Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Tableau Software, Inc.

Sean Boon

George G Robertson

Brian Scott Ruble

Joshua W Lee

Jakob Peter Nielsen

William Guthrie Morein

David Earl Heckerman

Andrew C Beers

Justin Talbot

Murali R Krishnan

Eran Megiddo

Daniel C Battagin

Daniel Yancy Parish

Bora Beran

Jason David Carlson

Jason Joseph Weber

Christian Bernd Schormann

Michael Victor Ehrenberg

Stella Yick Chan

Ginger J Gloystein

Amarinder Singh Grewal

Robert Archer

Barry James Givens

Justin Frederick Rockwood

Nathan Paul McCoy

A method displays a first data visualization according to user placement of data fields in shelves of a user interface. Each shelf specifies a property of the data visualization and the data visualization includes visual data marks corresponding to data values for data fields in a dataset. A user selects a subset of the visual data marks. A popup summary is displayed that includes data value distributions for several data fields. In the popup summary, a second user input is detected corresponding to a first data field whose data value distribution is displayed in the popup summary. In response, the method displays a moveable icon corresponding to the first data field. The method detects a third user input to place the interactive moveable icon in a shelf in the user interface. In response, a second data visualization is displayed according to placement of data fields, including the first data field.

Data visualization user interface with summary popup that includes interactive objects

A visualization design system is provided. The system includes a metadata component to describe characteristics of data. An analyzer determines attributes of a peer group, where the attributes are related to prior visualization design experiences of the group. A wizard component determines a subset of potential visualization types based in part on the characteristics of data and the attributes of the peer group.

Wizard for selecting visualization

A visualization development system is provided. The system includes a visualization tool to develop one or more visualizations and a grammar engine that operates with the visualization tool to automatically detect visualization problems during the development of the visualizations.

Grammar checker for visualization

A visualization input system is provided. The system includes a visualization component that receives input gestures from a user (or users) and translates the gestures into one or more data manipulation commands. A distribution component receives the data manipulation commands and propagates data modifications across one or more databases in view of the commands. This includes a rights component that enables the data modifications to be implemented across the one or more databases.

Visualization as input mechanism

For standalone spreadsheet applications and/or Web-based spreadsheet services, the ability to designate, discover and set parameters for spreadsheet documents is provided. When creating a spreadsheet document, the ability to designate certain cells or ranges of cells as parameters to a spreadsheet is enabled. Furthermore, whether viewed in a standalone spreadsheet application or via a Web service, the ability to discover these parameters through the user interface or object model is provided. The ability to set or change these parameters one at a time or in bulk and drive the changes into the calculation model is also provided. Accordingly, whether viewed in a standalone spreadsheet application or via a Web rendering service, the effect of the parameters entered by the user can be calculated and viewed at once. The ability to suspend recalculation of a workbook until all relevant values, such as a current set of parameters, are obtained is also enabled.

Designating, setting and discovering parameters for spreadsheet documents

A method, system, and computer-readable medium are provided for controlling the calculation of volatile functions in a workbook created in a spreadsheet application program such that the volatile function does not need to be recalculated each time a calculation request is received in the workbook. A volatile function may include a function which is capable of returning a different value each time the function is calculated. The spreadsheet application program determines a calculation mode setting for the workbook, calculates a volatile function timeout value based on the calculation mode setting, and calculates the volatile function based on the volatile function timeout value. The volatile function timeout value may include a time span for which the results of a volatile function are valid. The volatile function timeout value is calculated by determining the maximum of a workbook timeout value assigned to the workbook on a client computer and a server timeout value assigned to the workbook on a server computer running the spreadsheet application program. During the volatile function timeout period, the volatile functions are not recalculated.

Method, system, and computer-readable medium for controlling the calculation of volatile functions in a spreadsheet

A method, system, and computer-readable medium are provided for determining whether to reproduce a chart image from the contents of a spreadsheet application workbook on a server. A calculation server calculates chart data for defining a chart image from workbook data retrieved from the spreadsheet application workbook, generates a representation of the chart data, and calculates an identifier for the representation of the chart data. A charting component receives the representation of the chart data and the identifier from the calculation server and compares the calculated identifier to a previously stored identifier on the server. If the calculated identifier is equal to the previously stored identifier, then the charting component retrieves a previously produced chart image from the representation of the chart data from the server. If the calculated identifier is not equal to the previously stored identifier, then the charting component produces a chart image from the representation of the chart data.

Method, system, and computer-readable medium for determining whether to reproduce chart images calculated from a workbook

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Snoqualmie, WA, United States of America

Sean Boon