Leveling up analytics: From home-grown solution to Sisense

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Leveling up analytics: From home-grown solution to Sisense

Background:

BigTinCan, a SaaS-based enterprise sales enablement solution developed by a small team in Minneapolis, originally used an in-house developed data visualization system. This system was based on popular open-source graphing libraries and initially met the needs of their customers. However, as the demand for more features such as additional dashboards, reports, automatic subscriptions, and filters grew, the engineering team found itself overwhelmed. The diverse needs of their customers created a never-ending roadmap of feature requests, prompting the team to evaluate commercially available data visualization products.

Evaluation and Decision:

BigTinCan conducted proofs of concept with two leading data visualization tools: Sisense and Amazon Quicksight. Sisense stood out due to its comprehensive support and deep engagement with BigTinCan, allowing for a quicker implementation and customization process. In contrast, Quicksight, while more cost-effective, required BigTinCan to manage the implementation on its own and offered a user experience that was not markedly better than their existing solution. Sisense’s team provided direct access to engineering resources, which proved invaluable in addressing challenges and integrating feedback.

Implementation Challenges and Solutions:

During the proof of concept, BigTinCan faced several challenges in aligning Sisense’s user interface with its existing in-house solution. Maintaining a consistent look and feel was crucial for minimizing change management for their customers. With Sisense’s support, BigTinCan was able to overcome these hurdles through the use of specific plugins and customization techniques:

1. Sticky Filters Plugin: User feedback revealed frustration with the need to re-select date ranges on every dashboard. Sisense's Sticky Filters plugin allowed filters to persist across dashboards, greatly enhancing the user experience.
2. Custom Widget Layouts: To address the issue of UI controls not matching the previous layout, Sisense’s team helped BigTinCan customize the widget layout, ensuring the controls for downloading detailed reports remained in their familiar positions.

Outcomes:

Migrating to Sisense proved transformative for BigTinCan, delivering several key benefits:

• Support escalations around analytics dropped 90%: Sisense’s intuitive interface and self-service capabilities empowered users to find answers independently, significantly decreasing the support team’s workload.
• Empowerment of business users: The user-friendly drag-and-drop interface enabled business teams to create and deploy custom dashboards tailored to specific customer needs, fostering data-driven decision-making across the organization.
• Reallocation in engineering headcount: By transitioning away from maintaining an in-house solution, BigTinCan was able to reallocate engineering resources from analytics development to core product development, reducing the headcount from two to zero.
• Over 4k customer report subscriptions, resulting in a 350% increase in usage: Sisense’s automated reporting and distribution features facilitated the delivery of timely and relevant insights to customers, eliminating the need for manual report generation.

Conclusion:

The switch from an in-house analytics solution to Sisense was a pivotal move for BigTinCan. It not only addressed immediate challenges related to scalability and customer demands but also delivered significant long-term benefits. The reduction in support escalations, empowerment of business users, optimized use of engineering resources, and enhanced reporting capabilities underscore the value of a well-implemented enterprise analytics platform. Sisense’s expert guidance throughout the implementation process was crucial in ensuring a smooth transition and maximizing the platform’s potential for BigTinCan.

You can read more about how BigTinCan leveraged Sisense-embedded dashboards to level up their analytics game with customers.  Sisense assistance helped smooth the process and deliver value sooner in my previous blog.