Self-service analytics: empowering everyone to drive value from data

Relying on others to get things done can quickly become tedious and inefficient. Work happens faster when we have the knowledge and tools to solve problems ourselves. When it comes to analyzing data, the situation is no different. Ideally, we should all be able to independently dive into data and uncover the insights we need to improve the ways we work.

The quickest path to self-sufficient data exploration across an organization is with intuitive, approachable BI solutions that help to simplify information with visual data stories.

What is a self-service analytics approach?

Self-service analytics means users independently exploring and analyzing data, rather than relying on a data team to create reports for them. These self-service users should be able to easily create ad hoc queries, reports, and data visualizations on their own.

By adopting and implementing this approach to data exploration, you transform users from a group that is limited to merely consuming reports created by a data specialist, to a group that’s capable of consuming, understanding, and making sense of data. By empowering users in this way, they’re able to understand the story behind their data, not simply wait for insights to be shared with them.

With a traditional approach to analytics, the BI or IT team does the analysis for the business users. This often causes bottlenecks and prevents the right data from getting to the right people at the right time. But the pace of a modern and agile business isn’t compatible with this waiting around. Business users need insights to answer the questions they’re facing right now. Self-service analytics focuses on this immediacy and removes any bottlenecks in the data pipeline.

How does self-service analytics serve the business?

Self-service analytics opens up access to data for everyone and speeds up the flow of insights through the business.

These programs are designed in a way that is easy to use. Users don’t need a background in stats or data science to ask and answer their own business questions with data. They can easily get to the root cause of a big spike in sales, for instance. When these platforms also use a low or no-code approach, it can substantially boost business users’ confidence to deep dive into the data, from their first interaction with the tool.

With an intuitive user interface, business users feel more comfortable navigating self-service type applications. Familiar layouts and features like on/off toggles, and easy-to-use components like drag-and-drop, right-click, or a Google-type search functionality makes it more comfortable to work with even complex data. It also becomes far easier to take the next step – creating a visual data story – which empowers more users to uncover actionable insights.

This simplification of data analysis helps users make meaningful choices and gives them more flexibility in how they work with data. They can access, analyze, and report on the data they want, and aren’t forced to choose between predetermined options created by a data team operating in a silo.

Self-service analytics saves time for business users and those with hard data skills, enabling people to focus on critical tasks. Rather than a developer spending hours creating a perfect management dashboard, they can focus on business logic or tasks that cannot be automated. By empowering everyone across the organization with this kind of autonomy and freedom, neither developers nor business users are left to rely upon anyone else in order to get important parts of their jobs done.

Astrato: The added power of cloud analytics

Astrato is a no-code BI and analytics platform that is 100% cloud-based. Astrato is built for the cloud, so your data visualizations sit directly on top of your cloud data platform. With super-fast load times, your team has access to real-time dashboards and insights for immediate business decisions.

Self-service analytics connects everyone to a single source of truth. And that makes it easier for people to collaborate. When this collaboration happens in the cloud, you get the added speed, accuracy, and security that the cloud offers. With Astrato, your data is always secure. World-class data governance keeps your confidential information safe at all times. And enables you to limit what data specific users can access.

 

User-friendly analytics gives everyone the confidence and autonomy to get the most from their data.  And with this self-service approach, teams can share and build on their insights quickly and easily.  With Astrato, you’re visualizing live, trustworthy data. An essential need for a modern analytics team.

Sign up for free