Data-visualization is both an art and a science, in which the goal is to communicate information clearly and efficiently using graphs, plots and charts. It is more important to know how to effectively use a tool for data visualization rather than selecting the tool itself for improving the business process.
Lumira is a self-service data visualization that is part of the SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio.
Why do we choose Lumira as the software ?
Here are the top 3 reasons why I would prefer Lumira especially if the client is a SAP shop,
1) Simplicity
Learning is a continuous process. But Lumira is a fairly simple tool to learn and with basic training you can build effective visualizations within a few days.
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-26507
There are lot of learning resources available online in the SCN community, Idea Place, Webinars, YouTube videos and other offline training workshops.
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-52806
This would enable business users to learn and use the tool easily in spite of their busy schedule.
2) The SAP brand
Being an SAP product, Lumira has its own advantages. It can connect to various SAP sources like HANA, BW and Universe and the connectivity improves with every release. Interoperability with other BOBJ tools and also ability to share the files in the BI Launchpad is also a big win for Lumira.
3) Customization
Ability to build extensions for charts and maps is a big advantage where customizations can be done based on the client requirements.
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-61422
Lumira can have custom connectivity with data sources that are not available out of the box.
This option is on top of connectivity to a large variety of data sources from Excel – Big Data.
http://saplumira.com/solutions/#datasources
Over the next week, we are going to learn how simple it is to use SAP Lumira to both find and eventually communicate answer to business questions.
Self-service data visualization using Lumira can be divided into 5 simple steps,
1) Acquire a Dataset
2) Prepare Your Data
3) Visualize Your Data
4) Create a Story
5) Share Insights
This would be an overview of the steps and other best practices for beginners. I will also post other links from SCN that have helped me learn the tool effectively.
Lumira is a very powerful tool that will dramatically improve the efficiency of your analysis. It will help you clean your data, find patterns in your data, test your hypothesis, and tell stories with your data. That’s what visualizing data does for you. It helps figure out what your data mean efficiently. And in the process of doing so helps you narrow in on what factors you should take into consideration in your statistical models of predictive algorithm.