Xcelius 2008 Service Pack 2 is released and offers some new features for native SAP integration and connectivity.

What's new in SP2?

• Optimizied SAP installation and integration functionality (SAP Netweaver required!)
• New native SAP Netweaver data connector
• SAP menu commands

There is also a long list of fixed issues, which will be described here in short
(For the complete Overview of the fixed Issues, take a look on Whats's fixed)

• Closing Xcelsius as Guest or Limited User (resolved)
• Blank Label component (resolved)
• Logging in with Windows AD SSO accounts (resolved)
• Keycode becomes invalid (resolved)
• Xcelsius install breaks CR XIR2(resolved)
• The batch utility would run only if Xcelsius Designer was installed on the
  machine. (resolved)
• Gauge elasticity (resolved)
• Dynamic visibility - removing
  linked status (resolved)
• Transparency in external
  slideshows (resolved)
• Label-based menus and tab set
  components (resolved)
• Visualization connections in
  Sharepoint (resolved)
• Write-only properties (resolved)
• Ignore blank cells in List Builder (resolved)
• SAP Authenticationmenu option (resolved)
• Spinner component and 1000 separator (resolved)
• BusinessObjects Enterprise login prompt (resolved)
• Networkdays function (resolved)
• Chart component Y-Axis Auto Scale (resolved)
• Slideshow component memory (new behaviour)
• Log file not created (resolved)
• UAC and Exporting to AIR (new behaviour)
• Xcelsius tips in PowerPoint notes (resolved in Englisch only)
• Mouse pointer (resolved)
• Unable to update Live Office connection in BOE XI3 after Upgrading from XI R2 (resolved)
• Spinner component limits (resolved)
• Query refresh When two queries were set to refresh every two minutes (resolved)
• LCDS connector doesn't load data
  in slideshow (new behaviour)
• Column chart alerts (resolved)
• Single value component alert settings (resolved)
• Spreadsheet table component row selectability option (resolved)
• Gauge color (resolved)
• Adobe Player Stream error 2032 (resolved)

The list of fixed issues is great, althoug it is scary to see how many bugs there were. Some of the listed issues ate a lot of my time and annoyed me.

More about the new SAP releated features describe on top will be available soon, as far as i evaluated the Service Pack.

Link: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/14966

A new Service Pack of Xcelsius 2008 is scheduled to be released at end-of Q3 / early Q4 2009. This release will include integration of Xcelsius 2008 with NetWeaver 7.0 meant to leverage BW data through Xcelsius BI Dashboards.

What functions will the integration provide?

• A new Xcelsius direct connector to BEx queries & views
• Support SAP transport mechanism for lifecycle
• Support for text translation
• Xcelsius Dashboards accessed via NW Portal BEx iView using standard SAP credentials
• The solution does not require Business Objects Enterprise

When should this solution be considered?

When BI data resides in SAP NetWeaver Business Wharehouse.

When the business requirements are about highly visual interface with intuitive guided navigation for casual BI users: executives, managers and operational staff. Xcelsius dashboards are not desgined for Olap style analysis. Currently it does not provide visualization for hierarchical data.

If business requirements includes Web Intelligence ad hoc reporting, Infoview or Dashboard Builder BI portal delivery. Recommendation is to use Xcelsius hosted by Business Objects Enterprise enabling dashboard delivery via Infoview, Dashboard Builder. In a Business Objects Enterprise deployment, recommended Xcelsius data connector for BW remains Live Office.

What software will be required?

Dashboard authors:

• BI 7.X AddOn SP901 or higher
• Xcelsius Designer 2008 SP2 (release scheduled for end-of July 24th 2009) or higher
• SAP GUI 7.10

Dashboard consumers:

• Flash Player 9 or Flash Player 10

Server side NetWeaver Platform:

• SAP EHP1 for SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SP5 ABAP and Java (scheduled for October 2009)

I can't await this release and hope that this new (native) connector will be really fast!

Since version 2008 of Crystal Reports it is easy to integrate Xcelsius SWF into pixel perfect reports. But what about Web Intelligence reports?

Simon Choy won a Report Design and Dashboard content contest at Business Objects with a "cool" solution that details how to embed an Xcelsius object to read live tabular data from a Web Intelligence report and embed a Xcelsius component into Web Intelligence without leaving the report.

Find out the Whitepaper and examples for Embedding Xcelsius Objects into Web Intelligence Documents in the Diamond Technical Community.

See below for a preview of embedded Xcelsis in Web Intelligence: