📚 Tutorials & Use Cases

Step-by-step tutorials for common ChartSmith MCP use cases.

🚀 Getting Started Tutorials

Tutorial 1: Your First Business Dashboard

Goal: Create a comprehensive sales dashboard in 10 minutes.

Step 1: Connect ChartSmith MCP

npx -y @smithery/cli@latest connect "https://<YOUR_DOMAIN>/mcp"

Step 2: Prepare Your Data

I have Q4 sales data:
- Product A: Q1: $45k, Q2: $52k, Q3: $48k, Q4: $55k
- Product B: Q1: $38k, Q2: $41k, Q3: $44k, Q4: $47k  
- Product C: Q1: $29k, Q2: $33k, Q3: $36k, Q4: $39k
- Product D: Q1: $22k, Q2: $25k, Q3: $28k, Q4: $31k

Step 3: Create Dashboard

Create a sales dashboard with:
1. Quarterly revenue trend (line chart)
2. Product performance comparison (bar chart)
3. Q4 market share (pie chart)
4. Growth rate analysis (scatter plot)

Use professional styling suitable for executive presentation.

Result: A complete 4-chart dashboard ready for your next board meeting!


Tutorial 2: E-commerce Analytics

Goal: Analyze online store performance with multiple visualizations.

Scenario: You run an e-commerce site and want to understand customer behavior.

Step 1: Traffic Analysis

Analyze our website traffic sources for December:
- Organic Search: 45% (12,450 visitors)
- Social Media: 25% (6,920 visitors)
- Direct Traffic: 20% (5,540 visitors)
- Paid Ads: 8% (2,216 visitors)
- Email Marketing: 2% (554 visitors)

Create a pie chart showing traffic distribution with insights.

Step 2: Conversion Funnel

Show our sales funnel performance:
Website Visitors (27,680) → 
Product Views (18,400) → 
Add to Cart (5,520) → 
Checkout Started (2,760) → 
Purchase Completed (1,380)

Create a funnel visualization with conversion rates at each stage.

Step 3: Product Performance

Compare our top products by revenue:
- Wireless Headphones: $45,230
- Smartphone Cases: $38,920
- Bluetooth Speakers: $32,150
- Screen Protectors: $28,840
- Charging Cables: $25,990

Create a horizontal bar chart with growth indicators.

📊 Advanced Use Cases

Use Case 1: Financial Planning Dashboard

Industry: Financial Services Goal: Create investor-ready financial visualizations.

Build a comprehensive financial dashboard:

1. Revenue Growth (5-year trend):
   2020: $2.1M, 2021: $2.8M, 2022: $3.6M, 2023: $4.2M, 2024: $5.1M

2. Expense Breakdown (2024):
   - Personnel: 45% ($2.295M)
   - Operations: 25% ($1.275M)
   - Marketing: 15% ($765K)
   - Technology: 10% ($510K)
   - Other: 5% ($255K)

3. Profit Margins by Quarter:
   Q1: 18%, Q2: 22%, Q3: 25%, Q4: 28%

4. Cash Flow Analysis:
   Jan: +$125K, Feb: +$98K, Mar: +$156K, Apr: +$187K...

Create professional charts suitable for investor presentations.

Use Case 2: Marketing Campaign Analysis

Industry: Digital Marketing Goal: Measure and optimize campaign performance.

Analyze our multi-channel marketing campaign:

1. Campaign Performance by Channel:
   - Google Ads: 1,250 leads, $125K revenue, $15K cost
   - Facebook Ads: 980 leads, $89K revenue, $12K cost  
   - LinkedIn Ads: 420 leads, $156K revenue, $8K cost
   - Email Marketing: 2,100 leads, $78K revenue, $3K cost

2. Customer Acquisition Cost trends over 6 months
3. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) comparison
4. Lead quality score distribution

Generate insights about which channels provide the best ROI.

Use Case 3: Operations Dashboard

Industry: Manufacturing Goal: Monitor production efficiency and quality metrics.

Create an operations monitoring dashboard:

1. Production Output (daily for last 30 days):
   Target: 1000 units/day
   Actual: [varying between 850-1150 units]

2. Quality Metrics:
   - Defect Rate: 2.3%
   - First Pass Yield: 94.5%
   - Customer Returns: 0.8%

3. Equipment Utilization:
   - Line A: 87%
   - Line B: 92%
   - Line C: 78%
   - Line D: 95%

4. Downtime Analysis by cause:
   - Scheduled Maintenance: 45%
   - Equipment Failure: 30%
   - Material Shortage: 15%
   - Other: 10%

Include trend analysis and predictive indicators.

🧠 AI-Powered Analytics Tutorials

Tutorial 3: Predictive Analytics

Goal: Use AI to identify trends and make predictions.

I have 2 years of monthly sales data. Can you:
1. Identify seasonal patterns
2. Predict next quarter's performance
3. Highlight any concerning trends
4. Suggest optimization opportunities

[Paste your historical sales data here]

Tutorial 4: Anomaly Detection

Goal: Automatically identify unusual patterns in your data.

Analyze this performance data for anomalies:
- Daily website traffic for the past 90 days
- Conversion rates by traffic source
- Customer satisfaction scores
- Support ticket volumes

Highlight any unusual patterns and suggest possible causes.

📱 Interactive Dashboard Tutorials

Tutorial 5: Real-time Monitoring

Goal: Create dashboards that update automatically.

Build a real-time monitoring dashboard for our SaaS product:

1. Active Users (current):
   - Free Plan: 1,245 users
   - Pro Plan: 456 users  
   - Enterprise: 23 users

2. System Performance:
   - Response Time: 145ms avg
   - Uptime: 99.97%
   - Error Rate: 0.02%

3. Revenue Metrics (today):
   - New Signups: 12
   - Upgrades: 3
   - Churn: 2
   - MRR Growth: +$1,250

Create interactive charts with hover details and drill-down capabilities.

🎨 Styling & Branding Tutorials

Tutorial 6: Corporate Branding

Goal: Apply consistent brand styling across all charts.

Customize charts with our brand guidelines:
- Primary Color: #1E3A8A (blue)
- Secondary Color: #059669 (green)
- Accent Color: #DC2626 (red)
- Font: Inter, Arial fallback
- Logo: Include in top-right corner

Apply these styles to a quarterly performance dashboard.

Tutorial 7: Presentation-Ready Charts

Goal: Create charts optimized for different presentation formats.

Create the same revenue chart in three formats:
1. Executive Summary (high-level, minimal detail)
2. Board Presentation (dark theme, large fonts)
3. Detailed Analysis (full data, annotations)

Use our Q4 revenue data: $125K, $132K, $145K monthly progression.

🔄 Integration Tutorials

Tutorial 8: API Integration

Goal: Connect ChartSmith with external data sources.

Pull data from our CRM API and create charts showing:
1. Sales pipeline progression
2. Lead source effectiveness  
3. Deal size distribution
4. Sales rep performance

Automate weekly reports with consistent formatting.

Tutorial 9: Export & Sharing

Goal: Learn all export options and sharing methods.

Create a monthly sales report and export it in:
1. PDF format for email distribution
2. PNG images for social media
3. Interactive HTML for website embedding
4. Raw data CSV for further analysis

Include instructions for automated distribution.

💡 Pro Tips & Best Practices

Data Preparation

  1. Clean your data before visualization
  2. Use consistent date formats
  3. Handle missing values appropriately
  4. Aggregate data to appropriate levels

Chart Selection

  1. Bar charts for comparisons
  2. Line charts for trends over time
  3. Pie charts for part-to-whole relationships
  4. Scatter plots for correlations
  5. Heatmaps for matrix data

Storytelling with Data

  1. Start with a clear message
  2. Use annotations to highlight insights
  3. Choose colors that support your narrative
  4. Keep designs clean and uncluttered

Performance Optimization

  1. Limit data points for complex charts
  2. Use caching for frequently accessed charts
  3. Optimize image sizes for web display
  4. Test on different devices and screen sizes

🎯 Next Steps

Choose a tutorial that matches your use case:

  1. New to ChartSmith? Start with Tutorial 1 (Business Dashboard)
  2. E-commerce focus? Try Tutorial 2 (E-commerce Analytics)
  3. Advanced user? Explore the AI-powered analytics tutorials
  4. Need branded charts? Check out the styling tutorials

Ready to become a ChartSmith expert? Join our community 🚀