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March 5, 2009

Ad Hoc Heat Maps and Visualization Tools: What Makes Them Easy to Create

The better ad hoc reporting tools marry the benefits of an easy-to-use interface with those of advanced visualization tools like heat maps.

But here is the difficulty in this. Understanding how to create an ad-hoc data table can be intuitive enough, especially if the process is wizard-driven. But creating a heat map involves at least a basic understanding of the structure of the underlying data.

And here's one of the big differences between general ad-hoc reporting solutions and the better ones. General applications offer the features, but leave it up to the end-user to figure them out--often offering expensive training session that, given the difficulty of the solution, become de facto mandatory.

Conversely, the better ad hoc reporting software lays out a clear, essential path for the end-user, along with clickable links that offer clearly-worded help on the particular step on which the end-user is working.

Thanks to this structure, the user has always a clear vision of the report-creation path:

1 - Do the essentials, which will give you a basic report with the columns you need to see.

2 - Step out of the "absolute-basics" box if you want to add more features to your report--but still in a linear and easy way, and always guided by wizards and aided by help links.

One of the main benefits of this approach is that the user can add a lot of usefulness and persuasive power to his reports. One thing is to read data from a table--another is to see it displayed as valuable information on a heat map or other visualization tool.

Another is simply the ability to get more out of your ad hoc software--which in turn means making your end-users smarter and more productive while freeing IT to do what they need to do instead of creating and troubleshooting end-user reports.

Posted by The Ad Hoc Reporting Boys at 8:30 AM | Comments (1)