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Getting to Know Xcelsius
by: Sean Beal, Sr. Consultant, CRCP
I’m into operational data.
I’m into SQL. I’m into web
application development and UI design.
I’m into mid 70’s Fender Starcasters, and would love to find another one
for under three thousand dollars.
What I’m not into is Excel.
You see, early on I used Excel to
manage large CSV extracts with a combination of VBA macros and formulas (as well
as a lot of manual work) in order to create reports.
This was difficult and time consuming; it was also difficult to present
and distribute the data that I had so painstakingly massaged.
When I discovered the advantages of using relational databases and the
SQL language to manipulate data, and the ease of distribution and presentation
with Crystal Reports, I stopped using
Excel…other tools were just way better at the job I needed to do.
However, I think I may need to dust
off some of those skills and revisit my old friend Excel.
Why the change of heart?
Crystal Xcelsius.
What is
it?
According
to Business Objects, Crystal Xcelsius is ‘an intuitive application that uses a
Windows interface to allow you to build interactive models of data and formulas
from Excel spreadsheets’. The key
phrase here that strikes me is ‘interactive models’.
The Xcelsius documentation describes a ‘model’ as a visual representation
of tabular data; models are created using various components available in the
Xcelsius environment. There are a host of
components available, including charts, gauges and progress bars.
Other components like sliders and list boxes can be leveraged to allow
you to interact with the data dynamically.
Hmmm… interactive…visual
representation…can you say ‘Dashboard’?
My First
Dashboard
When it
comes to new technologies and tools, I’ve found that I learn best when I have a
real world need that can be addressed.
Here’s how I’m going to learn to use Xcelsius:
I’m going to create a dashboard.
Currently, I’m using a few Crystal reports to view the time that I’ve logged
currently, the time I’ve logged this week so far, my utilization rate for the
quarter as well as the comparison of hours I’m supposed to be logging vs. hours
I’m actually logging, etc., etc.
Wouldn’t it be great if I could see all this information at a glance, and know
immediately the state of all personal performance indicators?
Why yes…yes it would. Here’s a
sketch of what I have in mind:
I want to
see hours logged as a gauge…0 to 50 sounds like a good range for now.
I’d also like to see my billable and non-billable hours as a percentage
of my total hours, so a pie chart seems appropriate.
Finally, some bar charts showing my assigned hours by client and my
actual hours by client would be helpful in keeping me on track.
I’m sure I’ll think of some things to add as I get into this and learn
more about the tool, but this will do for starters.
Step by
Step
The basic
workflow with Xcelsius consists of three steps:
import the data source,
build the model, and
publish the model.
In my case, I really need to add a precursor step: create the data
source. I’m going to start with a
blank Excel spreadsheet and hard code the values for now.
Since this is my first attempt at an Xcelsius document, I’m not sure
exactly how to organize the spreadsheet, so I’ll play it safe and create a tab
for each chart. Here is a breakdown
of each tab:
Hours Logged
This one
is simple for now. I’ll make an
entry that represents the total hours logged so far this week.
Of course, that in itself indicates that I’ll need some sort of date
dimension. I’ll add a ‘dashboard_date’
entry as well. After formatting the
cells (just in case), we have the following:
Billable vs.
Non Billable
It looks like only two cells are needed here, and I’ll go ahead and label them
as well. One entry will be for the
number of hours logged that are billable, one for the non billable hours.
I’ve already got my date dimension on the first tab, so I think this is
all I’ll need for now.
Assigned by
Client, Logged by Client
This tab is only slightly more complicated, and will really be the same in
format but contain different data. I
need a list of Clients to which I’m assigned and the respective hours that I
need to log, and a list of Clients for whom I’ve logged hours and what those
hours are:
OK!
I believe I have the data source defined well enough.
Now I need to import the data
into Xcelsius. To do this, I select
‘Import Data’ from the toolbar, and browse to the Excel file I just created.
According to the documentation, importing the Excel file is really the
process of Xcelsius taking a ‘snapshot’ of the file and using it as a kind of
map. There is no connection back to
the original file, and if any changes are made, the Xcelsius document will need
to be updated.
With the
initial snapshot of the spreadsheet done, it’s time to begin wiring up our
components. There are so many from which to choose, I couldn’t possibly make the
decision right now…tune in next month to see how to hook up and configure
components!
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