Chapter 11Data Visualization and Geographic Information System.docx

Chapter 11
Data Visualization and Geographic Information Systems
Prepared by Dr. Derek Sedlack, South University
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Learning Objectives
Enterprise Data Mashups
Digital Dashboards
Geospatial Data and Geographic Information Systems
Data Visualization and Learning

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Figure 11.3 Tools and technologies in this chapter fall into
three related categories.
Heat Maps
Use colors to represent data categories that are more quickly
identified at a glance in high pace environments.
Visuals are used to accent what you want to learn or convey.
Tag Clouds
Represent the relative frequency of words and terms by their
sizes.
Help to better understand word patterns and use.
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Learning, Exploring, and Discovery
Data discovery: discovering hidden relationships through
visualization.
Used with predictive analytics to improve departmental
decisions.
Summary data rather than statistical data for higher level
absorption.
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Visualizations
Dials, charts, graphs, timelines, geospatial maps, and heat maps
with interactivity and drill-downs making it easier to understand
data and identify patterns.
Returned more quickly than completed reports.
A common mistake is to invest in the analytics foundation—
tools, quality data, data integration, touch screens—but
overlook the most crucial component—namely, users’ ability to
interpret the visual reports and analyses correctly.
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Performance Management Visualizations
IBM SPSS Analytic Catalyst
Advanced analysis designed for experts in statistical software.
Tableau
Easier to implement, requiring just basic database information.
Roambi Analytics
Leading mobile reporting and data visualization app designed
for iPads and iPhones.
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How does data visualization contribute to learning?
How do heat maps and tag clouds convey information?
Why are data visualization and discovery usage increasing?

Give two examples of data visualization for performance
management.
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Suggested Answers:
1. Visuals are the single best way our brain processes
information. Data visualization harnesses the power of analytics
and adds a visual display to capitalize on how our brains work.
Visual displays make it easier for individuals to understand data
and identify patterns that offer answers to business questions.
By using data visualization, companies are able to discover
hidden data relationships and learn how to improve
performance.
2. Heat maps use colors to convey information at a glance. A
heat map is like a spreadsheet whose cells are formatted with
colors instead of numbers.
Tag clouds use data, typically from unstructured content, and
represent the relative frequency of words and terms by their
sizes.
3. Answers may vary. Data discovery is expected to take on a
greater role in corporate decision making. Companies are
investing in the latest data discovery solutions largely because
of their speed and flexibility. Data visualization software
vendors continue to focus on business users of all levels and
backgrounds. Experts and non-experts can collect data quickly
from disparate sources and then explore the dataset with easy-
to-use interactive visualizations and search interfaces. Drill-
down paths are not predefined, which gives users more
flexibility in how they view detailed data. Today’s data

discovery technologies provide greater data exploration and
ease of use to help users find answers to “why” and “what if”
questions through self-service analytic apps. Enterprise apps for
Androids, Apple iPads, and BlackBerry Playbooks are replacing
static business reports with real-time data, analytics, and
interactive reporting tools.
4. Answers may vary.
Vendor Aqumin provides real time visual interpretation
solutions for the financial services industry. Aqumin’s
OptionVision enables traders, risk managers, and market
participants to spot opportunities, risk, and market changes.
AlphaVision for Excel enables visual interpretation capabilities
directly within the Microsoft Excel platform, and AlphaVision
for Bloomberg is developed for professional portfolio managers,
traders, and risk analysts and is connected directly to the
Bloomberg Terminal to leverage data provided by Bloomberg.
IBM SPSS Analytic Catalyst has made sophisticated analytics
accessible. Analytic Catalyst enables business users to conduct
the kind of advanced analysis that had been designed for experts
in statistical software. The software fast tracks analytics by
identifying key drivers, selecting an appropriate model, testing
it, and then explaining the results in plain English.
Roambi Analytics is a leading mobile reporting and data
visualization app designed for iPads and iPhones. The app can
take data from most sources, including Box, Google Docs,
spreadsheets, BI systems, databases, and Salesforce.com, and
transform them into interactive data visualizations.
8

Learning Objectives
Digital Dashboards
Enterprise Mashups
Combine business data and applications from multiple
sources—typically a mix of internal data and applications with
externally sourced data to create an integrated experience.
Does not require a huge investment and can be developed in
hours rather than days or weeks.
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Chapter 11
Figure 11.7 Architecture of enterprise mashup application.
Combinations of data from various business systems and
external sources, often in real time, without necessarily relying
on a middle step of ETL (extract, transform, and load) from a
data warehouse.
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Enterprise Mashup Types
Customer: provides a quick view of customer data for a sales
person in preparation for a customer site visit.
Logistics: displays inventory for a group of department stores
based on specific criteria.
Human resource: provides a quick glance at employee data such
as profiles, salary, ratings, benefits status, and activities.
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Chapter 11

Sketch or describe the architecture of an enterprise mashup
application.
What is an enterprise data mashup?
What are the functions and uses of enterprise mashups?
Explain why business workers may need data mashup
technology.
What are three benefits of mashup technology to the
organization?
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Suggested Answers:
1. Figure 11.7 illustrates the architecture of an enterprise
mashup application.
The general architecture of an enterprise mashup application
integrates data from operational data stores, business systems,
external data (economic data, suppliers, information,
competitors’ activities), and real-time news feeds to generate an
enterprise mashup.
2. Enterprise mashups are combinations of data from various
business systems and external sources, often in real time, and
without necessarily relying on a middle step of ETL (extract,
transform, and load) from a data warehouse.
3. Enterprise mashups improve operational efficiency, optimize
the sales pipeline, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive

profitability. In an enterprise environment, mashups can be used
to solve a wide variety of business problems and day-to-day
situations. Examples of these types of mashups are:
Customer. A customer data mashup that provides a quick view
of customer data for a sales person in preparation for a customer
site visit. Data can be pulled from internal data stores and Web
sources, such as contact information, links to related websites,
recent customer orders, lists of critical situations, and more.
Logistics. A logistics mashup that displays inventory for a
group of department stores based on specific criteria. For
example, you can mash current storm information onto a map of
store locations and then wire the map to inventory data to show
which stores located in the path of storms are low on
generators.
Human resource. An HR mashup that provides a quick glance at
employee data such as profiles, salary, ratings, benefits status,
and activities. Data can be filtered to show custom views, for
example, products whose average quarterly sales are lower than
last quarter.
Data mashup apps are used in organizations:
For real-time awareness and data freshness
To feed data to cross-functional dashboards
For competitive analysis
To monitor compliance and manage risk
For disaster monitoring and disaster response
To generate external vendor reports
4. Using data mashup apps, nontechnical users can easily and
quickly access, integrate, and display BI data from a variety of
operational data sources, including those that are not integrated
into the existing data warehouse, without having to understand
the intricacies of the underlying data infrastructures or schemas.
5. Below is a summary of benefits of mashup technology to an
enterprise:

Dramatically reduces time and effort needed to combine
disparate data sources.
Users can define their own data mashups by combining fields
from different data sources that were not previously modeled.
Users can import external data sources, e.g., spreadsheets and
competitor data, to create new dashboards.
Enables the building of complex queries by non-experts with a
drag-and-drop query-building tool.
Enables agile BI because new data sources can be added to a BI
system quickly via direct links to operational data sources,
bypassing the need to load them to a data warehouse.
Provides a mechanism to easily customize and share knowledge
throughout the company.
15
Learning Objectives
Digital Dashboards

Digital Dashboards
Dashboards
A style of reporting that depicts KPIs, operational or strategic
information with intuitive and interactive displays.
Custom programmed to automatically and securely pull,
analyze, and display data from enterprise systems, cloud apps,
data feeds, and external sources and then display the metrics.
Components of dashboards are:
Design
Performance metrics
API
Access
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Digital Dashboards
Dashboard – Real Time Data
Having real-time, or near-real-time, data is essential to keep
users aware of any meaningful changes in the metrics as they
occur and to provide information for making decisions in real
time.
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Digital Dashboards

Dashboard Functions
Displays company performance metrics, automatically updated
in real time.
Improve the information synthesis process bringing in multiple,
disparate data feeds and sources, extracting features of interest,
and manipulating the data so the information is in a more
accessible format.
Eliminates need to log into multiple applications to view
business performance.
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Digital Dashboards
Dashboard Benefits
Visibility: blind spots are minimized or eliminated; Threats and
opportunities are detected as soon as possible.
Continuous improvement: custom designed to display the user’s
critical metrics and measures.
Single sign on: save time and effort logging onto numerous
corporate information systems.
Budget or planning deviations: metrics can be programmed to
display deviations from targets.
Accountability: employees tend to be motivated to improve their
performance when tracked.
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Digital Dashboards
Describe business dashboards and their functions.
Why do you think dashboards must be in real time and
customized for the executive or manager?
How do business dashboards differ from other types of visual

reports?
Explain the components of dashboards.
What are benefits of dashboards?
Chapter 11
Suggested Answers:
1. Dashboards are a style of reporting that depicts KPIs,
operational or strategic information with intuitive and
interactive displays. An executive dashboard displays a
company’s performance metrics, which are automatically
updated in real time (every 15 minutes) based on custom
programming and connectivity with existing business systems.
Dashboards improve the information synthesis process by
bringing in multiple, disparate data feeds and sources,
extracting features of interest, and manipulating the data so the
information is in a more accessible format. Users no longer
need to log into multiple applications to see how the business is
performing.
2. Answers may vary.
The purpose of dashboards is to give users a clear view of the
current state of KPIs, real time alerts, and other metrics about
operations. Having real time, or near real time, data is essential
to keep users aware of any meaningful changes in the metrics as
they occur and to provide information for making decisions in
real time. Users can take corrective actions promptly.
Dashboard design is a critical factor because business users
need to be able to understand the significance of the dashboard
information at a glance and have the capability to drill down to
one or more levels of detail.
3. Dashboards are often mistakenly thought of as reports

consisting of various gauges, charts, and dials, but the purpose
of business dashboards is much more specific and directed. The
purpose of dashboards is to give users a clear view of the
current state of KPIs, real time alerts, and other metrics about
operations. Dashboard design is a critical factor because
business users need to be able to understand the significance of
the dashboard information at a glance and have the capability to
drill down to one or more levels of detail. Having real time, or
near real time, data is essential to keep users aware of any
meaningful changes in the metrics as they occur and to provide
information for making decisions in real time. Users can take
corrective actions promptly.
4. Components of dashboards are:
Design. The visualization techniques and descriptive captions to
convey information so that they are correctly understood.
Infographics are widely used because they convey information
in interesting and informative designs.
Performance metrics. KPIs and other real time content displayed
on the dashboard. All dashboard data should reflect the current
value of each metric.
API. APIs (application programming interfaces) connect
disparate data sources and feeds to display on the dashboard.
The alternative is for users or IT to manually enter data to the
dashboard. Dashboards created in this manner tend to fail
because of the risk of incomplete, outdated, or wrong data,
which users learn not to trust.
Access. Preferred access is via a secure Web browser from a
mobile device.
5. The interrelated benefits of business dashboards are:
Visibility. Blind spots are minimized or eliminated. Threats and
opportunities are detected as soon as possible.
Continuous improvement. A famous warning from Peter
Drucker was “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”
Executive dashboards are custom designed to display the user’s

critical metrics and measures.
Single sign on. Managers can spend a lot of time logging into
various business systems and running reports. Single-sign-on
dashboards save time and effort.
Deviations from what was budgeted or planned. Any metrics can
be programmed to display deviations from targets, such as
comparisons of actual and planned or budgeted.
Accountability. When employees know their performance is
tracked in near real time and can see their results, they tend to
be motivated to improve their performance.
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Learning Objectives
Digital Dashboards

Geographic Information System (GIS)
Captures, manages, analyzes, and displays multidimensional
geographic data, also called geospatial data.
Geospatial Data
Where things or people are and where they are going—with
descriptive data—what things are like or what customers are
doing.
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GIS
GIS is not a map, with multiple layers of information for many
ways of thinking about a geographic space.
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Global Integration
Cellular and Internet service providers, sensors, Google Earth,
GPS, and RFID systems know the location of each connected
user or object.
Foursquare, Google Maps, and other mobile apps rely on GPS
locations.
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GIS Business Applications
Learn how store sales are impacted by population or the
proximity to competitors’ stores.
Use GIS to identify relevant demographics, proximity to
highways, public transportation, and competitors’ stores to
select the best location options.
Food and consumer products companies can chart locations of
complaint calls enabling product traceability in the event of a
crisis or recall.
Sales reps might better target their customer visits by analyzing
the geography of sales targets.
Chapter 11

Chapter 11Data Visualization and Geographic Information System.docx

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