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BEST Viewpoints is a simple-to-use, powerful, and flexible data analysis software.   It is designed to bring into Mathematica the best data manipulation and analysis capabilities found in spreadsheets and database languages.  The result is an application with the  following key characteristics:
1.    Highly intuitive user interface.  
2.    No software limits on dataset size.
3.    Powerful number cruncher.
4.    Analyzes datasets of numbers, strings, graphics, symbols, etc.  (e.g. simple text mining capabilities)
5.    Highly efficient on categorical data analysis.
6.    Import data and merge many datasets by combining any of the following: databases, xls, csv, txt, etc.
7.    Exports output to csv, xls, gif, Metafile, etc.

A summary of the main capabilities of the software are presented below:
1.    A data importing, editing and data entry interface for uploading data or merge datasets from many data sources: databases, Excel, text files, etc.  When importing from databases the user  can create and continuously update a selectable and editable list of SQL commands.  When importing from Excel the user can preview any of the spreadsheets in the workbook and define the desired region of interest to be imported.  After any dataset is imported, the system will automatically asses or characterize the dataset by providing for each field information like: data type(s), missing elements, total elements, a frequency distribution for the top elements, and for numeric variables the mean, standard deviation, min, max, histogram etc.  
2.    An internal spreadsheet for data visualization and manipulation (calculate new fields, summarize data, query data, sort, etc.) where the user can define a set of  queries, procedures and equations and save them as an Analysis Template for future use in different datasets.  Current spreadsheet analysis can be duplicated on levels of categorical variables by just clicking on desired categorical variable(s).  The contents of a cell in the spreadsheet can be a number, a string, a list of data, a Graphic, a GUI controlled object, or any other Mathematica object.
3.    Several exploratory data analysis and analytics applications where the user can calculate and plot data summaries as defined by levels of the selected categorical variables.   Data summaries can be represented as Cross Tabs of any of the following formats: Bar Charts, Pareto Plots, Box and Whisker Plots, Confidence Intervals and Line Plots.  Other analyses include Histograms, Scatter Plots, Statistical Control Charts, Hypothesis Tests, etc.  All these analyses can be shaped by the user by many options like image size, aspect ratio, colors, analysis variable, categories, etc. and then store all definitions as an analysis template for future use with other datasets.  The software also contains a module specialized in determining and plotting associations found in one or more analysis variables (market basket analysis).

Spreadsheets

BEST Viewpoints spreadsheet like interfaces provide users the capability of performing many operations like data transformation, calculation of new fields and summaries, selecting/deselecting fields, sorting data by one or more fields or columns, and querying datasets.  After defining any combination of these operations the user can save a Template where all transformations, calculations, queries, etc are saved for future use in similar datasets.  All operations are always executed in the order shown (i.e. Transform, Calculate, Select, Move, Sort, and Query), and should also be defined in this way.

There are two spreadsheets available and are described in the next two sections.  In general these two spreadsheets are similar but the Advanced Spreadsheet can operate on the output of the Basic Spreadsheet and can also group calculations by levels of one or more categorical variables.

Viewpoints

Viewpoints is a series of analysis modules which provide interfaces to apply analytics techniques to data.  Some of the analyses provided are Pareto plots, Cross Tabs, Box and Whisker Plots, Bubble Plots, Tooltip Plots, Scatter Plots, Confidence Intervals for the mean or standard deviation, Hypothesis testing, Line Plots, and Histograms.  Also, relational analysis for categorical variables is also provided.

One common and key element to these modules (Hierarchical Viewpoints, Exploratory Viewpoints, and Relational Viewpoints) is that the input data for analysis can either be the originally loaded dataset, the output of the basic Spreadsheet, the output of the Advanced Spreadsheet or the Summaries from the Advanced Spreadsheet.  This creates an extremely flexible data manipulation and analysis environment where analysts can generate many different types of analyses in parallel.

Additionally, a fourth unstructured analysis module called My Viewpoints allows users to perform almost any type of analysis ranging from simple arithmetical operations to Linear Regression, Anova, and Cluster Analysis.

Data Importing

Data can be imported from several sources.  When reading from MS Excel the spreadsheet of interest can be selected from a menu.  

The interface shown above is the same used in the Merge Datasets tab such that several datasets  from different sources and formats can be merged by defining a linking field (primary key) and a join function (Inner Join, Outer Join, etc.).   The Deliver tab allows the user saving the resulting dataset or loading it for analysis.

Several datasets are available for demonstration purposes.

Once loaded the data (e.g. ElectronicsManufacturing example) can be viewed on the View tab.

Hierarchical Viewpoints

Hierarchical Viewpoints allows analyzing any field variable grouping by levels of categorical fields.  Even text data can be analyzed by selecting and editing a Transforming Function (StringCount, WordCount, etc.).  

The example below shows the Total CountDefects for the four most common DefectType in manufacturing Shift1 and Shift2 for production Line1 (data from example in Importing Data).  The Perspective can be Pareto, Bar Chart, Stacked Bar Chart, Percentile Bar Chart, Box Plot, Line, Mean Confidence Interval or Standard Deviation Confidence Interval.

The example above can also be viewed in percentages by just selecting the Stems % tab as shown below.

Spreadsheets

The Basic Spreadsheet can be used to transform the imported data prior to analyzing it using any of the available Viewpoints tabs.  For example, using the dataset Sales1, a query to exclude some records from the dataset is shown below.

Afterwards, selecting the Basic Spreadsheet data as input for analysis is performed as shown below.  This convenient feature is available for the Exploratory Viewpoints as well as for the Relational Viewpoints.

The Advanced Spreadsheet can take as input data the output of the Basic Spreadsheet and also allows grouping.  In the example below the results are being grouped by Town.

Exploratory Viewpoints

Exploratory Viewpoints include several types of analyses: Statistics, Lines, Histograms, Capability Analysis, Control Charts, Scatter Plots, etc.  

The Statistics Perspective shows Box Plots, Confidence Intervals for the mean and standard deviation as well as hypotheses tests for mean differences.

Capability Analysis and Control charts are also available as shown below.

Control charts can be used as an exploratory data analysis method to assess process stability.

Bubble Plots are used to show up to 5 variables within the same plot.

Relational Viewpoints

Relational Viewpoints are used to find associations in data (e.g. Market Basket Analysis).  The example below shows associations on products (Product) sold by the same Employee.  Ink Cartridge and Ink Jet show the strongest association with a frequency of 104 occurrences.  This analysis is also very useful for analyzing click-stream data to characterize web page traffic.