In this knowledgebase we will run through the basics of how to use visualisations to analyse your StoreFeeder data. Visualisations is powered by SandDance which is a Microsoft product that is used in other applications such as Power BI. This is an introductory guide, if after completing this you want to get more in depth on SandDance's features there are more comprehensive guides and videos online that go into much greater detail than we will here.
Movement and Navigation
Dragging the mouse - This will move the graph around in the 2D or 3D space
Scrollwheel - This will zoom in and out in the 2D or 3D space
Ctrl + Dragging - This will rotate the graph in the 3D space. It has no function in 2D
General Options and Shortcuts
1) Here are your options for undoing/redoing and filtering
2) Here you can create and step through your snapshots
3) Here you can switch the graph between 2D & 3D
4) Here you can centre the graph
5) Here are more advanced rendering options
Sections
Here we will run through the menu options and an outline of what each can do. Click on the bullet points below to jump to that section.
Chart - The icon for this section is
- Chart - Here you are able to change the chart type to one of the 8 available options. Some may fit better with your data than others. Feel free to experiment to find out what works for you.
- Column Mapping - Here you can change the columns that appear on the Y (& Z if 3D) axis of the reports.
- Color by - This is where can set your colour split based on which data point
- Sort by - This is how you change the sorting
- Total by - This will change how the totalling is rendered. This will be different based on the chart type selected
- Size by - This affects how the data is sized, it may not be available for all chart types. it works best in the "strips" view where you can chose which metric you want to size by such as Total sales or Total Units.
- Facet by - This is used if you further want to break down the report to be more detailed.
Chart Color - The icon for this section is
- Color by - Here you can choose the data point the graph is coloured by.
- Scheme - Here you can choose from the pre-made colour schemes.
- Color Reverse - A toggle to reverse the gradient
- Color Binning - This is how the colours are broken down in the range and how many "bins" its broken down into. e.g. 1-10,11-20 etc
- Color Options - This will be greyed out as it is not used.
Data Browser - The icon for this section is
- Scope - Here you can switch between All Rows, Filtered & Selected
- Navigation - Here you can navigate between different rows of data and the results appear below
- Column Types - Here you can click to get an overview of the columns broken up by type. for the most part this can be left as is but you are able to change the type of certain columns using the pencil icon. Dont worry you can "Reset to Default" if you make a mistake.
Select by Search - The icon for this is
- Clause - Here you can build up a filter on different data points by adding expressions and also apply grouping to the data if you require.
Snapshots - The icon for this is
Snapshots - Here you can create a snapshot on time of a specific layout and/or filtering to easily switch back to. You can either use this menu or the handy snapshot navigation buttons at the top of the page. When creating a snapshot you will be prompted for a name and description. From here is where you can delete them using the bin icon.
History - The icon for this is
History - Here you can go backwards and forwards through the history of changes. Handy for if you make a mistake. Just select the entry and you will be taken back to that point in time. But don't forget you also have the Undo & Redo options at the top.
Transitions - The icon for this is
For the most part you shouldn't need to touch these unless you are on a low powered machine that is struggling to keep up with rendering the graphs.
Scrub Transition - This is to move through the animation of rendering the graph.
Transition Options - Here you can set options of how the transition is rendered.
Stagger Options - You can reverse the order the graph is drawn here.
Transition durations - Here you can set how long you want the transition to take, and also delays. If your machine is struggling then setting the duration to 0 will remove the animation effect.
Options - The icon for this is
Z Axis Options - Here you can change the scaling on the Z to Y ratio
Text Options - Here yuo can scale the size of teh text on the graph if you are struggling to see it
Chart Canvas - Here you can toggle on and off the Axes and Legend display
Tools - This section can be ignored
Snapshots - Here you can change the size of the thumbnails in the snapshots section
System - Again this can be ignored
The majority of what you can do in visualisations is going to come from playing with the system as its personal to you
As a quick example we are going to follow on with the data from the report we generated in the Insights Engine kb.
The default view for this report is a 2d bar as below
You will see its telling you how many deliveries each person as booked in.
By simply changing the graph to 3D and setting the Z Axis to "Quantity" you can also see how many units were booked in.
By faceting by "Delivery Date" we can further break this down and see details for each delivery
We can the filter to a specific date using the Select by Search options
And we can the isolate to that data using the options at the top of the screen
We can the snapshot this to refer back to
Which now appears in the list here
We can undo the changes we have made in the history section. Don't worry, your snapshot is still there and you can get back to it at any time for later use. Just choose the snapshot and all the actions will be applied again to get you back to where you were.
And finally and example of how using Size by can help you drill down to information more clearly.
This below is the Top Selling Items report that has been totalled by "Sum as Percentage (Strip Layout) and is currently sized by Number of times ordered and sorted by SKU.
By hovering over the bars you can get more information about that metric.
But if you would rather it be visually split based on Total Revenue you can see it changes the graph so you can then see how much money as a percentage that sku has made you. Change the Size by to Total Revenue So you can see that on your EPOS channel that 1 sku in particular is making you a lot of money as you are selling it for more than on your other channel so perhaps you can think of adjusting pricing or possible set up offers based on this.
That's a very basic overview of the Visualisations, as obviously we can't go through everything here. We recommend you have a play. You don't need to worry about affecting your data, as everything here is read only.
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