DesignStudio as a Replacement for SAP Dashboards/Xcelsius

[former_member188942]

As you plan your move away from Xcelsius/SAP Dashboards (which if you are not already doing you really ought to get started) then I would recommend listening to a recent episode of the Diversified Semantic Layer Podcast* entitled "Is DesignStudio the Dashboard Slayer"

The question up for discussion was whether DesignStudio is a suitable replacement for Xcelsius / SAP Dashboards. Key quotes were :-

• “If [in DesignStudio] you want more than a single chart pointing at a single data source that doesn’t need to refresh or have any interaction … you need to write some sort of code”
• “If you are a traditional Xcelsius developer I don’t know how you would get started with that”
• “If you are a BX or BEx shop it makes a lot of sense to use DS, if you are not, good ******* luck for the time being”
• “turning all your Xcelsius developers into Design Studio developers; that is not going to happen for most customers”

So for non-BW users that sounds like a resounding "no".

So where should non-BW users turn ?

Well Lumira was quickly ruled out :-

• “Lumira is not meant to build real applications, I can’t control where filters are applied, can’t have more than one data set show up in one storyboard I can’t have lots of things like that. How many dashboards only live on a single granularity of a dataset.”

Which finally left WebI as what sounded to me like the least bad option !!!

I have to say this frustrated me rather because all the key requirements that the team discussed :-

1. Xcelsius like visuals
2. Creating app-like BI
3. Delivery to iPad
4. Handling of larger data volumes
5. Ability to drill and filter data
6. All without having to write code
7. Connectivity to the BOBJ data platform

are exactly what our DecisionPoint tool delivers, whilst still preserving the investment already made in the SAP BOBJ Platform.

It really is a compelling answer to the need to find a replacement for Xcelsius / SAP Dashboards. And this is a pressing problem, as one of the team on the podcast said :-

• “Xcelsius needs to die – we need to build things which go on iPads – Xcelsius solution for that is terrible at best, we need to leave Flash behind”

Unfortunately, one other option is to move away from the BOBJ platform altogether and go with a competitive solution, but that will undo years of investment, hard work and value.

If you are interested, it would take less than 30 minutes to see why DecisionPoint is the natural successor to Xcelsius / SAP Dashboards which retains all the investment you have already made in the BOBJ platform. I would personally be happy to give you a demo of what it can do. The most you have to lose is half an hour, the most you have to gain is a path forward for what is possibly the most critical style of BI we need to deliver to drive our organizations forward.

To request a demo go to DecisionPoint™ - Demo.

Or to find out more about why Lumira in particular is not a good replacement for Xcelsius / SAP Dashboard register for the Webinar Why SAP_Lumira Is Not A Natural Successor To SAP Dashboards/Xcelsius

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*The DSL podcast is a regular series of discussions on topics related to SAP Business Objects led by Eric Vallo from EV Technologies (http://evtechnologies.com/). If you are involved with any of the SAP BusinesObjects technologies, then I would highly recommend subscribing to it for a real world, low down on what is happening in that world.