No front-end coding required!
Having just completed the IBM course "Data Visualization with Python" I thought it could be useful to share some of the insights I've gained.
Dash
Dash is a Python framework for building interactive web applications. It can be used to create web dashboards that good look and do not need knowledge of any front-end coding languages such as Javascript.
Underlying the app can be complex Python code with large amounts of data. Results specific to the parameter values selected by the user are presented on the dashboard.
The Python library plotly is used to generate charts. This supports a very wide range of graphs.
Example
The dashboard below shows graphs of data reflecting selected values from two dropdown menus.
Data manipulation and charting is done through back-end Python calculations.
The format of dashboard output can also change depending on user selection.
The user can hover over data points to see further detail. Drop down options presented can be set dynamically in code e.g. years in the dataset.
Development
Dash itself is opensource, with a wide user community, and can be installed like any other Python library.
Prototyping can be done in your local IDE e.g. Jupyter Notebook. The dashboard output will display and allow user interactions.
To deploy to production I understand that using paid-for Dash Enterprise is recommended. This packages the app to a container like Kubernetes and host it on the cloud. They can also manage authorisations for access. I've not personally tested this - one for a future project.
Other frameworks
Dash is just one of a number of Python web frameworks...
The IBM course focussed on Dash, with benefits outlined in the table above. Before setting out on an enterprise application, a full review of other approaches should be done against app aims.
Summary
Web apps can be created easily with relatively simple Python knowledge! I can see many business use cases for this, where showing results of complex Python calculations in an easily digestible way is vital.
Useful links
Dash Python User Guide
Dash gallery showing what's possible
IBM Data Visualization with Python course
https://www.coursera.org/learn/python-for-data-visualization
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