for more information on the power of small-multiple designs, see edward tufte's book envisioning information (graphics press, 1990).
figure 1-2. the chart component.
the chart control is primarily useful any time you need to chart live data or monitor a specific metric critical to your business. because it supports a rich programming model, you can also add many effects to a chart with this control, such as zooming and panning on large axes, dynamically changing other content in the application based on the mouse's location, or letting users double-click to link to a new page displaying more information about the selected data point.
designed to deliver interactive data reporting and analysis, the pivottable component (shown in figure 1-3) provides all the functionality found in excel pivottables and external data ranges. it can retrieve data from tabular, relational databases through ole db, as well as from olap server cubes and cube files through ole db for olap. using this control, you can view data grouped, sliced, and sorted in a variety of ways, creating polished reports and interactive analysis on live data.
you can use this control for many tasks, although it's best suited for database reporting and data analysis solutions. when bound to an olap cube, the pivottable control can provide the user with a flexible, high-performing analysis surface. it groups can concentrate on collecting and cleaning data and loading it into cubes that reflect the way their company thinks about the data, while users working with this control can create slices of the data to fit their own needs.
