Visualizing Data - Pretty Charts and More

by Jon Mountjoy on November 5, 2008 at 12:16 PM

I'm sitting here in the "Elevate your Force.com Platform Apps with the Google Visualization API" session at Dreamforce - given by Nir Bar-Lev and Itai Raz from Google, and Jesse Lorenz from salesforce.com.

It's pretty interesting - the Google Visualization API has a tremendous number of visualizations available, including tables, stacks of cash, heat maps, funnels, timelines, line charts, gauges, bar charts, word clouds ec.

What's nice is that the API is a web-based service, and so you can use it in your own Force.com apps to visualization data. More exciting, is the new Code Share project Force.com for Google Visualization

viz.png

Using the toolkit is pretty simple as they make everything available as a Visualforce component - for example you can simply embed something like this on your Visualforce page:

   <c:TimeLine jsondata="{!SalesActivity}" 
                width="900px" height="300px" 
                displayZoomButtons="false" 
                zoomStartTime="new Date(2008, 07, 01)" 
                zoomEndTime="new Date(2008, 09, 30)" 
                colors="'#C2CD23'" />

You controller will do the query for the data and return it - in this case in a getSalesActivity() method.

I see that there are components available for bar charts, line charts, gauges, line charts, column charts, time lines and data tables. If you're keen to get your hands dirty and extend the integration, just contact the project owners and add more components!

For more information, check out Jesse's blog post about the toolkit, the wiki page that describes the technology, and of course the Code Share project itself.

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Comments

Posted by Brooks Jordan on November 5, 2008 02:55 PM:

I love the concept, and no doubt the toolkit works great, but the visualization options don't appear to be at the same level.

Not enough attention is paid to what to the design around data visualization, and it really makes a difference.

Tableau Software, for example, does a really nice job with their stuff.

But, I'm a lover . . . just want to call it out.

Posted by jim kraynik on November 7, 2008 02:22 PM:

I know i am not in the right place but I am hoping for some help. I am looking to fill a developer position within our organization with force.com experience.

Any ideas???

Posted by Jon Mountjoy on November 7, 2008 02:26 PM:

Hi Jim

I recommend you try our discussion boards - just go to
developer.force.com
Select the Discussion Boards, and scroll down to the Jobs Board.

Regards,
Jon

Posted by Doug Sharpe on March 1, 2009 09:04 AM:

Business Intensity Maps from ACF Solutions is a free AppExchange app that uses Google visualization technology and your salesforce.com data to display where your organization is doing business. Displaying color coded side-by-side US maps, our app allows you to quickly identify hidden geographic trends within your pipeline.

http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/detail_overview.jsp?id=a0330000006mmXEAAY

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