Library

Visual analytics best practices, “The Accidental Analyst”

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Read the first chapter online

Order “The Accidental Analyst“ at Amazon

Are you drowning in a sea of data? Would you like to take control of your data and analysis to quickly answer your business questions and make critical decisions? Do you want to confidently present results and solutions to your managers, colleagues, clients and the public? Are you a champion of analytics in your organization helping others learn how to analyze and make sense of their data?

If so, The Accidental Analyst: Show Your Data Who’s Boss is for you!

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How long should my presentation be?

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Always leave them wanting more! –P.T. Barnum Creator of “The Greatest Show On Earth!®“ About our Presentation Length Calculator Creating compelling presentations that are clear and actionable are the lifeblood of successful analyst teams. Often, analysts have worked on problems for days or weeks and have much more material to present than is relevant or … Read more

Communicate Your Results, a Case Study from
the 7th C of The Accidental Analyst

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You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere. –LEE IACOCCA Engineer on the original Ford Mustang design team and CEO during Chrysler’s comeback in the 1980’s.   From the Seven C’s of Data Analysis Framework     Maria is a Senior Sales Analyst for an … Read more

RStudio Keyboard Quick Reference by Freakalytics

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RStudio-example-ggvis-interactive-graphs-300At Freakalytics, we frequently use R (often referred to as RStats) in our client projects and wanted to share our success using the RStudio Interactive Development Environment (IDE) with you. So, we created the RStudio® Keyboard Quick Reference by Freakalytics. It is available to you, compliments of Freakalytics, as a PDF and later in this article as a searchable data table.
 
 
The RStudio IDE was built by the team at RStudio to make you more productive in the R world. It is a free, open source application for Windows, Linux, Mac and UNIX desktop users. RStudio Desktop includes an interactive R console, a smart editor that supports direct code execution, graphing interfaces, code history, a debugger and project management for R code and related files.
 
Download the RStudio® Keyboard Quick Reference by Freakalytics. The reference card is available as a PDF download for your convenience. The PDF version is printable and usable in most e-book applications.
 
In addition the PDF version, we are pleased to share online access to the RStudio® Keyboard Quick Reference as a searchable data table (click here to access the searchable data table in a dedicated window.) This searchable data table has all the shortcuts from the PDF -and- advanced shortcuts not shown on the PDF version (which is one-page for newer users of R).

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Build a Basic Dashboard in Tableau 8
Excerpt from Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8

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Freakalytics_Dashboard_Tableau_8_BasicAppendix #2—Build a Basic Dashboard

We’ve taught entire courses on how to design and build dashboards in Tableau over multiple days, so the topic can be quite complex. In this section, you will learn the basic functionality so you can get started. For more advanced dashboards, visit www.Freakalytics.com/examples.

Dashboard Audience
VP of Sales at a cheese maker that sells to the public and to gourmet retailers

Overall Objective of Dashboard
Sales updates for monthly review by Sales Vice President (VP)

The Sales VP has four questions:
1. What are sales by state?
2. What were sales by customer contact method in 2013 compared to 2012?
3. What are the actual sales by item versus the target sales?
4. What are the actual sales by customer contact method versus the target sales?

Download the Cheese Factory sales data packaged workbook from www.Freakalytics.com/rgts8d

Included in the workbook:
• Data source contains two years of sales data for 2012 and 2013.
• Four worksheets with views answering the four questions above.
• The final dashboard is illustrated at the end of this appendix.

Build the dashboard
Open the workbook, and in any one of the worksheets, on the main menu, select Dashboard → New dashboard. In the Dashboard pane on the left side, double-click on each of the four worksheets in the numbered order. Also in the Dashboard pane, in the Dashboard Size section at the bottom, change Desktop to Automatic so the 4 views fit within the workspace. The worksheets are arranged in the order added and the legends for Q1 and Q2 are on the right.

Adjust containers

Dashboards are comprised of containers that contain the views, legends and filters and are outlined by solid lines when you click on them. First, move the legends to the left side of the dashboard.

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Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8 –
now on Amazon and on Freakalytics.com

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

The 8 version of this book is published in grayscale in order to meet popular demand for a lower list price versus earlier versions (5, 6 and 7) of this book series.

Rapid_Graphs_Tableau_8_Freakalytics_Copyright_346_433+ Written by Tableau insider
& former 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

+ The fourth edition—proven & trusted

+ Buy it on Amazon

Preview the table of contents and Chapter 1 here.

Exclusive to Freakalytics, we are granting free online access to Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8!

201307_Quick_Dirty_Tableau_8_Freakalytics_027Read Chapter 2 (pages 21-39)

Build the core—Tableau basics—21
Download, install and open Tableau—22
Connect to sample data and review the Tableau interface—25
“Show Me” Tableau in action—29
Categorically clear views—35

201307_Quick_Dirty_Tableau_8_Freakalytics_051Read Chapter 3 (pages 41-58)

Go with the flow—more Tableau basics-41
Save time with the Tableau toolbar-42
When tables trump graphs-44
Insightful maps-48

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Quick reference for graph and dashboard design

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Freakalytics has published a quick reference for building better graphs and dashboards. The Rapid Dashboards Reference Card has 64 tips readily available on four full-color, laminated pages. The card serves as a handy reference for yourself, your team and even your business audience during design meetings. Page 1 Excerpt, buy it at Amazon Page 3 … Read more

Dashboard Nirvana and Visual Management of Marketing Programs

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View and interact with the strategic customer sales and analyst exploratory dashboards below, both hosted by tableau public.

Read Eileen’s white paper, “Visual Management of Marketing Programs“, for detailed explanations on maximizing Marketing ROI with visual marketing dashboards.

In this case study, we used customer demographic and sales databases from a boutique winery in combination with Tableau Software

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Listen to the Analytic Talk Show with Stacey Barr

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“A Week in the Life of an Analyst Rock Star: Using Analytics to Dramatically Boost Bottom Lines” You can download the examples discussed here (Adobe PDF file). Once you have the examples downloaded, click here to listen to the recorded webcast (download as an MP3 file). The case studies and topics discussed on this webcast … Read more