R help - Apr 2017 - Creating interactive graphs and exporting to Intranet site

Good evening,

I?m relatively new to using R and am trying to find a way to create a series of
interconnected graphs where I have a filter (either a drop down or series of
checkboxes) where when an option is selected, all graphs are updated to show
that group?s data.  I need to keep these graphs internal to our organization, so
can?t use Shiny etc.; I am also unable to run R or other products on my server
(company policy).  So, basically what I?m trying to do is create the dashboard
on my desktop, export the HTML or whatever files, and post those to the
Intranet.  I have tried ggvis, iplots, and a variety of other packages but I
cannot seem to get them to work as i need them to.

Any suggestions?  I need to present my proposed plan to the directors on
Wednesday and really don?t want to use Excel for the graphs - I want this to be
intuitive for them, but ensuring that the report is easily maintained and more
flexible than a Pivot Table.

Thanks so much for your time and have a good evening
Chris

"I cannot seem to get them to work as i need them to"  does not
provide sufficient information for anyone to help you. See -- and
follow -- the posting guide to get useful help.

My advice would be to forget it: you need to spend (far) more time
learning about the options and tools than you have. Be realistic.

(Of course, others may diagree and be able to rescue you).

Cheers,
Bert
Bert Gunter

"The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along
and sticking things into it."
-- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip )


On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 7:29 PM, Chris Battiston <darth.pathos at
gmail.com> wrote:
> Good evening,
>
> I?m relatively new to using R and am trying to find a way to create a
series of interconnected graphs where I have a filter (either a drop down or
series of checkboxes) where when an option is selected, all graphs are updated
to show that group?s data.  I need to keep these graphs internal to our
organization, so can?t use Shiny etc.; I am also unable to run R or other
products on my server (company policy).  So, basically what I?m trying to do is
create the dashboard on my desktop, export the HTML or whatever files, and post
those to the Intranet.  I have tried ggvis, iplots, and a variety of other
packages but I cannot seem to get them to work as i need them to.
>
> Any suggestions?  I need to present my proposed plan to the directors on
Wednesday and really don?t want to use Excel for the graphs - I want this to be
intuitive for them, but ensuring that the report is easily maintained and more
flexible than a Pivot Table.
>
> Thanks so much for your time and have a good evening
> Chris
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

Thanks Bert - you?re absolutely right, although it?s my first post on the R
Mailing list, I participate in a number of others and should?ve taken my own
advice of ?not posting when frustrated?.

More background - I have tried multiple graphics packages (including iPlots,
ggvis, ggplot2, dplyr, etc) using the examples from the documentation.  Copying
and pasting the basic examples usually works (I couldn?t get iplots to work,
even though i was using JGR as per the documentation) but getting into the more
complex examples, especially the ones with the drop downs to filter the data, I
could not get to work.  I am running the most recent versions of R and R Studio
(3.4 and 1.0.143 respectively) on a MacBook, Mac Desktop, and a Surface Pro with
Windows 10 (I was hoping maybe the differences in OS had something to do with
the issues, but apparently not).

Maybe if I describe the goal in more detail, it would be easier.  I have 2 Excel
files that I will be getting on a monthly data; one with support tickets and one
with customer feedback.  I need to build a dashboard with 4 reports, 2 based on
the tickets data and the other on the feedback.  I need to have the dashboard
posted to our internal Sharepoint site, so the directors and VPs can go in and
see their areas? data.  The ?interconnectedness and interactivity? i was
referring to is there needs to be a drop down with all the groups, and when a
user selects a department from the dropdown, all 4 graphs update automatically.

I?m running R locally, so will need something I can export where the file(s)
will be self-contained, and then upload them to the Sharepoint.  I know Shiny
can do everything I need, but we don?t have any available servers, and the data
is extremely sensitive so cannot leave our intranet (per company policy).

Any thoughts would be appreciated, and apologies again for my previously vague
message.

Chris
> On Apr 23, 2017, at 2:42 PM, Bert Gunter <bgunter.4567 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> 
> "I cannot seem to get them to work as i need them to"  does not
> provide sufficient information for anyone to help you. See -- and
> follow -- the posting guide to get useful help.
> 
> My advice would be to forget it: you need to spend (far) more time
> learning about the options and tools than you have. Be realistic.
> 
> (Of course, others may diagree and be able to rescue you).
> 
> Cheers,
> Bert
> Bert Gunter
> 
> "The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along
> and sticking things into it."
> -- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip
)
> 
> 
> On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 7:29 PM, Chris Battiston <darth.pathos at
gmail.com> wrote:
>> Good evening,
>> 
>> I?m relatively new to using R and am trying to find a way to create a
series of interconnected graphs where I have a filter (either a drop down or
series of checkboxes) where when an option is selected, all graphs are updated
to show that group?s data.  I need to keep these graphs internal to our
organization, so can?t use Shiny etc.; I am also unable to run R or other
products on my server (company policy).  So, basically what I?m trying to do is
create the dashboard on my desktop, export the HTML or whatever files, and post
those to the Intranet.  I have tried ggvis, iplots, and a variety of other
packages but I cannot seem to get them to work as i need them to.
>> 
>> Any suggestions?  I need to present my proposed plan to the directors
on Wednesday and really don?t want to use Excel for the graphs - I want this to
be intuitive for them, but ensuring that the report is easily maintained and
more flexible than a Pivot Table.
>> 
>> Thanks so much for your time and have a good evening
>> Chris
>> 
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

You have a lot of limitations... haven't left much room for success. Not
sure how to help.

I am told that Microsoft provides a cloud solution in which R can be used, but I
don't think you would get much useful help in setting that up on this free
mailing list... generally you have to pay to play there.
-- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

On April 22, 2017 7:29:48 PM PDT, Chris Battiston <darth.pathos at
gmail.com> wrote:
>Good evening,
>
>I?m relatively new to using R and am trying to find a way to create a
>series of interconnected graphs where I have a filter (either a drop
>down or series of checkboxes) where when an option is selected, all
>graphs are updated to show that group?s data.  I need to keep these
>graphs internal to our organization, so can?t use Shiny etc.; I am also
>unable to run R or other products on my server (company policy).  So,
>basically what I?m trying to do is create the dashboard on my desktop,
>export the HTML or whatever files, and post those to the Intranet.  I
>have tried ggvis, iplots, and a variety of other packages but I cannot
>seem to get them to work as i need them to.  
>
>Any suggestions?  I need to present my proposed plan to the directors
>on Wednesday and really don?t want to use Excel for the graphs - I want
>this to be intuitive for them, but ensuring that the report is easily
>maintained and more flexible than a Pivot Table.
>
>Thanks so much for your time and have a good evening
>Chris
>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>PLEASE do read the posting guide
>http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

Hi Jeff

Thanks for the reply.  Totally understand that my issue may not be resolvable; I
was hoping that there was a graphics package I may have missed that I could try.

Re: Microsoft product - we do actually have a full license to Power BI, but the
director who is requesting the reports didn't like how it printed out.  I
may just do what I need in an Access database - was hoping to provide a little
more functionality but what can you do.

Thanks for your reply
Chris

Sent from my iPhone
> On Apr 23, 2017, at 15:21, Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil at
dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> 
> You have a lot of limitations... haven't left much room for success.
Not sure how to help.
> 
> I am told that Microsoft provides a cloud solution in which R can be used,
but I don't think you would get much useful help in setting that up on this
free mailing list... generally you have to pay to play there.
> -- 
> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
> 
>> On April 22, 2017 7:29:48 PM PDT, Chris Battiston <darth.pathos at
gmail.com> wrote:
>> Good evening,
>> 
>> I?m relatively new to using R and am trying to find a way to create a
>> series of interconnected graphs where I have a filter (either a drop
>> down or series of checkboxes) where when an option is selected, all
>> graphs are updated to show that group?s data.  I need to keep these
>> graphs internal to our organization, so can?t use Shiny etc.; I am also
>> unable to run R or other products on my server (company policy).  So,
>> basically what I?m trying to do is create the dashboard on my desktop,
>> export the HTML or whatever files, and post those to the Intranet.  I
>> have tried ggvis, iplots, and a variety of other packages but I cannot
>> seem to get them to work as i need them to.  
>> 
>> Any suggestions?  I need to present my proposed plan to the directors
>> on Wednesday and really don?t want to use Excel for the graphs - I want
>> this to be intuitive for them, but ensuring that the report is easily
>> maintained and more flexible than a Pivot Table.
>> 
>> Thanks so much for your time and have a good evening
>> Chris
>> 
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

On 22/04/2017 10:29 PM, Chris Battiston wrote:
> Good evening,
>
> I?m relatively new to using R and am trying to find a way to create a
series of interconnected graphs where I have a filter (either a drop down or
series of checkboxes) where when an option is selected, all graphs are updated
to show that group?s data.  I need to keep these graphs internal to our
organization, so can?t use Shiny etc.; I am also unable to run R or other
products on my server (company policy).  So, basically what I?m trying to do is
create the dashboard on my desktop, export the HTML or whatever files, and post
those to the Intranet.  I have tried ggvis, iplots, and a variety of other
packages but I cannot seem to get them to work as i need them to.
>
> Any suggestions?  I need to present my proposed plan to the directors on
Wednesday and really don?t want to use Excel for the graphs - I want this to be
intuitive for them, but ensuring that the report is easily maintained and more
flexible than a Pivot Table.
>
Given that you can't run R on the server, you would basically need to 
produce all possible displays in advance, then have your web page select 
which one to show based on the controls on the page. (You might be able 
to show all data, then have the checkboxes set some points to be 
invisible, but that gets tricky.)

The rgl package does things like that but is aimed at 3D plots; getting 
it to do good looking 2D plots isn't easy.

On the other hand, this is pretty easy to do using Shiny or RStudio 
Connect (a paid service, see https://www.rstudio.com/products/connect/), 
which could run on your own server.  So I'd try to relax your constraints.

Duncan Murdoch

Thanks Duncan - I have 16 groups so generating one output per should be fairly
easy.  Unfortunately the constraints are not mine but those from the Senior VP
team combined with company policy.  As I said to someone else I may go with an
alternative software (Access database maybe) which will be able to do more of
what I need.

Have a great day
Chris

Sent from my iPhone
> On Apr 23, 2017, at 16:11, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at
gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 22/04/2017 10:29 PM, Chris Battiston wrote:
>> Good evening,
>> 
>> I?m relatively new to using R and am trying to find a way to create a
series of interconnected graphs where I have a filter (either a drop down or
series of checkboxes) where when an option is selected, all graphs are updated
to show that group?s data.  I need to keep these graphs internal to our
organization, so can?t use Shiny etc.; I am also unable to run R or other
products on my server (company policy).  So, basically what I?m trying to do is
create the dashboard on my desktop, export the HTML or whatever files, and post
those to the Intranet.  I have tried ggvis, iplots, and a variety of other
packages but I cannot seem to get them to work as i need them to.
>> 
>> Any suggestions?  I need to present my proposed plan to the directors
on Wednesday and really don?t want to use Excel for the graphs - I want this to
be intuitive for them, but ensuring that the report is easily maintained and
more flexible than a Pivot Table.
>> 
> 
> Given that you can't run R on the server, you would basically need to
produce all possible displays in advance, then have your web page select which
one to show based on the controls on the page. (You might be able to show all
data, then have the checkboxes set some points to be invisible, but that gets
tricky.)
> 
> The rgl package does things like that but is aimed at 3D plots; getting it
to do good looking 2D plots isn't easy.
> 
> On the other hand, this is pretty easy to do using Shiny or RStudio Connect
(a paid service, see https://www.rstudio.com/products/connect/), which could run
on your own server.  So I'd try to relax your constraints.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch

HI Chris,

You can use the R plotly library on your own computer to create the
interactive graph, then upload the code to the server.

I have a setup like that where real-time data is processed every hour,
a Rmarkdown file is rendered using the R plotly package to make the
graphs, and then the resulting html file is copied to the server.

It sounds like exactly what you need.

Sarah

On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 10:29 PM, Chris Battiston
<darth.pathos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good evening,
>
> I?m relatively new to using R and am trying to find a way to create a
series of interconnected graphs where I have a filter (either a drop down or
series of checkboxes) where when an option is selected, all graphs are updated
to show that group?s data.  I need to keep these graphs internal to our
organization, so can?t use Shiny etc.; I am also unable to run R or other
products on my server (company policy).  So, basically what I?m trying to do is
create the dashboard on my desktop, export the HTML or whatever files, and post
those to the Intranet.  I have tried ggvis, iplots, and a variety of other
packages but I cannot seem to get them to work as i need them to.
>
> Any suggestions?  I need to present my proposed plan to the directors on
Wednesday and really don?t want to use Excel for the graphs - I want this to be
intuitive for them, but ensuring that the report is easily maintained and more
flexible than a Pivot Table.
>
> Thanks so much for your time and have a good evening
> Chris

Sarah Goslee
http://www.functionaldiversity.org

Hi Chris (and Sarah),

Chris you've listed a lot of restrictions, but I just wanted to
mention Jeroen Ooms' work developing OpenCPU:

"The OpenCPU system exposes an http API for embedded scientific
computing with R. The server can run either as a single-user
development server within the interactive R session, or as a
multi-user linux stack based on rApache and NGINX."

https://www.opencpu.org
https://www.opencpu.org/apps.html
https://github.com/jeroen/opencpu

You may be able to figure out a way to work around (some of) your
restrictions using opencpu.js, the OpenCPU JavaScript client library.

HTH,

Bill

William Michels, Ph.D.


On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 2:26 PM, Sarah Goslee <sarah.goslee at gmail.com>
wrote:
> HI Chris,
>
> You can use the R plotly library on your own computer to create the
> interactive graph, then upload the code to the server.
>
> I have a setup like that where real-time data is processed every hour,
> a Rmarkdown file is rendered using the R plotly package to make the
> graphs, and then the resulting html file is copied to the server.
>
> It sounds like exactly what you need.
>
> Sarah
>
> On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 10:29 PM, Chris Battiston
> <darth.pathos at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Good evening,
>>
>> I?m relatively new to using R and am trying to find a way to create a
series of interconnected graphs where I have a filter (either a drop down or
series of checkboxes) where when an option is selected, all graphs are updated
to show that group?s data.  I need to keep these graphs internal to our
organization, so can?t use Shiny etc.; I am also unable to run R or other
products on my server (company policy).  So, basically what I?m trying to do is
create the dashboard on my desktop, export the HTML or whatever files, and post
those to the Intranet.  I have tried ggvis, iplots, and a variety of other
packages but I cannot seem to get them to work as i need them to.
>>
>> Any suggestions?  I need to present my proposed plan to the directors
on Wednesday and really don?t want to use Excel for the graphs - I want this to
be intuitive for them, but ensuring that the report is easily maintained and
more flexible than a Pivot Table.
>>
>> Thanks so much for your time and have a good evening
>> Chris
>
>
> Sarah Goslee
> http://www.functionaldiversity.org
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.