Step 4: Analyze Data

In this section:

Key Dashboard Controls:


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Toolbars

You can customize toolbars and place them anywhere on the screen. If you build new toolbars, they are saved when you exit WebFOCUS Visual Discovery AE and automatically displayed when you open WebFOCUS Visual Discovery AE. For more information about toolbars, click Help, Topics, and click Toolbars.


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Selecting Data

To select data, left click and sweep your mouse over what you see on charts. The selection is then seen as colored, with the unselected data as grey. Most of the charts have brushups which will state the % selected. The selected and unselected data will always total to all included (aka non-excluded) data.


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Selection Toolbar

When you click on a toolbar button, an action is executed. To see a description of the toolbar, hover the cursor over the button. The Key functions on the Selection Toolbar are:

Toolbar Button

Description

Exclude Unselected. Removes unselected elements from the data view. These items are logically removed and will not show in any of the charts until they are restored.

Exclude Selected. Removes selected elements from the data view.

Restore Excluded. Restores and redisplays all excluded elements. Prior selection state is not changed.

Select All. Use this function to select all data that is not excluded.

Toggle Selection. Use this function to switch between selected and unselected data.

Undo. This function allows you to remove a single action (by selecting this function once) or several actions (by repeatedly selecting this function).

Note: This function may be slow or inoperative with large data sets, depending on computer memory.

Redo. This function allows you to re-institute a single action (by selecting the function once) or several actions (by repeatedly selecting this function).

Note: This function may be slow or inoperative with large data sets, depending on computer memory.



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Selection Mode Toolbar

Selection mode controls determine how the mouse interacts with the data when you sweep over or click on a chart. The key functions on the Selection Mode Toolbar are:

Toolbar Button

Description

Rectangular Selector. Default Setting. To use the rectangular selector, place the cursor in the area to be captured and drag the mouse while holding down the left mouse button. A rectangular selection box appears around the data that you have selected.

Circular Selector. To use the circular selector, place the cursor in the area to be captured and drag the mouse while holding down the left mouse button. A circular selection area appears around the data that you have selected.

Lasso Selector. Use this tool to select data by creating freehand selection borders around the data.

Replace Selection Mode. Default Setting. The data that you select using this tool replaces previously-selected data.

Add Selection Mode. Use this function to add data to an existing selection.

Subtract Selection Mode. Use this function to remove data from an existing selection.

Intersect Selection Mode. Use this function to select the “intersection” of two fields. This is essentially an “and” function.

Now that the data you selected is displayed in a page, you can analyze the information to find answers to your business questions.



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Visual Discovery: 4 Data States

One of the strengths of WebFOCUS Visual Discovery AE is the ability to select what you see on charts in projects. We call that a selection. A selection on one chart in a project is propagated to all the other charts across all the other pages in a project. This happens in simple one table projects, as well as across charts attached to multiple linked tables in a more complex project. As selections are made, underlying data can be in one of 4 states: Included and Selected (all in), All Included but some Unselected, Excluded, Filtered:

  1. All Included and Selected (all in). Data that is selected will appear colored in the dashboard. For example, the bar chart below shows the Marital Status for a population. It indicates that every individual in the population is selected because all of the bars are colored.

  2. All Included but some Unselected (for example, not all Selected). Data that is included but Un-selected will appear gray in the graphical charts in the dashboard. Using the same example, we see that now only those individuals who have a marital status of Married are selected. The population with other Marital Status’ is still included but is unselected and, hence grey.

  3. Excluded (removed from the base population). Excluded data will not be displayed in the dashboard. Using the same bar chart we now see that only the population that is Married is selected and all other Marital Status types have been excluded as we only see the Married bar.

  4. Filtered (removed from the base population by a text filter, or a logon filter in WebFOCUS Visual Discovery AE Server). This is logically similar to excluding data, except that chart and toolbar controls for restore excluded will not restore filtered data. The only way to restore the filtered data is by resetting the filter. Text Filters are normally used only on the first page of a project (which it opens on), and are used in cases where it is clear that certain populations are not going to be used in subsequent comparisons (for example, to remove inactive customers from an analysis of recent transactions).

The counts chart is a great way to get a quick view of what's selected, and what's not. The first line (total count) counts all rows in the table whether included, excluded, selected, or unselected.

Note: The counts chart can also show unique counts, sums, averages, etc. The second line shows what is selected, the third line what is included but not selected, and the fourth line shows what is excluded (both by filtering and excluding.


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Using a Project to Perform Visual Discovery
  1. How to select data on a chart. Left-click and drag mouse over portion of a chart. All charts on all pages update instantly based on the selection. The selected data will be colored and all unselected data will turn grey. WebFOCUS Visual Discovery AE shows stats on the percent of the selected to the whole available (i.e., non-excluded) population. You can then add in unselected data, intersect with other selected data, or subtract other selected data. Then, reduce the available population by excluding the unselected data. Excluded data is now logically removed, and no longer shows as unselected. Note that all graphical charts are set to show both selected and unselected available data. Text charts (datasheet and summary sheet are set in default mode to only show selected data).
  2. How to exclude data:
    • From the Selection Table First. Use the top toolbar to exclude entities and then refresh the charts to show all attributes associated with the selected entities. For more information, see the following image.

    • From the Local Table First. Right-click on the chart to exclude data from the chart first and then update to show only entities who have some of the selected attributes. For more information, see the following image.

  3. How to Filter Data. Text filters allow you to immediately drop the dashboard down to a subset of data.

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Types of Selection (Selection Modes)
  1. Replace Selection Mode . This is the default setting. The data that you select using this tool replaces previously-selected data.
  2. Left-click and drag mouse over portion of a chart, then release, as shown in the following image.

    All charts on all pages update instantly based on the selection.

  3. The selected data will be colored and all unselected data will turn grey.

    In the page above, only those individuals who are Married are now the colored portions of the bars in the Ethnicity, Gender, In Reunion, and Next Reunion charts.

    What does it mean to have selected and unselected data? When you have both selected and unselected data you are able to see the percentage of the selected data to the whole available (= non-excluded) population. In the example, below we see that 70.3% of the available population are Married, you can also see that 91.5% of the Unknown Ethnicity are Married, which is a much higher % than the larger White, Non-Hispanic group. Then you can add in unselected data, intersect with other selected data, or subtract other selected data.

  4. Add Selection Mode . Use this function to add data to an existing selection. Using the Martial Status example, if you want to add another Marital Status to the selection you have already made, in the Add Selection Mode select another bar on the Martial Status chart.

    When you add more data, the other charts in the project will adjust to reflect the selection that has been made. In this case, all charts include the Married and Singlepopulation.

  5. Subtract Selection Mode . Use this function to remove data from an existing selection. Select any bar on a chart that has already been selected and it will subtract that selection from your entire selection population.

    Notice in the Subtract Select Mode, when selecting the Single bar in the Marital Status chart, the Single bar goes grey as that population is now unselected.

  6. Intersect Selection Mode . Use this function to select the “intersection” of two fields. This is essentially an “and” function. For example, you might want to select the population that is Married and Unknown ethnicity and Male gender.

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Excluding Data
  1. From the Selection Table First. Excluding from the top toolbar or Globally.

    Use the top tool bar to exclude entities and then refresh the charts to show all attributes associated with the selected entities. For example, suppose you have a data set that includes geographical information, such as the State a population of individuals lives in. They may have a primary address in Illinois and a secondary or seasonal address in another state. Now let’s assume you want to exclude all those individuals that do not have an address in the state of Illinois. When you exclude from the Selection table, all those individuals that have an address outside of Illinois will be excluded. However, you will still show a population in your bar chart that includes other states. The reason for this is that all those individuals who have a Primary address in Illinois may have a secondary or seasonal address in another state and the bars for those other states remained and were not excluded. For more information, see the image below.

    In this case there are 67 individuals living in Illinois. By excluding the unselected from the Primary or Core table by using the “Exclude Unselected” chart in the tool bar, all those individuals outside of the 67 that live in Illinois have been excluded. However, some of those remaining individuals have seasonal or secondary addresses in other states and those records were returned because they still pertain to the 67 individuals that live in Illinois. What is excluded first are individuals, and then all addresses are updated for those individuals.

  2. From Local Table First. Excluding from the chart or locally. Using the same geographic example as above, if you right click on the chart and then left click on “Exclude Unselected,” you will first exclude all address records not in Illinois, and then all of the people who don't have an address in Illinois.

    In this case because the exclusion was executed locally, all those addresses that existed outside of Illinois were excluded. This is because the exclusion occurred FIRST in the table that included the addresses, not the table that included the individuals.


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Filtering Data

Filters are a mechanism for specifying a subset of the data from a data source that is available in an analysis session. An easy way to look at filters is as a starting point before your analysis. Suppose you have a data set of individuals and decide from the outset that you want to exclude all the males from the data set before starting your analysis. If your project has a text filter set to Gender you can remove all the males from your project by deselecting Male in the text filter box. See the following image. Notice that with both males and females selected there are 188,238 individuals represented in the data set.

Note that when the Males are deselected from the text filter, the counts of individuals in the data set changes from 188,238 to 111,358 and the counts also show that 76,880 individuals (males) have been excluded from the data set. For more information, see the following image.

It is important to note that the only way to bring back the data that has been excluded due to a text filter is to reselect the filter and return the data to its original state. In this case, to bring back all of the males, you must reselect the Male box in the text filter.


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