Need ideas for data visualization (IT Incidents , Downtime)

[Zohair]

Dear All,
I need creative ideas as I am overwhelmed with the data!

Background:
I work in the IT department of this company. We recently moved (more aggressively) on an helpdesk ticketing system and we got tons of data. I have a sample file carrying some of the data that I want to use.
We are "THISisMYcompany" with our own set of Clients. But there are also our sister companies which have their own clients (and some of the clients are common with us
All highlighted columns are manually entered or derived using formula from the actual data.


Requirements:
The CIO wants to know "what's going on" on a weekly basis. He is "primarily" interested in "THISisMYcompany" but also needs to know about other sister companies.
Some VPs want it to be distributed by country as well since there are different dollar impact rates for each country.
And then my Boss would also want a drill down or summary below giving the exact root cause details (too).


Problem:
1. I need creative ideas for a dynamic chart that allows all the above with details showing below the chart. AND it has to be very very very user friendly.
2. I need to use the data on weekly basis where week starts at Friday and ends on Thursday. (Currently I am doing that manually, please see column "week")


P.S: I must say that just simplifying the data (removing actual values and names for legal purpose) and writing my problem statement is actually throwing me ideas. Still I would like expert opinion to get started.

 

[Hui]

Zohair

Firstly, Welcome to the Chandoo.org Forums

Secondly, this answer isn't what you want but its what you need

You have a lot of great data there

The issue you need to work out is what is important to the business
Speak to your supervisors and engineers
See what is important to them
Are they after spot values, historical trends, dash boards that warn you when your above/below certain levels etc
How do they want the data presented, Spreadsheet, power poi8nt, print outs etc

It is then a matter of organising the data
Summarising and collating data
Charting and reporting

 

[Zohair]

What to show:
1. Historical trends so that we can identify which areas need (more) attention. In other words, fixing 'what' will reduce the downtime 'faster'.
2. If there are any abnormal behaviors, (like peaks), details of that that abnormal downtime (like click-drilldown).
3. Downtime/uptime against a Service Level limit. Ideally, we want to reach 99.999% uptime. That's still catchy since we don't have rock solid data for uptimes. Right now, we are using 100%-downtime to get our uptimes.

How to present:
Powerpoint is easier to read for many. That's what I am using right now (though manually). Prepare data and charts in excel and then copy paste them in Powerpoint weekly report. Though, if presented correctly, excel shouldn't be too bad either. An Online dashboard (like highcharts) is attractive but that involves core development which I am totally lost at.


And you are right on what I need vs what I want. As I write, I am actually getting things cleared in my head about the problems. (And that is actually helping me).

 

[Zohair]

By the way, I found a way to have excel automatically get start and end dates of a week (my week starts from Friday). Saves me time and mental torture in doing it manually.

=TEXT((WEEKNUM(A2,15))*7+DATE(YEAR(NOW()),1,1)-WEEKDAY((WEEKNUM(A2,15))*7+DATE(YEAR(NOW()),1,1))-8,"dd mmm")&" - "&TEXT((WEEKNUM(A2,15))*7+DATE(YEAR(NOW()),1,1)-WEEKDAY((WEEKNUM(A2,15))*7+DATE(YEAR(NOW()),1,1))-2,"dd mmm")