6 PRESENTACIÓN Y ANÁLISIS DE RESULTADOS
6.7 L A COOPERATIVA : UN ESPACIO PARA PROPICIAR EL ENCUENTRO
6.7.3 Desviantes del trabajo en conjunto
The Analytic Grid is very similar to the Analytic Chart. The wizard asks exactly the same questions for the grid as it does when the designer is creating a chart. Once the design surface is loaded up, the only difference between the grid and the chart design surface is that the grid has panels named Rows and Columns instead of Series and Bottom Axis, respectively. This makes it very easy to understand exactly how the data will look when the grid is laid out.
The grid has two features that the chart doesn’t, but it also lacks many of the features found in the chart. On the positive side, the grid allows people to drill down on dimensions in either the rows or the columns. Technically the chart did this as well but the user had to right-click to do it. With the grid, drilling down on multiple dimensions is much easier. Second, the grid allows a user to either drill down (have the children of the selection replace the selection and its siblings) or expand, which means to show the children for the selection while leaving the parent and its siblings visible. In fact, expanding data is more easily discoverable than drilling down, as there is a plus sign available for expanding but the user has to know to double-click in order to drill down.
Playing off the example used to create charts, assume that the developer creates a new grid and places Product Model Lines on the Rows, Date.Date.Calendar on the Columns, and Gross Profit in the Background. Clicking the Browse button opens the report in the Browse Analytic Report viewer, and the grid is displayed. In this case, the Big Blue Bar is gone, replaced with a single value in a cell and All Periods as the column header and All Products as the row header.
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B u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e w i t h M i c r o s o f t O f f i c e P e r f o r m a n c e P o i n t S e r v e r 2 0 0 7Next to the items in the rows and columns are small buttons with a plus sign. Clicking on that button will expand that item; in other words, it will keep that item there but also show its children. Clicking on the plus sign next to All Periods, for example, will keep All Periods but will also add new columns, one each for CY 2001 through CY 2004. An example of this can be seen in Figure 6-19. So far, this sounds very similar to the Analytic Chart.
One difference, however, also shown in Figure 6-19, is that the user does not have to expand; instead, they can drill down by double-clicking on an item. Figure 6-19 also shows the result if a user has double-clicked on All Products. Unlike the expansion of time on the columns—which kept All Periods on the grid—double- clicking shows the children, but replaces the parents. The user is free to double-click on any member of either the rows or columns in order to drill down.
The benefits of the grid should be immediately clear: the ability to drill down or expand any dimension on either the rows or columns makes navigating the grid very simple. On the other hand, the grid lacks some of the options seen on the grid
Figure 6-19 A simple Analytic Grid report being previewed by the developer before it is published to the server. The user has expanded time but drilled down on products.
C h a p t e r 6 : A n a l y s i s w i t h P e r f o r m a n c e P o i n t S e r v e r a n d P r o C l a r i t y
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right-click menus, so abilities such as cross drilling are gone. Therefore, realize that charts and grids each have scenarios for which one is better than the other and can make analysis easier for end users.
Multiple Measures
Showing multiple measures at once is one area where the grid can shine. Recall from the previous discussion in the section on charts that showing values in the millions compared to a small percentage forces the percentage to the right Y-axis. In a grid, however, the data is completely valid and easy to read. As with the chart, multiple measures cannot be placed in the background. If the developer attempts to do this, the Dashboard Designer will automatically move the measures to the Columns panel. This is often the desired result, however. Take Figure 6-20 as an example. In this case, products are still on the rows and time is still on the columns. The Gross Profit and Gross Profit Margin measures have also been added to the columns and some expansion of data has occurred.
Figure 6-20 Gross Profit and Gross Profit margin are shown side by side, but watch out for similarly named measures because of the width of the columns.
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B u s i n e s s I n t e l l i g e n c e w i t h M i c r o s o f t O f f i c e P e r f o r m a n c e P o i n t S e r v e r 2 0 0 7Note one problem with the grid: the width of the column holding the measure names cuts off the word Margin for the Gross Profit Margin measure. The width of the column cannot be adjusted, and this is true for both the developer during the design phase and the user once the report is published to SharePoint. This is one reason why the ProClarity tools or Excel are sometimes better tools for some of the analysis.