Crystal Reports Tutorial: Recently added to the Business Objects BI tool set, Crystal Xcelsius, is a stand-alone Windows application, designed to create interactive dashboards. Crystal Xcelsius uses a point-and-click interface that lets you create dashboards and visual business models from Crystal reports, personal spreadsheets, webservices or corporate data, and easily distribute them via PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, PDF, and the web (as flash SWF files).

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Recently added to the Business Objects BI tool set, Crystal Xcelsius, is a stand-alone Windows application, designed to create interactive dashboards. Crystal Xcelsius uses a point-and-click interface that lets you create dashboards and visual business models from Crystal reports, personal spreadsheets, webservices or corporate data, and easily distribute them via PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, PDF, and the web (as flash SWF files). For developers, the resulting dashboards can be integrated with webservices, passed runtime parameters via http or FS commands inside Flash, to provide high-fidelity dashboard presentation layers.

Crystal Vision is an integrated reporting and dashboard suite designed to provide a clear picture of organizational business performance. Two solutions are available: Crystal Vision for individual use on the desktop and Crystal Vision Server for small to mid-sized organizations. The Crystal Vision suite includes: Crystal Xcelsius Pro, Crystal Reports Pro and Live Office. And Crystal Vision Server includes: Crystal Xcelsius Workgroup, Crystal Reports Server and Live Office.

Crystal Vision provides easy access to company data within feature-rich Crystal reports, which can then be transformed into interactive business dashboards. Plus, Crystal Vision enables users to interact with corporate data and visual models right from within Microsoft Office. Crystal Vision Server builds upon the features available in Crystal Vision to include secure, end user sharing of business dashboards, visual models and reports.

Crystal Xcelsius Evaluation Resources

• Crystal Xcelsius User Guide (pdf) An introduction to Crystal Xcelsius, its components and functionality.


• Crystal Xcelsius White Paper for Developers (pdf) – This paper was written for developers and programmers interested in learning more about using Crystal Xcelsius to build interactive data visualization and dashboard solutions.


• Functional Deep Dive (Flash – 26 mins) – Jaime Zuluaga, Visualization Specialist, goes through various dashboard usage examples and dashboard design scenarios. Viewers will also learn about connecting to live data with Crystal Xcelsius Workgroup via a Web Service.


• How to use Crystal Xcelsius (Flash) – Find out about Crystal Xcelsius from an end user perspective using a sales based Excel spreadsheet as a starting place. Steps include: Importing the spreadsheet, creating an interactive dashboard and finally exporting to PowerPoint.

Crystal Vision Evaluation Resources

• Crystal Vision White Paper for Developers (pdf) - This paper was written for developers interested in utilizing Crystal Vision Server (CVS) as a complete management, development and integration framework for real-time dashboard and reporting solutions.


• Crystal Vision Server Deep Dive Demo (hosted in the Diamond Developer Community) – This Flash demo gives a step by step demonstration of how to create live Crystal Xcelcius dashboards from existing Crystal Reports published to Crystal Reports Server.


• How can Crystal Vision Server help Developers (Flash) - Steve Williams (Snr Product Manager) and Tim Lang (VP Developer Programs) talk about how the Crystal Vision Server can help developers.