Visualization ideas for contest rgd. discrete events?

[datanibbler]

Hi,

I know the capabilities of QlikView rgd. shapes and visuals are limited if there are no specialized Addons available.

Still it should be possible, there are some possibilities.

I have the following task:

- I have a list of discrete events (damages done by forklifts) with all the details - date, area, amount etc.

- There are 2 separable areas where most of these damages occur.
   => We want to establish a kind of contest (complete with prizes and all) between these two areas:

=> For a nr. of days/ weeks with no recorded damages, a prize shall be awarded to the respective "team".

What I have been asked to do now is simply a display of these discrete events - or the days that have already passed without any or - I don't know exactly. That is my issue: I have all the data, no problem there. Up to now, however, I have limited myself to displaying data in barcharts and combocharts to keep things simple.

I also want to try and keep things simple here - and work without any addons, if possible - those have to be installed, I cannot do that myself, so I have to create a ticket for IT and it will take a while ... better to do without.

=> I have been thinking of a gauge_chart (the test-tube) that will fill up with 1,2,3,4,5 (the days of one week)  and the colour could
     change from green (no damages) to orange (up to 2 damages) to red.
     Or/ and one could create some simple "basket" (like a box) with five balls (round text_boxes, one for every weekday) that will just
     appear one by one with the corresp. background colour.
     => That could even be combined with the test_tube and five of these "balls" could be stacked within it.

The plant director had something like an hourglass in mind, with balls disappearing from the top half and appearing on the bottom as days without any damages accumulate ... I guess if I can find a picture like that online and put that into a background_text_box, that could also be done.

Any more ideas? Has anyone done something like this before?

Thanks a lot!

Best regards,

DataNibbler

P.S.: I like the idea of those balls - that could even be combined with sth. like the hourglass the plant_director mentioned - I could search a picture online for a background_textbox and then put a number of those balls "inside" for every day of the week. They would "fall" one by one as the days go by and their colour could change.

Whatever - I want to collect some possibilities and assemble some proposals and ask before I set to work on this.

[#2]

You really do not need any add-ons for this.

I have Qlikview running at several companies with all kinds of reports, and I have never used any add-on.

You could use a gauge with the stoplights or something like that.

And if you want to do the hourglass with the balls falling down, you could just make jpg for every situation, use some logic in de filename of the jpg and construct the filename in an expression to display the image in a textbox. You could even put all images in e textbox als use expression in conditional show to make the not-correct ones disappear.

Good luck!

[datanibbler]

Hi Yves,

thanks for the answer!

Traffic_lights might also be a possibility. I'll have another chat with the plant_director asap to clarify what he really wants.

I have already got started a bit on the hourglass - I need something to show him in order to ask if that's what he had in mind - and I use a textbox with the hourglass_jpg in the background and a number of round text_boxes.

The issue is just that it's pretty much - since the balls need to have functions with Today() to display one of five dates, I need 5 balls for Mon, 4 for Tue etc. (on the bottom) and basically the same in the top_half.

Never mind.

Do you know if I can somehow make those text_boxes look more  ball-like (3D), somewhat like marbles? I can make them round all right, but they are still flat.

Thanks a lot!

Best regards,

DataNibbler

[#4]

I wouldn't know that.

But you could look for  nice 3D image and use that as a background in the text object.

[Colin-Albert]

Another idea could be to overlay an SVG plan of your warehouse as an incident map, to indicate the actual location where the incidents occur. This may help in identifying the cause and reducing the occurrences.

[datanibbler]

Hi colin,

that would be a good idea. However, I want to stick with the hourglass now.

I have got positive feedback from my director.

However, now the thing  becomes a bit more complicated. Maybe you can help me further:

- I have an hourglass with five balls (for Mo-Fri) now. The dynamism is as follows (not perfected yet, but started):

     - on Mon, 1 ball in bottom_half, 4 in top_half

     - on Tue, 2 balls (for Mon and for Tue) in bottom_half, 3 in top_half

     - on Wed, 3 balls (for Mon, for Tue, for Wed) in bottom_half, 2 in top_half

     ...

The balls moreover change colour: They are green when on a given day there have been no or very few accidents, orange or red when there were more.

So far, that is doable. A bit of an effort because I want the ball for Mon to lie in the same spot on Tue as on Mon and it's actually two different objects - but for one week, that is well manageable.

Now, however, the thing gets interesting:

- When 5 balls (for Mon to Fri) have toppled into the bottom_half of the hourglass (after Fri or on the following Mon),
   one ball representing that cw should appear in the bottom_half in the respective colour.

   => I can put that into some other spot so the dynamic of the 5 days won't be disturbed.
   => This should go on for 4 weeks, after which
   => yet another kind of ball should appear     representing that month

=> So I'll have 3 different kinds of balls. Days, weeks and months. I guess I will have to have variables - 53 for the weeks, 12 for the months - and whenever the variable for 1 week reaches a specific value, the ball for that week should appear - same with the months.

Uffah! Technically not hard, it just means creating a lot of objects that will appear or disappear as time goes by.

Any suggestions how to make this easier?

Thanks a lot!

Best regards,

DataNibbler

-

[datanibbler]

OK,

I think I can do that:

I'll simply create those variables - for the month_variables I'll somehow have to make use of the knowlegde which cw belong to which month, I don't know how to do that yet - statically for this year, yes, but dynamically, that will be more of a challenge.

Then I'll just create two versions of each ball (for the cw and for the months)

     - 1 for the top_half, to stay visible as long as the variable has not yet reached its final value

     - 1 for the  bottom_half to become visible when the variable has reached its final value.

The only thing is, those  balls (for the cw and for the months) won't move downwards in the hourglass - the balls for the days do that, m.o.l. - but they'll always stay in one place. But I think that is not critical.

[datanibbler]

Hi,

now I have a question: The thing with the weeks is not as simple as I first thought:

If I create this week's variable > v_cw_10 < to be governed by the weekdays - thus it would have been 1 yesterday, it is 2 today, will be 3 tomorrow ... that works up to Friday.

<=> Next week again starts with a Monday, still the ball for cw_10 should stay visible in the bottom_half.

I need to know the end_date of each week for that.
   (in the top_half, there can be just one "week_ball", always for the current week, that doesn't matter)

=> How to draw from my master_calendar the information

     - what weeks belong to one month (may overlap, that's already causing me a headache)

     - what date is the last date (Friday) of any week

?

Thanks a lot!

Best regards,

DataNibbler

P.S.: OK, I'll leave out the months for now, that is too complex (since a month does not always have exactly 4 cw). That leaves me with only the challenge of finding out what is the last working day of any cw. The max() function might do that. The trick is, I want to calculate that dynamically without the need for selecting ...

P.P.S.: OK, that is done, too. I can simply go on the assumption that from one Friday to the next, there are always 7 days. So I need only one Makedate() function for the very first week of the year and I can calculate all in a loop. So I have the dates I need for the visibility_conditions of the week_balls.

[datanibbler]

Hi,

I have just been down on the shopfloor to take a look at the app I have developed so far - to realize that the "balls" (rounded text_boxes) that I had designed were once again squares in the AJAX client.

Needless to say, squares in an hourglass look kind of weird ...

=> Do you know any way around that or is that a bug in that client?

(once upon a time ... we decided that the users should not all have the client installed, but should instead view the apps in the Browser. That way, there'd be nothing to regularly update, plus the team_computers are just about the oldest pieces of equipment you can find in the area ...)

Thanks a lot!

Best regards,

DataNibbler

[rwunderlich]

How about just displaying a big number? for each day instead of a shape?