Cockpit: "Trends and Distributions"

Analyze any number of variables regarding cycles, trends, anomalous patterns, and structural breaks. Relate multiple variables, summarize them by statistics, and drill-down to single values.


  Video available: The easiest way to get acquainted with the workflow of this cockpit is to watch the video tutorial in our Video Academy

Step-by-step tutorial available: Another option to learn the basics is to follow the step-by-step guide with the demo dataset.


Overview



This cockpit provides a first overview of your data - even without concrete questions in advance. You can check the plausibility of your data, inspect individual variables in detail, or get the big picture of hundreds of variables using several overviews. For example, find groups of correlating sensors, and see how events propagate over time across multiple sensors. Compare statistics and value distributions for multiple time periods or other categories. Find trends and catch outliers, cleaning them on-the-fly.

  1. Overview of variables: Various overviews displaying all varibles, with the option of selecting one or more of them, as well as filter options through text input.
  2. Drill Down: View values of a selected variable aggregated according to time aspects or categories, and select time ranges for a detailed view by clicking them.
  3. Time Series: Time series plots of the selected variables with the possibility to select records, and to zoom to selected time ranges.
  4. Value Distribution: Various views showing the value distribution of the selected variables, including histograms and scatter plots.
  5. Table: A table-like view of single values that can be shown on demand.



Overview of variables


The diagrams in this group are primarily used to select variables to be displayed in detail in other diagrams.


Drill Down

These diagrams initially display the mean value of one selected variable per category, using colors. Each colored cell (or bar) aggregates the data that belongs to the corresponding (combination of) categories.

The views can be used to perform selections of categories by clicking the category labels, which defines a focus for the other views. If a focus was already defined in other views, the Drill-Down views only consider the data records of the focus.

Change aggregation: for bar chart, matrix, and categories, the categories can be changed by clicking the area near the axis highlighted in gray.

Use other statistics than the mean value for coloring: click the label of the color legend, choose one of the statistics.


Time Series


These plots show variables over time. If the time axis has a regular raster, the timeline is connected as line graph. If more than one variable is shown, there are two ways of distinguishing them:

Key actions:

The diagram offers several options when clicking the view title "Time Series". The most important ones are:


Value Distribution




Table ('Focus data records')


A table showing the single values. Only considers the data records in focus. Click the header of a column to sort the table by it. To change the set of displayed columns, click the header "Shown: 103 of 210 data attributes". Click single rows or drag a line with the left mouse button to select records, putting them into focus.

Exporting: A key use case of the table is exporting a selected subset of the data. To export the current state of the table, click on "Export" in the top right of this view.


Roles supported by this cockpit

The following roles can be given to data attibutes in this cockpit. Use the icon in the toolbar to adjust them.




License Statement for the Photovoltaic and Weather dataset used for Screenshots:
"Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."
Source of Dataset (in its original form): https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/photovoltaic--pv--solar-panel-energy-generation-data
License: UK Open Government Licence OGL 3: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
Dataset was modified (e.g. columns renamed) for easier communication of Visplore USPs.