Getting started with Visualization

This quick start guide explains how to create a collection with a workbook, a connection, a dataset, a dashboard, and add charts to it.

Create a collection

First, let's create a collection that'll contain all your Visualization workbooks.

1. Open the Visualization page in the console.

2. Click Create → Create collection. You'll see the following dialog:

   

3. Under Name, type Test Collection.

4. Under Description, paste the following:

   This collection contains all the resources for the DoubleCloud Visualization quick-start scenario.
   

5. Click Create. The new collection page will look as follows:

   

Create a workbook

A workbook is a visualization environment that contains tools to process and visualize data from connections to data sources.

1. Click Create → Create workbook in the upper-right corner of the page. You'll see the following dialog:

   

2. Under Name, type Test BA Workbook.

3. Under Description, paste the following:

   This workbook contains a connection, a dataset, charts and a dashboard for the DoubleCloud Visualization quick-start scenario.
   

4. Click Create. The new workbook page will look as follows:

   

Create a connection

Connections access hosts in your cluster to fetch data for processing and visualization. We will use a connection based on a CSV file.

1. Click Create → Connection in the upper-right corner of your workbook page.

2. Select File.

3. Configure the connection parameters:

   1. In the left section, upload the hits_sample.csv file that will make up a dataset.

   

   1. In the data preview section, check the correctness of the following settings:

      • Encoding - utf-8

      • Separator - Semicolon

      • Columns header - Yes

   2. Take a look at the preview section. It contains data rows and the header row. The service automatically defines column data types and displays them in the header row.

   The resulting configuration should be the following:

   

4. Click Create connection.

5. Name your connection, for example Hits connection, and click Create.

Create a dataset

A Dataset is the tool that parses the data stored on your cluster and gets it ready for representation in a graphical form.

1. Click Create Dataset in the upper-right corner of your workbook page:

   

2. In the Connections section, you'll see the newly created Hits connection. In the Tables section, you'll see a list of tables whose data you can visualize. You'll see the hits_sample table in the workspace on the right:

   

3. Have a look at the data available for visualization in the Preview section below:

   

4. Click Save in the upper-right corner of the page and call it Test BA Dataset when prompted.

5. Go back to the workbook. You'll see the following under Datasets:

   

Create charts

To get you familiar with the most popular chart types in DoubleCloud Visualization, we'll create the following ones:

• Column chart

• Donut chart

• Indicator

We'll also add selectors to work as filters for your data visualizations.

Create a column chart

A column chart is useful for visualizing value changes over time.

1. Click Create → Wizard chart.

2. Select Test BA Dataset from the list.

3. By default, Column chart is already selected.

4. Drag and drop Measures and Dimensions to the appropriate sections of the chart:

   • Date to X - this provides the timeline over which the data was changing.

   • Time_Spent to Y - this is the value changes of which we're going to visualize.

   • Browser to Color - this enriches the data with color-coding

   Your chart fields configuration should look like this:

   

5. Click Save in the upper-right corner of the page.

6. Let's call our chart Time spent per browser and click Done.

1. Go back to the workbook.

Create a Donut chart

A donut chart allows you to compare the same parameter between several categories.

In our case, we want to visually compare the shares of users from all the device platforms and types:

1. Click Create → Wizard chart.

2. Select Test BA Dataset from the list.

3. Click the chart type field on the right of the dataset section and select Donut chart from the drop-down list.

4. Drag and drop Measures and Dimensions to the appropriate sections of the chart:

   • Browser to Measures - each unique value in the Browser column will create a new section of the chart, and the number of occurrences will determine the size of the section.

   • Technology to Color - this will define the color of each section.

5. Now we need to remove the number indicator from the center of the chart:

   1. Click the icon.

   2. In the Chart settings window, toggle the Totals switch.

   3. Click Apply

   Your final chart settings configuration should look like this:

   

6. Click Save.

7. Let's call our chart User shares by platform and click Done.

Create an indicator

An indicator shows a numeric value or a sum of values in large letters.

1. Click Create → Wizard chart.

2. Select Test BA Dataset from the list.

3. Click the chart type field on the right of the dataset section and select Indicator from the drop-down list.

4. Drag and drop Hit_ID to the Measure field.

5. Now let's make your indicator's header easier to understand:

   1. Click the icon next to your chart type.

   2. Toggle the Header switch and type Total hits:

      

   3. Click Apply.

6. Let's customize the appearance of your indicator:

   1. Hover your cursor over the Measure field and click the icon.

   2. In the popup window, select the M size and choose a different color:

      

   3. Click Apply.

   Your final chart settings configuration should look like this:

   

7. Click Save in the upper-right corner of the page.

8. The header value will automatically apply the name, just click Save.

1. Go back to the workbook. Your Charts section should look as follows:

   

Create a dashboard

A dashboard is a customizable data display that provides you with capabilities to arrange charts and selectors and organize them into tabs.

1. Click Create → Dashboard in the upper-right corner of your workbook page.

2. Let's name it Test BA Dashboard and click Create. Your dashboard will open in edit mode.

3. Add a description to the dashboard:

   1. Click . You'll see the Dashboard info dialog:

      

   2. Copy the following text and paste it into the WYSIWYG editor field:

      This dashboard shows the website usage metrics for the project.
      

   3. Click Save.

You're now ready to start populating your dashboard with tabs and charts.

Add charts to your dashboard

1. Click Add → Chart. You'll see the chart placement dialog:

   

   1. Under Chart, click Select and choose the Time spent per browser chart from the list.

   2. You'll see the chart's Title appear in the relevant field. To the right, there's the Show checkbox - let's keep it as is.

   3. In the Description field, let's add some context to the chart. Copy and paste the following:

      This chart shows the time users spend on the website arranged by browser.
      

   4. Click Add.

   5. Move the chart around the dashboard and resize it to your liking.

2. Add the User shares by platform donut chart to the dashboard and resize it if you want.

3. Add the Total hits indicator chart.

   1 In the chart placement dialog, uncheck the Show box - we've already added the header to this chart, no need to duplicate it.

4. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Save.

Now you have a working dashboard with charts that will automatically update when the data on your data source changes:

Keep exploring

• The complete end-to-end DoubleCloud services guide

• Step-by-step instructions for DoubleCloud Visualization

• Charts reference

• All concepts for DoubleCloud Visualization

• Use cases