Module 4

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Decision Support Systems

College of Computing and Informatics

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Module 4
Chapter 3 – Part 2 (sections 3.7 to 3.11):
Nature of Data, Statistical Modeling, and
Visualization
Analytics, Data Science, & Artificial Intelligence
Systems For Decision Support

This Presentation is mainly dependent on this textbook

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Contents
o3.7 – Business Reporting

o3.8 – Data Visualization

o3.9 – Different Types of Charts and Graphs

o3.10 – Emergence of Visual Analytics

o3.11 – Information Dashboards

oAnalyzing data with pivottables and pivotcharts using excel

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Weekly Learning Outcomes
1.Define business reporting and understand its historical evolution

2.Understand the importance of data/information visualization

3.Learn different types of visualization techniques

4.Appreciate the value that visual analytics brings to business analytics

5.Know the capabilities and limitations of dashboards

6.Demonstrate the ability in utilizing Excel to perform data preprocessing


and data analysis

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Required Reading
Chapter 3: “Nature of Data, Statistical Modeling, and Visualization” from “Analytics, Data
Science, & Artificial Intelligence: Systems for Decision Support”.

Recommended Reading
Excel Charts Tutorial
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/excel_charts/index.htm

Recommended Video
10 Advanced Excel Charts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUjZa4YBixI
Introduction to Pivot Tables, Charts, and Dashboards in Excel (Part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NUjHBNWe9M
Introduction to Pivot Tables, Charts, and Dashboards (Part 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g530cnFfk8Y

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3.7 Business Reporting
• Overview

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Overview
• Decision makers need information to make accurate and timely decisions.
• Information is usually provided to decision makers in the form of a written
report that contains organized information referring to specific time periods.

• Business reports can fulfill many different functions:


o To ensure that all departments are functioning properly
o To provide information
o To provide the results of an analysis
o To persuade others to act
o To create an organizational memory
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Overview (cont.)
• Business reporting (also called OLAP or BI) is an essential part of the larger
drive toward improved, evidence-based, optimal managerial decision making.
• The foundation of these business reports is various sources of data coming
from both inside and outside the organization (OLTP systems).
• Creation of these reports involves extract, transform, and load (ETL)
procedures in coordination with a data warehouse and reporting tools.
• This reporting process involves querying structured data sources, which were
created using different logical data models and data dictionaries, to produce a
human-readable, easily digestible report.

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Overview (cont.)
• These types of business reports allow managers to stay informed and involved,
review options and alternatives, and make informed decisions.
• Metric Management Reports: In many organizations, business performance is
managed through outcome-oriented metrics. For external groups, these are
service-level agreements. For internal management, they are key performance
indicators (KPIs).
• Dashboard-type Reports: A popular idea in business reporting has been to
present a range of different performance indicators on 1 page like a dashboard.
• Balanced Scorecard–type Reports: This method attempts to present an
integrated view of success in an organization. In addition to financial
performance, balanced scorecard–type reports also include customer, business
process, and learning and growth perspectives.
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3.8 Data Visualization
• Overview
• History of Data Visualization

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Overview
• Data visualization has been defined as “the use of visual representations to
explore, make sense of, and communicate data”.
• Information is the aggregation, summarization, and contextualization of data,
what is portrayed in visualizations is the information, not the data.
• Data visualization is closely related to the fields of information graphics,
information visualization, scientific visualization, and statistical graphics.
• Until recently, the major forms of data visualization available in both BI
applications have included charts and graphs as well as the other types of
visual elements used to create scorecards and dashboards.

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History of Data Visualization
• Although visualization has not been widely
recognized as a discipline until fairly recently, today’s
most popular visual forms date back a few centuries.
• Companies and individuals are interested in data;
that interest has in turn sparked a need for visual
tools that help them understand it.
• Countless applications, tools, and code libraries help
people collect, organize, visualize, understand data.
• The future of data visualization holds more 3D
imaging, experience with multidimensional data, and
holographs of information.
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3.9 Different Types of Charts and
Graphs
• Basic Charts & Graphs
• Specialized Charts & Graphs
• Which Chart/Graph should you use?

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Basic Charts & Graphs
• Line Chart: Line charts show the relationship between two
variables; they are most often used to track changes or
trends over time.

• Bar Chart: Effective when you have nominal/numerical data


that splits into different categories so you can quickly see
comparative results and trends.

• Pie Chart: Pie charts illustrate relative proportions of a


specific measure. If the number of categories is more than a
few consider using a bar chart.
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Basic Charts & Graphs

• Histogram: Histograms are used to show the frequency


distribution of 1+ variables. The x-axis shows categories,
and the y-axis the frequencies.

• Scatter Plot: The scatter plot is often used to explore the


relationship between two or three variables (in 2D or 3D
visuals).

• Bubble Chart: The bubble chart is an enhanced scatter


plot. By varying the circles, one can add additional data
dimensions, offering more enriched data.
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Specialized Charts & Graphs

• Geographic Map: Used when the data set includes


any kind of location data.

• Gantt Chart: A special case of bar charts used to


portray project timelines, project tasks/activity
durations, and overlap among the tasks/activities.

• PERT Chart: developed primarily to simplify the


scheduling of large/complex projects. A PERT chart
shows relationships among project activities/tasks.
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Specialized Charts & Graphs

• Bullet: Used to show progress towards a goal. It is a


variation of a bar chart.

• Tree Map: A tree map displays hierarchical data as a


set of nested rectangles. Each branch of the tree is
given a rectangle, which is then tiled with smaller
rectangles representing subbranches.

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Specialized Charts & Graphs

• Heat Map: A visual that illustrates the comparison


of continuous values across two categories using
color.

• Highlight Table: Two-dimensional tables with cells


populated with numerical values and gradients of
colors.

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Which Chart/Graph should you use?
• The capabilities of the charts helps select the proper chart for a specific task..

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Which Chart/Graph should you use?
• The taxonomic structure is organized around the purpose of the chart or graph.

• The taxonomy divides the purpose into four different types—relationship,


comparison, distribution, and composition—and further divides the branches into
subcategories based on the number of variables involved and time dependency of
the visualization.

• The current trend is to combine and animate these charts for better-looking and
more intuitive visualization of today’s complex and volatile data sources.

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3.10 Emergence of Visual Analytics
• Overview
• Visual Analytics
• What is a good story?
• Analysis as a Story
• High-Powered Visual Analytics Environments

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Overview
• In BI and analytics, the key challenge of visualization is representation of large,
complex data sets with multiple dimensions and measures.
• Typical charts, graphs, and visual elements used involve two dimensions,
sometimes three, and fairly small subsets of data sets.
• In contrast, data in visual systems reside in a data warehouse. At a minimum,
these warehouses involve a range of dimensions (e.g., product, location,
organizational structure, time), a range of measures, and millions of data cells.
• In an effort to address these challenges, a number of researchers have
developed a variety of new visualization techniques.

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Visual Analytics
• What is meant by visual analytics is the combination of visualization and
predictive analytics.
• Information visualization is aimed at answering “What happened?” and
“What is happening?” and is closely associated with BI (routine reports,
scorecards, and dashboards)
• Visual analytics is aimed at answering “Why is it happening?” and “What is
more likely to happen?” and is usually associated with business analytics
(forecasting, segmentation, correlation analysis).

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What is a Good Story?
• Most people can easily remember a funny story because it contains certain
characteristics and components, such as:
o Good characters.
o The character is faced with a challenge that is difficult but believable.
o There are hurdles that the character overcomes.
o The outcome or prognosis is clear by the end of the story.
o The situation may not be resolved—but the story has a clear endpoint.

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Analysis as a Story
• With story elements in place, write out the storyboard, that represents the
structure and form of your story.
• The storyboard will help you think about the best analogies, clearly set up
challenge or opportunity, and finally see the flow and transitions needed.
• By following the best practices, you can get people to focus on your message:
o Think of your analysis as a story—use a story structure.
o Be authentic—your story will flow.
o Be visual—think of yourself as a film editor.
o Make it easy for your audience and you.
o Invite and direct discussion.
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High-Powered Visual Analytics Environments
• There is a movement towards highly efficient visualization systems. SAS Visual
Analytics, is a very high-performance computing, in-memory solution for
exploring massive amounts of data in a very short time.
• Benefits proposed by the SAS analytics platform are the following:
o Empowers users with data exploration techniques and approachable analytics
to drive improved decision making.
o Has easy-to-use, interactive interfaces that broaden the audience for analytics.
o Improves information sharing and collaboration.
o Liberates IT by giving users a new way to access the information they need.
o Provides room to grow at a self-determined pace.
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E. High-Powered Visual Analytics Environments

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3.11 Information Dashboards
• Overview
• Dashboard Design
• Best Practices in Dashboard Design
• Benchmark KPIs with Industry Standards
• Wrap the Dashboard Metrics with Contextual Metadata
• Validate the Dashboard Design by a Usability Specialist
• Prioritize and Rank Alerts/Exceptions Streamed to the Dashboard
• Enrich the Dashboard with Business-User Comments
• Present Information in Three Different Levels
• Pick the Right Visual Construct Using Dashboard Design Principles
• Provide for Guided Analytics
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Overview
• Information dashboards are common
components of BI platforms, business
performance management systems, and
measurement software suites.
• Dashboards provide visual displays of
important information arranged on a single
screen so that the information can be
digested at a single glance.
• This executive dashboard shows functional
groups surrounding the products intended to
give executives a quick and accurate idea of
what is going on within the organization.
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Dashboard Design
• Today, it would be rather unusual to see a large company using a BI system
that does not employ some sort of performance dashboards.
• The most distinctive feature of a dashboard is its three layers of information:
o Monitoring: Graphical, abstracted data to monitor key performance metrics
o Analysis: Summarized dimensional data to analyze the root cause of problems
o Management: Data that identifies actions needed to resolve a problem
• “The fundamental challenge of dashboard design is to display all the required
information on a single screen.”
• Because of these layers, dashboards pack a large amount of information into a
single screen
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Best Practices in Dashboard Design
• Data is one of the most important things to focus on in dashboard design.
• Even if a dashboard’s appearance looks professional, is aesthetically pleasing, and
includes graphs and tables, it is also important to ask about the data:
o Are they reliable?
o Are they timely?
o Are any data missing?
o Are they consistent across all dashboards?

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Benchmark KPIs with Industry Standards
• Many customers want to know if the metrics they are measuring are the right
metrics to monitor.
• Sometimes customers have found that the metrics they are tracking are not
the right ones to track.
• Doing a gap assessment with industry benchmarks aligns you with industry
best practices.

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Wrap the Dashboard Metrics with Contextual
Metadata
• When a report or a visual dashboard/scorecard is presented to business users,
questions remain unanswered. The following are some examples:
o Where did you source these data?
o While loading the data warehouse, what percentage of the data was rejected/
encountered data quality problems?
o Is the dashboard presenting “fresh” information or “stale” information?
o When was the data warehouse last refreshed?
o When is it going to be refreshed next?
o Were any high-value transactions that would skew the overall trends rejected
as a part of the loading process?
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Validate the Dashboard Design by a Usability
Specialist
• In most dashboard environments, the dashboard is designed by a tool
specialist without giving consideration to usability principles.
• Even though it is a well-engineered data warehouse that can perform well,
many business users do not use the dashboard.
• It is perceived as not being user friendly, leading to poor adoption of the
infrastructure and change management issues.
• Up-front validation of the dashboard design by a usability specialist can
mitigate this risk.

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Prioritize and Rank Alerts/Exceptions Streamed to the
Dashboard
• There are tons of raw data, having a mechanism by which important
exceptions are proactively pushed to the information consumers is important.

• A business rule can be codified, which detects the alert pattern of interest.

• It can be coded into a program, using database-stored procedures, which crawl


through the fact tables and detect patterns needing immediate attention.

• This way, information finds the business user as opposed to the business user
polling the fact tables for the occurrence of critical patterns.

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Enrich the Dashboard with Business-User Comments
• In the event that dashboard information is presented to multiple business
users, a small text box can be provided to capture the comments from an end
user’s perspective.
• This can often be tagged to the dashboard to put the information in context,
adding perspective to the structured KPIs being rendered.

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Present Information in Three Different Levels
• Information can be presented in three layers depending on the granularity of
the information:
o the visual dashboard level
o the static report level
o the self-service cube level
• When a user navigates the dashboard, a simple set of 8 to 12 KPIs can be
presented, which would give a sense of what is going well and what is not.

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Pick Right Visual Construct Using Dashboard Design
Principles
• In a dashboard, some information is presented best with bar charts, or time-
series line graphs.
• When presenting correlations, a scatter plot is useful. Sometimes merely
rendering it as simple tables is effective.
• Once the dashboard design principles are explicitly documented, all the
developers working on the front end can adhere to the same principles while
rendering the reports and dashboard.

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Provide for Guided Analytics
• In an organization, users can be at various levels of analytical maturity.
• The capability of the dashboard can be used to guide a business user to access
the same navigational path as that of an analytically savvy business user.

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Thank You

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