App to explore data kept in external cloud .csv file?

Software
1

I have a .csv file that gets updated daily. I’d like to find an app that I can use to create charts and otherwise explore the data in .csv file.

I’ve found several iOS apps that allow me to import the .csv data and then explore it. But they require re-importing the file, and re-creating the charts each time.

What I’d really like is an app that can, whenever I open it, access a .csv file store in the cloud so that the charts and other information is provides is always up to date. (I’d settle for a way to refer to external data using Numbers or Excel, but even that doesn’t seem possible on iOS.)

Any suggestions?

2

I’ve heard good things from a colleague about Tableau. I haven’t gotten into it yet myself.

1 Like
3

Another I dabbled with years ago (around the time of iPad 1😱) but haven’t used in years. Actually never really used it. Seems they have been acquired by SAP since.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sap-analytics-cloud-roambi/id315020789?mt=8

4

See this thread - https://talk.automators.fm/t/displaying-large-data-sets-tables-datatables-boilerplate/3211

5

Thank you both.

Tableau’s “Vizible” product is one I’ve tried out. It seemed promissing, but appears to be abandoned. Tableau’s other products require a subscription to their enterprise-aimed service ($70/month+).

Same with the SAP product: It requires having a SAP Cloud install.

I was hoping to find something simpler and easier.

Maybe Airtable could do this?

If not, there’s room out there for somebody to create a Vizible-like app, with consumer-focused pricing…

6

How big is your csv? I have some shortcuts to do basic descriptive statistics that I use with files approx 160 col x 80 rows which I would be happy to share. see also the csv reader linked in the thread above. I think for modest sized files shortcuts should be able to handle it. Probably larger with a newer phone than my iphone 7.

7

@dfay

Thanks.

The .csv is 6 columns with, currently, just over 3000 rows.

I’ve written scripts in Pythonista and Drafts to parse the data and give me certain summary statistics. But without some major additonal coding, it’s hard to create graphs or other visual representations of my data. (Broadly speaking, it’s time-tracking data. I want to see how my time for a given time period was allocated among clients and non-billable projects; or see how my work for a given client was distributed over time, etc.)

I’d really like to have a sort of dashboard that gives me summaries/graphs/etc. of all the latest data. But so far I’m striking out.

(You’d think Excel could do this by referring to a file in OneDrive; but even there I can’t seem to get it to work; Excel wants to refer to a local copy of the file only, rather than the true “cloud” version, making it impossible to share across my devices)

8

Try powerBI if you have office 365.

2 Likes
9

Hmm…here’s an approach to something similar using Scriptable: https://talk.automators.fm/t/google-charts-data-visualization/3518

But if you’ve got the parsing in place in Pythonista I’d think the best route would be to do the graphing in matplotlib

10

I was under the misimpression that PowerBI required some sort of additional subscription, but it looks like the version included with my firm’s subscription will be sufficient.

Thanks!

(Through I’ll note that most of the set-up has to be done on the web or in a Windows desktop app. Once that’s done, the iOS client is fine. But I still think there’s an opportunity for a developer here…)

11

Thanks. I may use the data as a means of exploring MathPlotLib. But I was hoping for something far more polished than what I’d be able to create in a reasonable amount of time. MSPowerBI seems like the solution for now.

1 Like