A data-agnostic dashboard visualization framework with customizable layout for e-commerce data analytics
Arun Sai K, Sriram Venkatapathy · ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes · 2014
Different e-commerce vendors have different data-visualization requirements for their analytics dashboards. For instance, the format of data-input, the chart to be rendered and the layout of the dashboard vary widely and depend on the vendor's requirements. This framework was developed to automate the process of visualizing data on a dashboard with a customizable layout. The framework is independent of the type of input data and it renders charts based on the configuration set by the user. It also provides the flexibility to render charts using multiple charting libraries and third party APIs. Another key feature in this framework is the customizable layout of the charts rendered on the dashboard. In this framework, data-agnostic visualization in customizable layouts is achieved by the use of an XML file, which stores all the configuration settings of the dashboard. Data to be visualized is fed into the framework in one of the supported data-input formats. This input also contains the type of chart to be rendered and other meta-data. Charts and graphs can be rendered from multiple sources, which include charting libraries and third party APIs like Google Charts. The meta-data stored in the XML file contains information regarding the charts to be rendered and their sources. The layout of the dashboard is specified using various parameters such as position and size of the charts to be rendered and customized using appropriate tags and values in the XML file. This framework was developed and deployed at Teritree Technologies Pvt Ltd and has received a very good customer feedback.