Creating an Approachable Data Product with R

• Mech Engr -> Building Energy Researcher -> Data Scientist
• Product Data Scientist at Rally Software
• Love exploring tools and techniques

• I focus on product usage
• Data engineers and programmes
• Product owners and Developer teams
• Sales and Enablement teams

• I want to share everything I have learned with you
• 1 year of making shiny work in business
• I have figured out many small things that make it powerful
• Take it, Learn it, Change it, Improve it

• Tool Overview
• Business value
• Demo
• Steps to make a shiny app
• Code chunks

http://shiny.rstudio.com/

shinyUI(pageWithSidebar(
  headerPanel("Simple Histogram App"),
  sidebarPanel(
    selectInput(inputId = "n_bins",
                label = "Number of bins",
                choices = c(10, 20, 25, 30, 50),
                selected = 20
                )
  ),
  mainPanel(
    plotOutput(outputId = "main_plot")
  )
))

shinyServer(function(input,output){

  output$main_plot <- renderPlot({  
    hist(faithful$eruptions,
         breaks = as.numeric(input$n_bins),
         col = "green",
         xlab = "Duration (minutes)")  
  })
})

http://shiny.rstudio.com/gallery/

require(rCharts)
require(knitr)
haireye = as.data.frame(HairEyeColor)
n1 <- nPlot(Freq ~ Hair, 
  group = 'Eye',
  data = subset(haireye, Sex == 'Male'),
  type = 'multiBarChart'
)
n1

http://rcharts.io/gallery/

• Built with R using Shiny and rCharts
• Interactive analysis and charts
• Embed other dashboard here also
• Serves many teams in Product and Sales

• Interactive - Individuals can easily slice and dice data
• Removes interrupts - Don't have to re-run and re-share analysis.
• Cheap - Free to build and share

• Customizable - Pick your colors and style and layout
• Simple - One place to see everything that matters
• Extensible - Web functionality (navigation, modals, styles)

• Tooltips - Answers the next questions
• Beautiful - Looks great and D3 is amazing
• Density - Change the view right there

• Simple - Don't need to write 3 languages
  • html, css, javascript
• Unique - There are charts that no other library can make
• Presentation - Sharing is such a key part of the data flow
  

http://surlyanalytics.shinyapps.io/github_hot_or_not/

• https://github.com/wsurles/github_hot_or_not
• Learn how to code this app
• Help me make it better
• Thanks!

• https://github.com/wsurles/shiny_workshop/tree/advanced
• Build 3 apps self paced
• Progressively more powerful
• The steps are smooth. It has been tested.

http://shiny.rstudio.com/gallery/widgets-gallery.html

http://shiny.rstudio.com/reference/shiny/latest/

http://shiny.rstudio.com/reference/shiny/latest/

http://bootswatch.com/

tabPanel("tableau", includeHTML("tableau_dashboard.html"), align = 'center')

Use functions

output$plot_github <- renderChart2({    

  df <- chooseLang()
  df2 <- crunchDataGithub(df)
  df3 <- filterGithub()
  color <- setColorGithub(df2,df3)
  n <- createPlotGithub(df3, color)  

})

Build ui elements in server.R

output$repo_owner <- renderUI({

  df <- chooseLang()
  df2 <- crunchDataGithub(df)
  owner_list <- sort(unique(df2$repository_owner))

  selectizeInput(inputId = "owner",
                 label = h4("Owner:"),
                 choices = owner_list,
                 multiple = TRUE)
})

createPlotGithub <- function(df2, color) {

  df3 <- select(df2, repository_watchers, age_days, watch_group, log_forks, 
                     repository_name, watch_per_day, repository_owner, 
                     repository_forks, date_created_str)

  p <- nPlot(repository_watchers ~ age_days, 
              group = 'watch_group', 
              data = df3, 
              type = 'scatterChart')
  p$yAxis(axisLabel = 'Stars')
  p$xAxis(axisLabel = 'Age in Days')
  p$chart(color = color)
  p$chart(size = '#! function(d){return d.log_forks} !#')

  return(p)

}

p$chart(tooltipContent = "#!
          function(key, x, y, d){ 
            return '<h3>' + d.point.repository_name + '</h3>' +
            '<p> <b>' +  d.point.watch_per_day + ' Stars/Day' + '</b> </p>' +
            '<p> Owner = ' +  d.point.repository_owner + '</p>' +
            '<p> Age in Days = ' +  d.point.age_days + '</p>' +                    
            '<p> Stars = ' +  d.point.repository_watchers + '</p>' +          
            '<p> Forks = ' +  d.point.repository_forks + '</p>' +       
            '<p> Date Created = ' +  d.point.date_created_str + '</p>'
          }
          !#")

createButtonLink <- function(link, text) {
  sprintf('
      <a class="mcnButton" 
      href="%s" 
      target="_blank" 
      style="font-weight: normal;
             background-color: #337EC6;
             ...  
             color: #FFFFFF;
             word-wrap: break-word !important; 
             font-family:Arial;"
             >%s</button>
             ',link, text)
}

shinyUI(

  navbarPage(

    id = "nbp",
    title = "Data Hub", 
    theme = "bootstrap.css",
    ...

Shiny http://shiny.rstudio.com/

Shiny tutorial https://github.com/wsurles/shiny_workshop

rCharts http://rcharts.io/

Slidify http://slidify.github.io/

Slidify example http://slidify.github.io/dcmeetup/#1