Beyond Dashboards: The Transformative Power of Embedded Analytics

In today’s competitive SaaS landscape, customer satisfaction is paramount. One of the key ways to enhance customer experience is by providing them with self-service analytics directly within your SaaS application.

However, many companies fail to understand their responsibility to properly demonstrate the ROI of their product.

Every SaaS product is an analytics product.

Analytics is the only way to properly demonstrate the ROI of a software purchase. When it comes time for a renewal, your customers need to show their managers the value of your software.

How else are you going to do this without a strong analytics feature?

This post explores the journey from static dashboards to a comprehensive embedded analytics product that meets the needs of modern SaaS applications. You can also watch the full webinar on this topic here in this YouTube video as well. (There’s a demo in here as well)

From Static Dashboards to Embedded Analytics

The Limits of Traditional Dashboards

Dashboards have been a staple of business intelligence for decades, but in the context of SaaS applications, they often fall short. Customers expect more than static charts—they want actionable insights from their data. However, traditional dashboards tend to be:

• Non-interactive: Lacking the interactivity users need to explore data deeply.
• Not customizable: Unable to be tailored to individual business needs.
• Slow: Performance issues that frustrate users.
• Lacking integrations: Limited in connecting with other tools and systems.

These limitations often lead to frequent feature requests, customer dissatisfaction, and ultimately, churn.

The reality is that every SaaS product is an analytics product because analytics justify the ROI of the SaaS application.

Without it, customers are more likely to churn.

The Importance of Embedded Analytics

Embedded analytics is the integration of third-party embedded business intelligence tools directly into your SaaS application. It allows end-users to visualize and customize the data generated within the application to meet their unique needs.

This approach is important in multi-tenant environments, where security, personalization, and collaboration are essential.

The Journey to Embedded Analytics

Starting with Charting Libraries

Many developers start with charting libraries, which allow for basic data visualization. While this is a step up from static dashboards, it’s still limited to front-end visualization. Many companies forget about how best to handle the complexities of data management.

Challenges with Legacy BI Platforms

Some companies attempt to integrate legacy BI platforms through methods like iframe embeds. However, these solutions often require significant development resources to fit within a multi-tenant SaaS application. They’re not built for the specific needs of SaaS, leading to a variety of challenges, including:

• Security concerns: Legacy systems often lack the necessary multi-tenant security controls.
• Scalability issues: These platforms are not optimized for the scalability demands of cloud-based SaaS environments.
• User experience limitations: They may not offer the level of personalization and interactivity that modern users expect.

Key Components of an Effective Embedded Analytics Solution

To overcome the challenges of traditional approaches, a robust embedded analytics solution should include the following components:

Self-Service

Users want to edit dashboards, build new ones, and use templates that are tailored to their needs. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work in a multi-tenant environment. Each tenant should be able to customize their analytics experience using self-service analytics tools.

Personalization

Not every customer has the same data model or needs. End-user personalization allows users to select which data to report on, ensuring that the analytics are relevant to their specific business.

Collaboration

Teams need to work together on data analysis. This includes features like internal and external sharing, as well as scheduling workflows to ensure consistent collaboration.

Security

Security is more than just who has a login. It involves role-level security, user personalization, and native multi-tenancy to ensure that each user only sees the data they’re authorized to view.

Automation

Automation is key to putting data into action. Whether it’s through threshold-based alerts, data triggers, or integration with third-party systems via APIs and webhooks, automation ensures that data leads to actionable outcomes. Only Qrvey offers an embedded, no-code workflow automation solution.

READ: Check out our guide to the best embedded analytics tools.

Common Pitfalls When Building Embedded Analytics In-House

While building an embedded analytics solution in-house might seem appealing, there are several common pitfalls:

• Data Quality: Ensuring consistent and accurate data is a significant challenge.
• Security Risks: Developing a secure multi-tenant environment requires deep expertise.
• Data Silos: Without proper integration, data can become siloed, reducing its usefulness.
• Relevance: Keeping analytics relevant and up-to-date is an ongoing challenge that requires constant attention.

And since we know companies often go through a build vs buy debate, we now offer a build vs buy calculator. This helps you understand the costs of the two strategies.

How Qrvey Simplifies Embedded Analytics for SaaS Companies

Qrvey aims to simplify the development of embedded analytics for SaaS companies by providing a comprehensive, cloud-native solution.

Here’s how Qrvey addresses the challenges mentioned above:

Cloud-Native Architecture

Qrvey’s solution is built on container technology, offering scalability and cost-efficiency in the cloud. This architecture allows SaaS companies to scale their analytics infrastructure with on-demand services, ensuring that resources are used efficiently.

Unlimited Deployability

Qrvey can be deployed across various environments, including staging, QA, and pre-production, ensuring that the same software is used throughout the development process. This allows for thorough testing and seamless integration into existing workflows.

Freedom to Design Personalized Experiences

With native multi-tenancy, Qrvey allows SaaS software development teams to tailor analytics experiences to different user tiers and individual customers. This includes embedding widgets, charts, and dashboards into the application, offering full control over the user experience.

Read more our developer solutions.

Granular Control and Security

By deploying Qrvey within your cloud environment, you maintain ultimate control and security. The solution inherits your existing security policies and provides granular multi-tenant controls. This includes security controls down to the user and row/column levels.

We also ensure that data remains secure and accessible only to authorized users. Since we’re a self-hosted solution, it keeps your data within your cloud environment.

Embedded analytics is no longer a luxury

It’s a necessity for SaaS companies looking to increase customer satisfaction and reduce churn.

By moving beyond static dashboards and embracing a comprehensive embedded analytics solution, SaaS companies can provide their customers with the insights they need to justify their investment and achieve their business goals.

Qrvey is here to help you along your journey so you can go beyond simple dashboards and offer the analytics your customers will stick around for.