We recently released a new version of our desktop Visual Business Intelligence product, Panopticon Explorer. This post discusses some of my own favorite new features in Explorer.
One of the most exciting new features in Explorer is that the software now supports data analysis and monitoring using our new Barseries visualization. This visualization can be used for displaying time series; that is, data that changes over time. Unlike the Treemap, this new visualization utilizes two axes, and you can use the X-to display a time dimension. See my example below. In this picture we see that from January 2004 and onwards, the relative number of pedestrians crossing the border between Canada and Alaska started to increase, especially during the first few months of the year.
This improved support for the time dimension allows you to work with date or time columns in a much richer way than you could using previous versions of Explorer. When creating your visualization, you can choose how you want to interpret your time dimension. For example, you can interpret it to be a quantitative number such as an age measured in days from today; then you can use other criteria for size and color. Or you can choose to interpret the time in your visualization as a categorical entity – this is especially useful when you want to break down your data by days to make it easier to spot repeating patterns. The next screenshot illustrates this type of analysis using a number of “small multiples” barcharts:
The picture shows the number of incoming persons that crossed the border into four states - Arizona, California, New York and Texas – during 2005 and 2006. We can see that the scales used in the small multiples of the graphics are the same. Texas and California are the two states with bars that go beyond 20 million people per weekday - a relatively large number of persons passing the border. We can see that during 2005, an unusually large amount of people crossed the border on foot on Tuesdays in California. Fridays were also popular in 2005, but in 2006, Tuesdays were not popular anymore while Fridays stood out as an even more popular day to enter California on foot. We also see that few people enter the state of New York on foot, but the opposite holds for Arizona.
Another new feature relates to analysis and monitoring based on live Bloomberg data. Panopticon Explorer works with live data, so you can hook it up to streaming real-time data delivered by services like Bloomberg or Reuters. A status indicator indicates whether you are looking at streaming data or static data.
This example shows a screenshot of a live display of a portfolio of investments, grouped by sectors, in total 186 different instruments. The portfolio holdings were kept in an Excel sheet that was dropped onto Panopticon Explorer. By connecting to Bloomberg for market data updates, live values are fed directly into the display in true real-time. In the picture above, the value or holding is represented by the size of the rectangles, so we can see that Exxon is a large holding in this portfolio. The color communicates the one day relative price change – blue means price change is upwards, white means no or very small change and red color indicates downward price change.
There are also overlays on top of the rectangles. These overlay symbols indicate that update changes occur in this instant for the elements in the display. For example, the Exxon rectangle has a symbol which shows a ring of outwards bound arrows; this means that the value of our Exxon holdings is increasing in this instant. Note also that Procter & Gamble has received a data update where both the size and the price goes up in the same instant – indicated by the blue upward pointing arrow – and this happens at the same time as the total size of the holding increases. In this display, the color communicates the relative one day price change. Shades of red tell us which stocks are currently falling in price; for example, we can easily see that the price of Yahoo stock is falling.
Panopticon Explorer works with static data too, of course, and in this version we added yet another plug-in which allows you to connect to RSS feeds using the “Connect” toolbar button.
Panopticon Explorer can work as a completely standalone application running on your desktop; this means that you can work while disconnected from your servers. You can share your work using email with a simple click of the mouse. Another great way to use Explorer is to share work done using a Panopticon Enterprise server. You can connect Explorer to an Enterprise server in a completely secure way using Integrated Windows, Basic, NTLM or Digest authentication modes.
