Introduction

Google Maps has officially set an end of life for Google Maps API with no extension planned.  With wide spread impact to organizations who are using Flash technology, we at Centigon Solutions are always working well ahead to ensure you have a smooth seamless transition for your enterprise dashboards. As such, GMaps Plugin is deprecated with end of life also planned for September 2014> More info on deprecation

As such, we have designed CMaps Plugin API for Flash to use all of the same properties, workflows, and capabilities to quickly migrate to CMaps with minimal impact to end users. Furthermore we have dramatically improved efficiency, performance, and added new features to ensure there is added benefits along the way.

Our future use of Google Maps APIs: Currently, Google Maps is still the primary focus for delivering HTML5 based maps for mobile and soon other desktop products.

Migration Process Summary

The migration process was designed to be seamless to eliminate extra work from your development team. Our team payed careful attention to ensure all existing features that were not specific to Google were not only supported but were improved.

CLICK HERE FOR STEP BY STEP PROCESS

Migration Notes for GMaps Users

The following guide provides you a comprehensive list of any considerations or changes that you can anticipate migrating from GMaps to CMaps versions:

ARE YOU ON XI3.1 AND MOVING TO CMAPS? PLEASE USE THE FOLLOWING GUIDE:

Using Flex4 Add-ons (CMaps Plugin) with XI3.1

Supported Versions of SAP Dashboards: CMaps Plugin is designed specifically for Flex4 versions of SAP Dashboards. As such SAP BusinessObjects BI4 is required.

For GMaps 3.6 Users: CMaps Plugin 4 was carefully designed to allow all of the 3.5 and 3.6 enabled dashboards to seamlessly migrate properties. Excluding the deprecated or noted feature modifications listed below, all properties should migrate and provide similar behavior as GMaps Plugin. If you do uncover a specific feature that does not operate as you expect, please contact Centigon Solutions support team and we can escalate accordingly.

For GMaps 3.5 or Earlier Users: Assuming you are migrating from GMaps Plugin 3.5 to 4.0, also means you are moving a Flex2 version of SAP Dashboards or Xcelsius to SAP Dashboards 6.0.4 or higher. Such a migration can cause unexpected behavior for the entire dashboard unrelated to the map. It is recommended that you remove the map and ensure all standard dashboard behavior works correctly before re-introducing the map. From 3.5 to 4.0. If you are using a V2 or V1 version of GMaps, please review our previous GMaps Plugin migration guide to catch any changes or deprecated features to watch out for.

Deprecated or Modified features in 4.0.

Unless noted below, all existing use cases, features, properties, and workflows are supported and automatically migrated without any further modification of your dashboard project.

Map Skin Designer on appearance tab– CMaps Plugin no longer allows you to change the ocean, roads, and feature color and visibility. Only content drawn on top of map can have appearance modified. We added 9 new styles to handle the variety of maps skins that customers typically used. If there is a specific styling you want to see, let us know and we can add it as a layer type.  VIEW STYLES

Multiple Maps in 1 Dashboard- Due to conflicts with the core API and SAP Dashboards, multiple maps are no longer supported inside of a single dashboard. Instead, after interviewing customers new dynamic map sizing and positioning properties were added, allowing you to re-use a single map component in multiple dimensions and locations within a single dashboard. As such there are significant performance gains over two independent maps. VIEW DETAILS

Continuous Global Map– When the map is panned to the western edge of Alaska or the eastern edge of Russia, these are the limits for the map. GMaps Plugin previously acted as one continuous map, which has been deprecated due to performance and complaints from customers for seeing multiple maps. For Zoom level 1 (global map), we now support some overlap to remove whitespace.

Map domain approval requirements– CMaps Plugin no longer requires you to approve domains.

Un-restricted batch geocoding– CMaps Plugin provides a geocode governor of 100 geocodes per page view to optimal performance and to prevent un-intended abuse of service. This governer is not applied to pan-to property. Because the geocoder operates at 200ms/geocode, 10-15 seconds in today’s dashboard standards is not acceptable. As such we impose this governer to ensure developers are using best practices and not abusing the geocoder.

Batch geocoding common administrative areas like Country, State, and Zip codes for limited countries is a new feature we will shortly be releasing as a part of CMaps Analytics.

Migration Process:

Note- If you are upgrading a dashboard project that was not built recently, prior to upgrading to CMaps Plugin, please open the dashboard with GMaps Plugin and ensure it operates correctly. After confirmation, save a new copy of your dashboard project (XLF).

The following is a detailed process to migrate a dashboard built with GMaps Plugin. These instructions assume you have either upgraded your CMaps Plugin component in SAP Dashboards or run through the install process on a new computer and registered your license.

Step 1. Open your XLF.
Step 2. Open the property sheet for CMaps Plugin (this will force the component to migrate all properties and refresh itself).
Step 3. Re-save your XLF project with a new file name.
Step 4. Open your newly saved XLF.
Step 5. Re-Publish or Preview your Dashboard to check and ensure  the Dashboard (SWF) operates the same way it did prior.

TIP- It is preferred when you upgrade Centigon Components, that you use the same version of Xcelsius that was originally used to increase the success rate of migration. We understand that this is a top priority to ensure Centigon Solutions components do not effect a project life-cycle.

 Troubleshooting

If everything does not go to plan, the good news is we have seen every configuration possible! Please check on the following and we can quickly get you moving forward with migration.

Make sure registration succeeded:

Open a brand new SAP Dashboards project. From the components window scroll to CMaps Plugin component and drag onto canvas. The map should appear instantly.

• If it does not initialize and present the map, open the property sheet, go to the Information tab, scroll to the bottom of the tab and provide the long authkey string to techsupport@centigonsolutions.com or the agent working with you.
• If this box is empty, you will need to run the CMaps Plugin Registration EXE. If your GMaps Plugin or CMaps Plugin key is already flagged as “registeredâ€� in the customer portal, contact  techsupport@centigonsolutions.com or your account rep to reset it.

If it does load up, then you will make sure you walk through the migration process outlined above.

Open existing XLF (your map may not show up right away until the following steps are complete), Open property sheet, Save a new copy of the XLF and close. Re-open the XLF and the map should continue forward as expected…

• If you still get an error, this means that it is possible that there could be an old license key bound in the spreadsheet. If you can locate a bound key and delete the contents of the cell and re-save that should fix it.
• If you are confident there is no trial key bound, there could be another issue that may be quicker to resolve with our support team.