Books
SAP Crystal Dashboard and Presentation Design (Xcelsius) Cookbook
I am very excited to announce the SAP Crystal Dashboard and Presentation Design Cookbook I am currently working on together with co-author David Lai. The book is scheduled to be published by Packt Publishing in the first half of 2011.
The cool thing about this book is that it is indeed structured as a cookbook. In at least 75 practical recipes we will show in a step-by-step approach and supported by a large number of screenshots how to create advanced dashboards using the SAP Crystal Dashboard and Presentation Design software, formerly known as Xcelsius.
Besides covering the functionality and working of components, data connections, dynamic visibility, alerts and dashboard publishing we will also discuss some of the top add-ons and provide best practices on dashboard development. This setup makes the book a nice read for both beginners and the more experienced users.
Since the book is currently under development it has the RAW (Read As we Write) status at Packt Publishing, which means that the all material that is written until now is already available in e-book format. We aim to publish the book in May 2011.
Update May 2011: The book has been released as the SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 cookbook. You can find more information here.
Posted in: Books, Cookbook, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, XcelsiusFree Mr. Excel ebook
Microsoft Excel is a major part of SAP Crystal Dashboard Design (Xcelsius) and to build advanced dashboard you need some proper Excel knowledge. Today I was browsing for some info on a few Excel formulas when I came up to this Mr. Excel site, offering a free 900+ pages best practices book on Excel called Learn Excel 97-2007 from Mr. Excel: 377 Excel Mysteries Solved!. The video below shows some of the tips & tricks that are covered in the book.
The ebook is in low resolution so it is good enough to use as a reference guide to take with you on your laptop or iPad. Download it here (no login/registration required!). You can get the printed version here.
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Posted in: Books, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, XcelsiusReWork is awesome
Wow I just love this book ReWork by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson I read yesterday. In general it discusses how business is done in most companies nowadays and what’s so very very wrong with it. Fun thing is, many of its topics cover the same questions I have after just a few working years. Why all those long meetings? Why do we have to keep growing? Why do people get respect if they work over 40 hours a week? Why is there a computer/internet usage policy? What does 5 years experience really mean? What are all those managers doing all day? ReWork is great because it makes you re-think the way we are doing things.
The book practices what it preaches. It is written in a very to-the-point style: Short chapters with clear examples that show why something doesn’t work, and most important, what you should do to change it. And, it has a lot of pictures in it!
Watch some of its cool promo videos below and get the free excerpt at the 37signals site or at Amazon. For some reason the Kindle version of the book is a bit more expensive than the hardcover, but it still is a bargain.
Posted in: Books
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs
Being an Apple fan/evangelist for almost all my life I experienced numerous introductions of cool new Apple products. Since the return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997 he delivered most of these product launches in his famous keynote speech (Stevenote) at MacWorld or WWDC. Anyone who has ever watched one of these events will admit that Jobs’ presentation skills are outstanding. Somehow he is able to deliver a performance that will fascinate you from the first until the last minute.
Now move over to the world of SAP and probably 80% (or more) of the presentations we attend. I watched the Vienna SAP TechEd keynote a few weeks ago through the live video stream. The speed of the presentations was very low and the slides were boring and stuffed with text. After a while people in the audience started to write tweets like:
Keynote #sapteched09 about speed of change? In stead of ppt with figures I like to see real SAP stuff, come on.
OK, we get the business case. Can we move on how attendees can use SAP technology 2 implement the business solution?
Ouch. Not good.
Luckily for us (and the guys at SAP) Carmine Gallo, a BusinessWeek columnist, wrote a great book on how to give a presentation like Steve Jobs. The book is overloaded with concrete examples from keynotes from the past. For example how to keep your slides simple and visual and why you should never, ever, use bullet points in your slides (it is actually the least effective way to deliver information). If Jobs starts talking about the Apple 2009 results, the slide simply says “2009”.
Gallo also shows that Jobs uses tons of short Twitter-like headlines that are easy to remember. At the introduction of the iPod, Jobs could have said something like:
Today we are introducing a new, ultraportable MP3 player with 6.5-ounce design and a 5 GB hard drive, complete with Apple’s legendary ease of use.
Instead he said:
iPod. 1000 songs in your pocket.
Feel the difference?
I found this video of Gallo in which he outlines the key topics of the book while showing some examples from actual Steve Jobs keynotes. You can find more info at Gallo’s BusinessWeek blog, at The Cult of Mac or at Amazon.
Posted in: Books, FeaturedNew books on SAP BusinessObjects
SAP Press shows us that two new books on SAP BusinessObjects are to be released early 2010, covering the positioning of the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio in the SAP landscape and describing the SAP BusinessObjects toolset.
Sure, nice subjects, but I wonder if these books will give us some really new views and insights and I hope they are not just are a collection of information that is already available online or in other books (see my overview on recommended books and links). But we will see next year.
Discover SAP BusinessObjects (Thierry Audas)
“This much anticipated book answers the many questions you may have as a decision maker or current SAP and BusinessObjects customer who needs to understand SAP’s BI strategy. In clarifying the business value of the new SAP BusinessObjects solutions it also explains how to hit the ground running. Significant focus is put on describing and positioning all of the key solutions in the new SAP BusinessObjects portfolio, and the author clearly explains how they fit together and into existing SAP customer landscapes. Real-world examples are used throughout to describe the capabilities and their value propositions, along with numerous screen shots, examples, tips, and case studies. This is the one book that will give you full clarity into SAP BusinessObjects.”
Reporting and Analytics with SAP BusinessObjects (Ingo Hilgefort)
“This book provides comprehensive coverage of the major business intelligence tools in the SAP/BO toolset with a practical focus on the user experience and integration with SAP. Coverage includes detailed application features and functionality, as well as practical, how-to content geared toward end users hoping to maximize the benefits of their BI investment by creating actionable, easy to read reports, analysis and other business process metrics. The author uses robust, real world case studies to place into context and present the content in an easy to read, step-by-step manner.”
Posted in: Books
