Welcome to my first post on Everything Xcelsius. I’m Leonid Koyfman, a Database Architect at AKQA in San Francisco. Although my primary responsibilities are in a database domain, data visualization and dashboard design in particular have always been in the area of my interests. In my career I completed many reporting projects using Crystal Reports, Actuate and various Microsoft products.
Creating reports and dashboards in Excel prepared me well for transition to Xcelsius. Its mashup of art and technology impressed me from the moment I opened a trial version and I enthusiastically promoted Xcelsius in the company I worked for then.
Starting with Xcelsius 4.0 we developed a line of web analytics dashboards for financial institutions. Our clients loved them. Instead of hundreds static slides in PowerPoint decks, they received interactive dashboards with intuitive navigation and the level of detail not supported in the legacy reports. While the data preparation on the database side and in Excel was the bulk of the work, using Xcelsius for the presentation delivered the knockout punch. The resounding success of the project made me even stronger proponent of Xcelsius. It also inspired me to be creative and look for workarounds when Xcelsius doesn’t support needed functionality out of the box.
While getting better with every new release, Xcelsius still needs more popularization. Everything Xcelsius is one of the major players in that field. I’ve been a big fan of the website for many years, regularly visiting the site, learning new techniques and developing new skills. I’m glad to have a chance to share some of my ideas, tips and tricks here.
In the next several posts I’m going to examine various applications of customized Push Button controls in Xcelsius. Stay tuned!!
Leonid Koyfman is a BI professional with over 10 years of experience in a database design and development and in delivering reporting solutions using enterprise reporting technologies. He is a big Xcelsius enthusiast passionate about dashboard design and other kinds of data visualization. In his leisure time Leonid enjoys solving mental puzzles and hiking in the Bay Area with his family.