Hi all, I'm new to MashZone and looking to see if it can help to visualise various use cases. In many of the spreadsheets that I receive, instead of having the date of data included in the row to be processed, the sheets have separae columns for each days data. See the attached mock up in the feed editor.
In this particular example, the size of a particular file is recorded in the dated columns 23-10-2010, 24-10-2010 etc etc.
I would like to perform some simple calculations on the file sizes in order to determine free space etc but I would obviously have to choose a particular date column to achieve this - I think?
If I could perform the calcuations for each days of data, then I could graph the changing values over time.
Since the number and names of the columns would change over time in the source data, l'd like to check how MashZone can cope with such a scenario.
This is most probably simple for most of you out there but I can't seem to fathom what to do next ;(
Thanks in advance,
Dalton.
Stephan Freudl on
Hi Dalton,
thanks for your interest in MashZone. I assume your spread sheets are in fact human readable cross tables where each row and each column represents a distinct dimension value, e.g. regions per row and dates per column. Their intersection contains a value, e.g. the turnover. However, all operators in MashZone operate on a row-level and each column has its own semantic (think of an attribute).
But nevertheless the Excel data source enables you to convert 2-dimensional cross tables into record oriented structures. For instance, such an Excel table...
...could be read by MashZone - make sure you selected the cross tab radio button - ...
... into such a data feed. Please note every intersection has been converted into one feed row, i.e. record.
Within your MashZone 1.0.1 installation there should be a data feed named Demo GreenCar roadshow - potential buyers which I used to take the screen shots from.
Please keep in mind that the number of data feed columns, their name and data type must be known at build time. They cannot change at run time.
Regards
Stephan