Altek Solutions Business Intelligence Blog

After viewing multiple posts on BOB about the subject and having a couple of questions directed towards me about this, I decided it would be an excellent blog topic for everyone that has a need for this solution. Check out the steps below to implement the Xcelsius Publishing Plugin.

Getting Started

Before we get into the meat of this topic, I want to point out the things that will be needed to complete the plugin installation and are critical in making it a success.  Without these items, you will not be able to make it two steps into the process. The first two items of course are  BOBJ Edge/Enterprise 3.x and Xcelsius 2008 SP1 or above.  The second two items could be the ones that put a hitch in the implementation process.

• Batch Utility
  • The Batch Utility will be responsible for taking an Excel file from a publication and pushing it into a generic SWF file for distribution.
  • This Batch utility is known as Xcelsius 2008 Batch Utility SP1 and is not currently available on SAP’s site from what I know and have heard. To get this, contact your SAP BusinessObjects Partner/Account Manager.
• Publishing Plugin
  • The Publishing Plugin is hooked into a Publication and is used to give the Batch Utility an Excel file, the generic SWF, and the location for the new SWF to be stored.
  • This Publishing Plugin can be found at the SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center for download.

Once you have both of these items in hand you can move forward with getting the bursting capabilities up and running. The steps that will need to be done are as follows:

• Install Batch Utility
• Install Publishing Plugin
• Create WebIntelligence Document or Crystal Report
• Create Xcelsius Dashboard
• Create Publication
• Bursting Dashboards

Install Batch Utility

The process of installing the Batch Utility is pretty straight forward. Once you have the install file, go out to your BusinessObjects server and run it. The batch utility as a default will be installed to the following directory C:\Program Files\Business Objects\Xcelsius. If you have installed BusinessObjects somewhere other than the C:\ drive then it will be located on the drive where it was installed.

Batch Utility Install

After installing the utility and making sure that the batch.exe is out in the directory, you will need to make a change to the system variables in the system properties so your BusinessObjects Enterprise System will be able to find it. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Control Panel > System > Advanced > Environment Variables
2. Under System Variables find Path and click edit
3. At the end of the string of values, enter a semi-colon (i.e. ‘;’) and put in the directory where the batch utility is located.

Enter Batch Utility Directory in Path System Variable

After the batch utility directory is set, go to your Command Prompt and type in batch.exe. If you have done this right, you will get a usage comment like the picture below. Before we go on to the next step, restart your Server Intelligent Agent so BusinessObjects will see the batch Utility.

Batch Utility Test

* Note: If you do not get this usage comment, check your path system variable for any typos.

Install Publishing Plugin

Now that we got the batch utility installed and running, we can move onto the Publishing Plugin. This is a pretty easy install as well. When you download the plugin from SAP BusinessObjects you will get an xcelsius-publishing-plugin.jar file. This file will need to be copied into the following default directory out on your server: C:\Program Files\Business Objects\common\4.0\java\lib\publishingPlugins.

A second file will need to be put into the same directory. The file is named flash.jar and is available at the following location: C:\Program Files\Business Objects\common\4.0\java\lib. A simple copy and paste from there to the C:\Program Files\Business Objects\common\4.0\java\lib\publishingPlugins directory will be suffice. After moving these items over, restart the Adaptive Processing Server or the entire Server Intelligent Agent so BusinessObjects can see the changes that have been made.

Publishing Plugin

Create WebIntelligence Document or Crystal Report

In order to populate your Xcelsius Dashboard, you will need to have a WebI Doc or a Crystal Report that can be exported out to an XLS file by the publication we will create a couple steps down.

For my example, I am going to use our trusty eFashion universe and pull the following information into a WebI Document: Year, State, Month, Sales Revenue, and Quantity Sold. Create your document and save it out in InfoView for safe keeping. Also save the document to your computer as an XLS file. This will be used to create our Xcelsius Dashboard. Here is a snapshot of my WebI Doc.

Web Intelligence Document

Create Xcelsius Dashboard

Alright, now that we got our data, we can move forward and create our generic SWF file in Xcelsius. I went ahead and created a shell for my eFashion Sales Snapshot Dashboard so that I could then import my XLS from the WebI Document/Crystal Report to use it as a template. Here is a snapshot of my shell.

Xcelsius Shell

Once the shell is completed, import the XLS from our WebI Document/Crystal Report into Xcelsius so we can Map our components to the data.

Import Excel File

After the XLS has been imported, and your components have been mapped, preview your dashboard to make sure it shows your data.

Xcelsius Preview

Once you get your desired result, export your dashboard out as a SWF to a location on the server that the BusinessObjects Server can see. I just saved it to C:\ directly on the server.

SWF File

Create Publication

Batch Utility, Publishing Plugin, Webi/CR, Xcelsius Dashboard SWF…. CHECK!! Now lets move onto creating the publication. The only criteria that really needs to be addressed in the publication is making sure that the format is an XLS file of our WebI Document or Crystal Report.  Other than that, you can set up the publication to meet your specific needs. Change the recurrence, destinations, recipients,  events, etc. to be what ever your solution requires.

For my example, I am going to use Row Level Security with three different Enterprise users and have the SWF sent to their email addresses that are in their profiles. Starting out by naming our Publication and choosing our Source Document that we created earlier.

Select a Source Document

*Note: Make sure to check the box that says Refresh At Runtime

For my Recipients I am going to select three row level security users and my administrator. Choosing these recipients will give us 4 different SWF files. One with either Texas, California, or DC data, or a fourth one that is for the Administrator that contains all the data. I set up the row level security in Designer for eFashion.

Row Level Security

Enterprise Recipients

For my Format, as I said above, I have to use Microsoft Excel. This is so the plugin can push the data into the SWF through the Batch Utility.

Select XLS as Format

The destination that I am choosing is Email, although you could use any combination of the destinations available. I am selecting to deliver to each user individually as well as having it send to their default email that is set up in their Enterprise Account.

Email Distribution

Last thing that I will need to change for my example is the Report Bursting Method under Advanced. Since I am using Row Level Security, I need to change the method to One database fetch per recipient.

Report Bursting Method

Add Publication Extension

After your publication is set up and has been saved, we will need to add the publication extension to it in the Central Management Console (CMC). To do this, navigate out to the CMC and search through the objects to find the publication you just created.

Publication in CMC

Right Click on the publication and go to properties. Under properties there will be a publication extension section. Here is where we will enter in the information for the publication plugin. Here is the information you will need:

• Publication Extension Name
  • This can be anything you want. I named mine eFashion Sales Snapshot.
• Class Name
  • This will be from the documentation for the Publication Plugin.
  • com.businessobjects.xcelsius.publisher.XcelsiusPublishingPlugin
• Parameter
  • This will be the location of the SWF that we created as our Dashboard shell.
  • ex: C:\PublishingPlugin.swf

Publishin Extension

After you fill in the information, hit save and close and we are ready to kick off the publication for testing.

Demo

Now that we have everything set up, we can kick off our publication and check out the results. I am going to use test mode and have all 4 SWF files sent to my email address. To do this, right click on your publication and choose test mode. Once in the test mode screen, put in your email address to be the master for the test.

Publication Test Mode

Clicking test down in the bottom right will set off our publication and send 4 emails to my account.

Email of SWF

Wrap Up

And that pretty much does it for this blog. Just remember, if you don’t have the batch utility or the publishing plugin then you won’t be able to achieve this solution but overall it is a pretty straight forward and innovative process! Good luck with your implementation! Happy Bursting!

Administrator:

Texas:

California:

DC:

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3. Xcelsius 2008 Fix Pack Version 1.x Guide
4. Crystal Dashboard Design (Xcelsius 2008) Tips and Tricks ep2: Automatically Closing Your Calendar Control
5. Xcelsius … Crystal Dashboard Design … Xcelsius 2008 Fix Pack 3.2 Now Available!