Xcelsius 2008 Dashboard Best Practices

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 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.

This book is rated A+ by the Xcelsius Guru Network! Business Objects should consider sending it with each Xcelsius license they sell. With such a limited amount of material available surrounding Xcelsius and the 'Best Practices' required to efficiently use the tool, Loren does a great job to serve every level of developer:1) Beginners - Finally get to understand how to use the cool correctly from the start!2) Advanced users - Now have the ability to gain step by step instruction on how to clean up their existing models to enhance performance and leverage the softwware for more advanced applications!3) Gurus - Get to brush on a few tips, learn from a fellow Guru and finally have a daily reference for Xcelsius!We think Loren did a great job and this book is currently rated #1 in our Xcelsius Guru Network bookshelf. It's simple a must have for the Xcelsius developer.The Xcelsius Gurus[...][...]

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 bought this book for a work project but it did not include the sample files and the website associated with those files had expired. It took me several hours to locate the new website online but I was still not able to access the files because of some problem at the server end. I contacted the author but he did not reply for several weeks and the work deadline expired. I was very annoyed at the time because the deadline was important but Mr. Abdulezer did apologize and remedied the server issue that prevented me from downloading the file. If you buy the book and need the files please register at: [...] and don't hesitate to contact the author if you have a problem. He seems like a very personable guy!

Good book, well laid out and presented. This is a solid title that will definitely be of use to you - whether you are new to the app or comfortable with creating Xcelsius output. Nice addition to you technical library - I recommend it.

Abdulezer's book is an excellent tutorial on Xcelsius 2008. I've now worked through the first 8 chapters and have learned much about how to use the application effectively. Be sure to download the useful example files .

This book is very well written and the examples are easy to follow and provide excellent learning reinforcement. I started out knowing nothing about Xcelsius and now know quite a bit.

This is a nice book if you need something to start from. Definitely better than reading the Xcelsius manual!Worth buying it!

I purchased this book in 2010, along with a couple of other useful reference guides, when I was leading a team of reporting analysts using Crystal Reports to extract and manipulate large quantities of data. I found the book useful in terms of planning the delivery of data in a very visual, and user friendly, dashboard. I was looking to produce analysis to help drive business improvement and decision making, not just a series of data sheets. This book, whilst not the most engaging narrative, did prove useful.