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Procedure documentationTutorial part 3: Creating an App with Xcelsius Locate this document in the navigation structure

 

This tutorial is part of a course that explains the creation and registration of apps for the Dashboard Framework. In this third part, you extend a simple app with the option of configuring the app, that is, instead of always displaying data for the previous month, the user can select the desired month in a config app.

To do this, in this step, you extend the app from the first part of the tutorial with this configuration option. To do this, you need to create an additional Xcelsius connection, through which the desired month is taken from the config app, passed to the BW query, and displayed on the user interface.

Prerequisites

This procedure is part of a comprehensive tutorial on the topic Creating and Registering Dashboard Apps. During this tutorial, you create and register a number of apps and their associated BW queries.

You create this Xcelsius app in the third part of the tutorial.

Note Note

Ensure that you have already performed the previous steps, as described in Tutorial Part 3: Creating an App with a Config App.

End of the note.

Procedure

  1. Load the Xcelsius file ztut1_costs_month from the first part of the tutorial.

  2. You want to make it possible to display values for any month. This month is set in the associated config app, and is to be displayed in this app. To allow this setting to be transferred from the config app using the Dashboard Framework, you need to transfer the selected month through an Xcelsius connection of the Dashboard Framework. Since the selected month is then passed to a BW query, you need to adjust the format of this parameter correspondingly. This is because the BW requires the transferred values in a particular format.

    Therefore enter the following data in cells D6:H7:

    SIGN

    OPTION

    LOW

    HIGH

    Year/Month

    I

    EQ

    201111

    The contents of the cells E6:H6 are technically not necessary and serve only to provide a better overview (this is the row that you should leave empty for technical names). The contents have the following meanings:

    • SIGN: The value can be either I (include) or E (exclude). Use exclude only if you want to create a filter with which you can exclude a range (OPTION = BT). If you only want to filter for a value (the standard case), use include.

    • OPTION: Enter either EQ (equals) or BT (between) here. Use between only if you want to filter for a range. If you only want to filter for a value (the standard case), use equal.

    • LOW: If you want to filter for a value, enter the associated default value here - in this case, this is the selected month. If you are filtering for a range, enter the lower limit here.

    • HIGH: If you want to filter for a value, leave this field empty. If you are filtering for a range, enter the upper limit here.

  3. Create the connection described above, to be able to pass the selected month. To do this, start the Data Manager by choosing   Data   Connections  , and on the Definition tab page, choose the + button. Enter the following data for the connection:

    • In the Range Name field, enter MONTH as the name of the connection. During registration, you specify this connection so that the Dashboard Framework can both read the selected month from the config app and pass it to to the BW query.

      Caution Caution

      Only use upper-case letters, numbers and the underscore character ('_') for the names of connections.

      End of the caution.

    • In the Range Type dropdown list box, choose the Table entry.

    • In the Range field, specify the cells that the connection is to pass; in this tutorial, this is E6:H7.

    • In the Access dropdown list box, choose the Read/Write entry.

    Close the Data Manager.

  4. The selected month is also to be displayed on the user interface of the app. To do this, you first need to split the content of cell G7, which contains the selected month in the format YYYYMM, into two cells, one that contains the year, and the other containing the calendar month. Use the relevant Microsoft Excel functions to do this. To make this more understandable, insert a description into the preceding cell in each case.

    Therefore enter the following data in cells D9:E10:

    Year:

    =LEFT(G7;4)

    Calendar Month:

    =TEXT(DATE(2000;RIGHT(G7;2);1);"MMMM")

  5. To display the year and the calendar month on the user interface of the app, proceed as follows:

    1. Reduce the size of the bar chart, so that you have enough space below the chart to display the selected calendar month and the selected year.

    2. To display the information, you use a total of four labels. Therefore, from the Components subscreen, drag the Label icon from the Text category into the empty area below the bar chart, and adjust the size to the available space.

    3. Now ensure that the entries in the Microsoft Excel worksheet are displayed in the labels. To do this, select the labels from the left, and on the subscreen on the right, select the radio button Link to Cell in the area   General   Text  , and link the four labels to the cells D10, E10, D9, and E9.

  6. The subtitle of the bar chart, Previous Month, is no longer accurate. Change this by entering, in cell D4, the subtitle Month Specified Below.

  7. Save the Xcelsius file locally on your computer with the name ztut3_costs_month.

  8. Generate a Flash file from your Xcelsius file (file name extension swf), by choosing   File   Export   Flash (SWF)  . Save the Flash file with the name ztut3_costs_month

    When registering the app, you will import both the Xcelsius file and the Flash file into the MIME repository of your SAP Solution Manager system later in the tutorial.

Result

With the Xcelsius file and the associated Flash file, you have created the user interface of your future dashboard app.

Continue this tutorial by performing the next step, Tutorial Part 3: Creating the Config App with Xcelsius. In this step, you create the user interface in which you can select the desired month.