcelsius which is as detailed as this one. Although I learned a lot from Mike Alexander's Dummies book Crystal Xcelsius For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)), this one is different. Learning Xcelsius is different from effectively using Xcelsius. This book will help you understand and implement Xcelsius for your Dashboard Solutions. The humongous list of best practices that Loren put together in this book is very impressive. I thought it would be a skinny book with few best practices, however when I received the shipment, I was amazed to see that it was a pretty fat book (400+ pages). I was so Curious to know how he came up with so many best practices. When started reading about it, I was amazed to know that there were actually a lot of best practices that I didn't knew. Almost 70% of them were new to me.From Fundamentals to Advanced features, Loren touched every aspect of Xcelsius Dashboard Design. Although there was a Chapter (Chapter 15) dedicated to Data Connectivity to create Live Dashboards, I would have been thoroughly satisfied if it had more information on other types of data connections available in Xcelsius 2008. Nevertheless, this book is a great compilation of Xcelsius Best Practices.A must have for any Xcelsius Developer (Novice or Pro).Regards,Kalyan Verma[...]

I've used Xcelsius "lightly" for several years, particularly to build interactive "ValueDialog models" for our business. Several new projects created a need to enhance and extend the use of Xcelsius for interactive, real time analysis. This book lives up to the title claim of Best Practices in many ways. It certainly goes well beyond the User Guide in explaining HOW to apply the components and capabilities. I have not yet tried the download examples, but I anticipate they will take my overall rating to 5.

The book may be useful to get an idea of what is Xcelcius and how to use it. For me, the most essential components of live connection to external data sources and applications are covered in one chapter but not in details. To get a basic understanding of Xcelsius, it is a good book. If you want to create custom applications with Xcelsius and enterprise data, this book may not be enough.

I feel like there should be a highway patrolman standing by this train wreck of a book saying "Nothing good to see here folks, move along..."In the world of software reference books it is truly the 80/20 rule. 80% of the book should have never been printed and 20% are ok, and only 1% are great. I have been in the software world since 1983 and have read my fair share of bad reference manuals. I can honestly say this one is the worst one I have ever tried to use. I say "tried to use", because you never really read them from cover to cover, but you use them in bits and pieces to help you learn a given software. I made many valiant attempts with this book to glean some morsel of referential value, but none was to be found.The author should have been on strong doses of Ritalin to keep the meaningless topic wondering and useless tangents in check. I was truly baffled how the author through the whole book used small, hard to read screen shots or snippets of excel functions that had no clear reason or value what so ever. I found myself asking "what is the author trying to show me with this"?The makings of a great reference books: (1) Well organized (2) Topics that are meaningful to real world usage (3) Clear and useful examples that provide insight as to how the software works and can be used (4) Useful Tips and Tricks. If you are looking to find these things in this book I would say: "Nothing good to see here folks, move along..."

Though the book is good in its content, its very difficult to follow the examples with the sample data the author provided. The steps just don't match.