Crystal Vision

New to the Crystal family of products is Crystal Vision. This is not a new product, but a repackaging of the various components of the Crystal Family, namely Crystal Reports, Crystal Reports Server, Live Office, and a new component called Crystal Xcelsius.

This packaging allows for a multitude of reporting tasks to be completed, such as creating a formatted report, importing the data into Excel, and visually representing that data in the form of a dashboard. For example, think of the reporting requirements of a finance user. Her duties may include running the company's financial statements, pulling financial information into a spreadsheet, visually displaying trends in a dashboard, and securely distributing and presenting these trends to senior management.

There are two components to the Crystal Vision brand: Crystal Vision and Crystal Vision Server.

This desktop bundle includes

• Crystal Reports

• Live Office

• Crystal Xcelsius

Crystal Vision Server

Crystal Vision Server builds on Crystal Reports and Crystal Reports Server and includes the following products:

• Crystal Reports

• Live Office

• Crystal Xcelsius

• Crystal Reports Server

The main difference between the two products is that Crystal Vision is primarily a client-based tool, enabling the user to connect to Crystal Reports stored on the desktop, whereas the Server version, as the name implies, enables users to connect to Crystal Reports stored on Crystal Reports Server.

Crystal Xcelsius

The only product in Crystal Vision that needs an introduction is Crystal Xcelsius. This tool enables a user to connect to an Excel spreadsheet and generate interactive dashboards or visual representations of Excel data. Xcelsius uses a web service or Live Office to refresh the data; however, the models generated do not have to be connected to work. When the model is exported to one of its various formats (Flash, HTML, PDF, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, and SharePoint), it exports the model and the related data so that the document does not have to be attached to the data source.

How Crystal Xcelsius Works

Crystal Vision relies on the vast connectivity of Crystal Reports. To expose data in Microsoft Office or Crystal Xcelsius, a crystal report is created and connected to a data source as described in Chapter 1, "Creating and Designing Basic Reports."

After you have connectivity, join the tables (if required) and drag the required fields onto the report.

Note

If you do not plan on formatting the report and are using the Crystal Report only as a data connection, do not spend any time formatting the report; simply drag the required fields onto the detail section.

After the report is complete, it can be saved to the workstation or, in the case of Crystal Vision Server, the user can save the report to a folder on the server by selecting File and Save and selecting the Enterprise icon.

The Live Office component of Crystal Vision now makes it possible to connect to the report from Microsoft Office. The version of Live Office is essentially the same as the one provided with Business Objects Enterprise as described in Chapter 21, "Using Reports Explorer for Ad Hoc Web Reporting and Microsoft Integration." However, there are two additional pieces of functionality:

• The user now has the capability to connect to a Crystal Report that is saved to a user's workstation.

• The user can remap an Office document based on a locally saved report to one that is saved on the Crystal or Business Objects Server.

The user can then refresh data in Office documents against data sources by using the Live Office component, as described in Chapter 21.

The last component of Crystal Vision is Crystal Xcelsius. This component enables the user to visualize the data found in Microsoft Excel. Users can import the data from a static spreadsheet or users can refresh the data by using the Live Office or web services connectivity found in Crystal Xcelsius. After the data has been imported, users can, with no programming, generate visually interactive dashboards.

Note

The scope of the book does not include the detail workings of Crystal Xcelsius. See www.xcelsius.com for more detail.

These dashboards can then be published to the Infoview application on the Crystal Reports Server. To do this, from within the Xcelsius designer click File, Export and select Business Objects Enterprise. Select a particular folder and a Macromedia Flash file is published to that folder.

To run the Xcelsius application, simply click on the object in Infoview as if you were running any other report. For more information on running InfoView, please refer to Chapter 24, "Using InfoView."