Sparklines
1. Sparklines
Risks can be difficult to monitor and quantify. However, spreadsheets has some useful tools for quickly summarizing data visually. In this video we'll review one such function: the sparkline. Sparklines are bar or line graphs that are contained within a single cell in Spreadsheets. In that sense, you could say they are like a single-celled organism. They are useful for status updates, time trends, and other quick plotting cases, all of which can help us remove uncertainty and assess risk.2. Sparklines
As we noted, the SPARKLINE function is a great way to visualize data quickly to assess risk. We start by specifying the data to display. This refers to the cells that you want to represent in your line or bar chart. We then specify a number of options, such as the type of graph, the scale, information about the axes, etc.3. Options
When we use sparklines in this course, we'll focus mostly on two options: the charttype option and the max option. The charttype option specifies whether the graph contained in the cell should be a bar graph, line, graph, or a column chart. For example, line graphs are particularly useful for displaying quick time trends. The max option specifies the upper limit of the scale. You can fix this option with a specific number (e.g., 100), or you can let the maximum value of the graph float if you want to plot data points against one another rather than against an absolute standard.4. Examples
Let's review an example to see how sparklines work. Recall that the data argument refers to the cell or cells we want to graph.5. Examples
In this case, we want to plot the number of vehicles involved in crashes in Unknown precincts against all other precincts.6. Examples
Next we'll specify that we want to display a bar chart. Let's note a couple of keys to specifying options correctly. First, we specify all options within curly braces. Second, we list options by first stating the name of the option in quotes, then the option we want to apply. In this example, we want create a bar chart by setting the "charttype" option equal to "bar".7. Let's practice!
I hope this has sparked your curiosity. Now that you have some context for creating SPARKLINEs, let's dig into the exercises.Create Your Free Account
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