🎁 New Features

This month we’ve built more Trends charts, a new Graph manager and a data enrichment to upsample survey data on top of a number of important improvements.

01. Trends: Recurrent Pattern Charts

We’ve added a new type of chart to Trends! Charts showing recurrent patterns are designed to reveal similarities in the way that quantitative data evolves over specific time periods.

These charts look a little like box plot charts and show the median and quartile range of values aggregated by hour, weekday, week, month, quarter or year. Recurrent patterns are great for spotting repeating trends like seasonal dips in property price, stock price increases in January or decreases in email open rates on Friday afternoons.

How can I start using it?

02. New Graph Manager

The Graph Manager we’ve just built lives in your right sidebar, making it much easier to see changes you make in real-time. Just bring up the Graph Manager sidebar and watch your actions have immediate effect.

We feel this change makes it much faster and easier to adjust labels or change the size and color of nodes in a Graph.

How can I start using it?

03. New Enrichment: Upsample Survey Data

Survey data often needs to be weighed in order to adjust the influence of certain individuals in the final survey estimates. We’ve built an enrichment to scale survey datasets using a column containing predefined weights.

Our enrichment uses the weights already in your survey data to produce a transformed dataset that adjusts the importance of respondents. Read more about the theory behind surveys and why we built this enrichment in our post here.

How can I start using it?

04. New Tooltip for List Values

Lists are a special kind of data because they hold multiple values. We’ve added a new metric - Total Count - to tooltips associated with lists. Hover over a list value to see it.

Total Count shows the total number of times a value appears. Everything and Selection metrics refer to the number of rows featuring this value and don’t account for instances where a value occurs twice in one row.

How can I start using it?

🐞 Bug Fixes & Improvements

• Improved Graphext’s ability to recluster segmentations in big data projects.

• Improved the presentation and organisation of variables in our Text / Social Media > Topics analysis type.

• Add a new variable to Text projects. Length specifies the number of characters in a text value.

• Improved our method of ordering variable charts in Correlations.

• Improved our method of presenting charts without using decimals on either axis.

• Fixed presentational issues with the wizard’s display of creating project steps.

• Fixed a bug causing unexpected behaviour when a user tried to save a manual segmentation.

📖 Stories worth Sharing

01. 36 Data Podcasts to Follow in 2022

We’ve been curating big list of the best data media around. Here’s one on our favorite data podcasts. Read more.

02. When Dating Apps Met Survey Theory: Sampling, Weighting & Romance

A picture of a population is what most surveys hope to achieve. We're taking a look at the fundamentals of survey theory - sampling & weighting - through the lens of a Pew Research survey that examines American attitudes towards relationships and dating apps in 2021. Read more.

🎁 New Features

This month we've added search bars in our data tables as well as making it easier to explore Compare & Correlations with large datasets. We've also made it easier for you to monitor the progress of your project setup with a new distinction between processing & configuration steps.

01. Search Bars Across Data Tables

Finding variables in large datasets can be frustrating. We've added a search bar to data tables across Graphext to help you find variables quickly and simply.

Start typing the name of a variable inside the search bar in either Details or the Datasets panel of your team workspace. Graphext will automatically scroll to the location of your variable in the data table.

How can I start using it?

02. Dynamic Scrolling in Compare & Correlations

We've changed the way that charts are loaded in Compare & Correlations. To make it easier to work with datasets with lots and lots of variables, we've added dynamic scrolling to these panels.

You probably won't notice much difference here on the face of it but behind the scenes ... this feature means that you can load charts a lot faster even when you are working with surveys that have thousands of questions to compare or correlate.

How can I start using it?

03. Filtering Steps During Project Setup

The steps you see as your project is being created are now separated into processing and configuration steps. We've made this change to make it easier for you to monitor the progress of your project setup.

Processing steps relate to the data science steps involved in transforming your dataset and creating your network. Configuration steps relate to the presentational aspects of your project setup. Start building a project and check the new dropdown menu inside of the project execution sidebar.

How can I start using it?

🐞 Bug Fixes & Improvements

• Fixed a bug making it difficult to filter data using our interactive histograms

• Fixed a bug preventing a user from editing a manual segmentation with expected behaviour.

📖 Stories worth Sharing

01. How Aquaservice Use Graphext To Improve Their Prediction Models

We spoke to the data science team at Aquaservice about how they used Graphext to build a clustering model to improve the way they forecast consumer demand. Their project grouped delivery routes using over 30 factors to calculate similarity and exposed patterns in the errors made by their prediction models. Read more.

02. Reverse Engineering Infamous Marketing Strategies from Innocent Drinks

Why are the social media strategies of Innocent Drinks considered as the gold standard for marketing teams the world over? We collected every tweet (10,521) posted by the communication department to deconstruct Innocent's content, style, reach and engagement with a simple topic analysis. Read more.

🎁 New Features

We've made significant improvements to Correlations! With the addition of relative mode, Correlation charts can be simpler & easier to read because they show the percentage distribution of values belonging to a variable.

Correlations: Relative Mode

Across Graphext's UI, relative mode presents data as a proportional representation. In practise, this means you see data as a percentage distribution rather than an absolute count.

This is especially useful in Correlations charts because these use size and color to visualize the correlation between lots of values belonging to pairs of variables. With relative mode, the size and color range of bubbles in Correlations charts are restricted to a percentage distribution (either on the x or y axis). This makes it easier to spot patterns.

How can I start using it?

• Open a project and head to the Correlations panel

• Choose a variable to map your correlations charts or choose.

• Using the Relative vs Absolute dropdown - switch to Relative mode.

• Notice how the size and color of your bubbles adjust to present a percentage distribution.

🎁 New Features

Sentiment analysis in Graphext just became much more powerful with our new enrichment -integrated with an industry-leading model from Cardiff NLP - hosted by Hugging Face.

We've also added detailed documentation about our analysis types on our website and in the app!

01. New Enrichment: Sentiment Analysis Integration with Cardiff NLP & Hugging Face

Our new sentiment analysis enrichment is built using an industry-leading model from the team at Cardiff NLP and hosted by Hugging Face. Sentiment analysis models predict whether text is positive, negative or neutral. Check out the documentation describing the mechanics of the model here.

Choose this enrichment using the Data Enrichment tab in your project setup wizard to start classifying the sentiment of news headlines, song lyrics, tweets and more text of all shapes and sizes.

How can I start using it?

• Open up a dataset that contains a text variable.

• Choose any type of analysis to perform.

• Inside your Data Enrichment tab, choose Analyze Text Sentiment - Cardiff NLP.

• Select the text variable you want to analyze the sentiment of.

• Complete your project setup.

• Once Graphext has built your project, open it up and explore your new Category of Sentiment (Cardiff NLP) variable.

02. Analysis Type Documentation

We've started adding documentation to help you make the most of our analysis types. You can find these in the app using the information icon inside the card for each analysis type or in the docs on our website.

We've written this to help you understand the best way to approach each of our analysis types. Expect walkthroughs, use case examples and exact directions on getting started.

How can I start using it?

• Choose a dataset to work with.

• Click on one of the information icons inside of your project setup wizard.

• Click the link at the bottom of the documentation to read more.

Search For Variables in Data Tables

Working with datasets that have lots of columns can be tricky at the best of times. Now you can find variables instantly using our search facility across data tables in Graphext.

In the Datasets panel of your Graphext workspace, use the search bar to find a variable. Inside Details use the search bar at the top of your right sidebar.

How can I start using it?

• Open up a dataset in your Graphext workspace.

• Search for a variable using the search facility.

• Now open up a project and navigate to the Details panel.

• Search for a variable using the search bar at the top of your right sidebar.

• Notice how Graphext instantly scrolls to reveal the variable that you are looking for.

🐞 Bug Fixes & Improvements

• Fixed a bug causing Graphext to freeze after a user saves a manual segmentation.

• Fixed a design issue making it impossible to download datasets from Details when the dataset has an especially long name.

• Fixed an issue stopping relative mode from being available in published projects.

• Fixed a design issue with the alignment of chart legends inside Insights.

📖 Stories worth Sharing

An Introduction to NLP for Text Analysis | Data Academy

Our latest Data Academy instalment looks at how NLP can be used by businesses to analyze text. Starting from text analysis fundamentals and moving on to look at more complex recent developments in the field of NLP, this article is intended to introduce and equip business and data analysts with knowledge, techniques and tools to take forward in their text analysis projects.

Make or Break: After 5 Years ... Couples are Less Likely to Break Up

What's the most important milestone in a relationship? Moving in together? Getting married? Having a baby? According to a Stanford study, How Couples Meet and Stay Together, it's a day like any other during the 4th year of a relationship as the likelihood of a couple staying together becomes higher than the likelihood of them breaking up.

🎁 New Features

You can now customize the values shown in Compare & Correlations charts. We've added a search bar to help you add important categories to these visualisations.

We've also added a new color palette to your projects that uses a dynamic color scale that updates depending on the number of values belonging to a variable.

01. Add Custom Categories in Compare & Correlations

Up until now, charts in Compare and Correlations presented only the most frequently occurring values from a variable. You can now choose which values to present in these charts using the search bar at the top right of each chart card.

Open up Compare or Correlations and choose a chart with hidden values. Click the search bar from the top of the chart and add in your new value.

How can I start using it?

• Choose a Compare or Correlations chart featuring some hidden values.

• Click the search icon at the top of your chart.

• Start typing the name of the value you want to add into the chart.

• Select the value and click the tick icon to add it into your chart.

02. New Color Palette: RE

We've added a new color palette to your projects. Re is slightly different to Horus and Osiris in that it offers a dynamic scale of colors that will update depending on the number of values belonging to a variable.

Re is particularly useful when exploring a small to medium range of categorical values. Its colors move from light blue through orange and red to purple on a scale that is calculated according to the number of values in a category.

How can I start using it?

• Open up your project settings.

• Navigate to the Appearance tab.

• Choose Re from the dropdown list of color palettes.

• Clicking Save will update the color palette in your project settings.

🐞 Bug Fixes & Improvements

• When you upload a new dataset - Graphext will now be able to tell the difference between Categorical values and Text values with greater precision.

• Your color palette will now be saved to your project settings. This means that closing then returning to the project will not affect your choice of color palette.

• We've improved the way URL variables are presented throughout your datasets and projects. URL variables will now be presented in the same way that categorical variables are presented.

📖 Stories worth Sharing

01. What is Exploratory Data Analysis?

For our first Data Academy release - we've gone back to basics with Exploratory Data Analysis. This article covers what cleaning, transforming and enriching data means as well as explaining why different visualisation types can be useful for studying different types of variable relationships.