No one has ever said, “I love to look through thousands of data tables to digest information.” The majority of data collected through business analysis tools ends up in a standard table with rows and columns. It’s possible to leave the data in this format, but it is not only tedious to view, but it can also make it difficult to understand the whole picture. You may be able to get a sense of the data’s contents, and you might even spot patterns. Visual analytics tools are needed to see the full story of your data.
What is Visual Analytics?
Visual analytics falls under the categories of visual business intelligence and visual business analytics (BA). It is basically a visualization of data analytics. Visual analytics is data presented in a visual chart or dashboard. This makes it much easier to understand than if it were displayed in endless rows and columns in a table. It makes it simple to see trends quickly and doesn’t take up too much time. Visual data analysis tools also make data analysis more understandable for people who are not data scientists.
It seems like the data to the right is a bit easier to work with. Imagine trying to spot trends in large tables in order to improve your email marketing effectiveness. You can see trends much more clearly with the data to your right.
Where does the “analytics” part come in? Visual analytics is more than just visualizing your data. It also does actual data analysis. Techopedia says visual analytics is unique because it uses statistical work, data mining, or other analytical work to visualize data.
This means that your visual analytics program doesn’t just make your data look nice, it organizes it and discards duplicate and incorrect data. Sometimes, it even offers insights based upon the data. The artificial intelligence of data visualization software uses machine learning algorithms to learn from your data and guide you in your analysis.
Also read: Best 10 Amazing and Powerful Data Modeling Tools You Should Know
Best Visual Analytics Tools
You’ve probably heard enough about visual analytics tools. It’s now time to examine the leaders in this industry. These are five of our favorite visual data analysis tools, each one a great choice for fulfilling your data analytics needs.
1. Board
Board provides a variety of gauges, data views, and charts. It also offers widgets, tables, widgets, and other data-aware objects that can be used for storyboarding or data representation. Interactive dashboards are available with this visual analysis tool.
Board offers advanced charting tools and interactive maps, which allow users to focus on the “where factor”, and gain spatial insights from their data. These tools include radar, heat maps, treemaps, and waterfalls. There are many visualization options available to help users make sense of their data.
Board provides advanced analytics capabilities that allow users to create intuitive and interactive dashboards or analysis reports. Board Beam is an automated predictive modeling method that allows for precise forecasting and scenario analysis. This module provides additional information about the scenario in order to show the effect of external variables on the forecast.
Board Beam also offers a range of statistical functions that go beyond the box. These include the standard min/max, average, and standard deviation, as well as algorithms that are specifically for business analysis. These functions can be used to track and determine KPIs like frequency, recency, and dormancy.
2. Tableau
Tableau’s Big Data Analytics solution provides strong data visualization capabilities that enable users to create intelligent business reporting through its storyboarding feature. This solution allows users to present data using predefined animated forms and charts to visualize changes over multiple time periods or groups.
Tableau Big Data Analytics supports geospatial interaction. Tableau’s New Spatial File Connector tool makes it possible to use spatial data directly within Tableau for powerful geospatial analysis.
Tableau’s data and visual analysis tool allow users to perform ad-hoc analyses using strong visual data analytics features. This solution can perform descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. It is able to produce trend lines, forecasts, and predictions based upon the algorithmic analysis behind the scenes. A CFO dashboard provides intuitive profit analysis.
3. Spotfire
TIBCO Spotfire offers strong data visualization capabilities with a variety of 16 visualization options, including line, bar, pie charts, heatmaps, and network graphs. This solution allows you to spot valuable patterns and trends with ease.
You can use images, descriptions, and step-by-step navigation as a guide to your data. The solution offers guidance by suggesting the best representations of data.
Spotfire’s geospatial analytics allows for geospatial interaction. Instant maps can be created and viewed by users. This allows them to make more detailed connections between location and data. It helps users understand the data, predict future outcomes, and generate insights.
Spotfire provides advanced analytics that enables users to obtain predictive insights using regression and statistical models. This solution allows users to connect multiple data sources, allowing them to view intuitive visualizations and predictive insight quickly. It also facilitates sharing and exploration.
Spotfire’s BA module lets users run analysis query-to-query. To make the interface explorable, the solution comes fully loaded with descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analyses.
Point-and-click can be used to instantly link views, make predictions and create data profiles. The R engine is integrated into the solution and allows for statistical language to be used within the software analysis. R code allows for point-and-click authoring and gives admins the ability to run custom R models within the analysis. It can also drill down into existing databases.
4. SAS Visual Analytics
SAS is a powerful, interactive, and dynamic visual intelligence solution that allows users to create compelling analytical storyboards. This solution allows users to visualize all the major steps before they analyze data. SAS Visual Analytics allows collaboration and storytelling via Microsoft Office integration.
This solution supports auto charting. Users can start explorations at the desired point and quickly pick the most appropriate graph to represent their data. SAS Visual Analytics allows geospatial integration via Esri ArcGIS Online and OpenStreetMap. Interactive animations and chart suggestions are also available.
SAS can handle single user queries and perform ad-hoc analysis. SAS Enterprise Miner and SAS Visual Analytics are two examples of predictive analytics tools that can be integrated into the solution. It can search existing databases to provide descriptive and prescriptive analysis. This allows users to visualize real gains and calculate them.
Also read: Best 7 Analytics Tools To Data Analysis For Business Enterprises
5. Power BI
Microsoft Power BI offers customizable and pre-built dashboards that unify key metrics and display real-time updates across all devices. This solution allows users to create scorecards with advanced filtering, guided navigation, and visualization. To help users visualize data in an intuitive and customized way, the solution provides animations and chart suggestions.
Power View and Power Map support visual data exploration, interactive reporting, and geospatial analysis. Power View Add-in functionality allows users to share their insights with others via rich storyboard presentation capabilities. Power BI supports geospatial integration using SQL Server Geospatial engine and Esri ArcGIS map.
Power BI offers powerful ad-hoc analytics that allows users to manage single or multiple business queries. Predictive analytics can be used to understand past trends and gain valuable insights for future decisions.
This solution comes loaded with data mining capabilities, which allow users to analyze large databases and generate new information. Power BI allows users to analyze profit using customized and built dashboards.
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