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Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
41–50 of 112 posts
Re: Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
#42When I worked for SAP back in 2007 (I was a fresh grad at the time), I was working in the business intelligence (reporting, analytics, and data warehousing) group and noticed how cumbersome it was for organizations to simply create and view reports (we're talking millions of dollars). I once said to my boss "you realize that in the future we'll simply just write 'show me a line graph for sales in the northeast'". And…
OMG, Google stole your idea. You should sue.
Re: Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
#43When I worked for SAP back in 2007 (I was a fresh grad at the time), I was working in the business intelligence (reporting, analytics, and data warehousing) group and noticed how cumbersome it was for organizations to simply create and view reports (we're talking millions of dollars). I once said to my boss "you realize that in the future we'll simply just write 'show me a line graph for sales in the northeast'". And…
The problem is that this approach requires well structured data and most corporations have data all over the place, in legacy systems or some half-assed backed solution that kind of works. So even if you provide them with some state of the art platform that pulls graphs out of thin air they'd still need shitloads of consulting and custom made tinkering to make it work.
The other problem is that most executives don't even know what kind of graphs/reports they need. Sure, they can have the classic sales by region and stuff, but the really important things are hidden and require a lot of digging and asking to get to.
Re: Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
#44When I worked for SAP back in 2007 (I was a fresh grad at the time), I was working in the business intelligence (reporting, analytics, and data warehousing) group and noticed how cumbersome it was for organizations to simply create and view reports (we're talking millions of dollars). I once said to my boss "you realize that in the future we'll simply just write 'show me a line graph for sales in the northeast'". And…
> we'll simply just write 'show me a line graph' How about we just 'say' it ? At one hackathon, I had the idea of making an Alexa skill that would translate simple voice commands like 'graph column A' into matplotlib functions and then show the graphs. Teammates weren't too excited about spreadsheets though.
Wouldn't that make "mechanical keyboards for everyone in the open floorplan" seem like a smart decision?
Re: Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
#45When I worked for SAP back in 2007 (I was a fresh grad at the time), I was working in the business intelligence (reporting, analytics, and data warehousing) group and noticed how cumbersome it was for organizations to simply create and view reports (we're talking millions of dollars). I once said to my boss "you realize that in the future we'll simply just write 'show me a line graph for sales in the northeast'". And…
I'm currently evaluating BI vendors for my company and just about every major contender has this functionality or is developing it. Read the Gartner report from 2017 and they basically just come out and say that this will be the new standard in BI.
The much harder problem is data management and preparation. Anyone with half a brain and a decent visualization tool can create basic graphs - but that doesn't mean they should, especially if the organization doesn't have good data management processes in place.
Issues like data governance, data prep, and data modelling are the major pain points for me. And honestly, developing a useful BI solution is more about culture change than it is technology. If a company has poor data governance, it doesn't matter how whiz-bang their technology is, they're still not going to get useful insight from their numbers.
Re: Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
#46Well charts is a good addon but just wanted to understand how they are able to do this ... i mean Machine Learning part , for example if somebody asks "Show me sales of X product in last year" , from machine learning perspective how this gets interpreted in actual SQL query ..
I wonder if it's actually machine learning or if they just implemented a query language that tries to guess what you mean.
The definition of machine learning that I use is: an algorithm which improves its performance through experience.
So, if charts doesn't get better the more you use it, it's not machine learning.
Re: Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone needs to create Spreadsheets Anonymous and share the crazy stuff people do in Excel, the best one I've seen is a full GUI wizard (back, next etc.) in VBA.
I once worked at a large company (70K employees) in which the check request software (that is, if you needed to pay a vendor with a written check) was written in VBA embedded in Excel, using Outlook (the client, not Exchange) as Workflow. You opened the "spreadsheet", which hid Excel itself and showed a form. You filled it out, clicked Send and it used your local Outlook client to email a copy of itself to your boss,…
God, I work in an environment like that. We are a non-profit, and our primary CRM is The Raiser's Edge. However, data is never manipulated within The Raiser's Edge. Instead every process involves exporting data from The Raiser's Edge, manipulating it with an MS Office application, and then re-importing it.
When I started, almost every process was based around Access, using queries made using the query builder. With some basic scripting I managed to cut a couple of man-months of work down into about an hour or two of work a month. The entire thing is more fragile than a stack of cards though.
At this point I could literally write a 200 page dissertation on all of the reasons why this is a bad idea. But it works, and it is cheap. So there you go.
Re: Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
#48When I worked for SAP back in 2007 (I was a fresh grad at the time), I was working in the business intelligence (reporting, analytics, and data warehousing) group and noticed how cumbersome it was for organizations to simply create and view reports (we're talking millions of dollars). I once said to my boss "you realize that in the future we'll simply just write 'show me a line graph for sales in the northeast'". And…
So many of our clients (I'm still working in the BI space) are still using Excel workbooks and sending them to each other over email. I think it will take quite some time before we see any major improvements in this area. But I agree with you. Some of the stuff I see makes me cringe.
Excel is the appropriate tool for one-off adhoc analysis.
When something needs to be regularly produced, then and only then should it be moved to a formal BI solution.
People have a lot of questions and Excel is an approachable tool for small analysis that users can self-serve with.
Re: Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
#49I played around with this the other day. I have a spreadsheet with a bunch of columns. It wasn't immediately obvious how to use the explore feature intuitively. It graphed data but not really the ones I wanted. I was also hampered by it using only about 200 pixels on the right side of the screen.
I started typing in a question but it couldn't guess what I was interested in. YMMV. Perhaps with a fairly simple spreadsheet you can intuit things? Back 10 years ago I built a google spreadsheet competitor called Numbler (well, I didn't know if was a competitor, google sheets came out a couple of months later). But one of the things I learned is that people use spreadsheets for just about everything, and it can be in the wierdest format.
Re: Visualize data instantly with machine learning in Google Sheets
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we'll simply just write 'show me a line graph' How about we just 'say' it ? At one hackathon, I had the idea of making an Alexa skill that would translate simple voice commands like 'graph column A' into matplotlib functions and then show the graphs. Teammates weren't too excited about spreadsheets though.
Wouldn't that make "mechanical keyboards for everyone in the open floorplan" seem like a smart decision?
I think that depends... open floorplans already have plenty of ambient noise usually. Chatter, people on phones and web calls. If the voice input picked up in a small range and people got in the habit of kinda semi-whispering their occasional commands... I doubt it'd be a massive difference.
But I'm assuming lots of things, I can also envision your scenario playing out to great annoyance.