Charting

You need a chart? Give me 10 seconds.

Charting module is an innovative business intelligence solution that will let any user interactively visualize their data in real-time in modern interactive charts using D3.js.

Video: Charting Module in Signum Extensions

Real-time chart generation by power users

Using the same technology than the search control, the chart module is able to explore data, group the result in the database using an efficient query, and represent the result in an interactive chart. 

Any power-user that has an idea of the data model will just need to choose a chart template and fill the required fields, using a sequence of combo boxes to choose the desired columns. A complex new chart can be ready in a few seconds without any programming knowledge!

There are more than 16 different chart types out of the box:

• from the classical ones like Pie, Bars, Lines...
• innovative ones like Tree maps, Punch card or Scatterplot
• to even draw your data in a calendar or world map!

All the templates are written in D3.js, and have different restrictions for the required fields. They can also configure the color palettes, scales (linear, 0-max, min-max, logarithmic), etc.. all the templates are also interactive, letting you filter and drill-down the data to see the details.

Saving charts for other users

Typically, some users will just visualize chartings already made for them, so once the chart is configured, it can also be saved as a UserChart for future use. 

Once the user chart is saved, if can be accessed again from the interactive chart generator, but can also be included in a Dashboard or accessed through the Omnibox.

Additionally, a UserChart can be associated to an entity type to generate charts that depend on particular instances. (i.e., right click on Customer, show purchase by month).

Just like UserQueries, they understand smart filters, letting you create charts that depend on the current user, time, or any other environment variable.

A powerful extension of the synchronizer is also able to detects and fix errors in the definition of the user charts due to renames or removed columns. 

Even if some users may just visualize the charts, they will enjoy the fact that they represent alive real-time data, showing tool-tips explaining each group in the generated chart, and  letting them drill-down to see the exact rows.

Code new chart types!

Finally, users with knowledge of JavaScript and D3.js can modify the chart templates and customize them to their needs, or even create new chart templates. This is done in the browser itself, letting the developer see the results with real data as he makes changes in the code.

Example: Exceptions

As a bonus, since the framework stores in the database any exception, you’ll be able to explore all the potential bugs of your application, creating multi-dimensional charts that group the exceptions by day, hour, stack trace, user, environment, application version, etc…