Dundas Rewind: The Best of BI & Data Analytics Content of 2021

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A new collection of nuggets to amp up your analytics business

It has been a year full of new lessons and insights for humanity coming out of the pandemic. As more and more of us connected remotely, businesses and services worked towards rapid digitization and automation to ensure the experience remained pleasant while maintaining social distance and all the necessary safety measures. As a result, we saw a surge in the need to capture, analyze and visualize data.

In the past decade, they called data the new oil. The start of this decade is already showing signs of how this new oil is not only powering a whole new set of machines but how we as a society are increasingly depending on it.

To keep up with the demand for data-backed decision making, customizing business intelligence and reporting experience is becoming even more important as non-technical people are being introduced to data analytics in a self-service manner.

The Fast Rising Trend of Embedding Analytics in Business Workflows 

In the past, business intelligence (BI) platforms usage fell under two distinct categories: “direct use” or “embedded use”.

'Direct use' of BI software meant users would use it as provided out of the box to analyze datasets for their individual analyses. In contrast, 'embedded use' meant programmatically embedding parts of the BI platform into another application, to add analytics capabilities into the end user's existing ecosystem, usually for resale. Therefore, making customization and white labelling key characteristics for selecting a BI platform.

The nature of usage also distinguished the organizations depending on whether they are looking at analyze their own data or wanting to add analytics functionalities within their suite of software solutions.

To make the analytics experience less intimidating for the non-technical business users while also encouraging more adoption of BI tools for decision making, we are seeing more “direct use” organizations demanding embedded analytics capabilities from software platforms to weave them in their business workflows.

Take Guess Work Out of The Equation

Whether you are planning to embed analytics in your business workflows or wanting to make your software solution future-proof by adding analytics capabilities in it, we are here to make your search for the right resources easier. We have curated a list of our most consumed content to help you get an entire picture of BI & data analytics. You can use the links below to jump to categories that cater to your specific interests or scroll through to deepen your knowledge from different aspects while understanding where our solution, Dundas BI, stands in the crowded BI market.

Best of Blogs 

Best of Expert Video Tips 

Best of Case Studies 

Best of Industry Reports  

Best of Blogs 

  1. How Embedded BI Is Changing the Game for Advanced Analytics 
    The average person might not think much about embedded BI — or even know what it is. But perhaps without even realizing it, they’ve been taking advantage of embedded analytics, or embedded business intelligence, throughout the pandemic. And it’s a trend that will only increase as it becomes part of our next normal. In this blog, Vawn Himmelsbach, explains why embedded BI is a game changer for advanced analytics.

  2. Looking For Business Intelligence? Important Questions to Ask Potential Vendors
    Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Visualization projects are always evolving with changing needs of industries. For this reason, when you evaluate a BI tool, you need to make sure the tool you choose will grow and expand as your analytics requirements evolve. Regardless of the software platform you decide to partner with, general flexibility will be essential in the long run as it is tough to predict your future needs. Therefore, our Senior Solutions Architect, Jeff Hainsworth, recommends a list of important questions you should ask your potential BI vendors in this blog.

  3. Business Intelligence Requirements Gathering: What to Do Before Building Dashboards 
    To make your Business Intelligence (BI) project a real success, comprehensive requirements gathering is the first and the most important step of the journey. In this blog, our Manager of Professional Services, Dany Nehme explains why business intelligence requirements gathering is important, the four types of assessments you need to conduct to identify your business intelligence & analytics requirements and provides guidelines for gathering these requirements.

  4. Connect All Your Dots with Relationship Diagram 
    Everyone probably has more relationships in their data than they realize. Any two columns may be describing a relationship and if the same set of values can occur in either column, just these two columns can be used to map out some complex connections or networks between entities that you might not even expect. In this blog, our R&D Director for Data Visualizations, Jamie Cherwonka, talks about Dundas BI's built-in and full-featured relationship diagrams which are ready to use for better understanding these connections.

  5. Must Have Features for Successful Embedded BI Projects 
    The aim of embedded analytics solutions is to drive growth by accelerating time to value of your data apps by providing a consistent experience to your data users. To ensure you can have complete control over your users’ experience, there are some features your BI solution of choice must have. In this blog, Jeff Hainsworth, walks you through those essential features. 

Best of Expert Video Tips 

  1. Exploring The Total Cost of Ownership of Business Intelligence 
    For those of you interested in stepping into the world of business intelligence (BI), you're probably interested in knowing what it costs. When it comes to BI, there’s much more to its cost than licenses. Only after you understand the various aspects of the analytics journey can you ask better questions to understand the actual cost of ownership of BI. In this video, we give you a checklist of all possible expenses for an enterprise BI project.

  2. Why You Need to Pair Data Governance with Self Service 
    In efforts to unlock the value of data, without proper control over your data that is provided to others in a self-service analytics environment, you’re at the risk of significantly impacting your enterprises bottom-line. In this video, we explain why the only way to maintain a consistent quality of data and keep different pieces compatible with each other is to pair data governance with self-service analytics.

  3. APIs - The Unsung Legends of Dundas BI 
    We built Dundas BI a developer in mind. With the power of Application Programming Interface (APIs), we give you the freedom to extend and customize the entire experience in a way that perfectly suits your business users. We understand the need for seamless user experience. For that reason, through APIs, we empower you to effortlessly make our software a part of your ecosystem. In this video, our expert tells you how APIs make Dundas BI a truly extendable platform.

  4. Data Source Integration & Dundas BI 
    “Will your business intelligence tool support our data source?”, that’s one question we get asked by every prospecting BI customer. To help answer this question, in this video, we talk about data sources available in Dundas BI, specifically the mechanisms used to connect to data.

  5. Predictive Analytics: Debunked 
    Predictive Analytics is one area of Business Intelligence (BI) that users tend to have very high expectations about. In this video, our expert looks at some of these beliefs and tries to temper our expectations a little bit regarding Predictive Analytics. At the end of the day, predictive is all about mobilizing the right set of tools and not deploying 'Skynet' to solve all your problems.

Best of Case Studies  

  1. How Tria Metis was able to create a new line of business with Dundas BI 
    Tria Metis is a cutting-edge software solution company that offers best-in-class services for a wide range of clientele. Originally focused on healthcare insurance products, they have since expanded to serve companies outside the healthcare industry throughout Dubai, Egypt, and Lebanon.  
     
    With the implementation of Dundas BI, Tria Metis was able to quickly expand their business and create tailored BI solutions for their clients across various industries. All their clients have gained complete visibility over their business and are empowered to make real-time decisions. 
     
    The case study details how embedding analytics benefitted Tria Metis’ business growth.

  2. How BI is changing the way health data is viewed by the health ministry and the public 
    Dedicated to driving excellence in healthcare and improving Norway’s public health, The Norwegian Directorate of Health, a subordinate agency of the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services, is responsible for monitoring conditions that affect public health and for identifying public health trends across Norway.  
     
    The case study highlights how the Norwegian Directorate of Health managed to open more data to the public, thus improving access, organizational transparency, and public health analysis. It details how Dundas BI enables the organization to improve government services when it comes to making data accessible and in turn, reap the benefits of democratized data analysis by users across the globe. 
     

Best of Industry Reports 
 
Real user reviews and analyst reports are important consideration factors in selecting business intelligence software. The following are the reports that help you understand how BI software is evaluated and how Dundas BI compares with other solutions out there. 

Info-Tech Research Group Reports (SoftwareReviews) 

Info-Tech Research Group produces unbiased and highly relevant IT research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. They partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations. 

  1. Info-Tech Scorecard 2021 Report for Dundas BI 
    (Dundas BI ranked #1 recommended software)

  2. BI Data Quadrant 2021 Report from Info-Tech 
    (Dundas BI becomes the leading software for Breath of Features and Vendor Support)

  3. Info-Tech August 2021 Product Scorecard Report for Dundas BI 
    (Dundas BI ranked #1 for Ease of Customization) 
     

TEC Insight Report 

Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) has created this TEC Insight Report and TEC Insight Graph to help arm decision makers with accurate data and incisive context to inform their business software choices. Senior TEC Analysts undertake comprehensive investigations to form these Insight Reports, combining data-driven analyses, methodical user surveys and their years of expertise to assess solutions. The report evaluates software solutions in two main areas – functionality and user experience (UX). 

  1. TEC Insight September 2021 Report on BI & Analytics Solutions 
    (Jorge García, Principal Analyst for BI and Data Management, TEC, calls Dundas BI the software has an unprecedented level of flexibility) 
     

BARC BI & Analytics Survey 22 

The BARC BI & Analytics Survey 22 is based on findings from the world’s largest and most comprehensive survey of business intelligence end users. In total, 2,470+ people responded to the survey and 30 products (or groups of products) were analyzed in detail. The BI & Analytics Survey 22 examines user feedback on BI product selection and usage across 36 criteria (KPIs) including Business Benefits, Project Success, Business Value, Recommendation, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Experience, Innovation and Competitiveness. 

  1. BARC Survey Report 2022 
    (Dundas BI awarded 12 top rankings and 61 leading positions) 

And that’s a wrap folks! We will be back in the new year with more insightful content to help you chart new trends on your analytics canvas.

About the Author

Tejas Shah

Tejas Shah is a Computer Science graduate with a major in Data Science and a marketer by trade who is passionate about data-driven storytelling. He authors content that educates and offers a fresh perspective in the world of business intelligence and analytics.

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