Freakalytics.com- Tag: Thoughts

Webinar today–What can visual analytics & big data do for you? (3 PM Eastern)

What can visual analytics & big data do for you?

In this 45 minute webinar, Stephen McDaniel will review visual analytic examples and demonstrate what big data analytics can do for you. Stephen will demonstrate this using Tableau 8.

Visual analytics- how is it different than traditional analytics?
Review several examples of visual analytics and how they empower decision-makers quickly and clearly
Build new analytic content from scratch in a matter of minutes

If time permits, a brief question and answer session will follow.

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SAS versus R for business analysts

Over on R4Stats, I replied to Bob Muenchen’s article, Forecast Update: Will 2014 be the Beginning of the End for SAS and SPSS?

Personally, I think SAS is a wonderful application, with my SAS experience starting in SAS programming back in 1989 (mainframes, along with Fortran), SAS Enterprise Guide (I wrote SAS for Dummies, the first two editions with Chris Hemedinger) and SAS Enterprise Miner. Additionally, I have used JMP, SAS Data Integration Studio, SAS Forecast Studio and several other SAS tools.

On the other hand, I have used R since 2004 on several projects and S (precursor to R) since the 90′s in biopharm. I find R truer to being a modern programming language while SAS is truer to being an analyst programming language. Perhaps I am biased? But, the way I think of attacking problems with data and my typical need to massage the data in a wide range of ways, SAS is simply superior in my opinion. The flow of the language, the ease of readability and the powerful DATA step are still my favorite programming world. However, if I am seeking most any statistical test under the sun, R is clearly superior.

Unfortunately, R doesn’t have a clear, de-facto GUI (graphical user interface) that is well-designed

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Tableau Tips: Nested sorting not as expected- a simple fix

Many students have been confused about the Tableau data sort behavior. A common question is how to sort the data at a lower level correctly within each higher level of data in a view. One student recently came to us with this view and asked, “What’s up? I thought it would sort each state independently within each Product Type! In the first group, Herbal Tea, Nevada is clearly number one yet it is shown in the fourth position.”

Solution

I replied that Tableau was sorting State overall across every product type once for the entire table and then displaying this sort order for every Product Type. She said this is “stupid, how can I fix it! I wasted hours trying to fix it already.”

Login to see the solution including a solution workbook! If you haven’t joined Freakalytics yet, it’s free and easy. Just click signup.

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Freakalytics Timeline since 2007

Click for the detailed timeline of Freakalytics activities

Since 2007, we have traveled 365,000 miles
to help tens of thousands of people via

8 books,
24 conference talks,
47 public trainings,
26 on-site trainings,
5 conference seminars,
15 analytic advisory engagements
and 36 consulting projects.

Click to review our detailed timeline.

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Alteryx Inspire 2013 Tableau Talk

0 Picture This

Download the presentation Picture This! Your Data in Tableau.

Watch my big data talk here and download the example workbooks here (requires Tableau 8 to open).

Attending this conference was a great experience. Based on multiple customer discussions at the conference, Alteryx is a great product for personal data integration, data enrichment and predictive analytics. Some amazing things we saw in Alteryx includes upcoming direct integration with the Tableau Data Engine, interactive location mapping to generate demographic profiles in Tableau, support of Revolution R 3.0 and integration with social data API’s including Yelp, Google + and Facebook.

Here is a screenshot of one of the marketing performance dashboards built in Tableau. It was based on data built with Alteryx. Alteryx was used for data integration, data enrichment and predictive modelling of customer likelihood to respond to future coupon offers. Enrichment included fuzzy matching of customer demographics using Alteryx-bundled 3rd party data sources from Experian.

If you are looking for a great compliment to Tableau, I recommend that you consider Alteryx.

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Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8 – now on Amazon

Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8
The Original Guide for the Accidental Analyst

+ Written by Tableau insider & product manager,
teaching Tableau to thousands since 2009

+ Real-world examples that you can follow include
tips and tricks to save you time

+ High-def videos & solutions

+ New dashboard section taught at MBA programs

+ The fourth edition–proven & trusted

+ Buy it on Amazon

Tired of boring spreadsheets and data overload from confusing graphs? Master the art of rapid graphs with Tableau! Our hands-on case study approach and more than 225 illustrations teach you how to quickly explore and understand your data to make informed decisions in a wide variety of real-world situations. We include best practices of visual analytics for ideas on how to communicate your findings with audience-friendly graphs, tables and maps.

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is a common saying that is more relevant today than ever as data volumes grow and the need for easy access to answers becomes more critical. This book covers the core of Tableau capabilities in easy-to-follow examples, updated and expanded for Version 8, as the fourth edition of the first book on Tableau. Learn how to be successful with Tableau from the team that started the original training program as the founding Tableau Education Partner!

“A must read for anyone interested in Tableau. Clear explanations, practical advice and beautiful examples!”
Elissa Fink – Chief Marketing Officer, Tableau Software

“A great work- this is going to be a much-loved book.”
Marc Rueter – Senior Director of Technology, Consulting and Strategy, Tableau Software

“Well written, easy to use book that has something for everyone.
A great resource if you are new to Tableau… but also useful tips for advanced users as well.”
Bob Morrison – Founder/CEO, Quadrant Arts Education Research and Chairman at MakeMusic

Stephen McDaniel
Stephen is passionate about helping people understand, present and take action with their data. He is author of SAS for Dummies, The AccidentalAnalyst and the Rapid Dashboard Reference Card. He has been on the Faculty of The American Marketing Association and The Data Warehouse Institute and is currently Director of Analytics at Tableau Software and Principal Analyst at Freakalytics, LLC.

Eileen McDaniel
Co-founder of Freakalytics, Eileen directs the development of books and course materials. She is lead author of The Accidental Analyst: Show Your Data Who’s Boss. This book provides a step-by-step analysis framework to help people who didn’t plan for a career as an analyst, but now must analyze data quickly and effectively.

244 pages
Black and white

+ Buy it on Amazon

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Tableau tip- what’s smaller than a Tableau Data Extract?

tde_smaller_freakalytics While working with a client, they asked if I would show them how to analyze payment history and futures with a Gantt chart. I asked them to make a Tableau Data Extract (TDE). They created a TDE and then e-mailed it to me, all 25 Megabytes (MB)! Fairly big for an e-mail attachment (at many companies there is a 10 MB limit, so it wouldn’t have made it through).

After working with them on their project, I told them I would send it back later. When I saved the Gantt chart project as a packaged workbook, I was surprised to see that it was just 4.5 MB! Even though the TDE was much smaller than the original data source, the Packaged workbook which includes the TDE was even smaller, just 20% of the TDE size.

So, the next time you want to share a large TDE, I suggest that you first save it in an empty packaged workbook before sending it along.

Want to learn more about Tableau file types and why they exist? Read this article.

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Precise layout of filters and legends when exporting from Tableau to PDF and image files

A reply to a recent Tableau User Forum Idea, “Option To Place Legend Horizontally Across Bottom For Image And PDF”.

A Solution
This can be done, but not on the worksheet. If you move it

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How to show growth over time and conceal the baseline time period in Tableau

A client asked,

“What I want to show is a YoY (year over year) or WoW (week over week) comparison – however the first data point is always missing – even when the underlying data are available.

For example:
The full set of data shows a null value for 2006 – just because there is no data available to compute a comparison.
Now I want to move the date filter to start @ 2007 – and now 2007 has a null value even though we have data available to compute that metric.” What’s the issue and how can I display only years

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Data Driven Conference 2012 and our special discount for attendees

We are having a great time at the Data Driven Conference in Columbus! Our first session was standing room only and we are presenting the same talk a second time at 1:30 in E161.

Interesting questions include “how do you become better at asking the right questions that lead to better analysis” and “how do you communicate with IT to get better data”?

To buy The Accidental Analyst directly from us at the special attendee discount, please visit www.AccidentalAnalyst.com/ddc and place your order before this Thursday.

Here is our infographic that we created

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Patriotic colors and maps in Tableau (US colors)

While preparing for a conference, we decided to create a map to show the US states using patriotic (US flag) colors. The colors of the US flag are precise, so we needed to modify the Tableau preferences file to use the correct colors (also, white is not part of the Tableau color palette for discrete data items.)

After modifying our Preferences.TPS file with a new US Flag color palette and saving it to My Tableau Repository (a directory, typically in My Documents), we were able to create the red, white and blue map of the US! To download the Maps, a sample workbook and the changed Preferences.TPS file, just log in below.

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2012 NCAA football rankings—ranks per poll & overall ranking

Teams inlcuded in this week:
USC, LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, Oregon, Georgia, Florida State, Michigan, South Carolina, Arkansas, West Virginia, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Clemson, Texas, Ohio State, Stanford, Nebraska, TCU, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Florida, Boise State, Notre Dame, Louisville, Washington, Auburn, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Utah, NC State, Baylor, South Florida, Texas A&M, Cincinnati, Brigham Young, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Virginia, Louisiana Tech, UCF, Houston, Rutgers, Southern Miss, Missouri, Florida Intl, Northern Illinois, Texas Tech