Introducing Powerful Visualizations for your server-side data
By Itai Raz,
Google Visualization API TeamToday, we're publicly
documenting the
Google Visualization API's open-wire protocol, thus dramatically
expanding the capabilities of this API beyond what had been available since we first
launched in March of this year. Organizations can now
expose their server-side data, such as in SQL databases and even in Excel spreadsheets, and
display this data through visualizations from our growing directory. This flexibility makes it
possible to connect easily almost any data source to a wealth of
40+ visualizations, including standard pie and line charts and
complex heat maps and motion charts.
To make it even easier for
developers to get started, we have documented an open-source Python library that enables any
Python developer to quickly start using the API. What we find particularly cool about this
library is that it also runs on Google's AppEngine. You don't even need to be an owner of your
own servers to expose your data: You can place it on AppEngine and use the Visualization API
to expose your data in meaningful, insightful ways in dashboards and reports. Expect to see
additional server-side tools for the Visualization API in the near future.
Moreover, this week at the Dreamforce conference,
Salesforce announced they've created tools, including
code snippets and API harnesses, to make the Google Visualization API even easier to use.
Salesforce customers can now quickly and easily add dashboards and custom reporting
applications over their Salesforce data and publish these on any webpage. ISVs and BI firms
such as
Panorama and
Conceptual Clarity, who are already marketing their powerful reporting
tools over Google Spreadsheets using the Visualization API, now have access to Salesforce
customers. The icing on the cake: since they use the Visualization API, they can address this
new market without adding new code to their existing applications.
To
learn more about how to implement your data store as a Visualization API data source, by
checking out our
documentation.
