I’m sure by now everyone is aware of the differences between Xcelsius 4.5 and Xcelsius 2008. Business objects recently released a Service Pack for Xcelsius 2008 (Xcelsius 2008 SP1), many of the users downloaded the SP1 and installed it but were not sure what did it change in terms of functionality of the application. The idea of this post came from a forum question. When i searched the web for Xcelsius 2008 SP1 changelog, this is what i found. Below information is from a Business Objects article:
New Features:
With Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Xcelsius® Engage 2008 and Xcelsius Engager Server 2008 software, Business Objects, an SAP company, delivers the following new features:
Templates for Easy Dashboard Creation – Get started quickly with the new templates that are now included with Xcelsius 2008 software. Simple instructions allow you to easily connect your own data to prebuilt dashboards.
Export to AIR – Export your dashboards and visual models as Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) desktop applications. Export to AIR is a browserless run-time feature for rich internet applications (RIAs) that can be deployed onto the desktop across multiple operating systems.
Export to Adobe Acrobat 9 – Export to Adobe Acrobat 9, which has native support for Flash and enables a variety of new features for integrating flash content into PDF documents.
Add-On Manager – Add and remove extensions created with the Xcelsius software development kit using the Xcelsius Add-On Manager found in the file menu. Discover a variety of paid and complimentary add-ons – or sell your own add-ons – at the Xcelsius Add-On Marketplace.
Improved Support for SOAP Web Services – Now, using the Advanced Tab in the Web Service Connector, users can provide information they need to be passed into the SOAP Header. This is particularly useful when working with a Web service, which requires credentials to be passed through the SOAP header.
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KEY IMPROVEMENTS
Service Pack 1 for Xcelsius 2008 addresses many challenges introduced by the significant re-architecture, which took place between Xcelsius 4.5 (based on Adobe Flash) and Xcelsius 2008 (based on Adobe Flex) and the move to Adobe Flash Player 9.
Improved Model Rendering in PowerPoint – Previously, Xcelsius models wouldn’t automatically play in presentation mode. Working with our partner Adobe, we have improved this capability in SP1. Now, models will automatically play in presentation mode, and the bitmap image will be rendered in the slide in design mode after the slide has been put in presentation mode.
Migration of Xcelsius 4.5 XLF files – Issues migrating files from Xcelsius version 4.5 to 2008 have been addressed. Some visualizations may need to be resized after migration (since the rendering of Flash is slightly different from Flex), but such reformatting is much simpler now.
Stability and Performance – Enhancements to stability and performance are included in SP1.
Flashvars on Load Feature Parity with Xcelsius 4.5 – Many customers use Flashvars to update their models on load. The order of this loading changed in Xcelsius 2008, but with SP1, it has reverted to the 4.5 behavior.
BusinessObjects™ Enterprise Integration – When using the Query as a Web Service component to connect to a Business Objects universe, some customers experienced issues where extra sessions were consumed or the results returned were not as expected. This has been addressed. Also addressed were issues passing CELogonToken to a child Flash file, and issues connecting to BusinessObjects Live Office software.
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SERVICE PACK AVAILABILITY
SP1 for Xcelsius Engage 2008 and Xcelsius Engage Server 2008 is available now and can be downloaded from SAP Community Network. SP1 will be included in all shipments of Xcelsius Engage 2008 and Xcelsius Engage Server 2008.
Applying SP1 will allow current customers to benefit from the features highlighted above. Additionally, it is a prerequisite for applying any future hot fixes. Customers can check if they have SP1 installed by selecting Help>About Xcelsius from the file menu. If SP1 is installed, the build number will end with 247.
