Case Studies: Publishing & Data Distribution

Publishing highly-visual, interactive, searchable data

Omniscope provides an integrated solution to managing structure tabular data (with images and links) for publication, with fully-configurable intuitive and interactive presentations, and secure distribution and data refresh options suited to any type of content and audiences of any size and sophistication. Commercial publishing license permit data sets maintained centrally to be refreshed to any number of free Viewers over the open Internet.

Assemble, maintain & refresh data sets- Omniscope is a powerful tool for importing, scrubbing and maintaining publishable data sets visually, without requiring relational database skills. A wide range of refresh options makes it easy to update data sets sourced from relational databases and/or other external files.

Configure visual reports & DataPlayers- Omniscope is also used by editors and producers to present subscribers with compelling visual report layouts with full interactivity, whether in powerful Omniscope .IOK file format (navigable by subscribers using the free Viewer) and/or in Flash DataPlayer .SWF format. Using Omniscope Professional, anyone can create and refresh Flash DataPlayers and post them to websites in minutes.

Distribute and refresh data securely- Omniscope's proprietary compression and encryption, plus advanced Enterprise Edition commercial publishing options like copy-prevention, file expiry time-outs and domain locking (subscribers must be logged into secure website before Omniscope file will open) provide data publishers with multiple, scalable, secure alternatives superior to posting data tables on the open web or distributing relational database tables potential subscribers find bulky, opaque, costly and difficult to manage.

Featured Case Study: Financial Times (FT) The Financial Times has adopted Omniscope and DataPlayers both for internal analysis (web traffic, human resources) and online data publishing and distribution.

Challenges:

• Numerous large reference data sets to maintain and publish regularly, 
• Frequent, data-intensive ad-hoc illustrations required for feature articles.
• Viewership shift to the web requires more visual, interactive and searchable presentation of tabular data.
• Data assembly, scrubbing and data layout for ad-hoc features requiring too much web designer time and effort.
• Data feeds confined to formats difficult for subscribers to consume and modify for their own reports.

Omniscope Solution:

1. Omniscope Professional Dataplayer Editions deployed to production teams (operational)
2. Large routine data sets like Managed Funds scrubbed and converted for optional download in Omniscope format (in progress)
3. Paid subscription feeds like the Mandates data set being scrubbed and bundled with activated Omniscope Professionals for use by subscribers (in progress)

(click on the thumbnail image at right to display these live DataPlayers in a new window, then try the suggested interactions)

Banker League Tables- rankings table (easily updated) This DataPlayer uses an expandable Table View. Expansion: To the left of the header, click the large sideways blue arrow to change all the records to expanded mode, then change them back. Pick any blue sideways arrow next to a bank name and click to expand the details for that bank only. Sorting: Try sorting each column by clicking on the orange ascending/descending arrows in the column headers. (larger static image)

Schools Ranking- feature article This display involves multiple expandable Table View DataPlayers with a the filter side bar. Using Flash with within Flash techniques, three DataPlayers are displayed on three different right hand tabs. Navigation: Try changing the tabs to see the different DataPlayers. Filtering: Type the name of a school in the text filter for School, then click Reset button at lower right.  Use the vertical slider bar to review the full range of filtering options like tick boxes and sliders on the Side Bar. (larger static image)

Map-based Property Analysis- feature article This DataPlayer combines an expandable Table View with a Map View using the embedded vector map of the UK. Navigation: The Table View is sortable by any column and each Town's details can be expanded. Filtering: try entering the name of a town in the text search box shown at the bottom. Also, try clicking on the Boolean Yes/No filter, entitled "Show areas with both high BtL and non-prime". By adding a column categorising Towns as 'Yes' (High in both BtL and non-prime), otherwise 'No', the most vulnerable towns can be shown on the Map just by ticking this filter. Click the Reset button to view all Towns again. Towns can also be selected/filtered on the Map View, just define an area on the map using the mouse, and only Towns located within the defined area are visible.  Click the Reset button to view all Towns again. (larger static image)

Next steps: several data feeds currently provided to subscribers in database or .CSV format will be re-formatted to Omniscope .IOK files and bundled with activated Omniscope Professionals enabling subscribers to add additional data and re-format the files for internal distribution.