Storytelling with Data using Oracle Data Visualization · Data preparation involves cleansing,...

Storytelling with Data using Oracle Data Visualization

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Introduction

This article explains capabilities of Oracle Data Visualization (DV), a business analytics service for

connecting, preparing, visualizing and sharing insights or stories from data.

The objective of this document is to help you understand what Oracle DV offers and how it can support

your organization’s business intelligence (BI) strategy. The intended audience of this document are IT

professionals, who manage organization’s BI platforms, solutions, and tools as well as BI analysts, who

specialize in data modelling, analytics, and presentation.

Oracle Analytics & Data Visualisation - An Overview

Oracle Analytics is the only true analytics

platform which provides capabilities such

as Governed, Self-Service & Augmented

Analytics to serve business needs whereas

other vendors fall into either one or two of

the capabilities i.e., Tableau in Self-Service

Analytics, MicroStrategy in Governed

Analytics.

On one hand, Oracle Analytics provides

traditional BI reporting capabilities such as

ad-hoc reporting, pixel perfect reporting &

dashboards, where business team has a lot of dependency on IT teams for data preparation, building

data warehouse and configuring semantic model for querying.

On the other hand, Oracle Analytics provides Self-Service Analytics through Oracle Data Visualization

which enables business users to easily connect any of their data, explore data through interactive

visualizations that reveal trends in an organisation's data, discover important insights about your

business and share them with team or organization members at any time on any device.

Oracle further embedded its AI, Machine Learning capabilities to provide next generation analytics

called Augmented Analytics. Using Augmented Analytics, one can easily train their data by using in-

built Machine Learning algorithms to predict anomalies or future trends.

Oracle Data Visualization is available as stand-alone named Oracle Data Visualization Desktop (DVD)

and Oracle Data Visualization Cloud Service (DVCS) as a part of Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC). The

individual components and their capabilities of Oracle Data Visualization are further described below.

Fig.1: Landscape of Oracle Analytics

Fig.2: Oracle Data Visualization Components


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Building Blocks of Storytelling in Oracle DV:

1. Connect to any data source:

Oracle Data Visualization, a part of Oracle Analytics provides Self-Service & Augmented Analytical

capabilities for an enterprise with the ability to connect any data, irrespective of data availability (on-

premises, cloud or third-party applications) & type of data (structured or unstructured).

50 + built in Connectors to all types of data

o Relational, NoSQL & Big Data

o Non-Oracle SaaS Applications

o Oracle Cloud, Third Party Clouds & On-Premises

Blend any data together regardless of source or type

Data Preparation/Enrichment capabilities

Smart connectors to Oracle Fusion Applications (ERP, SCM, HCM & CX etc.)

In-built AI & Machine Learning capabilities

One can easily connect to data sources of their choice using available in-built connectors and provide

necessary details in order to establish connection. Once connection established, one can create data

set out of that for further analysis.

Fig.3: Typical data sources that are supported by Oracle Data Visualization

Fig.4: Creating connection to data source


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2. Create and prepare data sets & enrich your data:

Data Set

Data Set is a basic storage unit in Oracle Data

Visualisation which will store data from various

data sources, such as file, subject area (part of

enterprise data modelling) or connection.

Based on the source of data set, data access

property can be enabled to either Live (data

always returned from live source) or Automatic

Caching (data from live source may be cached

for faster performance). Data Sets based on file

source cannot be refreshed automatically.

Data Flow

Data Flow is used to organize and integrate

data to produce a curated set of data (Data

Set) to build analytic content. Data Flows are

powerful, not only allowing users to join

disparate data but also perform some useful

data preparation/transformation activities,

ranging from basic filtering, aggregation and

data manipulation actions to more complex

sentiment analysis, forecasting and even

some machine learning modelling features.

Importantly, Data Flows can be set to output their results to disk, either written to a Data Set or even

to a database table and they can be scheduled for repetitive refresh.

Data Replication

It is a unique feature of Oracle Data Visualization

which allows to source data from various Oracle

SaaS offerings and then replicate data into target

Database/DWH. With data replication, one can

import and transform their data without using

additional ETL/ELT tools.

Sequence

Sequence is the container which can execute

multiple Data Flows and other Sequences

one after another in a specific order.

When Sequence gets executed, it executes

all the Data Flows and/or Sequences

included, one by one in a specific order. In

case Sequence fails during execution then it

reverts all the changes done in the process of

Sequence execution.

Fig.5: Creating Dataset using existing Connections/SA

Fig.6: Transformations available in Data Flow

Fig.7: Data Replications from Source to Target

Fig.8: Creating Sequence for data refresh


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3. Explore/Visualize your data & gain quick insights:

In Oracle Data Visualization, Project is an object with one or more data sources containing the data

and visualizations that can help to explore content in productive and meaningful ways. It mainly

consists of three tabs - Prepare, Visualize and Narrate.

Prepare

Data preparation involves cleansing,

standardizing and enriching data set prior

to analysis of the data in a visualization

canvas. Oracle DV’s in-built machine

learning (ML) algorithms facilitate

recommendations based on the nature of

data to the user, further to enhance &

derive new data.

In case the visualization project involves analysing data from more than one data set (it does not

matter, whether those data sets either from same source or from different sources), one can use joins,

data mashup/wrangling based on relationship between data in order to find insights based on those

datasets.

Visualize

Oracle DV supports 30+ visualizations out

of the box ranging from table, pivot, bar

graphs, pie charts, donut, performance tile,

tree map, heat map, tag cloud to advanced

visualizations such as map view, scatter,

boxplot, correlation matrix & tree diagram.

Oracle DV has capability to pick right

visualization based on the selected data

elements. Advanced analytics such as

reference line, trendline, forecast, clusters

and outliers can be applied on top of

visualization for more insights.

One can extend Oracle DV visualizations either by installing third party plugins from Oracle DV library

or using Oracle DV SDK to create custom plugin based on D3.js

Narrate

Oracle DV’s Narrate allows to add

visualizations or canvas to the dashboard

from the canvases which were created. It

allows to write note about findings on

visualization and share with the people.

Fig.10: Creating & Picking Best Visualization

Fig.11: Building story with multiple canvases on Narrate tab

Fig.9: Recommendations & Data Mashups in DV


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4. Share with your organization members & on social media:

Switching to Presentation Mode

One can share the insights about their

findings about the data to friends or

members of organization, by switching

the application to Presentation Mode.

Presentation mode of an application will

remove all the menus & buttons and

focus just on the storytelling.

Share a Project/Folder as an Application

One can share/export DV project with

multiple supported formats such as

pptx, pdf, png (only active sheet/visual),

csv (includes only active sheet) and DVA.

The exported .DVA file includes the

items that you specify such as

associated data sets, the connection

string & credentials, and ALC’s. One can

further email the exported DVA file to

enable other users to work with it.

Import an Application/Project

One can import .DVA file which was

created by another user or can import an

application from an external source such

as Oracle DV library.

The import includes the items which are

specified during export such as associated

data sets, connection string & connection

credentials, ALC’s and stored data.

Integrating DV Projects into BI Dashboards

Option 1: Oracle DV Projects can be

embedded into Oracle Analytics

dashboards directly using ‘Embedded

Content‘ dashboard object. It is possible

to embedded DV Project directly in the

presentation mode. For this,

‘&reportmode= presentation’ parameter

needs to append to the URL of the project.

Option 2: Drag Oracle DV project just like analysis/prompt onto Dashboard and choose which canvas

you want to present (in case more than one canvas exists) to the user.

Fig.12: Presentation Mode of Oracle DV Projects

Fig.13: Exporting Oracle DV Project

Fig.15: Integrating DV Project with Dashboard

Fig.14: Importing .DVA Project


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Share via Social Media:

The project's visualizations, canvases and

stories can share as a file on social media

such as Twitter, LinkedIn & Slack. One

must create app with respect to social

media, get authorized before publishing

app using Client ID, Client Secret which

were created as a part of App creation.

Conclusion:

Oracle Data Visualization offers powerful analytical features which can be used to convert data into

insights and further useful in supporting a culture of data-driven decision making. IT Team can benefit

from easy provisioning of new data sources, fast deployment, and easy integration with existing Oracle

Business Intelligence Dashboards. Business Analysts can leverage powerful analysis capabilities for

easy data discovery, exploration, and visualization. Oracle Data Visualization’s self-service capabilities

make business users no longer need to rely on IT Team for preparing whatever they required. By

adding Oracle DV to your organization’s portfolio, you can make BI available to the people who need

it, when they need it over the web & mobile.

Contact for further details

Appi Reddy DUNDETI

Team Lead – Analytics Oracle

[email protected]

MOURI Tech

Fig.16: Sharing DV Project on Social Media

mailto:%[email protected]

Storytelling with Data using Oracle Data Visualization · Data preparation involves cleansing,...

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