Synthesis and Analysis

This is our last post unfortunately.  We learned a lot from this project.  It is a charm to work with the dashboard that we used.  It made the work so easy for us to do and analyze.  Here is what we discovered after working with the dashboard and what we found out about our questions that we had posted earlier.  

·      Which states had the most contributions?

o   Florida – $124011873.33

·      Which people contributed the most?

o   John H. Alder - $1799258.13

·      Who got the most back on their investment?

o   Arlen Spector - $3747251.00

·     Who had the largest Net Contribution?

o   John H Alder – $3258843.98

·      Who had the largest Net Operating Expenditure?

o   Sharron E. Angle - $28008959.00

This is what we found out from making the charts and finding the points on the visualizations that the dashboard had created for us.  It was great getting to work with such a good program and seeing what it could do.  After this project, I will definitely use the Microstrategy program again in the future.  The interface was very easy to work with.  It was easy to create any kind of charting that you could imagine.  It is easy to see why businesses use dashboards so often after working with this program.  It was a great investment to learn how to use the dashboard and blogger as well.

Thank you for taking the time to look at all of our information.  We would appreciate any feedback that you would like to give us so feel free to leave a comment below!!

Thank you for all of your time,

Sincerely,

Group Number 222

About the Dashboard We Used

•       How did you build your dashboard?

To build the dashboard, we were first supplied with an excel worksheet that we have never seen before.  We then created an account on Microstrategy.  Once that was done, the rest was very easy on account of Microstrategy being very easy to use.  We came up with the questions that you can see in the first post and then we were off to trying to find the solutions on the dashboard.  To create the graphs and tables, we had to import our excel file.  Once we were prompted to do so by the dashboard, it was then uploaded to the site.  Once it all uploaded and processed, the dashboard created a list on the left side that let us choose the variables that we wanted displayed on each chart.  Once one of the charts was done, there was a button that let us add a new chart and we continued to do that until we had 5 charts and graphs that answered the questions that we had posted.

•       About Microstrategy’s Platform

The dashboard that we interacted with through Microstrategy was so easy to use.  They have so many functions that make it so easy for users to interact with.  The ability to just click on 2 different variables and have the graph created without any other hassle was amazing.  It was easy to create a graph in just a minute and just a minute more to find out the information that you needed from it.  The fact that you can just leave the mouse cursor over a point on the graph and a bubble will show up with the highlights of the data point is just amazing.  It made answering the questions so easy for us.

•       What visualizations did you include? Explain each visualization in detail with snapshots.

This was a dream to work with.  This separated line graph was used to show which individual contributed the most.  This chart type was the easiest because it was very easy to tell who had contributed the most.  The individual name is on the x-axis and on the y-axis it is the amount contributed in dollars.

This scatter plot made it very easy to determine which state had contributed the most to the candidates.  All we had to do once the points were on the chart was hold the cursor over the point and it would tell us the value.

This scatter plot was used in order to figure out information about the individuals.  The scatter plot was very useful because it let us highlight the individual people. 

This separated line graph was very helpful in figuring out who had the largest net contribution.  It would have been a full connected line graph but in the data set, there were values missing for some of the people.

Once again, the scatter plot was used because it was the easiest way to find out the information that we needed in a hurry.  It made extracting the information that we needed very easy.

How are dashboards useful in business?

•       They are very useful if you had to make a presentation to a group of people or even just your boss.  Dashboards create an interactive graph or table or other image and display information.  You can then choose what data the graph displays.  If you are looking for one thing, you just choose it in the options side on the left, if you need to change it or want another visualization, you can click a button and create it very fast.

What is the role of dashboards in business intelligence? How can dashboards help with Big Data?

•       The role of dashboards in business is to take large data sets and create graphs and other charts that are easier to use than searching through a spreadsheet for hours in order to find one statistic.  They make it easier for people to explain the statistics that they are showing in a picture form versus an Excel Spreadsheet with a bunch of numbers on it.

What are the different dashboard vendors?

•       There are a few different dashboard vendors. The major ones include Microstrategy, InetSoft, Klipfolio, Dundas, Component Art, Xtraction Solutions, and Tableau Software.  The all provide a similar feature to Microstrategy.  They are all used to create visualizations of data for businesses.