Let's say I want to write a program that can generate a diagram (e.g. an organization chart, timeline, or GANTT chart) out of some input data sitting in a spreadsheet or database.
One big challenge is that users store their data in different formats that are frequently unstructured or missing 100% integrity. For example, I can think of several different ways a user could represent an organization's hierarchy in a spreadsheet.
To circumvent this problem, some applications, such as Excel and Access, have Wizards (such as the Excel Chart Wizard) that analyze the data set and prompts the user where necessary to figure out how it is structured. Are there other examples out there that I can learn from or maybe hook into?