Dashboards

We have been working hard to improve the dashboard creation experience whilst also expanding the data models a user can choose to create a dashboard from. This introduces a couple of new concepts to the platform:

Common Data Model

The common data model has always existed and holds consolidated and highly refined data entities that are derived from data sources that are connected to The Data Refinery. Previously we ran all analytic and dashboard capabilities from this model.

Connection Models

When a data source is connected to The Data Refinery, we store that systems data in its original operational form before transforming subsets of that data into our Common Data Model. This original “landing” data is now available in the platform to be explored and built upon alongside our Common Data Model.

What does this mean?

This means that our users can now take advantage of both our advanced analytical models and original source system models. This caters for situations where our common models require extra business context or niche data points that are specific to a system or process.

When building new charts or dashboards, users now have the option to select from any of the connected data sources or our Common Data Model:

Selecting a data source will automatically provide the user with suggestions of measures groupings and filters to be applied to the data to generate tables, charts or visualisations.

Dashboard Templates

We realise that the above change introduces potentially a huge number of new data models for our users to explore and understand. To help speed up this process we have also introduced a library of templates for connected data sources. This allows a user to create dashboard charts from our list of most popular templates without first having to explore the underlying data. If a user knows the outcome they want, they can find a template as a starting point, this also enables users to create a single dashboard that can surface insight from any of the connected data sources (or from our Common Data Model).

Data Model Maps

Again, in the spirit of helping our users get a much better handle on the data they have in the systems connected to The Data Refinery or within our Common Data Model, we have now released a data map feature that users can take advantage of to understand data model and data relationships. The data map can be found in our Discovery module:

Introducing Forecasts

The Data Refinery processes a lot of data on behalf of our customers to create incredibly valuable insight. This insight has to date mostly been providing a backwards looking view of the world in terms of monitoring performance and targets and validating decision making.

We are thrilled to announce that we have now introduced forecasting capabilities within the platform. The Data Refinery can now provide forecasts for several key metrics which will allow our customers to start to plan business activities or make key decisions based on historic trends and seasonal variance. This new feature is just the beginning of our plans to superpower our customers data models using both Machine Learning and AI. Forecasts are now available to all users within our Advanced Insight module:

General Improvements

See below for a list of minor improvements and bug-fixes that have landed since our last roundup:

• Resolved an issue with uploads of .SVG files for themes.
• Fixed an issue where in some cases a dashboard could not be edited.
• Ensured global filters are applied when drilling into visualisations.
• Made several required dashboard fields optional to improve UX.
• Removed granularity filters from several pre-set dashboards.
• Ensured platform Terms & Conditions can be retrieved from billing or settings pages.
• Improved how data filters can be applied.
• Fixed decimal formatting inconsistencies on some screens.
• Improved layout of axis labels on charts with high number of data points.
• Fixed an issue when displaying some markdown features in dashboards.
• Fixes to the tour guide to improve UX.
• Improve chart tooltips to show multiple axis values.
• Allowed users to generate authentication links for new data source.
• Fixed an issue in the billing screen where invoice amounts would sometimes be empty.
• Resolved an error sometimes encountered in the customer search screen, due to data being nullable.
• Fixed a validation issue when filtering on dates on some screens.

Roadmap

Our roadmap can be viewed  here, and is ever evolving, we will ensure that all future features are based upon and prioritised via customer and community feedback.

Want to see these changes in action? Drop us a message and we'll show you how The Data Refinery can work for you! Alternatively, sign up and try out The Data Refinery for yourself.