In Heat Map Explorer, you can visualize change over time by comparing two periods or a series of periods. We’ll show you how to do both. Continue reading
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How To Import Data from Microsoft Excel
Heat Map Explorer supports Microsoft Excel 97-2003, 2007, and 2010 formats. To import your data into Heat Map Explorer, do the following: Continue reading
How To Prepare Excel Data for Heat Map Explorer
This article shows how to prepare your Microsoft Excel data for importing into Heat Map Explorer.
Heat Map Explorer expects Excel data in a tabular format (i.e., column headings in the first row, followed by rows of data). If your spreadsheet contains multiple heading rows, blank rows/columns, footers, or invalid/undefined values, you need to adjust your data before importing. Continue reading
How To Configure Group Summary Info
Watch this 4 minute video to see how to tell Heat Map Explorer to use formulas other than sum when calculating the summary information for groups.
How To Import Data from Microsoft Excel
A 5 minute video presentation demonstrating how to import your data from an Excel spreadsheet into Heat Map Explorer.
How To Prepare Your Excel Data for Heat Map Explorer
A 7 minute video presentation that shows you how to clean up and prepare your data your data to import into Heat Map Explorer. Includes preparing the header row, removing footers, normalizing & formatting your data and creating calculated fields.
7 Ways To Use Groups Effectively
Do you need to segment your data into categories? Or aggregate your data at a higher level? Does knowing which category a metric belongs to determine whether you interpret its value as good or bad?
Use groups to add additional dimensions to your analysis. Groups allow you to:
- Segment your data into categories or types
- Calculate aggregate metrics for those types
- Understand the context of individual values
Groups give you that nuanced view of your data missing in standard charts.
5 Ways to Use Color Effectively
Are you using color to improve your data analysis?
Color is a powerful tool in visualizing and analyzing data in heat maps. Use color poorly or not at all and you may miss a key insight. Use color effectively, and your data can turn from a meaningless sea of chaos into a focused picture of what’s going on in your business.
Warning: Avoid These Pitfalls When Calculating Deltas
A delta calculates the difference between two values. Deltas help us compare data, such as how revenue last year compares to this year, or how projected costs compare to actual costs. While calculating a delta appears easy, there are pitfalls you need to avoid and tricks that can help you. This article covers best practices for using deltas across different scenarios. Continue reading
Finding high-impact issues with cluster style and weighted average
By using both size and color, heat maps make it easy to identify individual items that are both important (size) and require urgent attention (color). 
For example, if we are looking at a portfolio of IT projects, as in the picture below, we need only look for large red or yellow rectangles to identify projects with large budgets that are significantly behind schedule.
If we had unlimited resources, we would use those resources on every project that runs into trouble, but of course no company has that luxury. We must identify the critical ones, accounting for both the resources that are being expended and the value that the project promises. Large-budget projects are obviously important, but we may also need to take into account the impact of individual projects, for example, on business progress toward strategic priorities.
Let’s see how we can do this.
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