Introducing the Knowledge Base for Exploratory Visual Analytics
We are incredibly excited to announce the newest addition to rapid exploratory visual analytics — Keshif’s Knowledge Base!
Keshif’s fully refreshed public knowledge base is a deep instructional online resource featuring 130+ topics across 10+ key categories, ranging from introductory to advanced ways of using analytics modes, utilizing charting features, and exploring data visually. Like all of our work, this resource follows our core focus on making data explorable — easy to learn, easy to understand, effortless, and engaging!
Access analytics know-how while you explore data
The knowledge base is accessible publicly at help.keshif.me, and also at your fingertips right inside Keshif dashboards as you explore and understand your data! See how our integrated help works below.
Analytics is visual and connected. So is our knowledge base!
In each article, you’ll find detailed instructions on how to analyze data and use Keshif, with clear, rich, annotated multimedia (high-res images and videos) demonstrating the steps. Our carefully prepared content binds all the topics together for easy navigation, and creates new learning opportunities.
Integrated help: Instant access to relevant articles and topic search
A key feature of the knowledge base is its direct integration in interactive Keshif dashboards. With this integration, and without leaving your focus on the dashboard and dataset, you can…
- Instantly access relevant explanations of a specific configuration option
- Search for an article by text query after clicking (?) on top-right corner of a Keshif dashboard, and
- Directly send us a message for support in using Keshif.
When adjusting dashboard and chart configurations, simply click on the question mark (?) next to a specific setting to open the relevant Knowledge Base entry. With this seamless and powerful interaction, you will get immediate assistance that is directly relevant to your analysis and needs. To continue your journey in knowledge, you can browse related articles and links in the same pop-up panel.
Learning with “Keshif 101” and “Capstone” Articles
When starting with Keshif, a great first visit is the Introduction page. In this page, we break down several key features that makes Keshif powerful and unique for visual exploratory analytics — understanding the dashboard layout, creating different chart types, selecting and filtering data, and more.
Some articles in our knowledge base are marked with a ◆ symbol, and we call them capstone articles. These articles, such as record group selections, highlight a general feature or chart type and connect multiple features and articles together under a single topic, allowing you to see a higher level view of a specific exploratory analysis topic.
Helping you get visual analytics done
Our Knowledge Base articles are created with utmost care to present visual analytics context, details, and relevant information for each topic.
If you need more in-depth information, or if some Keshif feature doesn’t work as you expect, check out Special Features or Constraints on the topic. These sections offer tips and depth about specific functions, what might work or not work, and how to optimally use Keshif to understand and explore data.
To understand similar functionalities or core topics relating to a feature, simply navigate through the Related Articles section.
To search for a specific topic or concept by text (say, “logarithmic” or “slope chart”) you can do that too using search boxes in the knowledge page website or the integrated help in Keshif dashboards — every article in the Knowledge Base is indexed and searchable by keywords.
What is aggregate? Measurement? Time Key? Understand key terms with our glossary.
If you’re running into terms or concepts that do not sound clear to you, a great place to look is our Glossary. Currently, there are dozens of terms defined to ensure that our users can understand all parts of the Knowledge Base. We also constantly updating the Glossary, so let us know if you’d like to see more definitions of concepts in visual data analytics!
Get a tailored Knowledge Base for your dataset!
Our knowledge base uses two rich sample datasets to demonstrate a wide range of useful visual analytics approaches and features in Keshif. And we know the use cases of our private visual analytics applications may differ!
With this release, we also start offering customized knowledge bases that use your dataset for step-by-step instructions, with the list of articles that are most relevant for your analysis, along with documentation of customized features. To learn about having tailored knowledge bases for your Keshif solutions, contact us!
Our commitment to making data explorable, seamlessly
From day one, Keshif was built as a labor of love for visual analytics. The way optimal color choices appear when comparing across groups, chart types and styles automatically respond to analytics needs, intuitive clusters adjust when looking at geographic data — each step is taken with the user in mind.
The knowledge base is a powerful extension of this devotion to our users. Rather than provide a basic how-to guide, we devoted time and care ensuring that our help material is truly useful to understand each feature, and how to approach visual analytics. With each new idea implemented into the core of our visual analytics approach, we will update and iterate our knowledge base as a continuing resource.
PS. In our upcoming blog, you can learn more about why we selected the specific datasets in our knowledge base, and sample features that makes Keshif a great match for them, and your datasets. We look forward to seeing you again!
Happy data exploration,
The Keshif Team
