by Molly Folan

I recently moderated a live online Q&A with three of the world’s foremost Xcelsius authorities – Comerit's Dr. Bjarne Berg, Decision First's Chris Hickman, and SAP's Emily Mui – on how to plan and execute a dashboard project. On January 24 here in Insider Learning Network’s BI-BW Forum, this expert panel took member questions in a lively Q&A on dashboard metrics, managing high data loads, charting in dashboards, and other topics.

 To review the entire discussion, you can view the posts in the Forum here or read the following edited transcript.

Molly Folan: Welcome to today’s Forum!

Thanks for joining us – and thank you to all who have posted a question already! We’re looking forward to some great discussion today. And thanks to all the members of our panel – Dr. Bjarne Berg of Comerit, Chris Hickman of Decision First Technologies, and Emily Mui of SAP -- for joining us today and taking these questions.

This is the online version of a live panel that we held at the recent Xcelsius Dashboard Bootcamp seminars, and we’re excited to bring these experts to you in a virtual Q&A.

creekp: Can you confirm the process for publishing dashboards to users via the BI launch pad, where the dashboard is fed from BW data with a BICS data connection.

The process does not seem as simple as publishing, say, a Crystal report with a BW BICS data connector. 

Would be keen to understand if there any user or technical issues that I should be aware of.

Thanks,

Phil  

Bjarne Berg: Hi Phil,

Not many great options here. At one client we created a web page (standard html) with a couple of buttons that provided links to the dashboards. The web page was added to the public folders so that the dashboards could be launched from BI- 4.0 and seen. But this still does not allow you to add them to BI workspaces and also does not help much with the search feature in BI 4.0.

However, I know that SAP plans to address the Xcelsius in the next release of BI....

Emily Mui: In the current release, Dashboards using the BICS data connection is published directly into the SAP Portal and not into BI launch pad. Direct publishing into BI launch pad is planned for the next release.

dpatrias: I am actually not familiar with Xcelsius, but recently engaged in a project using Fusion.  Can you provide any insight on differences or benefits of Xcelsius?

Emily Mui: Can you elaborate further on how or what you are doing with Fusion?

dpatrias: We are publishing dashboard reporting using Fusion primarily because of the variety of chart options and interactive functionality in contrast to MS Office.  Can you provide any User Manual/Training documentation to review the how to and functionality of Xcelsius?

Chris Hickman: Hi dpatrias! Thank you for your question!

I'm sorry to say that I'm not familiar with the functionality of Fusion but there are (free) resources on the web that I typically recommend to learn more about Xcelsius (Dashboards).  

Check out the SAP Product Guides site.  Change the top filter on the right side to Xcelsius and look for the Xcelsius Users Guide.  The latest SP5 for 3.1 is best.  If you are interested in Dashboards for the BI4 system, change the selection to Dashboards and Presentation Design and look for the User's Guide for BI4.  

Also, there are a few really good elearning references.  Have a look at this url: www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/bi-suite-tutoria... and click on SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards.

You can always find books out there to purchase on the topics, but the free resources are always a great place to start!

I hope this gives you some good ideas!

Chris
@chickman72

dpatrias: Excellent!  Thank you for all of the reference recommendations. 

sellis: For this forum, I am interested in the process of setting up a dashboard. How do you recommend selecting the critical few metrics to monitor?  How can the dashboard provide meaningful insights on your business, be drillable and be simple to administer and update? 

Although we have SAP in our company, it has not yet been deployed in our business unit, but I would love your insights about the broader questions outlining an approach to setting up a dashboard.

Thank you for the help.

Steve

Chris Hickman: Hi Sellis! Thank you for your questions.  Let's take them one at a time.

To select the critical few metrics, start by asking the business users what is the purpose of the dashboard.  What decisions are they trying to make using the dashboard?  For instance, if your dashboard is destined to answer questions around manufacturing operations, maybe your business users will need to know things like total output per hour, the amount of waste generated per material by standard business processes and areas that are most responsible for inefficiencies in the operational system.  

I normally select up to six key metrics to start and then have a discussion around the type of visualization that would make the most sense.  

With you as the dashboarding expert, you can provide insight on the available visualizations from Dashboards and the alternatives available.  Your users can usually derive value from the options that you give them and you can see the "lights" go on.

Your business users can also tell you if it makes sense to provide drill down functionality. Typically, natural hierarchies will emerge.

Ease of administration and updating is up to you as a designer.  Make sure you keep your components clear and simple.  Make sure that the interactions between the components and the directly bound queries or cells within the spreadsheet are clearly organized and delineated.  Try color coding the cells within your spreadsheet to tell other users that data belongs in this cell and they should not be used for other means.  This type of "self documentation" makes it easier to hand dashboards off to others for simple updating and maintenance.

For the overall approach, I would simply gather the purpose of the dashboard(s). Understand the business questions that the dashboard is going to answer.  Keep the number of metrics small.  Use an agile iterative approach to provide quick value and then pave the way for enhancements in later phases.  Make sure you design the dashboards very simply and eliminate as much unnecessary components (images, lines, colors) as possible.  Most importantly, keep up your training on the latest advancements in the Dashboards applications and find resources that give different approaches on designing dashboards (perceptualedge.com, thedavisgang.com, everythingxcelsius.com) to understand how others approach similar questions in design and functionality.

Again, thank you for your questions!  Contact me if you need more info.

Chris
@chickman72 

Scott Wallask: Hi Emily -- I was talking to a consultant a few weeks back about data volume overload in dashboards. What are you feelings on having too much data, and how do you avert that?

Thanks...Scott

Emily Mui: Hi Scott,

Usually, we have encountered customers that want to transform reports into dashboards as their foray into the world of dashboards. As such, they are looking at passing thousands and even tens of thousands of rows. We recommend our customers look at the differences between what a dashboard accomplishes vs what a report does. Dashboards provide high-level summary information and the metrics are aggregated at the database/data warehouse level before being visualized in the dashboards.

Perhaps Chris Hickman might provide want to add his perspective.

Emily-

Christopher Hickman: I completely agree with Emily on this!  Dashboards are meant to provide a snapshot of the data using a smaller dataset.  Reports are meant to provide a more detailed view with higher amounts of data.

If the requirements of a dashboard call for higher amounts of data than can be efficiently handled by the dashboard, you should investigate using third party tools that efficiently handle big data.  One tool that I have worked with in the past is Antivia XWIS (antivia.com).  You are able to connect directly to a Webi report as a data provider and import the data directly into the dashboard without the need to bind to a cell in Excel.

Chris

Dr. Berg: Hi Scott,

I recommend that my developers do not exceed 500 rows in the result set. However, that is not a 'hard rule'. There are times when the record length (number of fields in each row) and the data type (numbers vs. text) makes a difference as well. I.e. 800 rows with two columns of numbers that are each are 4 digits long, performs very differently that a result set that is 500 rows with 15 columns of text that each have 80 characters.

So the consulting answer applied: "it depends". But as a rule-of-thumb we don't like seeing data sets over 500 rows, and if it exceeds 1,000 rows, we normally don't allow that.

Berg

RamTadepalli: Hello Gurus,

Good Afternoon. Couple of questions.

1. When building dashboards, are there any recommended chart types to be used for different reporting areas (Finance, Sales, Manufacturing, Retail etc.). If not, is it always the business that decides what kind of charts to use in a dashboard? It's confusing to decide the exact chart to use for a specific business area or should we even use a chart or we are fine with using a table?

2. If I want to display statistical information (Quartile, Perntile, Median etc.) in a dashboard, what chart type is most recommended?

I want to know your opinions based on your experience.

Best Regards

Ram

Christopher Hickman: Hi Ram, This is a great question!

I will start by giving the typical grad school answer and say "it depends".

When you are building your dashboards, the metrics that have been determined as most important can be presented back to the business users with a question: “Here are the options that we have for representing the data.  How can you derive the most data in the least amount of time?"  For a Finance dashboard, it would not make sense to give the entire balance sheet and income statement, but providing a small spreadsheet component giving the total assets, liabilities and net income would be ideal.  

You can also provide a historical line or column chart once the user clicks on the assets, liabilities or net income.  Sales are usually interested in the performance of their products.  You should ask the users if a pie chart showing the percentage of sales against all lines available would be the best way to derive value.  You can then provide the ability to click on the pie pieces to give drill down information.

As far as statistics, we usually think of histograms and scatter charts.  Investigate using column charts and second axis series.  Also consider using the XY Chart for scatter charts.  I've seen these used most often in statistical analysis.

I hope this helps!

RamTadepalli:  Thanks a lot Chris. That definitely helped.

Dr. Berg: Hi Ram, In addition to the answer from Mico, there are some objects you should also be careful when using. I have included those in the table below:

DragosOprisan: Hi Gurus,

Do you know how an end-user can send directly a snapshot (pdf or ppt) from a dashboard into email (not the whole dashboard as flash file).

Thanks

Dragos Oprisan

Christopher Hickman: Hi Dragos,

There isn't a direct way to perform this action.  The best way to handle this is to generate the PDF or PPT inside of the Dashboards application and then attach it to your email.

Thanks for your question!

DragosOprisan: Chris,

Thanks, do you mean to attach it manually or use a special script to attach? Are there any SDk tools that could be used to help on this?

Thanks,

Dragos

Christopher Hickman: It would be a manual attachment.  No scripts are available to perform this type of functionality.

The SDK covers the creation of new functionality with the Dashboards application.  A lot of companies (Centigon, Antivia et. al.) are creating new components every day.  You have the ability to build your own functionality using the Dashboards SDK.  The SDK is available with the custom installation of Dashboards.

Regards,

Chris
@chickman72 

talbanese: When using a Live Office connection with a prompt is there a way to set the default not to pull data until input is provided from the user?

Christopher Hickman: Hi talbanese,

When you set up your LiveOffice connection, it's best to set your Usage parameters to uncheck "Refresh before Components are Loaded".  

Next, Provide a Refresh Query button on your dashboard that refreshes the Live Office data connection when it is pressed.  

Finally, set dynamic visibility on the Refresh Query button so that the button only appears when there is valid data entered by the user.

You will need to create a little logic in a spreadsheet cell to determine when the user input is valid.  This logic can be used to control the dynamic visibility of the Refresh Query button.

I'm sure there are other ways to do this but this should give you a place to start. Thank you for your question!

Chris
@chickman72

Jenny Shi: Can we pass parameter(s) from Dashboard to Analysis for OLAP via OpenDocument in BO4.0?

Emily Mui: Hi Jenny,

There is currently so direct way to pass parameters from Dashboards to Analysis for OLAP via OpenDoc and we are looking into this for a future release.

Thanks for the question. If you have any suggestions for our products, please go to the SAP Idea Place cw.sdn.sap.com/cw/community/ideas.

Thanks,

Emily-

Brian Malone: When will Xcelsius 2008 SP5 be ready for distribution?

Emily Mui: Hi Brian, It is available for download via SAP Service Market Place.

Thanks,

Emily-

Andrea Haynes: What special security issues do you think are most important to address as teams build and test new dashboards? 

Christopher Hickman: Hi Andrea! Great to hear from you!

There are a couple of things to consider with security when designing dashboards.

First of all, think about where the dashboard will be published:

- Will the dashboard be published inside of a SAP Business Objects system?

- Will it be accessible via a portal? 

- Will it be exported and sent via pdf in an email?  

The access location of the dashboard will dictate the security methodology.  You can take advantage of security of the system on which the dashboard is accessed (i.e. BOBJ, Sharepoint, Secured Network Drive, custom portal).  You can also build a password system within the dashboard itself if the dashboard will be exported to pdf and emailed out.

Secondly, consider what data is being distributed in the dashboard:

- Should all users have access to all of the data or should specific users have access to specific records?

- Consider building the dashboard on top of a universe or using BI Services to take advantage of row level security.  

- Also consider building a custom web service that takes in a user name which returns filtered rows if the dashboard is not using universes or BI services.

We talked about this very topic during the SAPInsider Xcelsius Bootcamp in the Fall of 2011.  It was a very popular topic!

Thank you for your question!

Chris
@chickman72 

Dr. Berg: Hi Andrea,

First of all, I recommend leveraging the BEx Queries if you are using BW. This permits the use of the authorization-relevant objects to work for the data level security the same way as traditional BEx Analyzer and BEx Web interfaces.

Second, I would create a deployment diagram that shows who will get access to what dashboard. This becomes the 'roadmap' for setting up roles and security and making any changes needed based on your deployment plans.

Third, I would include formal positive testing (“Can I get access to what I am supposed to have access to?”) and negative testing (“Can I not access what I am not supposed to have access to?”), and include this in my system and integration testing. This is extremely important to include for dashboards that are external facing (i.e. to customers and vendors).

From a log-on and Single-Sign-On perspective (SSO), we like to leverage the SAP roles (i.e you are an BW/ERP customer) and pass these credential to BOBJ and all sources based on standard SAP security. This simplifies role and security management. However, there are no lack of options here (LDAP, Active directory etc....).

Dr. Berg

Molly Folan: We are at the close of the Forum. Thanks to all who posted questions and followed the discussion!

For ongoing information and additional resources on dashboards, including upcoming dashboard and Xcelsius coverage at the upcoming BI 2012 conference, February 28-March 2, join the BI/BW Group for ongoing information.

And I personally invite you to meet all 3 expert panelists in person at BI 2012 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, February 28 – March 2.

And thank you again to our panelists: Decision First’s Chris Hickman and SAP’s Emily Mui, and Dr. Bjarne Berg. Thank you for joining us today!

A full summary of all the questions will be available here in the SAP BI/BW Forum, and in Insider Learning Network’s  BI/BW Group. If you have registered for this Q&A, you will receive an email alerting you when the transcript is posted.

For additional dashboard information, the BI Forum archives past Q&As on BI and SAP BusinessObjects. We'll continue to update you on future Q&As.

If you have a specific technical BI question, you can also post your own question for the entire community by selecting "New Thread" in the BI Forum. You can also listen to Chris Hickman’s podcast on dashboard mobility and read past blogs from Dr. Berg’s Insider Learning Network column.

I look forward to seeing you all at BI 2012 in Las Vegas, and thanks again for a great discussion!