Workflow
This is a suggested workflow for building a simple Dashboard. Note that this a somewhat opinionated flow. Not all exploration work ends up in presentable Dashboards. Luckily, there is a flow for your use case! Let's start with a simple one:
Basic Seebra Workflow:
Decide on what you want to Study: In this example we would like to visualize how the US money supply (amount of money in circulation in the US economy) has changed over time by creating some Graphs of the M2 measure.
Add an appropriate Data source: We will select the St. Louis FED REST API Data source (FRED).
Get the appropriate Credentials to call the Data source. Create a FRED API account (or Sign-In with Google) here.
Ensure that you have read through of the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy of the Third Party Service or Data Source that you are accessing. It is fully your responsibility to ensure that you abide by all (third party) Terms of Service and Privacy Policy agreements entered into when processing data using Seebra.
Enter FRED Data source information:
Add a Query:
Right click the Data source created and select "Query".
Enter Query information:
Run the query: Click the "Play" icon button to execute the Query. This will call the API (via the Seebra API Gateway) and create a Data object in the dashboard.
Study the Data Object:
Identify what type of Data was returned. Mostly, REST APIs will return Json Data. Explore the data by expanding it via the right arrow icons in the hierarchical Json structure.
Identify the interesting parts of the Data to perform further Analysis on. In this case you can see that the data that was received is a number of Data points that could perhaps be plotted in a graph ...
Add a Transformation:
Right click the Data and select Transform. This shows the Transformation Dialog where the data can be transformed into a form that can be Visualized. It shows the following: - the Transformation script Input field at the top - the input Data (from step 4) to the left - the output Data (result of the transformation) to the right
Select Transformation type. For Json Input we will select "Jsonata" (this is auto selected if the Data is in json form).
(Optional) Select a matching Schema. To match (validate) the output to the form we want we can select a Schema in the drop down at the top right of the Transformation Dialog.
Select the "Line Plot" Schema in the Schema Drop down.
Write the appropriate Transformation. Here we will select the appropriate data point fields across the initial query data and put them in a simple Json vector for the X and Y components of the Plot:
Click "Run" (or hit the "Shift + Enter" keys) to apply the transformation. A new Data object will be created to the right of the Transformation.
Visualize the data:
Right click the new Data object and Select "Visualize > Graph > Line".
A Line Graph is added in the View port.
Analyze the Visualization: Has the M2 money supply increased or decreased 😂? Think about the subject matter at hand and what novel facts and conclusions can be drawn and, perhaps more importantly, what further questions to ask.
This is the basic flow of building visualizations. Now, reaching point 7 is just the start. It is now your job as Data and Subject Matter Forensic to draw your conclusions and form new questions and start the iterative process of Data Analysis which can be formed into a coherent Story. Now, while there are more Seebra tools to help you understand what further questions to ask about the subject matter under study, bare in mind that Forensic work is ultimately only limited by your Technical Know-how and ultimately by your own Determination and Curiosity. Seebra's goal is to make your life at Stage 7 and beyond as fun of a ride as possible!
Now proceed to the next page "Reusability" to learn how Seebra aids in this Iterative process!
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