Xcelsius Journal

In this article, I outline how to set up the ETC Shared Component Framework which was covered in my book, Xcelsius 2008 Dashboard Best Practices.

Challenges brought on by squeezing too many visual components on a dashboard

By design, dashboards are often intended to present  lots of information at a glance. There are a number of strategies for this. These are summarized below:

There was an interesting and useful feature of Xcelsius 2008 that existed in Service Pack 1, but unfortunately was removed in subsequent service packs. Let me explain a little. In the early versions of Xcelsius (like Crystal Xcelsius 4.5 and earlier) it used to be that the underlying spreadsheet cell for dashboard visualization could either contain a formula or a value, but not both.

When Xcelsius 2008 first arrived on the scene things changed. You could define a spreadsheet cell to contain a formula. If you insert a value say, like inserting a value when you select a List Box or drill down from a Pie Chart, that "pushed" value could (temproarily) overwrite the value of an underlying spreadsheet cell containing a formula. Although the spreadsheet cell value might get overwritten, the original spreadsheet formula remains fully intact. So the moment the spreadsheet formula needs to be recalculated, it wipes away the prevailing value and puts in the computed value from the cell's formula.

This was like having the best of both worlds... a spreadsheet cell inside the dashboard could simultaneously behave like both a static cell and a formula.

the best of both worlds... a spreadsheet cell inside the dashboard could simultaneously behave like both a static cell and a formula.

Thankfully, I have been able to rework the design framework so that you get all the features originally introduced. First, I think you would want to see it in action with the interactive dashboard below.

Within this dashboard you have a dial which you can adjust. As you do, one of the vertical bars in the column chart is appropriately updated. Which one will change? That depends on the context which corresponds to the selected Radio Button item below the dial.Try playing with the dashboard. Notice that as you select an item in the Radio Button, the value from the corresponding vertical bar in the Column Chart is pushed onto the Dial's setting. Also notice that the increments in the Dial's value and lower/upper limits change accordingly.

You have two options... you can skip to the end of the article for the download links without bothering to understand how the dashboard is constructed. If you are going to use the dashboard pretty much as-is that may be fine. If you plan on making significant modification in either design or cosmetic appearance, you may benefit from reading the explanatory material between here and the article end.