CMaps Analytics. The ability for both business users and technologists to differentiate “visualize” vs “analyze” is critical to identify the goals of an geo-analytics view, and to approaching the solution properly.
At Centigon Solutions we place a high emphasis on security and performance as we build location analytics tools for our customers. Knowing that business intelligence dashboards and reports are data intensive, the need to display and interact with many regions and assets on a map is necessary to ensure a fast performance. However technology and communication are equally important when designing any business intelligence solution..
First, the Technology….
Here is a great benchmark example illustrated by Centigon Solutions CTO, Evan Delodder, while we were testing our new CMaps Analytcis HTML5 SDK
A single dashboard or map is capable of visually displaying information based on tens of millions of points over time. A business user may want to use business logic to analyze this information using various techniques (aggregation, identifying top/bottom locations, statistical analysis, etc.) To analyze this information, the number crunching should be pushed to your server at the database or middleware layers. The end result that business users visualize can be compiled or aggregated in multiple ways to visually communicate information quickly and accurately. Ultimately in a mobile dashboard, end users do not want to hunt or perform mental gymnastics to reach some kind of decision making point. A human brain can only analyze so much information, and that is where visualization helps. However, a human brain can only rationalize so much information visually before the value diminishes. So how exactly do I address the requirement for visualizing millions or even thousands of points?
A human brain can only analyze so much information, and that is where visualization helps. However, a human brain can only rationalize so much information visually before the value diminishes. So how exactly do I address the requirement for visualizing millions of points? That is where best practice comes into play to ask the right questions and apply the correct process and technology. So when a user asks you to show them all 15,000 stores on a map, they do NOT mean it literally. For example, when you look for a restaurant on Google, does Google return all 8000 restaurants in your region? That would be impossible to comprehend and for business users, you face the same problem. You have two options… Aggregate or constrain based on criteria to lead business users to the information they need, not throw the kitchen sink at them and hope they find what they are looking for. This attention to detail is the difference maker between a Business Intelligence app that is deployed vs an app that is adopted. We address all of these real-world challenges in Location Intelligence 101 with CMaps Analytics. http://cmapsconnect.com/cmaps101.]]>
