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Analysis workspace: sort out how visualizations are linked to freeform tables

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Community Advisor

11/8/16

The way freeform tables and visualizations link is our number 1 issue with workspace so really hope you do something about this! :-)

From a end user "self service" perspective, we are having terrible trouble getting workspace to work for us because of the way visualizations (e.g. line graphs) and freeform tables interact.

Use case 1:

Scenario: We give an end user access to a freefrom table that has a visualisation attached to it.

Issue: As soon as the end user interacts with the table (e.g.clicks or searches) the visualization completely breaks as the 'focus' changes in the freeform table

Desired outcome: we want the end user to be able to interact with the table and have the outcome reflected in the visualization without the visualization becoming meaningless.

For instance, where a visualization is set up to show top five items, the end user should be unable to change the visualization from showing the top 5 items in the freeform table, but should be able to interact with the table to influence what the top 5 items are e.g. by searching, adding a segment etc.

Use case 2:

Scenario: We want to display 3 different visuals off one table of data

Issue: it's not possible, so we end up with 4 seperate tables driving the visualization where one would have been enough:

  • 3 hidden tables for the visualizations
  • 1 visible table for the user to see.

the 2 issues with this are:

  • interactions with the visible table are not reflected in the visualizations
  • maintenance overhead/build time

Possible solution?

if you could find a way to make the "lock selected positions" option actually lock to the selected positions on the selected freeform table (rather than creating another table in the background) I think it could solve both of the above

2 Comments

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Level 8

11/8/16

Workspace rocks in many ways and is a real game-changer, but have to agree that the linking between freeform tables and visualizations is not perfect. I have already learnt to play around with settings where you can choose to show data source and see what data source the visualization is using etc and I have also noticed that there are many times when new data sources will be automatically created and sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the “links” between tables and visualizations.

I have started to give training to our product owners and we have started with easy freeform tables, and it is bit scary to start with the visualizations, could be very confusing to them if it works like nowadays.

 

To be honest, I thought I just haven’t learned something around this topic, but since Andy wrote in here, It seems I’m not the only wondering this strange relationship between data sources (freeform tables) and visualizations. I’m not sure what could be the perfect solution, but Andy has some good ideas and let’s continue to discuss. Or if everything is already perfect, then Ben, teach us! Smiley Happy