Spotfire Analytics Flashcards

What is a Spotfire Analysis file (.dxp) and what does it contain?

Answer: A Spotfire project file containing data connections, data transformations, visualisations, filters, calculations, and dashboard layout — all saved in a single portable file

A .dxp file is the Spotfire analysis package — it stores data source connections, applied transformations, all visualisation pages, filters, calculated columns, document properties, and TERR/Python scripts.

What is the role of TIBCO Spotfire Server's Library in an enterprise deployment?

Answer: A centralised repository where Spotfire analyses, data connections, templates, and Information Links are stored, versioned, and access-controlled for multi-user collaboration and publishing

The Spotfire Library is the server-side content repository. Analysts publish analyses to the Library so colleagues can access them via browser or Spotfire client, with folder-level access controls determining who can read, write, or delete content.

What is Spotfire Streaming Analytics primarily used for?

Answer: Real-time continuous analytics on high-velocity streaming data (IoT sensors, financial tick data, log streams) with low-latency visual dashboards that update as events arrive

Spotfire Streaming Analytics (TIBCO StreamBase) provides CEP and streaming computation capabilities with Spotfire-quality live visualisation, targeting financial trading, IoT, and operational analytics use cases requiring sub-second latency.

How does Spotfire's Guided Analytics feature help less experienced analysts?

Answer: Providing pre-built analytical flows, recommendations, and action controls that guide users through a structured analysis process without requiring SQL or scripting knowledge

Guided Analytics uses pre-configured action controls, document properties, and conditional visualisations to walk users through structured analytical decision trees, making sophisticated analysis accessible to business users without technical skills.

What is TIBCO Spotfire's Data Canvas and how does it improve data preparation?

Answer: A visual data wrangling interface where analysts perform data transformation steps (joins, pivots, calculations, filtering) in a graphical pipeline that shows a preview at each step without writing code

The Data Canvas is Spotfire's visual data preparation environment — a graphical pipeline where analysts add, join, transform, and preview data in a step-by-step flow, making data wrangling self-service and auditable.

How does TIBCO Spotfire support embedding analytics in external web applications?

Answer: Via the Spotfire Embedding API (JavaScript) and the Spotfire Web Player that renders analysis panels in an iframe or directly in a host application's DOM, with programmatic control over filters and markings from the host application's JavaScript

Spotfire's JavaScript Embedding API allows web applications to embed live, interactive Spotfire visualisations using an iframe or JS SDK, and programmatically set filters, trigger markings, and respond to user interactions from the host application.