Data Visualization with Microsoft Reporting Services

MAKING BUSINESS INTELLIGENT www.pragmaticworks.com

Visualizing Data with Microsoft Reporting Services

Chris Price

Senior BI Consultant

@BluewaterSQL

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=Qpl1UCX6TAxfPM&tbnid=pbGaYjIY5O7oJM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=https://twitter.com/twitter&ei=29fEUeCfD8L_qwH2j4G4Dw&bvm=bv.48293060,d.aWM&psig=AFQjCNG8L3E0nDKe_QWwPpfpTsyE61dFug&ust=1371941198287009


Intro

Chris Price Senior BI Consultant with Pragmatic Works

Author, Regular Speaker, Data Geek & Super Dad!

@BluewaterSQL

http://bluewatersql.wordpress.com/

[email protected]




mailto:[email protected]



Outline

Data Visualization: Art & Science

Reporting Services


Data Visualization

A part of the Information Design space:

Make complex information easier to understand and use

Part art, part science to prepare information so our brains can efficiently & effectively process it


Data Visualization

9046385743

(904) 638-5743


Example: Before

What does this data/information say to you?


Example: After

Flat Trend

Trending Up Quarterly Cyclical Pattern

Exception


Data Visualization

Why data visualization?

Human beings are pattern seekers

Visual Perception

Cognition

70% of all sense receptors are in your eyes

Your eye and brain are a powerful high-bandwidth, massive parallel processor


Whose Who Edward Tufte Statistician & Professor @ Yale University Pioneer in Information Design & Data Visualization

Hates PowerPoint

Stephen Few Leading innovator & practitioner in data visualization Set forth many of the dashboard design standards used today

Hates Bling


Principals of Visual Context

Proximity – things that are close

Similarity – things that look alike

Enclosure – things enclosed by a shape

Closure – incomplete shapes are completed

Continuity – things that are aligned

Connection – things that are connected

Source: Gestalt’s Psychological Principals of Perception


Principals of Visual Design

Know your audience Executives vs. Operational Managers

Select the Right Medium Avoid variety for the sake of variety

Pie charts are evil

Bar Charts vs. Line Charts

Kill Cute Identify non-data pixels (backgrounds, borders,

gradients, gridlines, 3-d effects) demphasis when its not possible to remove them


Principals of Visual Design

Use Colors Carefully Bright colors cause fatigue

Remember the color blind

https://kuler.adobe.com/

Size & Color are perceived quantitatively but imprecisely. Use 2-D placement instead.

Visual Consistency Left-to-Right

Placement/Layout (Relevance Grid)





Chart Junk


Visual/Actual Differences


Data Encoding

Precise: Sales/Mkting Expenses X/Y Plot

Imprecise: • Profit • Size of bubble


Line vs. Bar Charts


Line vs. Bar Charts


Line vs. Bar Charts

First…Know your scale:

Nominal (Discrete items, no order)

Sales, Operations, HR, Marketing, Accounting

Ordinal (Items with an intrinsic order)

Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4

Interval (Items with an intrinsic order & quantitative value

Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec


Line vs. Bar Charts

Bar Charts: Ideal for comparing values since individual values

are emphasized

Nominal & Ordinal

Line Charts: Implies connection between data points

Ideal for showing trends

Interval You can use bar charts for interval when comparing

values


Pie vs. Bar Charts


Reporting Services

A pervasive, flexible enterprise platform for reporting that is capable of powerful data visualizations

Robust developer community Easy to set-up and use Many built-in charting options


Reporting Services Charts

Common

Lines/Bars/Area (Pie)/Scatter/Etc.

Gauges

Bullet Graph

Indicators

Sparklines/Data Bars

Maps


Bullet Graph


Demo


Resources & References

Books:

Blogs:

http://www.perceptualedge.com/



http://www.amazon.com/Now-You-See-Visualization-Quantitative/dp/0970601980/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1374025255&sr=8-4&keywords=stephen+few

http://www.amazon.com/Information-Dashboard-Design-Effective-Communication/dp/0596100167/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1374025255&sr=8-5&keywords=stephen+few

http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative-Information/dp/0961392142/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374025466&sr=1-1&keywords=edward+tufte


Upcoming Sessions

7/18 – PASS Business Analyst Virtual Chapter Introduction to Mahout for HDInsight 7/23 – PASS Big Data Virtual Chapter The BI Guys Little Guide to Big Data 7/27 – Cocoa Beach #231 MDS in Practice: An Integrated Approach 8/16 to 8/18/2013 – Code on the Beach (Jacksonville) Running with Elephants: Predictive Analytics with HDInsight 9/14 – Orlando #232 Into the Wild, Taming Unstructured Data

MAKING BUSINESS INTELLIGENT www.pragmaticworks.com MAKING BUSINESS INTELLIGENT www.pragmaticworks.com

Thank you!

@BluewaterSQL


[email protected]




mailto:[email protected]


Data Visualization with Microsoft Reporting Services

Technology

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