Previous Topic Next Topic

Track 2: Performing Visual Analysis

Visual Analysis is an in-context analysis tool to visualize the result of every step of your work. Simply by dragging and dropping data fields onto a layout module, you are able to visually analyze data in either text or graphs. Business views are the data sources used in Visual Analysis.

This track contains the following tasks:

• Task 1: Analyzing by Text
• Task 2: Analyzing by Graphs

Task 1: Analyzing by Text

1. In the Logi Report Server Start Page, select Public Folder in the Open category to open the folder in the server console.
2. In the Resources page of the server console, select New > Analysis on the task bar.

   

   Visual Analysis is then opened in a new window, with the Select Data Source dialog box prompted for you to select the data source used to perform the analysis. You can select a business view from all the public catalogs.

   

3. Select WorldWideSalesBV in Data Source 1 of the SampleReports catalog and select OK.

   The group and aggregation fields in the selected business view are listed in the Data Source panel on the left. You can drag them to the data presentation area on the right to perform analysis.

   

4. From the Data Source panel, drag the group field Country to the row control box for grouping as the row header.

   

5. Drag the group field Category to the column control box for grouping as the column header.

   

6. Drag the aggregation field Total Sales to the Label button in the legend section. The report shows as follows. You can hover the mouse on any value to get the detailed information:

   

Next we will make use of the Filter panel to filter data in the report.

7. From the Data Source panel drag Region to the Filters panel. A filter based on this field is added in the Filters panel.

   

8. Clear <All> and then select Asia-Pacific. The report is refreshed to show the countries in Asia-Pacific only.

   

9. Select on the toolbar.
10. In the Save As dialog box, leave the save location be the My Reports folder, type ProductSales in the File Name text box, and select OK. The current data state is then saved as an analysis template to the My Reports folder in the server resource tree.

Task 2: Analyzing by Graphs

In this task we will start a new Visual Analysis session to analyze data by graphs.

1. Select and select New from the drop-down menu. A new Visual Analysis tab is displayed.
2. In the Select Data Source dialog box, select WorldWideSalesBV, then select OK.
3. In the data presentation area, select the Display Type button , then select Bar from the drop-down list.
4. From the Data Source panel, drag the aggregation field Total Sales to the row control box used for aggregating .

   

5. Drag the group field Sales Year to the column control box used for grouping .

   

6. Drag Category to the right of Sales Year. When an arrow appears, release the mouse (you can also make use of the button beside a data control box to add a field from the resource list).

   

   The report appears as follows:

   

We want to analyze data of the two sales years by quarter, so next we will replace Sales Year with Sales Quarter.

7. From the Data Source panel, drag Sales Quarter over Sales Year. When an arrow appears above Sales Year (in the center), release the mouse.

   

   In the control box sections, you can also drag and drop a field to the right/left or top/bottom to change the display order of the field, or drag a field out of its control box to remove it.

Next we will try another important feature of Visual Analysis, analyzing with the legend.

8. Drag Region to the Color button in the legend section. Data of each region is marked by different color. You can select to customize the colors if you want. Here we keep the default color pattern.

   

The report is displayed with a scrollbar which is not convenient for comparing data. We can change the fit setting to improve the layout.

9. Enlarge the browser window size a bit, then select Fit Visible from the drop-down list of Normal View on the toolbar. The report is now fully displayed according to the current window size.

   

10. Hover the mouse on different color sections on a bar and you can see related information.

    

Visual Analysis supports the Sort feature on the fields used for grouping the columns and rows. Next we want to sort the sales quarters based on their total sales in descending order.

11. Right-click Sales Quarter and select Sort from the shortcut menu.

    

12. In the Sort dialog box, select Descending, select the Sort Using Another Field option and select Total Sales from the drop-down list. Select OK.

    

    The report now displays as follows:

    

Lastly we will change the data display type to Pie so that it is easy to find out which region sales the most.

13. Select the Display Type button and then select Pie from the drop-down list.
14. Remove Sales Quarter and Category from the column control boxes by dragging them out of their positions.
15. Move Total Sales from the row control box to the Slice button in the legend section. The report changes to below.

    

    We can see that North America occupies the largest amount of the total sales.

16. Select on the toolbar to save the data state as an analysis template into the server resource tree.

Previous Topic Next Topic