Welcome from Visual Mining CEO Tristan Ziegler

Welcome to the latest edition of ChartLine, the Visual Mining newsletter. As 2009 draws near, Visual Mining is poised to bring our customers many exciting product announcements, beginning with the newest version of NetCharts Pro and NetCharts Applets. We have made a serious effort to understand and respond to your dashboarding and visualization needs, as
you will see in the preview of NetCharts Pro and NetCharts Applets 6.0.

This and subsequent issues of ChartLine will feature series of insightful articles, beginning
with Michael Brooks’ look at the different perspectives of business users and IT pros
regarding performance dashboards. Mike recently joined our team as VP of Business Development and has valuable experience with useful and practical implementations of dashboards.

ChartLine will be coming to you regularly to inform you of all the exciting new developments within Visual Mining and provide you with useful tips on ways to use the comprehensive features of the NetCharts product. Thank you for your time and we welcome any suggestions you have for topics you would like to see covered in a future release of ChartLine.

Sincerely,
Tristan Ziegler, CEO

Visual Mining Announces Key Partnership with IBM

Visual Mining is proud to announce strategic partnerships with IBM and Oracle, both of which strengthen Visual Mining’s position as a leader in dashboarding and visualization solutions.

Building on a long history of serving enterprise customers, Visual Mining recently expanded
its long-standing relationship within the IBM Partnerworld Network through two important developments. Visual Mining recently achieved Advanced Business Partner status based on
its proven track record of delivering proven solutions to IBM hardware and middleware customers that offer outstanding performance and value. In addition, Visual Mining achieved further recognition for its solutions through the“Ready for IBM with Linux” program. According to Mike Brooks, VP of Business Development for Visual Mining, “Visual Mining and IBM share
a solid history delivering powerful visual analytics and dashboards solutions to our joint customers and partners. Together, Visual Mining and IBM are able to drive great business results for clients.”

Visual Mining solutions run on a variety of IBM hardware platforms and middleware including: IBM pSeries Servers, DB2 Unidata, WebSphere, and WebSphere Portal.

Chart of the Month – Dial Chart

Dial charts are a familiar element to most executive dashboards, however many people don’t know that all dial charts are not created equal. Although they may look very similar in appearance or design, the more agile a dial chart is in its ability to display critical business data, the more functional it is.

Taking a look at three examples below, a brief synopsis will help explain the functions and application of each, and why NetCharts dial charts deliver the most accurate and intuitive visualization of data that you can find.

Logically, a dial chart begins at zero at the lower left of the dial and progresses up to a value that makes sense for the data you are measuring. However, that doesn’t mean that any data fed into the chart will be correctly measured in a poor-mid-optimal performance progression as the needle progresses around the chart, as shown in the first example.

Sometimes it is crucial to keep certain KPIs as close to zero as possible. In that case you would want to visualize your data in a dial chart as is shown in example 2, but that still doesn’t cover the spectrum of dial chart possibilities.

For instance, you may have one or more KPIs that feature a sweet spot for optimal performance; readings at either end of the scale fall outside this range. For this scenario you need a dial chart such as example 3.

Dial charts are certainly an oft-utilized business performance measuring tool, but they must be implemented with consideration of the visual output that will be the most relevant and meaningful. At Visual Mining we understand this, and we offer endless chart options. That’s why NetCharts helps you get the most insight, value and leverage from your data.

NetCharts Pro and Applets 6.0 - New Features Preview

The release of NetCharts Pro and Applets 6.0 incorporates sophisticated additions to the chart types and features delivered to users. Here is a brief preview of what will be featured in the upcoming release.

Chart Types

• 3D Barchart allows for the display of three dimensional data. By introducing the Z axis, users can compare multiple data series in one effective visualization, and can view the 3D chart from different perspectives to get a thorough understanding of the data.
• Histogram chart for analyzing data distributions by grouping or binning (putting data in a given range into a bucket), which is effective for situations where visualizing clear representation of groups of data to yield interval breakdowns is warranted.

Chart Features

• Legend Data Tables for NetCharts 6.0 Barcharts, Linecharts and Combocharts allow for the creation of chart and table combinations familiar to excel users.
• Variable Width Barcharts let users customize the width of each bar series in multi series barcharts to emphasize a particular series.
• Connecting lines between bars of a set make stacked barcharts more effective and easier to track changes.
• Three chart border styles to choose from: Square, rounded and clipped. Styling can be applied to individual corners or the entire chart for a more attractive appearance.

The Next Step – Performance Dashboards

by Michael Brooks

I recently attended two separate events that featured the topic of performance dashboards. The first was a conference lead by one of the senior analysts from a well-known analyst firm where the audience consisted largely of IT professionals with experience in data management, data warehousing and other related disciplines. The second event was a meeting of senior financial executives who were interested in determining how they could harness the power of performance dashboards to transform the finance department into a strategic partner to other line of business units. I was struck by the different perspectives on the challenges of implementing performance dashboards for strategic advantage.

In the first event, several attendees mentioned that their challenge focused on getting access to accurate information and determining the best visual graphics to meet business users’ needs. A common concern related to keeping up with constantly changing business needs while managing an ever-increasing backlog of work with limited resources. In one instance, one of the speakers stated that because the data warehouse was the most important source of content for performance dashboard initiatives, IT needed to control the project to ensure that it was done correctly.

In the second event, the attendees expressed great interest in tools and techniques that would provide them with better metrics on how to improve business results and manage risk. Several of these individuals indicated that the data they need to perform their responsibilities comes from a variety of data sources both inside and outside the business. They also indicated that many of their information needs were constantly changing due to evolving business needs and regulatory pressures.

Many of the BI tools in use today are based on underlying technologies that are over 15 years old. In the past 12 years, data visualization and performance dashboards have evolved from being optional tools for a minority of technical users to become a mandatory element of every business decision-makers’ toolkit. We have now reached a stage where the business users understanding of technology and information needs are evolving at a rate faster than many budget-strapped IT departments can keep up. IT professionals alone have the expertise to manage mission critical areas such as data management, security and performance while business users on the front-lines will always be closest to the issues. To bridge this gap, it is important to have technologies and frameworks that efficiently integrate both IT’s valuable skills and business users unique domain experience to benefit the organization as a whole. Fortunately, there are solutions that will enable us all to transform our organizations to compete more effectively in the new global economy. The next issue of this column will provide some insights on how both IT and business users can work together to define the metrics that will make their organizations more productive and competitive.

Visual Mining's
News & Tips Letter
SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

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NetCharts and Visual Mining are registered trademarks of Visual Mining, Inc.  All other product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only.

ChartLine © 2008 Visual Mining, Inc.  All rights reserved.