SP121 - TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

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Program Overview
SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Session Overview

SP121 TIBCO Spotfire

Essentials I
Skills Learned

Course Audience Course Design

Understand the general

functions and use of
TIBCO Spotfire

Business Users
Business Analysts
Business Authors

Lecture: 20%
Demo: 40%
Lab: 40%

Course Audience:
Business User: Consumes Spotfire files created by others
Business Analyst: Uses desktop client to create simple to moderate Spotfire files
Business Author: Creates advanced Spotfire files from scratch, gathers
requirements and deploys analyses to other analysts (users)

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Objectives
Explain
how to best load your data
how to create, interpret and configure visualizations
how to filter, mark, and drill-down data for more details
how to save and export data and visualizations

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Agenda
1. What is TIBCO Spotfire?
2. Visualizations
3. Filtering
4. Marking
5. Drill-down
6. Saving and Exporting
7. What is Analytics?
8. Understanding the Context
9. Data Access
10. The Underlying Data
11. Overview of Topics for End Users
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What is TIBCO Spotfire?

SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

What is Spotfire? (1)

Visualization examples

More examples follow

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What is Spotfire? (2)

Visualization examples

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What is Spotfire? (3)

Visualization examples

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What is Spotfire? (4)

Filtering

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What is Spotfire? (5)

Drill-Down

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What is Spotfire? (6)

What you see is based upon the underlying data table

Underlying
data table

RAW DATA

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LAB: Introduction to a Spotfire File

File > Open:

SP121-Basic Visualisations.dxp
- Introduction to a Spotfire file (file extension .dxp)

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Visualizations
SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Visualization Types
The following visualizations are covered in TIBCO Spotfire
Essentials l:
Table
Bar Chart
Line Chart
Scatter Plot

Pie Chart
Summary Table
Cross Table

Other visualizations are introduced in TIBCO Spotfire

Essentials ll:
3D Scatter Plot
Map Chart
Treemap
Combination Chart
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Parallel Coordinate Plot

Box Plot
Heat Map

Starting Point (1)

In Tools > Options, select which
visualization to appear when loading
new data. A good initial visualization
is a Table.

Scan column headings, Filter Panel,

and status bar to get an overview.

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Common Features: Navigation Modes

Tab Mode

- Displays pages as tabs

- Offers drop-down menu as navigation option

Step-by-Step Mode:

- Displays pages as numeric links

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Common Features: Cover Page and Text Areas

Cover Page:
Automatically created as the first
page in a new document
Used to present the analysis
Text Area:
Can be added
on every page
Used to inform
on visualizations
and give
instructions

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Common Features: Aggregations

Visualizations often represent aggregated data
using various statistical measures.
Statistical Measures Overview
in Help > Help Topics gives
information about each of these
algorithms.

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Common Features: Changing Properties

Visualizations are created with default settings, but the
properties can be changed to represent the visualization
you desire.
Options to change properties:
1 Drag & Drop

2 Selectors
3 Properties Dialog

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Common Features: Properties Dialogs

Adjusting properties on the different pages of the visualization
Properties dialogs:

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Common Features: Selecting Data

Control which data table the visualization points to

MarketingData01
Covered in Spotfire Essentials II training
MarketingData02 Unrelated Data Table
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Common Features: Specifying Colors (1)

Visualizations can be colored in many ways:

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Common Features: Specifying Colors (2)

The color setup is made on a visualizations Colors page:
Color modes Scaling options

Access and apply

Color schemes

Add color
break points
Add conditional
coloring rules

Saving options
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Common Features: Specifying Colors (3)

Select which colors to
use by clicking the
color boxes
on the Colors page
or
in the legend

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Tables
Not to be confused with Summary Tables or Cross Tables (to be
discussed later)
Tables represent individual rows from underlying data table
Sorting on columns:
1. Click the header of the
column to be sorted
2. Press Shift and click
another header to make a
subsequent sort

In Table Properties,
the Columns page,
select columns for
display and their order
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Set Table as Default Visualization

As mentioned earlier, the Table visualization is a good choice
for initial evaluation of your data table
Tools > Options:

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Bar Charts
Bar charts group data values and represent them by
the height of the bar.

Aggregation Measure

A bar can represent a wide variety of summary values

(as previously discussed).

Categorical Grouping

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Stacked and Side-by-Side Bar Charts

Get stacked bars by
adding a categorical
variable for Color by:
Split stacked bars by rightclicking and selecting
Side-by-Side Bars

Apply separate scales by

right-clicking and
selecting Multiple Scales

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Bar Charts Used as Histograms

Bar Charts are useful
for examining data
distribution
- Relative distribution may
be studied by switching
to 100% Stacked Bars
Auto-binning
can be applied
to ranging
numerical data.

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Bar Chart Properties

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LAB: Create your own Bar Charts

File > Open:

SP121-Basic Visualisations.dxp
On the tab titled EXERCISE #1, create new bar charts
which help you to answer the following questions:
1. Which store has the most total sales in the Electronics
Department?
2. What is the average total sales in the Electronics Department
across all stores?
3. How many customers shopped in all six departments?
4. What percentage of those customers were men and what
percentage were women?
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Line Charts
Line Charts are useful for showing trends, especially
over time, as they connect data points in the X-direction
Data points can be marked

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Defining Lines in Charts

Multiple lines can be defined by using Line by: or Color by:

Data points can be split using the trellis feature

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Marking in Line Charts

Click a line to mark it in total

or click and drag a rectangle for partial marking.

- Lines between adjacent nodes in the rectangle get marked
as well as all nodes.

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Line Chart Properties

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Aggregate Values on Line Charts

Line Charts represent aggregate values based on variables
selected for X-axis, Y-axis, Color by, Line by, Trellis, and
other properties:
Consider the following example, where sales data has been
collected from 4 different store locations over some years. The
goal is to examine annual trends...

Originalshows
Line Chart
Tooltip
Change
Date
toLocation
Month
Show
Color by:
markers
Store
value
aggregation
X=Date
Y=Sales

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Multiple Scales in Line Charts

Multiple scales are supported also in line charts
- Useful when comparing trends if
magnitudes vary significantly from
line to line

Individual scales
can be shown per
color, line or trellis

Individual scaling set to For each

line results in Y-axis values (0 100%)
based on min and max for each data
point grouping (for filtered data).
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More Common Features: Trellising (1)

Trellis Plots
Do you see any
distinguishing
features for this
distribution of
Body Weights
for participants
in a diet
program?
add color
split by trellis
variable
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More Common Features: Trellising (2)

Trellis Plots

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LAB: Create your own Line Charts

File > Open:

SP121-Basic Visualisations.dxp
On the tab titled EXERCISE #2, create line charts which
help you to answer the following questions:
1. During which months do we see a peak in the number
of new memberships (Date Joined)?
2. Does this pattern of membership spikes and valleys
remain consistent across all 4 store locations?
3. Is the trend the same for males and females at each
store location?

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LAB: Starting from Scratch

On the tab titled EXERCISE #3, do the following:
Save changes to the current file with a new title:
- My First DXP Analysis.dxp
Keep the current analysis open for reference and launch
a new Spotfire session with no data.
Open DATA-01-Supremely Super Mega Mart.xls.
Work on reproducing the pages and visualizations you
see on My First DXP Analysis.dxp.
Save your new file as My Second DXP Analysis.dxp.

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Scatter Plots

Can add color, shape, size,

etc. to represent additional
values
May set values to group by
other variables, aggregate
values are then plotted

Y-values

Plots a data point for each row with an X and Y value,

resulting in information by position

Marker By: Grouping

X-values
High X, Low Y

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Visualizing Additional Dimensions

As mentioned,
use of size and
shape allows the
inclusion of
additional
dimensions.

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Scatter Plots
Two major analytical uses of Scatter Plots:
Correlation

possibly related measures

identification of outliers

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Distribution

high growth
high market share
maintain status quo

Multiple Scales in Scatter Plots

Multiple scales can be displayed on the Y-axis
- Useful if the Y-axis values vary significantly
- Separate scales can be shown per color or trellis
- Rightclick the Y-axis and select Multiple Scales

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Scatter Plot Properties

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LAB: Create your own Scatter Plots

File > Open:

SP121-Other Visualisations.dxp
On the tab titled EXERCISE #1, create scatter plots
which help you to answer the following questions:
1. How good is the correlation of Electronics purchases to the
Total Purchases for our customers?
2. What can you say about the relationship between amount of
Electronics purchases and a customers age?
3. How many customers have made Electronics purchases which
are greater than $8,000?

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Pie Charts
Interpretation of Pie Charts

Pie

Color by:

Pie size by:

Sector size:

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Sector

Pie Chart Properties

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LAB: Create your own Pie Charts

File > Open:

SP121-Other Visualisations.dxp
On the tab titled EXERCISE #2, create a pie chart which
will help you answer the following questions:
1. What is the relative percentage of men and women in our
customer data base?
2. Does that distribution differ at different store locations?

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Summary Table
Creating Summary Tables
1. Select Columns

2. Select Categorization

3. Select Statistical Measures

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Summary Table

Underlying Data Table

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Summary Table Properties

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LAB: Create your own Summary Table

File > Open:

SP121-Other Visualisations.dxp
On the tab titled EXERCISE #3, create a summary table
which displays information that will allow us to examine the
amount and number of extreme purchases in various
departments:
Select each of the six departments as columns for analysis
Select store location as the categorization variable
Select the following statistical measures:
Upper Outer Fence
Max
Count
Outliers
1. Which Store Location/Department has the most Outlier Purchase activity?
2. Which Store Location/Department has the highest Max purchase amount?
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Cross Table
Creating a Cross Table, also known as Pivot Table

Vertical Variable

Horizontal Variable

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Cross Table
Interpreting a Cross Table

Colors can be used in a variety

of ways, for example:
- gradient coloring
- display of top and bottom values

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Average Q3 Purchases by
Females at our Boston
store

Cross Table Properties

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LAB: Create your own Cross Table

File > Open:

SP121-Other Visualisations.dxp
On the tab titled EXERCISE #4, create a cross table (as defined below) in
an effort to address the following questions:
Select store location for the x-axis
Select departments shopped for the y-axis
Select sum of number of items purchased for the cell values
Color continuously from min to max
1. At each store location, what is the relationship between the number of
items purchased and the number of departments shopped?
2. Can you change the coloring to make only those cells with sums of
6,000 or greater turn red?

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Filtering
SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Filter Types
Item Filter

List Box Filter

Hierarchy (Tree) Filters

Radio Button Filter

Date Range Filters

Check Box Filter

Text Filter

Range Filters

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Reset All Filters

Filters

Using filters to evaluate your data

Filtering data
Searching for a filter
Using filters to select properties and axis values
Filtering status and resetting filters
Changing filter types
Organizing the filter panel

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Hierarchies

Hierarchical filters
Hierarchical selectors
Date hierarchies
Other hierarchies
Dates

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Locations

Hierarchical Data
Other hierarchies

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Data Types
Categorical data
Groups A, B, C, D, E, & F
Divides data into groups

Hierarchical data
Nested levels of identifiers
Allows data to be divided into non-overlapping
sets and subsets

Continuous numerical data

1, 1.1, 2, 5, 22, 23.5, 80, 100
Needs to be treated as numerical, not
string

Date/Time date
A continuous, categorical hierarchy
Needs to be treated appropriately for the analysis
which is being done.

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Marking
SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Marking Data
Click on item: marks item and unmarks all previously marked items
Ctrl + click on item: adds or subtracts items from the marked group

Drag rectangle: marks all items in

rectangle, unmarks all others
Ctrl + drag rectangle: toggles items
within rectangle to the opposite of
marked/unmarked
Alt + draw shape: marks all items in
shape
Ctrl + Alt + draw shape: adds more
items to the marked set
Click on nothing (in visualization space where there is no item:
unmarks all data
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Marking Overview
Highlighting, tooltips and label information
Marking data
Details-on-Demand
Visualizations can show only marked rows
Copying or deleting data
Filter to marked rows or remove marked rows

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Labels
Adds information on

items
- Values from a selected
column are shown for
the items
- Labels can be displayed
for marked items only or
all items
- In scatter plots labels
can be positioned
manually by clicking and
dragging

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Drill-Down
SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Details-on-Demand
A special table, designed to show you the underlying data
table (individual rows & columns) for the marked items in
the active visualization.

Details-on-Demand
Mark data
to populate
the Details-on-Demand
canand
be change
moved visible
to a
Right-click
to access
thewindow
Properties,
Hold
Shift
a second
time
to
reverse
sorting
Hold
Sort
theand
{Shift}
by click
clicking
key
toonsort
Column
by
multiple
Headings
columns
columns
different
window
position
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Details Visualization
A quick and easy way
to make a new
visualization which is
dependent upon
marked records in the
current visualization:

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LAB: Practice Filtering and Marking

File > Open:

SP121-Basic Visualisations.dxp
On the tab titled EXERCISE #4, do the following:
Return to the file...
My Second DXP Analysis.dxp
Create the remaining pages dedicated to filtering and
marking (as seen in My First DXP Analysis.dxp)

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Saving and Exporting

SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Saving Spotfire Files

Save an analysis as a Spotfire file with dxp as file extension
Choose embedded or linked data
Embedded
data becomes
part of the
Spotfire file

Linked reloads data from

the data source each time
the Spotfire file is opened

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Save Dialog
Lists data tables and their current save settings
If you want to change the
save settings, click Edit

If you want all data to

be embedded, use
this check box as a
shortcut.

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Exporting and Printing Options

Export visualizations to
Powerpoint, HTML, or
image files
Export data to text or
Excel files
Print various visualization
layouts

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What is Analytics?
SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Outline
Introduction to Analytics
What, Why and How
Why visual analytics

A Framework for Applying Analytics

Effective application of analytics in any environment
Foundations of Analytics

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Visualization types
Data distributions and relationships
Making the informed decision

Using the Right Tool

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=
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32

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Introduction to Analytics
What are analytics?
Why should I do analytics and what can I expect from
them?
How do I get started?

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8
8
8
8

What is Analytics?
Data that helps companies track business trends.*
A term used for more sophisticated forms of business
data analysis.**
Analytics leverage data in a particular functional process
(or application) to enable context-specific insight that is
actionable.***
The use of data to answer questions.

* http://www.informatica.com/solutions/resource_center/glossary/default.htm
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytics
*** http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3649/is_200602/ai_n17169695
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Business Intelligence and Analytics

Business Intelligence

Analytics

Track, monitor, measure

Question driven

Pre-defined views, reports and

workflows

Iterative cycle of question and

response

Structured data

Respond to new information

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Visual or Statistical Analytics

Visual Tools

Allow end users to easily create visual summaries of the data

Interactive, accessible and intuitive
Sufficient to answer many questions

Statistical Tools

Extremely powerful
Analysis on vast data volumes
Often hard to understand & use
Overkill for many questions

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Why Visual Analytics?

This

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 TIBCO Software Inc.

Why Visual Analytics?

versus this

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 TIBCO Software Inc.

Getting Started
1. Realize that some sort of analytics are for everyone. In
fact, you have already used them.

Have you ever bought a house or a car?

Decided which job to accept?

2. Understand basic analytics tools and techniques.

3. Develop and apply a framework for doing analytics.

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Understanding the Context

SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Understanding the Context of your Data

What do you want to know?
What business question is the focus of your analysis?
What background information is important to your
analysis?
How does your business question translate into one or
more analysis questions?
What data is required to answer your analysis question(s)?

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Getting Started
Data or Questions first?
Questions first. Exploratory analysis is useful, but should be in the
context of a question-based analysis.

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State Your Business (Question)

Objective:
The question which is driving the analysis.

Background:
What is the business context of the
question?
What additional information is relevant to the
analysis?
What is the expected (or hoped for) result of
the analysis?

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Sample Business Question (1)

Business Question:
How was our Q3 marketing campaign?

Background:
In quarter 3, Picture Perfect Credit, Inc. (a credit card company) did a
marketing campaign targeting a range of prospects with different
demographics and using a variety of creative approaches, distribution
channels, and offers.

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Translating Business Questions

Business questions are often expressed in terms which
are not suitable to analysis.
They may be open ended
They frequently lack a clear scope
They do not specify what an acceptable answer would be

Business Questions should be translated into Analysis

Questions. This may require asking some questions
about the business question and the context which are
provided.

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Sample Translation (1)

Business Question:
How was our Q3 marketing campaign?

Possible Responses:
Compared to what? The marketing campaigns from Q1 and Q2, or the
Q3 campaigns from previous years?
Should we examine the Return Of Investment, ROI, of the campaign?
Should we analyze the response of various factors within the
campaign (for example, response rates for different channels,
approaches, etc.)?

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Formulating Good Analysis Questions

Specific: A single business question may not be easily translated into a single analysis question.
In this case, create a set of analysis questions, each of which addresses a specific aspect of the
business question.

Scoped: An analysis question should have a defined scope. For instance, if the business question
focuses on trends over time, the analysis question should indicate the relevant time period.

Data Oriented: Analysis questions should point clearly to what data will be required to answer
the question.

Answerable: The question should provide the analyst a clear understanding of what the answer
for the question will look like, including:
The units in which an answer will be expressed.

Clear:

A good analysis question will be clearly stated with as little ambiguity as possible. If there
are assumptions implicit in the business question, state them explicitly in the analysis question.
If the question is quantitative, what is a reasonable range for the answer?
If qualitative, what relationship or trend is expected?

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Sample Analysis Question (1)

Business Question:
How was our Q3 marketing campaign?

Additional Info (from translation phase):

Interested in an assessment of response rates over all, and whether or
not the different approaches, channels, etc. made a difference.
Interested in how response rates varied across demographics.

Analysis Question(s):
What was the overall positive response rate for the Q3 marketing
campaign?
What were the differences in positive response rate(if any) among the
various approaches?
What were the differences in positive response rate (if any) across
different demographics?

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Required Data
Specify the data required to answer the analysis
question(s).
Look to see what information the analysis questions reference.
Find the nouns!

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Sample Data Requirements (1)

Analysis Question(s):
What was the overall response rate for the Q3 marketing
campaign?
What were the differences in response rate (if any) among the
various approaches (offers, channels, creative efforts, etc.)?
What were the differences in response rate (if any) across
different demographics?

Required Data
Data from the Q3 marketing campaign for:
Each prospects response.
Which creative approaches, marketing channels, etc. were used to
deliver the offer to each prospect?
Demographic information on each prospect.

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Data Access
SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Data Access
In order to get started with Spotfire, you must first get some
data to work with.
Copy - Paste
File > Open

File > Open From

Library Information links

and analysis files
Database

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Data Format
The Import Settings
tool allows you to
format your source
data appropriately for
import into Spotfire.

If you wish to exclude a column from your data

table, clear the check box in the Included row.

Row Definition
Ignore: do not include in data table
Name row: part of the column name
Type row: defines columns as String, Time, etc.
Data row: an actual row in the data table
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Column Definition
Defines the columns data
type. Click Refresh to test.
If the type can not be applied to
the specific data values, they will
be indicated with a
symbol.

The Underlying Data

SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Assessing Data

Some questions to ask:

What is being measured/recorded?

How is my data organized/stored?

What data types are there?

How is the data distributed?

Is the data correct?

How much data is there?

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What is being Measured?

The most fundamental question about your data

Understanding what the data represents is key to providing

context and shaping expectations for the analysis.

The answer will make it possible to determine if you have enough

data points, if the data is of the appropriate type and of sufficient
quality to perform analysis.

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Potential Problem
Frequently data needs further explanation to be suitable
for analysis.

Lack of column identifiers impedes use of analytics.

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How is my Data Organized?

tall-skinny

short-wide

May affect what you can do with the

data in different analysis situations.

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Potential Problem (1)

Data may need to be reorganized (shaped) to enable appropriate
analysis for your questions.

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Potential Problem (2)

Values do not match the observed or indicated types.

For instance:

Continuous numerical values imported as strings

Categorical labels are inconsistent (that is, Group B versus

group b)

Units are inconsistent

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How much Data is there?

Different techniques are appropriate for different

quantities of data

Some visualizations can be swamped by too much data

Large quantities of data may require thinking about aggregation
Some numeric techniques may not make sense with small quantities
of data

Use a subset of data from each source to begin to

explore

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Should be large enough to verify any required calculations or

statistical methods
Small enough to assess quality, understand the relationships across
variables, and explore different aggregation methods

Raw versus Aggregate Values

To aggregate or not aggregate?
Not either/or but both/and
Raw data and aggregate data show different things
Methods of aggregation depend on data volume

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Initial Assessment
Focus on the effect of a single variable at a time,
considering:
Distributions
Summary statistics
Grouped data

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Data Distributions
Uniform

Long-Tailed

Normal

Bi-Modal

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Is the Data Correct?

Do the values make sense for the distributions and data
types?

Are there obvious outliers (that is, Age variable has entries of
200+)

Are there missing values in the data?

Are the units across variables consistent?

Are the data types for each measurement correct?

Do the measurements represent what weve been told they

represent?

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Data Correctness
Investigate outliers
Are outliers
expected in the
data?
Do they have a
substantial
effect?

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What Relationships Exist?

Investigate the effects of multiple variables together.
Are outliers expected in the data?
Do they have a substantial effect?
Are they relevant for your question? If not, should they be
followed up on?

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LAB: Analyze the Underlying Data

File > Open:

SP121-Basic Visualisations.dxp
Think of three quantities which you work with and
answer the following questions for each of them:

What problems (missing values, incorrect values,

etc.) would you expect to find in this data?
How would you expect the data to be distributed?
How much data would you expect to have?
Would you expect to find any relationships between
the different quantities? If so, what would you
expect them to be?

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Overview of Topics for End Users

SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

SP131 Multiple Data Tables

Underlying
data tables RELATED DATA

UNRELATED DATA

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SP131 Multiple Data Tables

Option to MERGE data, instead of adding new data tables
(Add Rows or Add Columns)
Adding new data tables
Relating data tables via a common identifier
Creating visualizations from different data tables
Multiple markings and multiple data tables
Filtering options for related data tables

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SP131 More Visualization Types

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SP131 Data Binning

Data Binning
Organize data into groups:

Bin 1

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Bin 2

Bin 3

Bin 4

Bin n

SP131 Calculated Columns

Add information in new data columns by performing
calculations based on existing data columns.

Expression: [Price]*0.80

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SP131 Calculated ColumnsNY

Add information in new data columns
by performing calculations based on
existing data columns.
Expression: [Price]*0.80

Other features explained in SP131: The use of tags,

loading data-on-demand, more coloring options.
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SP141 Statistical Tools

Data Relationships

K-means Clustering

Line Similarity
Lines and Curves

Error Bars

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SP141 Custom Expressions

Create Custom Expressions, that is,
group data as you please, and
perform calculations dynamically,
using the grouped data.

(Sum([Sales]) - Sum([Cost])) / Sum([Cost])

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SP151 Guided Analysis

User
Annotations
and Analysis
Guides

Analysis
Workflows and
Briefing Books

Numerous
Visualization
Methods
Interactive
Filters and
Data Query

User-Driven,
Drag-and-Drop
Interface

Links to Drive
Analysis
Workflow

User-Defined
KPIs

Instant Access
to Details

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Latest Spotfire Training Schedules

SP131 Essentials II

Aimed at Business Users, Business Analysts, and Business Authors

Covers Multiple Data Tables, more Visualization Types, Formatting,
Data Binning, and Calculated Columns

SP141 Computational Analytics

Aimed at Business Authors, Business Analysts, and Statisticians

Covers Custom Expressions and all Statistical Tools

SP151 Distributing Analytics

Aimed at Business Authors

Covers publishing to Business Users

SP161 Advanced Authoring???

Aimed at Business Authors

Covers ???

Our latest schedule can be found here:

www.spotfire.com/community
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Closing Comments
SP121: TIBCO Spotfire Essentials I

Continued Learning
Training Manual
Help Spotfire Users Guide
Spotfire Support

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