FPP Graphing application

FPP database and reports punch list

This paper outlines the organization of the Care For Life Family Preservation Program Custom Graphing Application.

Executive Summary

The Care For Life Family Preservation Program needs a custom graphing application that makes it easy and inviting to focus on areas of need, areas of success, and areas of improvement across a wide variety of combinations of dimensions and variables. The application needs to show trends and relationships in an intuitive way.

Prototype

Stock charting applications are well-developed examples of what the CFL FPP Custom Graphing Application might become. The ~MarketWatch ~BigCharts Interactive Charts application at http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/intchart/frames/frames.asp is the leading prototype candidate.

The ~BigCharts Interactive Charting application is layed out in two frames including a right-side menu frame and a left side (main) charting frame. The right-side menu frame has a few categories of options that are collapsed into a small list, but can expand into a lengthy array of drop-down menus. There is at the top a single "Draw Chart" button. There are "Store Chart Settings" and "Clear Chart Settings" buttons at the bottom.

FPP Graphing Concepts

The FPP Custom Graphing Application might cobble together presentations on the fly, juggling dexterously order and hierarchy needs on a page, by using the logical building block concepts of *dimension* and *quantity*.

Then once the basic outline of a page is established, there are for each logical piece of a page (each object on a page) attributes or properties that must be set once the type of the piece (the object) is known. The basic properties of each building block (object) are given below with the object.

Dimension

Dimensions are the logical groupings we use to give hierarchy and meaning to graphs. There are two major types of dimensions we are interesting in: *program dimension* and *presentation dimension*.

We begin with some dimensions to limit the scope of a page, add others to further limit the scope of a graph or graphs on the page, others to even further limit the scope of a graph item or items, and finally others to give exact meaning to a data point. For example, we may say a *page* is about Orphan Prevalence, include a comparative *graph* each for 2 zones of a community (*population*), on each graph include bars or lines (*series*) with the *x axis* representing a progression of Care For Life investment (*intervention time*), on which we plot the *y axis* value of orphan prevalence (*demographic measurement*) trend along with the *y axis* value of the trend for some intervention strategy (*intervention measurement*).

From the example just given we can extract basic program and presentation dimensions that must be handled independently by the FPP Custom Graphing Application.

Program dimensions

• population (community, zone, family, person or combination)
• intervention time (initial, progress, final, or series)
• demographic measurement (interview record, appraisal record)
• intervention measurement (goal setting record, goal follow-up record, attendance record, expense record)

Other dimensions that might be of lesser or no interest include:

• world time (year, month, day, etc.)

Presentation dimensions

• page (sizes, colors, fonts, titles, background image)
• graph (sizes, colors, fonts, titles, background image)
• x axis (scale, colors fonts, titles, legends)
• y axis (scale, colors fonts, titles, legends)
• series (type, sizes, colors, fonts, labels)

Quantity

Any dimension may be used any number of times on a page. So we add the concept of quantity to dimension to compete our framework for the logical layout of a page.