Dave Fowler - The Informed Company

Source: pgadmin.org

Tools like Geckoboard or Grow receive data from cloud applications via APIs, then visualize that data in simple yet useful ways ( Figure 1.5). These tools can provide data blended from multiple sources into a single dashboard.

These types of cloud dashboard tools often come with some helpful default dashboards and also look great on TVs around the office. They keep teams aware of what's going on. However, these solutions are very limited in their customizations.

Figure 1.5Geckoboard like dashboard displaying standard sales metrics.

Tools like Amplitude and Mixpanel ( Figure 1.6) can help make product managers more self‐sufficient by removing the need to involve engineering to add tracking events. Product analytics provides templated analysis and a GUI so no code is needed to ask questions of the data. This appears to be a great solution, but we would advise caution with these sorts of tools.

Unfortunately these tools are typically expensive and for every new event tracked you have to wait a few months to get the data you need. These events are typically already tracked in the application database but may be named and stored in hard to understand ways. In addition, product analytics tools are limited to data from the application, meaning we can't see revenue or other business metrics that exist in other sources. Product Analytics do not really scale to serve the data needs companies have.

Figure 1.6Mixpanel cohort analysis.

Source: Mixpanel

For the most power in working with source data, use a flexible self‐service BI solution. For this stage, be sure to choose an agile product that supports direct SQL queries and ideally the ability to connect to and blend data from multiple sources.

The main benefits of adopting a BI solution with direct SQL capabilities include:

Consistency of data access.

Lower cost of operation.

Portability of data to future systems such as data lakes.

When data sources aren't consolidated or cleaned and organized, these types of BI solutions are necessary but, on occasion, may require complex SQL queries. Tools like Looker and our very own Chartio support writing queries and managing custom dashboards ( Figure 1.7).

Figure 1.7Chartio Dashboard Executive Summary of Sales Metrics.

Source: CHARTIO

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