Why the Right Data Tools Matter for Quality Analytics and Insights

Anyone who has built a dashboard or report knows that the underlying data is critical to the outcome of the final product. One of our customers called it “data plumbing,” or the hard, ugly work behind the scenes that goes into creating quality analytics and insights that govern what decisions you make to run your business. This often-invisible, behind-the-scenes plumbing is critical to reliable, accurate, and robust business intelligence (BI) but is usually overlooked. Many users report this “data plumbing” can take up to 80% of the time to produce a dashboard or report.

Let’s dive into why all this matters, how it can affect your insights, and how you can solve and automate these challenges without breaking your budget.

Challenge 1: Out-of-date, stale data from yesterday’s sync

Most native connectors or middleware solutions only provide limited data update schedules. As the speed of business continues to accelerate, more companies are finding that data from yesterday, or even only hours ago, is no longer fresh enough to make decisions. For example, logistics companies, where road conditions and other unforeseen circumstances change each minute, need reporting that updates with estimated times of arrival to operate smoothly. This requires solutions that are capable of updating data in output systems as soon as it changes in the source.

Challenge 2: Mismatched data schemas and formats

Every system stores data in slightly different ways, each with different headers, formats, and conventions. Trying to force data schemas to match between systems is a difficult challenge, causing headaches not just in making it work for one import, but also the challenges in setting up flows that continue to run indefinitely. Most have encountered dreaded, confusing error messages that usually end up being a schema or formatting issue, like time and date formats (MM/DD/YYYY vs. YYYY/MM/DD, for example). This is not just a technical challenge, but it’s a people challenge too—deciphering and identifying which columns match up to which other column requires business context around the data, therefore requiring interfaces that help users make those translations easily, ideally without coding.

Challenge 3: Connector limitations and the updates that break them

Even if a native connector is available, it often might have performance limitations, poor refresh rates, or rate limits. On top of this, if companies update their connectors and even make small changes, like API call updates, whole connections can break and take your insights down. Manually maintaining these connections separately is expensive and time-consuming. Custom connectors for your use case can work, but they also cost time and money to maintain in-house or with consultants.

Advantage Investigations builds outstanding dashboards and reports with the right data tools

What does an outstanding dashboard that was built seamlessly with the right data tools look like? This example from Advantage Investigations is a robust, filterable HR data dashboard that updates in real time, offering insights from the highest levels to the finest details when needed.

Great dashboards anticipate stakeholder and executive questions, instantly drilling down on interesting trends without needing to go all the way back to the data. Setting this up is no easy feat and requires surmounting all three challenges: normalizing data to consistent schemas across data sources, updating as payroll data comes in multiple times a day, and connecting to tricky data sources – in this case, ADP.

Solution #1: Live data automatically connected to Power BI

• Connect Cloud automatically updates the data in ADP as it changes—critical for timecards and other objects that update by the hour.

Solution #2: Data schema controls to match attributes

• In Connect Cloud, schemas can be created for virtual datasets that match up to Power BI filters, creating a more robust dashboard.

Solution #3: No connector maintenance required

• Advantage Investigation focuses on their investigative work instead of updating connectors as, for example, APIs change.

Watch: Learn how Advantage Investigations builds outstanding Power BI dashboards the HR team loves

CData Connect Cloud: Build live data connections to power quality analytics and insights

CData Connect Cloud enables teams of all sizes tackling different use cases to build live connections to tricky systems, maintaining the connectors for you. In the platform, it’s easy to select, filter, and build data schemas so they match across systems, setting rules that continue to run automatically in real time so you don’t have to worry.

Get a free 30-day trial today to start powering better analytics and insights with live data.