Introduction to Spotfire

   Spotfire TIBCO Spotfire makes it simple for you to access, analyze and create dynamic reports on your data. It delivers instant value whether you are a market canvasser, a sales representative, a scientist or a process engineer by letting you quickly identify trends and patterns in your critical business data. Spotfire can access data in a number of places such as on your desktop or in a network file system. It can even access your data if it is located in remote databases, without you having to involve your IT department each time you wish to ask a new query. Spotfire lets you filter your data interactively, and gives you answers instantly. It also lets you quickly create clear and concise, yet smooth and colorful visualizations in the form of bar charts, cross tables, scatter plots and many more valuable tools that will help you respond to events that affect your business. And finally, Spotfire lets you share your results. Static reports can be limiting to good business in this fast-paced world of data, and Spotfire allows you to create dynamic reports that help you to ask new questions, as well as be able to quickly turn your reports into instant presentations to show to your colleagues and clients.

The User Interface

    The image below shows some of the major parts of the TIBCO Spotfire user interface

Visualizations

   Visualizations are the key to analyzing data in Spotfire. A diversity of visualization types can be used to provide the best view of the data:

•          Tables

•          Cross Tables

•          Bar Charts

•          Line Charts

•          Graphical Tables

•          Combination Charts

•          3D Scatter Plots

•          Map Charts

•          Pie Charts

•          Scatter Plots

•          Treemaps

•          Heat Maps

•          Box Plots

•          Parallel Coordinate Plots

•          Summary Tables

Different types of visualizations can be shown simultaneously.

   They can be linked to each other, and may or may not be updated dynamically when the matching filters on the page are manipulated (see below).

Visualizations can be made to reflect many dimensions of data by letting values control visual attributes such as color, shape, size, etc.

Text areas

   You can type text in text areas, explaining what is seen in the different visualizations. This can be particularly useful if you are creating logical applications for other users. Text areas can also include several different types of controls, allowing you to filter, do actions or make selections to view particular types of data, etc.

Filters

   By adjusting filters, you can reduce the data seen in the visualizations to "drill down" to the things that interest you. Filters are powerful tools that rapidly let you see various aspects of your data and make discoveries. Filters appear in several forms, and you can select the type of filter device that top suits your needs (for example, check boxes, sliders, etc). When you manipulate a filter by moving a slider or by selecting a check box, all linked visualizations are immediately updated to reflect the new selection of data. By default, all new visualizations on a page will be limited by the filtering scheme used on the page. However, the filtering system can be changed for each visualization separately.

Details-on-Demand

   The Details-on-Demand window can be used to show the correct values of a row or a group of rows. By clicking an item in a visualization, or marking several items by clicking and dragging with the mouse around them, you can see the numerical values and textual data they represent immediately in the Details-on-Demand window.