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What Are Bullet Trees? |
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BulletTrees are an interactive, visual means of reporting and analyzing data.
With a BulletTree you can create dashboard or KPI style reports which display and
compare data visually.
These visualizations make analysis and comprehension of the data easier than when
faced with the raw numbers alone.
BulletTrees increase productivity and communicate detailed messages in an easily
understood manner.
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The Structure of a Bullet Tree |
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A BulletTree is a series of summaries (called nodes) grouped together in a hierarchical
tree. Each node represents a summary of some part of the data, such as “Sales for
Bikes in Australia”.
Node
Each summary is displayed graphically as a node. Each node displays:
• The name of the summary
• The value of the summary drawn graphically
• The value of the summary drawn as a formatted number
• A comparison number to which the summary is being compared (optional)
• A percentage of parent node value (optional)
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Levels
The nodes in a BulletTree are grouped together into levels. The nodes in
the top level (or root level) represent the summaries that are being broken down.
Each level beneath the top represents a level of decomposition of those numbers.
Consider the following diagram.
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In this example, the root level is Sales Territory and it contains the nodes for
France and United Kingdom. The Sales Territory level is broken down into Product.
This means that each node in the Sales Territory level is split down into smaller
values and these values come from the Product dimension. The exact nodes used from
the Product dimension depend on how the breakdown is performed. In this example,
the breakdown is “top 2 products”. This means that the top 2 products for France
and the top 2 products for United Kingdom are calculated and displayed in the BulletTree
as shown.
Further levels can be added to the BulletTree. Each additional level is a further
breakdown of the level above it.
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In this example, the additional level represents the Date dimension.
So now the BulletTree displays France and the United Kingdom broken down into their
top 2 products and with each of these products further broken down into their top
2 years.
Choosing the Numbers to Display
Each node displays two numbers; a Measure value and a Comparison value.
The Measure is the number displayed both graphically and textually by the node.
It is also used to calculate the breakdown of the node. The Comparison is drawn
as a horizontal line through the graphical value of the node.
Both the Measure and the Comparison are chosen by clicking on the appropriate link
at the top of the BulletTree. The Selector window then appears enabling the user
to select which cube measure they want to use.
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Interactivity
The BulletTree control is very interactive. As well as allowing nodes to
be broken down and collapsed, the user can also:
• Add comments
• Print the BulletTree
• Copy the BulletTree into another application
• Delete nodes
• Display node details
• Open and save BulletTrees to file
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These additional features are available via the right mouse button menu except adding
and viewing comments. Comments are accessed via the “Comments” link at the top of
the BulletTree control.
Dynamic Opacities
BulletTrees can visually indicate the biggest numbers for each level.
This is done using something called dynamic opacities. The opacity of each node
(how transparent it is) is determined by its value relative to the values of the
other nodes on the same level.
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