Three Rules for Creating Useful Embedded Analytics
Embedding analytics into your commercial software applications brings tremendous value for business users, giving them access to analytics within the context of their applications. But to be successful, product owners need to pay special attention to not only the UI customization but also the architectural integration.
There is a multitude of modern features product owners should pay special attention to. At the behest of The New Stack, we have compiled a list of some of the most crucial ones to consider when embedding analytics into another product or application:
Zero Client-side Coding
Setting up your data analytics business processes should be simple. Your customers should not have to install any client-side applications, plug-ins, or purchase new devices to get started. Equally important, product owners should not worry about potential upgrades or migrations when hardware or OS configurations changes occur.
Given this, standard support should include a single sign-on and RESTful architecture, a variety of APIs, and front-end technologies, such as JavaScript. This ensures a range of support for security, web applications, and data connectivity.
Little (or No) Training
Ultimately, your customers are going to be engaged with the analytics side of your product, and providing self-service user interfaces and guided report creation is paramount to maximizing convenience.
Embedded analytics achieves greater usability by providing in-context insights. Also, the solution itself can leverage a host of usability concepts to aid in the mission of getting from data to insight. For example, chart creation should feature such quick actions as one-click chart conversions allowing users to rapid prototype their way to the best visualization. Additionally, responsive design supports the visualizations across a variety of device form factors.
Given this provision along with a seamlessly integrated analytics environment, your customers should have no prerequisite training to use your analytics functionality. Product owners should be wary of vendors that require lengthy on-site or web-based training classes to use their product. If users are already trained with the core application, they should not require comprehensive training to use the analytics facing side.
A Customizable Experience
As mentioned above, product owners often need to provide analytics in specific contexts. Considerations for this include white-labeling, language localization, or how the analytics solution appears in the application. A solution that provides a static analytics interface, English-only solution, or shallow options in the way of customization and integration features will limit your application down the road when requirements may change.
To that end, product owners should seek an analytics solution that allows them to take a fine-grained approach to deciding what individual features to embed. Additionally, this approach should allow for control of the behavior of features as well as options to expose functionality and control options in certain areas of your application.
Final Thoughts
Product owners know that integrating analytics is mission-critical to adding value to their product offerings to support revenue growth. At the end of the day, integration is critical to providing in-context insights through a unified analytical workflow from within your application.
Customers will truly appreciate working in an environment that is convenient, easy-to-use, and provides advanced functionality. Additionally, a well-integrated application eases the burden of work on your development team as everything is much more in sync and streamlined for your customers. Specifically, R&D is supported by the analytics provider, which will continuously improve your analytical offerings without distracting your development team from work on the core application.
Feature image via Pixabay.
