There’s a big-box retail store not far from the OpenText Analytics office in San Mateo, California. Some of us (ahem) have been known to visit there at lunchtime to score free samples for lunch. And why not? Most people like to get something of value for free.
If you download the 45-day free trial of OpenText Information Hub (iHub), you know the feeling. Not only do you get to try out a full-featured version of the software for free, but you’re also given a number of free sample applications that preview some of the software’s remarkable capabilities. To help you steer your cart around the wide aisles to find the good stuff, we have prepared a series of blog posts exploring what each sample apps is and what you should look for when you use it. We’ll count on you to imagine how the capability it demonstrates could be used in your organization.
One other thing: You and your development team can learn a lot more about how these sample apps are constructed – and how they work – by exploring them in Analytics Designer, the free companion design tool for iHub. Brian Combs has published a step-by-step guide to help you do this.
Finding the Samples
When you launch iHub the first time you’re greeted with a main screen showing just one item: an HTML file called Examples. Click on it and you’ll see the Sample Content screen below – it’s your jumping-off point for all of the samples.
(screenshot)
The first sample we’ll explore is labeled Other Applications and can be found in the upper-right corner of the Sample Content screen. Click it and you’ll see three sample visualizations and one dashboard. These samples (and others) are based on Classic Models or SF Wealth, two of the sample databases that come with iHub. They all present data in a clean, uncluttered format that invites further exploration.
Customer Revenue Metrics
What it is: A report with a bar chart, a table of top customers (with scorecard arrows showing trends), and pie and bar charts that break out revenue in different ways.
What to look for: All of the elements of this report are interactive, so alter them to see what happens. For example, you can change the date range in the bar chart three different ways: by clicking the Zoom setting (upper left), by typing dates in the “from” and “to” boxes, or by moving the slider below the chart. (Modify one of these controls and the other two change in response.) Now click on any bar in the top bar chart for details on a single month. Next, hover over any segment of the pie chart; when a data point pops up, click on it for more detail.
Client Investment Portfolio
What it is: In essence, this is a periodic statement – like the one you might get from your investment advisor or broker – on steroids.
What to look for: This report is an ideal place to explore the power of iHub’s Interactive Viewer. Click the menu button in the upper left corner of the report and select Enable Interactivity. Then click on %Change (the sixth column) and extra controls will appear to filter, sort, and otherwise modify the table. You can use these to sort the entire table based on a single parameter. (When you do this, the right column of the table – with its red and green tags that display the data in scorecard style – will sort accordingly.) Enabling Interactivity unlocks a wide range of capabilities that vary depending on the data or visualization you’re working with. One other thing: click the name of one of the stocks in the portfolio (such as Coca Cola Company), and a new tab will open with the Yahoo Finance page for that asset. This shows how reports in iHub can seamlessly connect with external assets.
Top Sales Performers
What it is: A ton of data about salespeople, presented in a compact, efficient format.
What to look for: While your eye may be drawn to the radar chart at the top of the first page, a sales manager might find the sub-tables under the chart more compelling. These tables demonstrate how complex, multi-layered data can be aggregated and organized in a number of different ways: The salespeople are ranked, and their total sales are calculated. Within that level of organization, each salesperson’s top customers and top products are listed in order. This type of consolidated, interactive information is invaluable to people who manage large, distributed sales forces.
Customer Sales Dashboard
What it is: A basic interactive dashboard of sales data.
What to look for: One big distinction between dashboards and reports is the presence of selectors on dashboards. In this simple example, the selectors are on the left, labeled Sales Territories, Customer Countries, and Year. Click on any element within those selectors and watch the data visualizations (also called Gadgets) on the dashboard respond. Now look at the Historical Revenue Analysis gadget in the lower right corner of the dashboard. If you find it difficult to distinguish between individual data lines in the graph, click the triangle in the gadget’s upper-right corner and choose Maximize. The graph now fills the screen for easier exploration.
Next Up
In our next blog post in this series, we will walk you through the example called Integration Framework. Geared toward ISVs, this example showcases various capabilities iHub provides for embedding content within an application.