Here’s a fun UFO Tracker Dashboard from the zany folks at Reportalooza.com, designed by Josh Tapley using SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (Xcelsius) technology. It’s just one of several on the site that are part of the “Guest Challenge”, including cigar analytics and an overview of UK football – be sure to check them all out and vote for the winner!

In sailing, as in business, there are many measures to take into account, and top performance is achieved by attaining the optimal mix. For example, when you’re sailing upwind, there’s a tradeoff between direction and speed. If you sail too close to the wind, you’ll go slowly. If you sail too far off the wind, you’ll go faster, but over a longer distance. The most effective course is between the two, where the combination of boat speed and direction generate the most windward velocity (“velocity made good”).

SAP has a great deal of experience helping with business analytics, and now the SAP BusinessObjects team are using that expertise to create a first set of sailing analytics for the SAP 5O5 World Championship in Aarhus, Denmark.

For example, the Dashboard Design (formerly Xcelsius) visualization below shows the leader board of the fifth race. For each leg, the top ten boats are shown, with the time each arrived at the mark after the leader. The top bar allows you to change the icon size and color based on different criteria. By benchmarking their performance against others, the sailors can get insight into their performance.

For example, in the view above, we can see that crew of Napier and Cram in boat GBR 8701 came in 7th for the fifth leg (tacking upwind to the windward mark). But what’s interesting is that they achieved a higher top speed (6.21 km/h) than the #2, #3, #4 and #5 boats (the color and size of each icon shows the relative top speed compared to the other boats. So, as in the example above, the problem may be that they are sailing just a little too far off the wind compared to the leading boats (although of course sail racing is a lot more complicated than this simple example, and wind shifts, currents, and the tactical maneuvers of the other boats all play a huge part).

Here’s a selection of the analyses available on the analysis page of the official SAP 505 World Championship site:

	The Race Analysis Dashboard provides you with a quick view of the Leader Group and allows for comparison across several key measures at each Mark Rounding point. Using information like Velocity Made Good and Distance Traveled, sailors and spectators alike can put the knowledge behind the data to see which tactics were the leading ones on this day. Is it better to travel further into clean wind to gain speed, or does a tighter course bring the advantage in today’s conditions? Let’s find out together…. Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Race 5
	The Leader Comparison Report gives the user the ability to compare key metrics across the Top 10 Racers for that Race. Comparing things such as Distance Travelled and Leg Time provides a quick view of how one team compares to the others in this group. Did they sail more distance in order to gain more speed with clean wind? By comparing these key statistics in the Leader Group, we begin to see the results of tactics and strategies and begin to understand the continuous refinement happening on the course. Open Leader Comparison Report
	Race Information Dashboard gives general information about the race, the competitors and the standings to date. See the current positions for the team members representing your home country as you become more hooked on 505 Racing! Open Race Information Dashboard

And here’s a bonus Xcelsius dashboard I put together that lets you find photos of the sailors and boats, by bow number, sail number, helm name, crew name, or country:

There seems to be a connection between enterprise software billionaires and sail racing. Larry prefers the bigger boats, while Hasso prefers getting wet:

For Plattner, sailing two man dinghies and jumping off his 505 into chest-high water to prevent it from getting racked on the beach at Crissy Field is a far cry from having a professional crew guide a Farr 40 or his MaxZ yacht into a slip at Porto Cervo or another yachting Mecca. ‘The 505 is a great boat and it offers the most competitive racing available. I love the 505,’ said Plattner.

‘Hasso Plattner and Peter Alarie (GER) Race 9, 2007 SAP 5O5 World Championships’ Sail-World.com /AUS ©

If you don’t know anything about 5O5 racing, a video is available that gives a great overview of last year’s 5O5 World sailing championship in San Francisco, including Hasso’s team:

SAP sponsors the event, and provides competitors with access to information that helps them understand their performance, and how it compares to the other teams. Here’s a interview with US 5O5 sailors earlier this year, on the impact of SAP solutions on their racing:

In particular, last year’s competitors had access to SAP BusinessObjects dashboards packed with information about the conditions of each race:

Ryan Goodman explained in a blog post last year  how they were created, using a a combination of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard Design (formerly Xcelsius), and the Centigon Solutions GMaps Plugin:

“Based on date/time inputs and wind prediction inputs, the dashboard retrieves data from Local Knowledge software to plot ocean currents (yellow lines). The strength and direction of the current is visualized in a visual grid within the Google Map. Upwind laylines (red dots) are controlled by current, wind, and a profile based on the 5O5 boats. Local Knowledge software does all of the heavy lifting and returns laylines and currents through a custom web service.”

“Monitoring execution is the second challenge not easily achieved as conditions change. While the strategy tab relies on user input for wind conditions and a starting point, which ultimately affects the course itself, the race tab presents real-time views of this information . Real time GPS locations of all boats and marks (marks shown as red pins) are provided via Trac-Trac. On the fly, the dashboard retrieves laylines and routes based on real time information including wind conditions. Trac-Trac also provides additional information for each boat including boat direction and position.”

The video below from SAP TV explains the solution in more detail:

Business Intelligence software and sailing – two worlds apart? Not at the SAP 5O5 world championship. For the first time ever, SAP is contributing solutions from the SAP Business Objects portfolio to support sailors. An exciting demonstration of the similarities of business and sailing.

This year’s pre-worlds championships started this week in Aarhus, Denmark. There will be 120 teams from 11 different nations attending and Joe King and his crack team of BusinessObjects technology experts are already on site, working on supporting the sailors’ analytic needs.

The official championship starts on Friday the 30th, and you will be able to follow the action live on the official SAP 5O5 World Championship 2010 web site: http://www.505sapworldchampionship2010.com/, and access the dashboard using the “SAP Analysis” button on the left hand side:

The latest release of Android, v2.2 (“Froyo”) supports the Adobe flash technology used by Xcelsius (now called Dashboard Design) and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. So now you can access your dashboards, reports, and exploration spaces directly from your mobile device without requiring a separate application (e.g. as you do for the iPhone and iPad).

It also means you can reuse all the effort you’ve put into developing Xcelsius dashboards and make them into slick, use-them-on-the-fly interfaces for your road warriors. Here’s a quick video demonstration of my Google Nexus One phone running Xcelsius, WebIntelligence, and Explorer, based on a Formula One data set (SAP is a sponsor of the Vodaphone McLaren Mercedes racing team, and the McLaren team use SAP’s PLM software).

Here’s a step-by-step picture view of the same demo:

1: open the xcelsius dashboard, using a bookmark link, or typing the dashboard link directly: http://assets.timoelliott.com/docs/formula1_android_open.swf

(Note: the Xcelsius icon below is NOT an application that you have to install, just a shortcut to the URL, which opens in a browser)

The flash file will open up in the browser:

To make it full screen, press and hold your finger on the flash file until the bar below appears

Then click on the left-hand icon to make the flash file full screen:

From here, you can explore the dashboard, for example, press the “Driver” button:

Or the “Engine” button:

You can also “drill through” to information using the other SAP BusinessObjects products. For example, touching the “Report” button can take you directly to a Web Intelligence report (this won’t work with the link above, because it’s a report only available to my account – the link takes you to the generic bi.ondemand.com page, and if you’re previously logged on – you can sign up for a free account – it will take you directly to your data sets, reports, etc.)

This report is rendered in HTML, and full interactable – all drill-downs, etc. will work, and you can use the standard “pinch” gestures to zoom into part of the report, scroll around, etc.:

Click on the “back” arrow on the phone (left-most icon on the bottom row of buttons on the phone) to get back to the previous dashboard (note, I occasionally came across a flash bug here, where the top bar would still appear, throwing off the tracking location of your finger. If this happens, hold your finger until the full screen icon appears, then click below it to get back to full screen)

Next, click on the “Explore button” to open a new pop-up window (you need to have enabled pop-ups in your browser options, or nothing will happen), and it will load an Explorer session with Formula One data (why do this via a pop-up? to make sure that the screen proportions are correct for the next step):

(Note: this data is stored on a corporate SAP server, but you can do the same thing using data you’ve uploaded to your free bi.ondemand.com account)

As before, hold down your finger and make the flash full screen:

This interface requires precision to use, but with a bit of practice, it’s feasible. Here, for example, I click on the pie chart icon to change the chart type:

Next, I click on the “Advanced” section under “Nationality” to get this window, and I chose “British”:

And by clicking on the little arrows to the left of the “Items to Select” section, you can expand it:

Or you can click on the little arrow to the left of “Visualize the data” to expand that part:

Here’s a copy of the Xcelsius dashboard I used (you can also download the flash and Xcelsius file) – the report button links to bi.ondemand.com, rather than the exact report, because I haven’t yet found a way to share it with everybody:

A few best-practice tips if you’re interested in recreating a demo like this:

• The screen size for the Google Nexus One is 480×800. When I designed the dashboard, I found I had to make the buttons and fonts extra-big in order to make them useable on the phone.
• To get a flash file to show full screen on your Android phone, simply press and hold. A bar will appear with a button to make the flash file full screen.
• Explorer automatically resizes to the available browser size available. Unfortunately, this means that even when you make it full screen, it doesn’t have the right proportions to fill the screen. I got around this by using a popup window set to 480×800, and enabling pop ups in the phone’s browser.
• Obviously, all this will be a lot easier as a new range of Android devices with larger screen sizes become more widely available, such as the French Archos 7 tablet

So. There you have it: Xcelsius, Web Intelligence and Explorer all running smoothly on your mobile device, no apps required!

Please share your best BusinessObjects-for-Android dashboards, reports and hints and tips, and I’ll put them in a follow-up post!

Here is a season’s greetings dashboard that shows off some of the latest features of Xcelsius 2008 SP3. Tweet the color you’d like to see in the garland. The dashboard updates every 30 seconds. How long Twitter search takes to recognize the tweet can be pretty variable – but most of the time, it’s less than a minute.

How it works:

1. I set up an Excel XML Connection that grabs a feed from Twitter using the search term “#twitterlights”.
2. The top three (most recent) tweets are parsed to identify the color, using a vlookup table of the first three characters (if no color is found, it defaults to red / lime / yellow)
3. The SAP greetings card images are shown using the Slideshow component
4. The buttons launch a browser window, using an URL that automatically presets a Twitter status update, ready to be tweeted (starting the tweet with @votebytweet means that followers don’t see it by default, but you can leave it out if you want, and you can use the rest of the tweet to tell people how awesome/useless this demo is… )
5. I use two timers, to cycle the colors around the image and to change the slides. I wracked my brain for ages trying to do this, but then realized there was an easy and elegant method using the history component. You simply chose an input cell and single output cell, then put a formula in the “input cell” such as “=output cell+1”, and set the timer. Every interval, the contents of “input cell” are put into “output cell”, so the contents of input_cell will tick up by one every period.

Here’s a copy of the XLF file if you’d like to see how it works. Have fun!

Here’s a summary of some of the new things in the latest version of Xcelsius 2008. I’ve borrowed liberally from the official documentation that you can download, along with the program, here.

New Components

Sparkline chart components. The new Sparkline chart is based on the Sparkline chart created by Edward Tufte and provides a method for displaying a one-dimensional range of numeric data in a way that is dense, takes up a small space, and can be quickly interpreted. It is useful for creating small, data-intense graphs to show trends and variations associated with a specific measurement, such as stock market activity.

Designers can set key data points (start value, end value, low value, and high value) that will be displayed as markers on the Sparkline chart. They can also define a normal range that will be displayed as a colored background behind the chart.

Bullet chart components. Two new charts Horizontal Bullet Chart and Vertical Bullet Chart components are available, similar to those designed by Stephen Few.

The Bullet Chart components have a single primary measure (for example, current year-to-date revenue) that is displayed as a vertical or horizontal bar.A marker indicates a target or performance goal and changing color hues behind the bar indicate qualitative ranges of performance (for example: poor, satisfactory, and good).

Designers can configure the Bullet Chart to display multiple series and can configure the scale, axis, and ticks separately for each series. For example, the chart can be configured to show revenue in thousands of dollars, profit in dollars, and order size as a count.

Scorecard Selector component. A new selector component is available that allows you to display visual alerts in a grid. At runtime, users can click column headings to sort the grid on the column’s data.

The new Scorecard selector component is similar to the List View selector component, but includes options to enable and configure alerts in columns and to add headers that allow users to sort the columns at runtime. Alert levels can be displayed with cell background colors, font colors, or alert icons with or without values.

Canvas container component. A new container component is available for creating an invisible container. The new Canvas container component is similar to the Panel container component, but it does not have any art (for example, background, borders, heading bar, and so on.)

In design mode, the container is visible to allow the designer to work with the component, but when the model runs, the container is invisible so components in the container appear to be free floating. If the components in the Canvas container extend beyond the container borders, scrollbars are added.

Push Button component. A new selector component allows users to restore Single Value components to their default values without resetting the values for the entire model.

The new Push Button component can be configured to set the values of one or multiple cells to specific values when the button is pushed. The values change only when the user pushes the button, so users have more control over when the data is copied to the destination cells.

SWF Loader component. A new web connectivity component is available for loading SWF files at run-time. The SWF Loader component is similar to the Slide Show component, but it is simpler and has better memory management. The new SWF Loader enables you to load both Xcelsius and non-Xcelsius SWF files at run-time. Unlike the Slide Show component, it does not provide transition effects when moving from one file to another and it does not allow you to block user interaction.

It does have some advanced options that I believe offer the opportunity to load more sophisticated SWF files and have them interact with the model.

New Features

Chart data labels. A new option is available to overlay data labels on or around chart markers. The Properties panel for chart components now includes a Data Labels option on the Appearance > Text tab. When selected, data labels are visible for the chart markers. If designers don’t want labels to display for some series, they can expand the Data Labels list and deselect the series.

Designers can specify the values used for the labels, the label position, and, if applicable, add leader lines. The options available for configuring the labels depends on the type of chart.

Chart range slider. For many chart components, you can now add a range slider to allow users to focus on a particular data set rather than viewing the entire chart at once. When the Enable Range Slider option is selected on the chart properties panel, on the Behavior > Common tab, designers can specify the beginning and end range for the slider and set the range labels.

At runtime, the range slider appears below or to the left (for bar charts) of the chart and allows users to select the data range that is shown in the chart. Users can change the size of the range by adjusting control handles on either side of the range slider.

The Enable Range Slider option is available for the following charts:

• Line
• Stacked bar
• Column
• Stacked column
• Candlestick
• Combination
• OHLC
• Area
• Stacked Area

Chart sorting. A new Enable Sorting option on the chart properties panels (Behavior > Common) allows designers to sort the chart data by data values or category labels and for a single series or multiple series. (see graphic in previous section)

When designers select the Enable Sorting option on the chart “Properties” panel, they can choose to sort the chart by data or by category labels. If the chart contains multiple series of data and sort by data is selected, the designer can also specify which series the data will sort on.

The Enable Sorting option is available for the following charts:

• Line
• Pie
• Column
• Stacked column
• Bar
• Stacked bar
• Combination
• Area
• Stacked area
• Radar
• Filled radar

Show/hide series at runtime. A new chart property, Enable Hide/Show Chart Series at Run-Time, is available when legends are enabled. When the property is selected, users can select which series are shown in the chart.

On the Appearance > Layout tab, when Enable Legend is selected, designers can select the Enable Hide/Show Chart Series at Run-Time option. If selected, at run-time, users can deselect checkboxes or click the series name in the legend to remove the series from the chart display.

Runtime:

The Enable Hide/Show Chart Series at Run-Time option is available for the following charts:

• Line
• Column
• Stacked column
• Bar
• Stacked bar
• Combination
• Area
• Stacked area
• Radar
• Filled radar
• Bubble
• XY
• Tree Map

Dynamically set color. You can now bind color values to cells in the spreadsheet to dynamically control colors of component elements. For all component elements, the “Color” selector dialog box includes a new Bind to a Color option. This option allows you to select a cell in the spreadsheet as the color value. The color for that element will reflect the value in the selected cell. The cell could then be linked to another component or external data source to dynamically set the color value at run-time. When a color is bound to the spreadsheet, the Color Selector icon on the Color tab is replaced by a new Bind icon.

The following color formats are supported:

• Hexadecimal (For example, FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, 0xFFFFFF (not case sensitive))
• RGB (For example, (255,255,255))
• VGA color names (For example, aqua, blue, black, fuchsia, and so on (not case sensitive))
• Decimal color equivalent (For example, FF00FF becomes 16711935)

If the specified cell is blank or contains an invalid value, the element color is set to black.

Load default scenario. The Local Scenario button component now allows users to create and load a default scenario. The new default scenario option allows users to set the model to a specific state when the SWF loads. When designers include the Local Scenario button component in models, at runtime, users can click the button to define and save a scenario. They can then click the Set Default option to load that scenario by default. The next time the model is opened, it automatically loads the specified scenario.

Note: Default scenarios are valid only for the local scenarios on the computer where they are defined (that is, the local computer).

Gauges support multiple indicators. Designers can now configure gauges to display multiple indicators, as well as set the indicator type to be a needle, outside marker, or inside marker.

When designers bind a gauge to multiple spreadsheet cells, the gauge displays an indicator for each cell. The designer can then configure the indicator type, label, and label position for each indicator. Note: When a gauge has multiple indicators, it is an output component only. The Enable Interaction option is not available on Behavior > Common tab, and users cannot manipulate the gauge values at runtime.

Forecasting. The Trend Analyzer component can now be configured to forecast data for a specific time period based on the trend found in existing data. Designers can bind the Trend Analyser component to a range that includes the historical data plus empty cells for the forecast data. At runtime, the Trend Analyzer inserts the trend data and forecast data into the specified cells.

Designers can also specify the number of forecast periods the Trend Analyzer will forecast. To set the number of forecast periods dynamically, designers can bind the Number of Forecast Periods box to a spreadsheet cell and, then bind a dial to the same cell. At runtime, users can manipulate the dial to set the number of forecast periods.

Selectors allow multiple insertions. Many selectors can now be configured to insert multiple chunks of data from different sources into multiple destinations at once.

On the selector “Properties” panel, in the General view, a new Data Insertion list box is available. By default, the list box contains one insertion behavior. Designers can click the Plus icon to add more insertion behaviors. The designer then selects each insertion behavior and specifies its Name, Insertion Type, Source Data, and Destination. At runtime, when users use the selector, the source data values for all the defined insertion behaviors are written to their specified destinations.,

The following selectors do not support multiple insertions: Play Selector, Toggle Button, Push Button, Icon, or Accordion Menu components.

Prepare your child for the new world of business from its very earliest hours! Trixie Telemetry has released Trixie Tracker, which includes everything an analytic-obsessed parent needs to track baby’s key performance indicators, including:

Sleep Tracking

Bowel movements

Feeding schedule

Medicines

And many, many more – including support for mobile:

How much longer before this application is available for grownups, too? Well, it’s probably already here, with tools like Nike and Apple’s fitness dashboards:

And sites like Kibotzer.com that extend this to any measurable activity, making the whole-life-dashboard more feasible than ever.

Want to track how many alcoholic drinks you’re consuming ? how polite you are to your mother-in-law? average delay between your spouse asking you to do something and actually doing it? – the list is potentially endless:

“Kibotzer tracks your progress toward your goals. Anything you can put a periodic number on works — weight, pushups, number of cigarettes, net worth, or how long it takes you to bike to work. Just answer with your number when kibotzer asks and it will show you your progress and a “yellow brick road” to follow to stay on track.”

Think there are any limits to this? Think again – here are some analytics from Bedposted.com, a web application “that will give you some insight into sex life”:

These links all came from an excellent article in the New York Times this weekend by Anand Giridharadas, and I hope to take up some of the other points in a later post…

I’m trying to catch up on a big backlog of materials and documents and documents that I’ve found useful…

Here’s an excellent best practices report from TDWI on “how to create and deploy effective metrics” (registration required). The introduction to the document explains the background:

Performance metrics are a powerful tool of organizational change. The adage
“What gets measured, gets done,” is true. Companies that define objectives, establish goals, measure progress, reward achievement, and display the results for all to see can turbo-charge productivity and gracefully move an organization in a new direction.

Executives use performance metrics to define and communicate strategic objectives tailored to every individual and role in the organization. Managers use them to identify underperforming individuals or teams and guide them back on track. Employees use performance metrics to focus on what’s important and help them achieve goals defined in their personal performance plans.

But performance metrics are a double-edged sword. The wrong metrics can have unintended consequences: they can wreak havoc on organizational processes, demoralize employees, and undermine productivity and service levels. If the metrics don’t accurately translate the company’s strategy and goals into concrete actions that employees can take on a daily basis, the organization will flounder. Employees will work hard but have nothing to show for their efforts, leaving everyone tired and frustrated. In short, the company will be efficient but ineffective.

The document then goes into to look at lots of different aspects of creating and deploying KPIs and dashboards. Having read a lot of books in this space, I’d say this is a great, non-nonsense overview. I’ve included some of the key graphics and charts below to give you a flavor of the contents…

Last week I had the opportunity to attend VRAAAAAAAAAAAOOOMMMM a corporate event at the Belgian VRAAAAAAAAAAOOOOMMMMM Grand Prix, and present an SAP BusinessObjects product overview and roadmap.

Unfortunately, the pleasure of having the opportunity to visit the famous Spa circuit, meeting Heikki Kovalainen, and seeing Lewis Hamilton at dinner was a little VRAAAAAAAOOOOOMMMMM drowned out by the constant, annoying VRAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOMMMM sound of race-cars VRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOMMMMM whizzing by as I was trying to cover a detailed road-map at the end of a long day.

The presentation covered some BI trends and some demonstrations of some of the latest technology, including, of course, some Xcelsius dashboards and Explorer data exploration. You can use the dashboard below to analyze a host of data about drivers, engines, points, and starting positions.

As usual, there’s a PDF version of the presentation below, and a full PowerPoint version is available at this link.

If you’d like more information about the detailed product roadmap, please get in touch with your local SAP contact, and if you have a problem, don’t hesitate to contact me directly.

One of the themes of the day was information overload – take a look at the Maclaren Vodafone Mercedes steering wheel below (there’s also a selection of levers for changing gears, etc. on the back) – and some teams have even integrated an information screen into the center of the wheel.

The current Grand Prix rules state that the teams in the pit can monitor what’s happening on the car, but they are not allowed to make adjustments directly – everything has to be done by the driver (previous rules had allowed this, but it was starting to becoming a race between remote-controlled cars with ever-less driver involvement).

So while the driver is trying to beat the competition, he also has to be constantly tweaking the knobs and thumbwheels as dictated to him over the radio, making it a job that requires almost as much information processing power as driving skill. I’m sure it’s a situation that the average CEO, guided and limited by CFO recommendations, can related to.

One anecdote told to me by a Maclaren Vodafone Mercedes team member was about the earliest days of the new generation of steering wheels, and it has distinct echoes of the corporate world of analytic dashboards:

Nelson Piquet’s team showed him the new light that would indicate when his brakes were getting too hot.

“So what am I supposed to do when it lights up”?

“Well, we don’t know, but we thought it would be useful”.

When Piquet finished the first trials, in good position, his team asked for feedback — only to find that he’d simply stuck black tape over the light and ignored it: “I already have enough to concentrate on – I didn’t need anything else distracting me”…

Thanks again to the folks who came to join us for the day!

The SAP’s Sustainability Report web site provides a great example of how business intelligence can help with sustainability reporting and analysis. All public organizations will have to start providing this time of information in the future, and SAP BusinessObjects provides some great tools to do it with.

Here are some of the Xcelsius dashboards that are provided as part of the report:

Environment

Carbon Footprint

Sustainable Buildings

People

Retention

Diversity

Social and Community Development

Economic Impact

Economic Performance

Improving Customer Satisfaction

Finally, here’s a great Xcelsius dashboard that lets you work out your own carbon footprint reduction scenarios for SAP. You can choose what to reduce in order to hit the overall reduction target for carbon emissions for the year 2020.

Please help us work on our sustainability priorities: http://www.sapsustainabilityreport.com/materialityAll.html