![\"fitbit-banner\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/fitbit-banner.jpg?resize=690%2C310&ssl=1\" "\\"fitbit-banner\\"")
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During SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando, the analytics team issued a \u201cfitness challenge<\/a>,\u201d asking people to record their activity with a device such as a Fitbit<\/a> or Jawbone Up<\/a> and email us the results.<\/p>\n The resulting analysis was a microcosm of the kinds of issues that happen in organizations every day \u2013 along with announcing the winner, here\u2019s an explanation of how I did the analysis using SAP Lumira<\/a> (previously known as SAP Visual Intelligence<\/a>).<\/p>\n The first thing I did was to take a look at the different files provided by the participants, in a variety of different formats (CSV, XLS). I could have used the powerful data merge capabilities of SAP Lumira (including the new \u201cUnion\u201d option shown below), but for this one-off analysis, I used Excel to cut and paste the data into the right formats.<\/p>\n The first problem was the differences between the data sets generated by the Fitbit One and Jawbone One devices:<\/p>\n Once I had made all the adjustments in Excel, I created a new document, imported the data, and accepted the default \u201csemantic enrichment\u201d which correctly identified the measures and date field.<\/p>\n Then it was very easy to create a visualization of the number of steps taken by day (several people provided data for Monday, but I excluded it since it was a travel day for most people).<\/p>\n The results: the seven participants in the challenge took a total of 284,908 steps during the conference. As you can see from the chart, people started off with great intentions on day one, but couldn\u2019t keep it up for days 2 and 3:<\/p>\n By breaking this result down by person and day, we can see that the the slowing-down trend was true of most people, except Daniel Graversen<\/a> and Henrik Wagner<\/a> (both Jawbone One users). Daniel, in particular, put in an all-out effort on day three to clinch the \u201cmost steps in a single day\u201d title.<\/p>\n We can also see that the two Jawbone users, on average, were more active than the Fitbit users:<\/p>\n So who won the challenge? As ever, it depends (a bit) on how you choose to measure \u201cwinning!\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel Graversen\u2019s last-minute burst clearly wins him the bragging rights on the total number of steps (shown horizontally this time, just for show SAP Lumira does horizontal charts, too)<\/p>\n Looking at total distance, however, appeared to show a different winner \u2013 me! (Timo Elliott<\/a>)<\/p>\n That looked a little strange, though, given how many fewer steps I\u2019d taken. When I looked closer, I realized that I had another data quality problem I hadn\u2019t seen in Excel: as a European, my Fitbit was exporting the data in kilometers, not miles, giving me a distinctly unfair advantage. This was easy to fix fix using the powerful data manipulation tools in SAP Lumira. I created a new column called \u201cDistance in Miles\u201d with the formula \u201cif {Name}=”Timo Elliott” then {Distance}*0.621371192 else {Distance}\u201d<\/strong> (the product provides hints at each step, so you don\u2019t have to know the syntax).<\/p>\n The updated chart looked a little more realistic \u2013 it showed that Daniel Graversen also won in total distance, with over 30 miles during the conference. It also shows that Greg Myers beat me in distance despite my lead in steps \u2013 i.e. he\u2019s much taller with a longer stride (this value can be set by the user under the advanced options\u2026). Just for variety, this example uses color and a legend to indicate the names, rather than showing them on the X axis (this is not best practice).<\/p>\n There are, however, other measures that could be used to determine a \u201cwinner\u201d! Jamie Oswald<\/a> won in calories burned (even though the Jawbone numbers from Daniel Graversen and Henrik Wagner are probably not comparable, it doesn’t seem like they’d come out ahead of Jamie):<\/p>\n And, of course, we could drill into any of these measures to get the daily winners, eg Greg Myers<\/a> had the highest number of steps on Monday and I had the highest number on Tuesday (this chart shows another of SAP Lumira\u2019s many different available \u201cpalettes\u201d for charting):<\/p>\n I also uploaded the same data to the (very) beta version of SAP Lumira Cloud<\/a>, where I was able to do easy visualization of the prepared data set, and share it with others:<\/p>\n To conclude, I was fascinated to see that even this small-scale \u201cquantified self<\/a>\u201d analysis was rich in the same kinds of issues that plague much larger and more important projects:<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t already done so, you should give SAP Lumira a try. It is a great tool for collecting data, manipulating it on the fly, and sharing it with others (and until May 31st, 2013 you can get a copy of SAP Lumira Personal for only $9<\/a>!).<\/p>\n Here’s a video version of some of the analysis above (sorry, without Henrik’s data!)<\/p>\n![\"union\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/union1.jpg?resize=690%2C416&ssl=1\" "\\"union\\"")
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![\"saplumira\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/saplumira1.jpg?resize=690%2C429&ssl=1\" "\\"saplumira\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"data2\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/data2.jpg?resize=690%2C447&ssl=1\" "\\"data2\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"steps-by-day[5]\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/steps-by-day5.jpg?resize=690%2C447&ssl=1\" "\\"steps-by-day[5]\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"steps-by-person-by-day\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/steps-by-person-by-day.jpg?resize=690%2C518&ssl=1\" "\\"steps-by-person-by-day\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"devices[3]\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/devices3.jpg?resize=688%2C236&ssl=1\" "\\"devices[3]\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"steps-by-person-total\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/steps-by-person-total.jpg?resize=690%2C518&ssl=1\" "\\"steps-by-person-total\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"distance-by-person\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/distance-by-person.jpg?resize=690%2C447&ssl=1\" "\\"distance-by-person\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"formula\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/formula.jpg?resize=690%2C164&ssl=1\" "\\"formula\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"distance-in-miles[1]\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/distance-in-miles11.jpg?resize=690%2C518&ssl=1\" "\\"distance-in-miles[1]\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"calories-burned-by-person\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/calories-burned-by-person.jpg?resize=690%2C518&ssl=1\" "\\"calories-burned-by-person\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"daily-winners\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/daily-winners.jpg?resize=690%2C518&ssl=1\" "\\"daily-winners\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"cloud\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/cloud1.jpg?resize=690%2C359&ssl=1\" "\\"cloud\\"")
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