Enroll Course: https://www.udemy.com/course/automating-link-charts/
For many professionals in crime and intelligence analysis, the creation of detailed link charts can be a painstakingly slow process, often consuming hours or even days. If this sounds familiar, then the Udemy course ‘Automating Link Charts’ is about to become your new best friend.
This course tackles a common pain point head-on by teaching you how to automate the creation of these crucial visualizations. The beauty of this course lies in its accessibility. It leverages data structures commonly found in police records management systems and utilizes tools that are either free or widely available: NodeXL, a free plugin for Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Access.
What’s particularly impressive is that you don’t need any prior technical training or programming experience to succeed. The instructor starts from the absolute basics, guiding you through the fundamentals of relational databases using examples from typical police department records management systems. You’ll gain a clear understanding of how this data is organized and, most importantly, how to write simple SQL queries to extract and manipulate it.
The course then moves into practical application by teaching you how to package these SQL queries within MS Access macros. This results in two incredibly useful tools. The first is an offender search tool designed to combat the ‘dirty data’ and duplicate entries that plague many law enforcement databases. Simply type in a name, or even a partial name, and the tool helps you identify the correct individual from your master names list, allowing you to select your target for analysis.
The second macro is where the real magic happens for link chart creation. Once you’ve identified your target, this macro runs a series of SQL queries to generate an ‘edge list’ for that individual. This edge list is precisely what your link charting software needs. The process that once took hours is now reduced to mere seconds. The course concludes with a helpful overview of visualization options within NodeXL, showing you how to make your automated link charts truly shine.
‘Automating Link Charts’ is a game-changer for anyone who regularly builds link charts. It empowers you to reclaim significant amounts of time, improve data accuracy, and focus more on analysis rather than manual data preparation. Highly recommended!
Enroll Course: https://www.udemy.com/course/automating-link-charts/