Test Drive: XYahooMap Component

Whether you already bought  Xcelsius 2008 or planning to buy one and not happy with the out of box components, then getting your desired Custom Components developed using Xcelsius and FLEX SDKs is the best option. Starting Xcelsius 2008, Business Objects is offering SDK for customer’s flexibility to design their own components. Although many users are happy with the out of box components repository, the awareness of the SDK is luring the customers to get them developed by in house flex developers or 3rd party companies like Centigon Solutions. I was recently browing the Business Objects Market Place and then was redirected to a blog, where Donald MacCormick posted some of his free Xcelsius components. One among them which caught my attention was the XYahooMap Component.

Donald says:

“The XYahoomap component is a simple extension to the Yahoo Maps Flash control (available here), which provides full map drag, zoom and differing views (map, satelite, etc) of a normal Yahoo Map but now it can be part of an Xcelsius model ”

I was curious and took it for a Test Drive.

Note: You need your own Yahoo App ID. Get one here.

Used a similar example as that of Donald’s, however used more data and Zoom Levels to show the full power of the component. Download the Source files below. Leave a comment if you have any questions.

It’s Interactive:

download

  • Reddy

    Hi Kalyan,

    I am trying to develop a sales report by country and came across your website. This XYahoomap component serves my requirement. I have downloaded your source file and it is pretty self explanatory.

    However, I have few queries. Considering the fact, i am a total novice in this arena, my question mite seem silly.

    1. Can you tell me how did you populate the chart with values when the Selection criteria in the yahoo map allows you to select only the country/city.I see that you have hard coded those values.

    2. Also, while selecting the destination for Radio button component, you have selected only 3 rows, if we don’t have an idea about the data, how to go about it.

    3. How does this Zoom Level work in Xyahoomap component.

    Also, I am trying to use XtreeGrid component as source.

    I would appreciate any kind of help.
    Thank you!

    • Answers:

      1. I’m inserting the City names, which are mapped as addresses on the Yahoo Map component property, into cell C6. And then using a simple Vlookup getting the data from the source table.

      2. That is because I’m using Filtered rows as my insertion type for the radio button component. Read more about filtered rows in from Xcelsius help (About>>Help)

      3. Map Center (Pan) and Zoom Level are two properties of Yahoo Map component you can bind to excel cells. In this case I’m using the first city of the selected region as Map Center and the Zoom level from the Zoom reference table that I’ve created by trial and error.

      Hope this helps.

      Regards,
      Kalyan Verma

      • Reddy

        Hi Kalyan,

        Thanks for your help. Right now it works, however, the country’s are not showing up at the right place. Any suggestions why would this happen.
        Also, do we need to have a APP id, if so, how do I get it?

        Thanks in Advance!!

  • Hi, Kalyan
    I have one question

    why do i need app id?

    i think it would work fine without yahoo app id

    and actually it works fine

    can you explain the role of app id?

    thanks in advance.

    regards Kwon.