How does it Work
Contents
Access Data
Upload Data to Explore Analytics
Most applications allow you to export data in CSV or spreadsheet format and many websites provide data in this format for you to download. With Explore Analytics you can upload such files and it will automatically detect the format, column names, and fields with dates and numbers.
Explore Analytics creates a table from each file and you can analyze and create views of the data. If you upload multiple files with related data, Explore Analytics makes it easy to identify related fields and create views that combine data from multiple tables.
Connect Directly
You can setup a Data Source in Explore Analytics by pointing it to your database. If your database is accessible from the Internet, then it’s simply a matter of specifying where it is and providing a user name and password to connect.
If your database is in your organization’s private network, you can use the Explore Agent to make a secure connection. The Explore Agent is an optional piece of software that you can install on a Windows or Linux computer with connectivity to your database. The Agent makes a secure connection to the Explore Analytics website and stands ready to process your queries.
If you manage a website with PHP and MySQL, Explore Analytics has a PHP connector that allows you to query your database. Simply place a single PHP script on your site, and you’re ready to go. If your website supports HTTPS, then the data transmission is encrypted.
Once connected to your database, Explore Analytics automatically discovers all the available tables, fields, and relationships.
Explore
Explore your data by “slicing and dicing”, filtering, sorting, aggregating, comparing and visualizing to discover trends, correlations, and key factors. Everything is done from the browser—no separate design tool is required.
Filter
Explore Analytics combines all the best user-interface techniques to make it effortless to zoom in on your data. For example, you can select items by checking them on a list, or find an item using auto-complete as you type. Explore Analytics has a rich set of filters for dates. For example, you can select “during this week”, “before last month”, “during the last n days”, to just name a few of the many options. By clicking “show matching” on a row with “January” you can filter to see only data for that month.
Pivot
Pivot is a simple but very powerful concept for aggregating and comparing data. When you use a pivot, you select for example a field to show in the rows—your products for example. You can select another field, the year for example, to show in the columns. In the cells of this matrix you can show sums, counts, averages, or other calculations on numeric fields. You can quickly see product monthly sales by year for year-over-year comparison or simply to see trends and detects abnormalities in the data.
Explore Analytics makes Pivot very approachable for new users, yet has all the advanced features of enterprise-level business intelligence tools.
Interactive Visualization
In Explore Analytics, visualization is an interactive tool for data exploration. You can easily scroll, zoom, drill down and drill through for more detail, and change visualization styles to learn and understand your data.
With the results of your analysis, you’ll want to make decisions and take actions. For that, communication is a key and Explore Analytics makes it easy for you to collaborate with others and share the analysis. Views and dashboard-style reports that you create can be easily shared.
Collaborate with Team Members
With Explore Analytics you can add users who can collaborate in the analysis effort and work together with you on views and reports that you create and share.
Publish reports for anyone to see and send them a link to invite them to take a look. Publish reports to your website or blog.
