EMBEDDING XCELSIUS 2008 VISUALIZATIONS IN CRYSTAL REPORTS 2008

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1 WHITE PAPER EMBEDDING XCELSIUS 2008 VISUALIZATIONS IN CRYSTAL REPORTS 2008 CONTENTS 1 Part 1: Background 2 What s New in Crystal Reports 2008? 2 What s New in Xcelsius 2008? 3 How Do Crystal Reports and Xcelsius 2008 Work Together? 3 What Is Xcelsius? 4 How Does Xcelsius Work? 5 Part 2: Building and Embedding an Xcelsius Model in a Crystal Report 5 Overall Workflow 5 Set Up Your Crystal Reports Data for Xcelsius 6 Build Your Model in Xcelsius 7 Configure Your Xcelsius Model to Receive Real-Time Crystal Reports Data 8 Embed Your Xcelsius Model Inside Crystal Reports 9 Part 3: Technical and Licensing Details 9 Technical Details 9 Licensing Details 10 More Information 11 About Business Objects PART 1: BACKGROUND This white paper from Business Objects, an SAP company, is designed to help Crystal Reports 2008 users add interactive visualizations to their reports. Report authors will learn how to create Xcelsius visualizations and embed them in Crystal Reports to deliver highly interactive reports to their end users. This white paper walks you through: Creating a simple Xcelsius visual model Embedding the visual model inside Crystal Reports and linking it to the report data Prerequisites: Crystal Reports 2008 Either BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise 2008 or Xcelsius Engage 2008 Optional : Xcelsius Engage Server 2008 Authors: Takin Babaei Contributors: George Hriscu, Blair Wheadon Audience: IT Professionals

2 WHAT S NEW IN CRYSTAL REPORTS 2008? Crystal Reports 2008 makes reports more interactive while reducing report proliferation and maintenance. With Crystal Reports 2008, you can Explore data interactively Reduce the number of reports you have to create Embed what-if scenario models in reports without coding Take action with operational reporting Easily create powerful cross-tabs Save design time with new designer features For more information, please visit WHAT S NEW IN XCELSIUS 2008? Xcelsius 2008 delivers next-generation data visualization tools that let users of different skill levels in small, mid-size, and enterprise companies transform complex business data into actionable visual information. Xcelsius 2008 gives you the power of what-if analysis to shed light on any possible business decisions. Xcelsius 2008 makes it even easier for you to create data presentations and dashboards from personal and corporate data sources by providing the following key benefits: Improved work flows New components and features New data connectivity and integration options Flexible design and customizations capabilities For more information, please visit

3 HOW DO CRYSTAL REPORTS AND XCELSIUS 2008 WORK TOGETHER? Crystal Reports supports embedding Flash content into a report. Xcelsius Enterprise 2008 or Xcelsius Engage 2008 enables exporting Flash. By embedding this Flash file exported from Xcelsius into a Crystal report, you can combine the powerful data access of Crystal Reports with the rich visualization capabilities of Xcelsius. View Demo: What-if Analysis WHAT IS XCELSIUS? Xcelsius is point-and-click data visualization software for creating interactive charts, graphs, and what-if scenario models, and delivering them as part of Crystal Reports, Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF, and the Web. Figure 1: Xcelsius 2008 New User Interface

4 HOW DOES XCELSIUS WORK? Xcelsius uses a unique combination of Microsoft Excel, as a data modeling tool, and Adobe Flash Player, as the rendering engine, to compile dynamic visualizations. Within Xcelsius, Excel is used solely as a data design tool to help integrate and manipulate data into a format that is easy to bind to and that is used for common charting and data visualization components. At design time, the Excel spreadsheet embedded in the Xcelsius application is used to model and format static or live data from external data sources while the property sheets are used to bind Excel-modeled data to Xcelsius prebuilt components via the Flash engine. Once a design is ready to be deployed or previewed, Xcelsius then does its magic and compiles the data model and visualization elements into Flash byte code in the form of a Shockwave flash (SWF or.swf) file. This SWF file now contains a virtual representation of the data and its relationships as defined in the Excel model, as well as all the graphic assets and animations bound to this data. The SWF file also contains information for any external data connections that were specified at design time. These data connections can be used to replace the existing data you designed within Excel with different sets of data at run time, thus allowing multiple queries into larger data stores. Once the Flash movie is running, you are no longer connected to the Excel file in any way; all data has been virtualized into the Flash byte code or is being fed by dynamic XML feeds. So you end up with an easy-to-use (Excel) and simple (row/ column) metaphor for modeling and manipulating your data, without any of Excel s limitations. Once you begin using this paradigm, you realize how powerful it is data can be massaged much more quickly with Excel than it can be programmatically.

5 PART 2: BUILDING AND EMBEDDING AN XCELSIUS MODEL IN A CRYSTAL REPORT OVERALL WORKFLOW 1. Start with a Crystal report and export it to Excel to use for creating the Xcelsius model. 2. Using Xcelsius, build the what-if model. 3. Configure the Xcelsius model to receive live data from Crystal Reports. 4. Embed the model in Crystal Reports. SET UP YOUR CRYSTAL REPORTS DATA FOR XCELSIUS Download Sample Files Use the Export to Excel (Data Only) feature of Crystal Reports to create an Excel spreadsheet. For this example, we have exported the data in db2.mdb to Book1.xls (download here) and added some Excel logic. Let s take a look at the spreadsheet (Figure 2): Figure 2: Market Share Spreadsheet Sample The spreadsheet holds the market share data for a generic company and its three competitors. Using a simple Excel formula, we can perform a quick what-if analysis exercise and predict how increasing or decreasing the company s expected sales growth rate will affect the company s market share. This can be done by adjusting the value in the sales growth column. Later, we ll see how Xcelsius makes this what-if analysis faster and easier.

6 BUILD YOUR MODEL IN XCELSIUS 1. To start your Xcelsius application and bring book1.xls inside your Xcelsius application, in the toolbar, click the Excel icon. 2. In the Component window, expand the Charts folder. Drag and drop a pie chart onto the canvas. 3. Expand the Single Value folder and drag and drop a horizontal slider onto the canvas. 4. Double-click the pie chart and open up its properties. 5. Change the chart title to Market Share. 6. Under the Data section, next to the Values input box, link the X values of the chart to the data in the spreadsheet by clicking the up-arrow icon. 7. Highlight C6:C9 and click OK. 8. Under the same section, next to the Labels input, click the up-arrow icon. In the spreadsheet, select A6:A9. Now, your chart should look like this (Figure 3): Figure 3: Market Share Pie Chart Sample (Steps 8 to 12) 9. Double-click the slider, then open its properties. 10. In the Title section, click the up-arrow icon. In the spreadsheet, select D In the Data section, click the up-arrow icon. In the spreadsheet, select D Click the Behavior tab and change the increment size to 1.

7 Now, your model should look like this (Figure 4): Figure 4: Market Share Pie Chart Sample 13. Click the Preview button. Move the slider to perform your what-if analysis. 14. To fit the size of the canvas to your visual model, click the resize icon in the toolbar. CONFIGURE YOUR XCELSIUS MODEL TO RECEIVE REAL-TIME CRYSTAL REPORTS DATA Xcelsius 2008 comes with a prebuilt Crystal Reports data connector. This data connector lets you pass your report data to Xcelsius visual models with point-andclick ease. It embeds metadata in the generated SWF file that Crystal Reports tool uses to make it easier for the report designer to bind Crystal Reports data with the Xcelsius model. To enable this feature, follow the steps below in Xcelsius: 1. Select Data -> Connections. 2. From the Add dropdown menu, select Crystal Report Data Consumer. 3. Click the up-arrow icon next to the Row Header input box and highlight A6:A9. 4. Click the up-arrow icon next to the Data input box and highlight C6:C9. You can ignore the warning message. 5. Click Close and select File -> Export to SWF and save it as Model.swf. You ve now exported the SWF. It s time to import it into Crystal Reports.

8 EMBED YOUR XCELSIUS MODEL INSIDE CRYSTAL REPORTS 1. Start Crystal Reports 2008 and open Report1.rpt 2. From the menu, select Insert -> Flash. Browse and select Model.swf, and drop this onto the Report Header section of the report. You can also insert the flash object with the toolbar button Insert Flash Object. 3. Click the flash object on the report to highlight it and then either select from the menu Format -> Flash Data Expert or right-click the Flash Object and select Flash Data Expert. 4. On the Xcelsius data tab, drag and drop Table1.Company Name into the first cross-tab and drop Table1.Market Share into the second cross-tab. 5. Click close. In the design view, double-click the Xcelsius model to interact with it. Figure 5: Crystal Reports Flash Data Binding Expert

9 PART 3: TECHNICAL AND LICENSING DETAILS TECHNICAL DETAILS Viewing Flash objects embedded in a Crystal Report is supported in the: Crystal Reports 2008 Preview tab Crystal Reports 2008.NET Webform viewer Crystal Reports 2008 Java DHTML viewer (used in BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.0 and other products) Exporting and printing of Flash objects with connections to Crystal Reports data is not supported. Embedded Flash objects that do not have connections to Crystal Reports data can be exported to PDF only. Data is passed to the Flash object using Crystal Reports string data types. The maximum length of a Crystal Reports string data type is 64K. For this reason, we recommend summarizing the data within Crystal Reports, then passing the summarized data to the Xcelsius model. LICENSING DETAILS Using Crystal Reports to access data and pass it to the Xcelsius does not invoke the Xcelsius viewer license as long as the data is not coming from BusinessObjects Enterprise or Edge Series. If the Xcelsius model accesses data outside of the Crystal report (for example, through Flynet Web services), then the Xcelsius viewer license applies even if the Xcelsius model is embedded in the Crystal report.

10 MORE INFORMATION Xcelsius 2008 Products: Crystal Reports 2008: Crystal Reports 2008 Visual Advantage: Technical Support: Diamond Community: 10

11 ABOUT BUSINESS OBJECTS As an independent business unit within SAP, Business Objects transforms the way the world works by connecting people, information, and businesses. Together with one of the industry s strongest and most diverse partner networks, the company delivers business performance optimization to customers worldwide across all major industries, including financial services, retail, consumer-packaged goods, healthcare, and public sector. With open, heterogeneous applications in the areas of governance, risk, and compliance; enterprise performance management; and business intelligence; and through global consulting and education services, Business Objects enables organizations of all sizes around the globe to close the loop between business strategy and execution. 11

12 businessobjects.com 2008 Business Objects. All rights reserved. Business Objects owns the following U.S. patents, which may cover products that are offered and licensed by Business Objects: 5,555,403; 5,857,205; 6,289,352; 6,247,008; 6,490,593; 6,578,027; 6,831,668; 6,768,986; 6,772,409; 6,882,998; 7,139,766; 7,299,419; 7,194,465; 7,222,130; 7,181,440 and 7,181,435. Business Objects and the Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Business Objects Crystal Vision, Business Process On Demand, BusinessQuery, Crystal Analysis, Crystal Applications, Crystal Decisions, Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Insider, Crystal Reports, Desktop Intelligence, Inxight, the Inxight Logo, LinguistX, Star Tree, Table Lens, ThingFinder, Timewall, Let there be light, Metify, NSite, Rapid Marts, RapidMarts, the Spectrum Design, Web Intelligence, Workmail and Xcelsius are trademarks or registered trademarks in the United States and/or other countries of Business Objects and/or affiliated companies. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. April 2008 WP3136-A