Cookies help us display personalized product recommendations and ensure you have great shopping experience.

By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    data analytics and truck accident claims
    How Data Analytics Reduces Truck Accidents and Speeds Up Claims
    7 Min Read
    predictive analytics for interior designers
    Interior Designers Boost Profits with Predictive Analytics
    8 Min Read
    image fx (67)
    Improving LinkedIn Ad Strategies with Data Analytics
    9 Min Read
    big data and remote work
    Data Helps Speech-Language Pathologists Deliver Better Results
    6 Min Read
    data driven insights
    How Data-Driven Insights Are Addressing Gaps in Patient Communication and Equity
    8 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: BI FAIL #2
Share
Notification
Font ResizerAa
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Business Intelligence > BI FAIL #2
Business Intelligence

BI FAIL #2

Timo Elliott
Timo Elliott
3 Min Read
SHARE

Seth Grimes of Alta Plana gives us a great example of business intelligence failure this week on the site USAspending.gov.

I wrote about this site and others in a post in July, Great Examples of US Government BI Transparency. Unfortunately, it turns out that it’s not so great, in that some of the data shown was completely false… (this is generally considered a reasonable baseline of things to avoid).

Seth gave the example of the graphic on the left below: “The Green and Purple segments are approximately equally sized even though the green segment should be 25% larger than the purple segment.” Thankfully the problem has now been corrected, and the site now shows what the chart should look like (with the data values now slightly updated) – see how much larger the “grants” area is now …

More Read

Indispensable Money Management Apps for Smartphone Users
MongoDB, BI and non-Relational Databases
Tough New Fines in Ireland for Senders of Unsolicited Mail
Starting Your Business: Data From the Ground Up
Four Essentials for Enabling Pattern-Based Strategies

Seth Grimes of Alta Plana gives us a great example of business intelligence failure this week on the site USAspending.gov.

I wrote about this site and others in a post in July, Great Examples of US Government BI Transparency. Unfortunately, it turns out that it’s not so great, in that some of the data shown was completely false… (this is generally considered a reasonable baseline of things to avoid).

Seth gave the example of the graphic on the left below: “The Green and Purple segments are approximately equally sized even though the green segment should be 25% larger than the purple segment.” Thankfully the problem has now been corrected, and the site now shows what the chart should look like (with the data values now slightly updated) – see how much larger the “grants” area is now.

USAspending.gov graphicimage

The problem turned out to be with the way the site calls the Google Chart API. The values passed to the engine for display were absolute values, not percentages, so they are being truncated. (I’m biased, of course, but to me, that sounds like a good reason to rely on a full BI solution, rather than the Google Chart API… )

The real big cause for concern is that it was apparently only when the webmasters read Seth’s blog posting that they realized they had a problem…

[Post to Twitter] Was this interesting? Share with others on Twitter with automatic URL shortening! 

Share This Article
Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

data analytics and truck accident claims
How Data Analytics Reduces Truck Accidents and Speeds Up Claims
Analytics Big Data Exclusive
predictive analytics for interior designers
Interior Designers Boost Profits with Predictive Analytics
Analytics Exclusive Predictive Analytics
big data and cybercrime
Stopping Lateral Movement in a Data-Heavy, Edge-First World
Big Data Exclusive
AI and data mining
What the Rise of AI Web Scrapers Means for Data Teams
Artificial Intelligence Big Data Exclusive

Stay Connected

1.2kFollowersLike
33.7kFollowersFollow
222FollowersPin

You Might also Like

The Way Humans Think: What BI Does to Help People Feel Confident in Their Choices [VIDEO]

1 Min Read

Top BI Dashboard Design and Delivery Worst Practices

20 Min Read

Performance benefits of linking R to multithreaded math libraries

8 Min Read

From Social CRM to “social” PLM, developing products in a social environment

7 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

AI and chatbots
Chatbots and SEO: How Can Chatbots Improve Your SEO Ranking?
Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Exclusive
ai chatbot
The Art of Conversation: Enhancing Chatbots with Advanced AI Prompts
Chatbots

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?