Xcelsius Tips and Tricks

Chris GreerEV Technologies

Who We Are…

EV Technologies is an SAP BusinessObjects solutions firm based in the St. Louis Metro Area•SAP Software Solutions Partner•SAP Certified Solutions Provider

Agenda

• Creating BIWS with the Rich Client• Monitoring Connections using the built in

Load Status• Xcelsius in XLF documentation

• Publish a BIWS from a report block in the Rich Client– Filters– Prompts

• Testing a BIWS in the Rich Client• Create a connection to a BIWS in Xcelsius• Map the connection to run against the latest

Instance of a webi report.

BIWS in Rich Client

• Rich Client Demo– Creating a BIWS– Testing the BIWS

Rich Client Demo

• Create your Web Intelligence Report• Keep it simple Remember a BIWS is tied to a

block not the whole report

Getting Started

• The Block Name is Important

Setting the Block Name

• We select the Block and then Publish it• If you have not exported the rich client report

to the CMS you will get an Error

Always Export First

• Once we have exported the report we can try again

BIWS Wizard

• Set the filters• Notice the name matches our block name

Name the Service

• Document the BIWS name and filters in the report

Set Filters

• Recommendation: Create a folder for each Dashboard

• Note that BIWS co-exist with QaaWS services

BIWS Folders

• Name the BIWS and Finish

Publish the BIWS

• You can not Modify or test Rich Client BIWS through the QaaWS client tool

• The Rich Client provides an Interface for testing BIWS created with the rich Client

Testing a BIWS

• Checking the “Show BI Service” box

• WSDL URL contains the URL you need for your Xcelsius connection

• Identifier contains the CUID for the BIWS

Testing a BIWS

Test it

• Here we can populate values for the filters

• If you leave a filter blank it is not used

• Once you are ready, click Send

Invoke the Test

• Review the results

Test Results

• Xcelsius Demo – BIWS Connections

Xcelsius Demo

• Import the URL we got from the Rich Client

Connecting to the BIWS

• Change to the Get method instead of the Drill Method

Methods

• BIWS and tradition QaaWS have different options

• We set the value to 1 for TRUE

• Refer to the Web Intelligence manual for all the details

Understanding New Inputs

• Since we are running against latest instance we need to schedule the report in InfoView

Schedule to Cache

• Set the Filters Values

• Filters apply to the data in the report instance

• Prompts force a webi report refresh

Handling Input Parameters

• Now we can run it

Test BIWS in Xcelsius

• Change the value to validate it works

Drill Down Test

• Create a BIWS against a crosstab, which could previously only be done with Live Office

• Cache data and avoid making a database call• Instances and Filters help us work around 500

row limits• Can see 2-3 second response time running

against a 40+ MB Webi instance

BIWS Summary

• Set the Connection Load Status Properties– Loading Message– Idle Message– Insert In

• Monitor a running query

Connection Load Status

• Loading Message

• Idle Message• Insert Into

Load Status Bind Variables

• Created a scorecard to show where we mapped the Insert Into property

Create the Output Object

• Here we see the loading and Idle messages

Monitoring Running Queries

• Learn to leverage Xcelsius internal connection watching

• Debug when connections are triggered• Connection performance tuning• There are external tools like Fiddler that let

you watch externally (another presentation)

Load Status Summary

• Xcelsius Demo – Web Service URL

Xcelsius Demo

• Label in Webi with BIWS name– Include Prompts– Include Filters

• Connection name is the BIWS name• Give all Components Names• Color Code Cells– Put a legend on every sheet

• Comment the destinations of Connections and Selectors

Xcelsius Documentation

• Xcelsius Demo – Coding Standards

Xcelsius Demo

More Information

Contact: Chris GreerEmail: chris@evtechnologies.comOffice: 314.514.4082On the Web: http://savethecms.comBlog: http://evtechnologies.com/blogTwitter: @mrchrisgreer