Building a data analytics platform (DAP) or implementing solutions like Data Analytics as a Service (DAaaS) can help businesses fulfill this need and get the maximum value out of the collected data. These cloud-based systems incorporate end-to-end data production components into an enterprise's analytics ecosystem.
A DAP helps ingest raw data, transform it, and use it for further analytics, reporting, and visualization, allowing you to retrieve applicable insights that inform better decisions.
In this article, you will find out more about building analytics software and why else it's crucial for your business operations.
A data analytics platform (DAP) is a comprehensive solution that gathers, processes, analyzes, and visualizes large data volumes from multiple sources. Such platforms provide the necessary tools and infrastructure to transform raw data into actionable, relevant insights, ensuring better decision-making and business intelligence (BI).
The main components of a data analytics platform include the following:
Building a data analytics platform contributes to your company's success in many ways. Below are some of the key benefits you'll get upon implementing one in your business operations:
Depending on your business needs and target audience, the list of features you may need to incorporate in your DAP may differ. However, there are must-have options that would fit any type of company or niche to maximize business efficiency. Below, you'll find some of the most essential ones.
One of the significant features of a high-quality DAP is the ability to organize data into informative summaries and track the performance of various areas within your company. Make sure to integrate a wide range of reporting tools like barcodes, infographics, tables, charts, etc. This will allow you to perform proper data formatting, conversion, scheduling, and customization.
A wide range of data representation tools (interactive dashboards, pattern indicators, diagrams, etc.) helps transform numerical data into a graphic representation of its performance. It also helps you detect hidden patterns and a correlation between selected data sets.
As you create a web analytics platform, make sure to include multiple filters to allow users to narrow their search and analyze particular sets of your company’s data. This will let you arrange datasets by specific values in a custom order for further analysis and better comprehension.
Data transformation tools help extract data from its storage, convert it into a necessary format, and transfer it to the target place for further analysis. Your analytics platform should handle complex procedures to help users extract relevant insights from the processed and structured data.
Your data analytics app should enable users to pull required information from multiple storage options (CRMs, ERPs, spreadsheets, etc.). To do so, you need to develop a unified data warehouse where you can safely keep unstructured and raw data from mutually-compatible sources.
As you build a data analytics platform, remember that users should have access to an efficient toolset for collaborative data management and visualization. Make sure its interface contains proper features for:
It’s essential to ensure web and mobile access to the dedicated services among your DAP users. This provides more flexibility to your employees and allows them to make informed decisions on the go. If you're not planning on creating a mobile version for your analytics platform, consider making a mobile-friendly web app.
Now that you know all the DAP basics, let's dig into the development process. Here's what it should look like in a nutshell:
During the first stage, you must define the key feature your DAP should obtain, what business goals it can efficiently cover, and what workflow your development team should follow. To break it down into specific steps, here's what you'll need to do:
The design stage encompasses various aspects of the development of DAP. Well-groomed UX and UI designs will ensure your platform's ease of use and high-end functionality, which are easily accessible and comprehensible to anyone.
At this point, you pick the tech stack and the development approach according to your work scope, business goals, desired functionality, and other factors. Opting for a proper development strategy will ensure the app's success and user-friendliness, which, as a result, will impact its efficiency and quality upon deployment.
Depending on your business's capabilities, you can choose between the existing software solutions or develop one from scratch — the latter would be more convenient if you're working in a narrow niche requiring specific features. You can also decide whether to hire an outside team to develop a dedicated DAP or use your in-house team's resources, provided they have enough expertise in that.
Once you have a workable prototype, you can get to product testing. At this point, you'll be able to define the platform’s weaknesses, test its functionality, and detect serious bugs before deployment.
As an option, you can also conduct focus group testing to understand users' overall impression of the product, notice design or functionality flaws, etc. As you build your own analytics platform, incorporate both functional (sanity, regression, etc.) and non-functional testing options (security, performance, etc.). Combining both types of testing will provide you with an overarching vision of what's good and what needs improvement in your product before deployment.
Once your app goes live, it can still contain bugs or visual flaws that neither your team nor the focus group can detect. Moreover, your app will most definitely require constant support to ensure all the issues are handled promptly.
Make sure to engage the support team in this process so they can quickly react to emerging issues. This way, you'll always stay informed on any bugs and be able to monitor the status of the support tickets or requests.
Building a data analytics platform will help you properly manage, store, and visualize vast volumes of information you receive as a business. It also helps improve the decision-making process and overall streamlines your business performance. Make sure to implement a custom, highly secure DAP into your business operations and make your company strive!
