Watching Reruns: Strata Tutorial Videos from the Archives
It's been almost one year since we released the beta version of Kirix Strata to the public. During that beta cycle, we provided several videos and screencasts via our blog to emphasize different things the software could do.
Thankfully, even though the videos show the beta version in action, almost all of the content is extremely relevant for the final version of Strata as well. The only variance really has to do with the user interface; we ended up moving around icons and toolbars and menu items quite a bit until we got something that seemed to work best. Oh, and you may see the original Strata logo that we threw together for the beta.
So, maybe you can consider this blog post your Tivo or on-demand video page for “Season 1″ of Kirix Strata. Here are the five links, with details and highlights of each one below:
- Access and Manipulate Data from the Web
- Identify Embedded Search Terms within Apache Web Logs
- Manipulate Call Center Data and Create a Mapping Visualization
- Features Overview: Data Bookmarks, Quick Find & Quick Filter and Report Writer
- Combine Table from MySQL Database and HTML Table from the Web, then Create a Report
Access and Manipulate Data from the Web
(And here's an embeddable YouTube version…)
Highlights:
- (0:00) Using Web Tables: Calculate gross proceeds of every Harry Potter movie. Pop open an HTML table of movie proceeds from Swivel, change the field names, resize columns, create a calculation that sums up the amounts from different columns.
- (2:46) Using RSS Feeds: Determine popularity of Harry Potter articles on Digg. Use Quick Find to search manually, pop open an RSS feed into a table view, create a calculated field to identify fields containing “Harry” (demonstrates the UPPER() and CONTAINS() functions), adjust column width and sort records.
- (4:35) Using CSV Files from the Web: Compare stock price movements between Time Warner and the Dow Jones Average using historical information from Yahoo Finance. Pop open hyperlinks to CSV files instead of downloading, tile view vertically and horizontally, calculate stock price increase and decrease, link together the two tables using a relationship based on the date, filter the child table to see only related records, add a related field to the parent table, calculate price movement (using the IIF() function), mark specific records in yellow, filter on these records.
Identify Embedded Search Terms within Apache Web Logs
(And here's an embeddable YouTube version…)
Highlights:
- When people enter a term in the search box on our online forum, it gets recorded in the web logs. This video shows how to extract those search terms and add them up to see what your users are searching for.
- Open an Apache web log with around 765,000 records, use a calculated field to pull out the specific term; build up logic piece by piece (using the STRPART(), SUBSTR(), CONTAINS() and IIF() functions), group together and count the search terms, sort on the count to identify the most popular search term.
Manipulate Call Center Data and Create a Mapping Visualization
(And here's an embeddable YouTube version…)
Highlights:
- Take a local set of data, in this case call volume from a call center, isolate the area codes, relate together with a data set from the web to identify the related US State for each area code, export a csv file and post it to a mapping visualization website to see a heat map of call volume by state.
- For a full overview of what is happening here, see this blog post.
- Isolate area codes from call data via a calculated field (use IIF() and SUBSTR() functions), import data from an HTML table on the web, create a relationship and insert state abbreviations into the original call center data, group data together by state code, save as a CSV file, upload to mapping website, review visualization.
Features Overview: Data Bookmarks, Quick Find & Quick Filter and Report Writer
(And here's an embeddable YouTube version…)
Highlights:
- This video shows off some of the new features we released for Strata, beta 7 and briefly shows how to use each one.
- Refreshable Data Bookmarks: This feature lets you bookmark a data set from the web (CSV file, RSS feed) and, when you come back to it at a later time and open it, the data set will automatically refresh. Open up a CSV stock quote via a Yahoo Finance API, create a calculation to show price change, mark records in yellow based on a formula, refresh data, save as a bookmark, close and reopen to refresh.
- Quick Find and Quick Filter: Instead of using formulas to filter or find, simply enter the criteria in the box to quickly filter a table. Use quick find to search for individual records, click quick filter to toggle to a filtered view.
- Report Writer: Add a source table to the report, add fields and field names, switch to the layout view and adjust columns, add a group to the report, adjust report formatting and get ready to print. [NOTE: this video contains outdated information related to the report writer. Report source and the grouping/sorting controls are located by clicking the Report Settings icon; also, all formatting can be done via the embedded formatting toolbar instead of a formatting panel).
Combine Table from MySQL Database and HTML Table from the Web, then Create a Report
(And here's an embeddable YouTube version…)
Highlights:
- This is the demonstration overview video we used when we officially released Strata, which takes a table from mysql databse, combines it with data from the web, adds in a few data gymnastics and creates a report to share.
- (0:00) Overview: Quickly access a CSV table from your PC and then from Google Finance, manipulate the data and then create a report on it.
- (0:54) Connect to MySQL: Access data tables in MySQL database, open it, move columns, save a copy locally to the project.
- (1:29) Manipulate Data: Check the data structure, filter, quick find, sort, group together, calculated average call time, sort and copy specific records to a new table based on a formula.
- (2:30) Combine Table with Web Data: Identify which part of the country calls came from. Open web page and import HTML table, create calculation to parse area codes (using SUBSTR(), LEFT() and IIF() functions), relate the two data tables together, filter on the related records, move region field to the main table.
- (4:30) Create a Report: Select appropriate fields and create a quick report, create a group based on the state, toggle between design and layout view, change formatting and print or distribute as a PDF.
