Support Analytics Blog

The two charts below show the S&P 500 Net Income by Sector for both 2008 and 2009 and recently appeared in BusinessWeek.  What really caught my attention is that these column charts are a little bit like a waterfall with the only difference being that these start from zero.  Prior to using the Waterfall chart utility, I created these by hand.  The workaround to get a hidden or shaded set of bars is more difficult than it really needs to be.

[source]

Below you will see my versions of the charts using the same data and Excel.  I didn’t include the gray shaded series because I do not think that it adds any value.  Also, I do not have the text box calling out the title and final value because there is a column at the end that shows what the value is upon finish.

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Over the past few years I have accumulated a bunch of different resources that I find extremely valuable.  Most of these utilities/products are for Excel, but not all of them.  Historically, you could find an ad or link to these products scattered throughout my blog pages.  I have combined all of the affiliate products I support onto one page that is called e-Store.  Now the main pages of this blog should appear less cluttered.

You can find this page by clicking here or by clicking on the e-Store link in the header of this blog.  There are some great utilities, Excel add-in products and e-books that you should check out.  Many of them will make life easier and some will enlighten.  Here is a summary list of what is available.

1. Waterfall Chart (Excel Add-in)
2. Box and Whisker Chart (Excel Add-in)
3. Dot Plot Chart (Excel Add-in)
4. Learn Excel Formulas (Tutorial)
5. Dashboard Reporting with Excel (Tutorial)
6. MicroCharts (Excel Add-in)

If you have any products that you would like to have included on this new page, please contact me.  The links above contain affiliate products that, if purchased, generate a small commission for Support Analytics.

I recently came across a few iPhone applications (Apps) that allow a user to view or edit spreadsheets in Excel.  Some have pretty good reviews and others, well, not so good.  I think there is some benefit to being able to view data visualizations, charts, graphs, spreadsheets and reports on your phone.  I think the capability is probably limited as it would be near impossible to do large scale spreadsheets on a phone.  Also, the screen size would limit the size and amount of data that could be displayed. 

Here are a few spreadsheet type apps for the iPhone:

• Quick Office
• ispreadsheet
• Mariner Calc

In my opinion, the best option is still to view web-published visualizations from a company like Spotfire or Tableau to see near real-time data, trends and visualizations.  Let’s forget about trying to build spreadsheets on your phone, because that isn’t going to happen.

A little while back I wrote a post that used an online tool called Wordle to visualize my iTunes library, which can be seen below.

In the past few weeks leading up to the 51st Grammy awards, I’ve seen this advertisement, which goes along the same idea for presenting songs.  Granted, many of the words are not even visible, but the big ones definitely stand out.  You can see more by visiting their YouTube site.

I guess the question is; does this type of visualization have a place in business and/or education?  I could definitely see using this type of tool to visualize either customer feedback or internal survey data from comments.  Being able to visually see how prominent specific words are in an employee opinion survey or customer feedback survey could be very powerful.

One point in this video that made me happy to hear is that others realize that companies are not cutting back on analytics and technology related to better data and analysis programs.  For the last few years, I have personally seen money being moved into areas of analytics for all departments that help management understand their business better.  Another point that I want to reiterate is the improper use of the term reporting and the term analytics because they are vastly different, yet some many people use them interchangeably.

David, who pointed me to this video, asked me my thoughts on this product called NovaView by a company called Panorama.  What Panorama was able to do was integrate its technology with Google Spreadsheets.  Just by seeing the demo and checking out the web site, I am not really that impressed by the software.  The data visualization choices are limited and are candy coated just like almost every product on the market. 

What I did like about the product was that there is a free version that would accommodate roughly 90% of the users.  In the video, the interviewee says that this product is for the non-power users of Excel that need a better tool that is easy to use.  I happen to be in that power user category and know a little more than the average person about data visualization.  So my findings may not be in the majority.  Also, I did like the fact that a user can embed the visualization into a blog or web page, which can only be done in an image format with Excel.  This feature would allow people to interact with data versus just having it static.  Until I actually use the product, I can’t claim the speed of processing or ease of use.  I’m not sure it comes close to a product like Tableau, but it is free and integrated with Google.

It seems that many folks are figuring out much quicker what Microsoft is taking so long – the need to collaborate on spreadsheets and post on the web.

Here are some links to the company and its tools.

Panorama

NovaView Analytics

NovaView Dashboard

Google Gadget – Panorama

Thank you to David for the link!

What do you think?

[via BusinessWeek]

The layout of this column chart is a little weird and took me a bit longer to understand.  The zero value is actually at the top of the chart with each of the downward columns showing a negative value.  What makes this chart more difficult to decipher is the space between the duration days (in black/red) and the end of the actual columns.  A better option may have been to flip the "duration in days" value to be at the top of the chart. 

I do like (very much) what the chart is trying to depict and the story it tells.  Also, I am a huge fan of the separate color for the current segment of the data (red in this chart) because it immediately draws my attention.

Can you think of a better way to show this data or any other tweaks you might make?

One of the most frequent questions I get is what would I recommend for analytical software.  Many times the answer I give is, it depends.  The answer depends on what type of data, how much data, what the end goal is, etc.  In the end, I often recommend Tableau software that claims to be, “leaders in fast analytics + visualization.”  The exact product depends on how many users and what type of platform is needed.  They have both a desktop version and web based application.

In my opinion, Tableau is unbeatable at cross tabular analysis.  Many times, I can recreate what Tableau does using a more common product like Excel.  However, there is no way for me to slice and dice an Excel file at the speed and ease that Tableau can.

Below is a recent example from Tableau’s blog where a reader submitted a dashboard that was created using Tableau.  Check it out.

[via Tableau]

What do you think, overrated or world-class?

A little while back, I wrote two posts on crime statistics appearing in the Baltimore Sun newspaper.  Below is another graphic from the Sun that appeared on the cover of the October 26th edition. 

Source

The line graph in the lower section shows the Baltimore clearance rate (red) and the National clearance (yellow) from 1995 until 2008.  What I like about this graph is the zoom breakout section (top graph) where the timeline goes back to 1990 instead of 1995 as shown in the lower.  This method highlights the more recent period, but gives the reader the ability to see more historical data.

Because of the size, the graphs are a little difficult to read here.  It may have been more effective to list the method of calculating the clearance rate in a bottom footnote versus taking up so much space.  Both graphs could benefit from more space to see the details better.

What do you think – Love it or hate it?

Related:

Baltimore Can Stack ‘Em Up

Baltimore Can Stack ‘Em Up – Prequel

This is by no means an all-inclusive list of Excel add-ons.  If it were, the list would probably be in the thousands.  Here is Support Analytics’ short list of those we like and find very useful to data analysis and visualization in no particular order. 

1. PTS
   1. Waterfall Chart Utility
   2. Chart Image Exporter
2. DataPig 
   1. Excel Explosion (amazing tool)  
   2. Custom Button Builder
3. JMT – Excel Utilities
4. BonaVista Systems
   1. MicroCharts
   2. MicroCharts Chart Tamer (Coming soon)
   3. Parameter link
5. Juice Analytics - Clean Charts (hard to find)
6. J-Walk - Chart Tools
7. ExcelUser - Bullet Charts (not an add-on, just tutorial)
8. Bissantz - SparkMaker
9. Microsoft - Treemapper
10. AppsPro - XY Chart Labeler

Best of all, I believe there is a free version for each of the ones above.

I just scratched the surface with my list above.  If there are any utilities you use or find helpful, please share them here by submitting a comment with a link or emailing me.  I hope you find these utilities as valuable as I do.  A special thanks goes to each of the developers who made these tools available.

Francisco, on the XLCubed blog, announced last week that BonaVista Systems is teaming up with Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge to develop a new Excel add-in product called Excel Chart Tamer. 

Chart Tamer will do the following:

Limit the library of chart types to those that really work, thereby reducing the complexity of choosing appropriate charts

• Revise the formatting defaults of the charts to present data clearly
• Restrict chart formatting options to those that really work
• Revise the color palette to encourage the effective use of color in charts
• Provide a new interface for selecting the appropriate chart type, which will guide the user to an effective choice based on the nature of the data and purpose of the chart

Chart Tamer will work with all versions of Excel from Excel 2000 on. (source)

This is excellent news and really made my week.  Bringing the expertise of Stephen together with a company that understands data visualization and analytics using add-in products for Excel is definitely the way to go.  It’s too bad Business Objects hasn’t caught on to this outlandish and intricate concept.  Sorry, I hate to digress…  If Excel Chart Tamer is anything like MicroCharts by BonaVista Systems, I think it will be a huge success.  According to Francisco, they are expecting to have a beta version available in late October.  Stay tuned!