CIS 8020 Assignment 2 MB Google Charts

An international shipping company does a lot of business with the USA. Since it's based in the UK, it has funds in both Euro and British Pounds, and can use either to pay for shipment. Due to currency rate fluctuations, it may be more advantageous to pay in one currency over another at a particular point in time. In order to make the decision which currency to use, the company would like to visualize the data to help with the decision.

The company decided to use Google's Chart API for several reasons. Since it's web-based, charts can easily be embedded into dashboards and other reports. The charts are also dynamic, since it's possible to supply a currency rate data URL instead of static, hardcoded figures. Ideally, once set up, the business doesn't have anything else to configure, except refresh the page/dashboard to get an updated graph.



The Chart API was an ideal choice since the setup is straightforward, with minimal programming knowledge -- just plug parameters into the URL. Both the chart and the forex data are hosted and retrieved elsewhere for free, requiring the company minimal overhead to operate the functionality. This is essentially a turn-key solution with faster and cheaper deployment compared to proprietary and self-hosted charting packages.