Fragmentation has always been a feature of the field of data analysis. Indeed, business intelligence and data management have always been separate silos in many organizations. It took a long time to come to a point of confluence.
Intelligence and data tools have been striving for years to move away from their specialized frameworks towards more sophisticated integrated platforms . Zoho Analytics, for example, was created to be a unified data analytics platform , built specifically to meet this growing requirement.
What is Zoho Analytics?
Zoho Analytics is a self-service business intelligence and data analytics application that lets you analyze your data, create quality reports, visual dashboards, and highlight results and trends in a wealth of data from your organization.
With pre-built integrations into Zoho apps as well as many other solutions (Facebook, Shopify, Quickbooks, to name a few), Zoho Analytics comes with a simple interface that lets you unify enterprise data. It also allows users to gain insights from relevant reports that cover multiple business processes.
Drill-through data analysis, automated insights as well as predictive analytics are some of the built-in AI and machine learning capabilities. Enterprise-grade security features and governance structure have been thoroughly tested and accredited, ensuring continued data management and proper use.
What is Zoho Analytics for?
Zoho Analytics is used to break down silos, streamline operations, and help reduce reporting and analysis preparation time. This business intelligence and data analysis software allows companies to scrutinize their data, create custom reports and provide valuable insights using the following tools:
Workspaces
In Zoho Analytics , data is grouped into workspaces. A workspace is a collection of datasets (stored in entities called tables) and all the reports and dashboards built on top of them. The workspace also contains structural information about the relationships between components.
It also helps generate metrics from the data, which can be used for further research . You can define one or more workspaces in your account, which you can share with other people. To learn more about workspaces and how to manage them, click here .
Data tables
The actual data that needs to be analyzed is grouped into data tables. A workspace is made up of multiple tables of data A table is like a spreadsheet because it has columns and rows of data. A name and a type (data type) are assigned to each column.
Typically, a workspace contains one or more tables containing logistically related data. A sales workspace, for example, might have tables for customers, products, sales, and orders. You can quickly establish a relationship between two different sets of data by creating relationships. Then you can use the table columns to generate any form of detailed report.
Formulas
Formulas are calculations that help you determine critical performance metrics for reporting and analysis. Zoho Analytics has a powerful formula engine that can help you generate any type of calculation you need for your custom reports.
Different types of formulas are supported by Zoho Analytics:
- Custom formula columns: You can use these types of formulas to add a new column to your data table. Values are derived using the given calculation/formula. The result of the formula creates a new column in the table.
- Aggregation formulas: These formulas are calculated using aggregation functions (SUM, AVG, etc.). They are generally used to calculate management measures. The results of the aggregation formulas will not be added to the underlying tables as an additional column, but they can be used in reporting.
Reports
Charts, Pivot Tables, Summary Views, and Tabular Views are just some of the report choices available in Zoho Analytics. This allows you to quickly assess your data and draw relevant conclusions. Zoho Analytics’ intuitive interface and its many existing reports make it easy to get started.
Zoho Analytics supports the following report types:
- A chart is a visual representation of data that allows you to review and interpret data more effectively. Zoho Analytics supports the following chart styles: area, line, bar, stacked, pie, scatter, combination, funnel, web, bubble, etc.
- The PivotTable lets you dynamically rearrange, group, and summarize data to make it easier to analyze large volumes of data. With the wide range of options provided by Zoho Analytics, you can filter, sort, and customize the look and content of your PivotTable exactly the way you want.
- The table visualization allows you to display raw data in a simple table. You can produce a spreadsheet-like report with all your data using this option. You will be able to access your raw data, as well as summaries and groupings.
- The summary visualization allows the user to view summarized data in tabular form. This report is useful when you need to visually assess a large amount of data with logical grouping and summaries.
Dashboards
A dashboard is a handy tool for condensing information onto a single page and providing a quick overview of key metrics. By combining reports, widgets, selection criteria and formatted text in a one or two column style, you can easily create a rich and dynamic dashboard. A dashboard can have multiple reports.
What is the advantage of Zoho Analytics?
Zoho Analytics is an excellent data management and analysis tool. You can generate reports in the form of graphs, tables, figures, geographical maps and various other formats. Zoho Analytics provides organizations with great insights, and it’s a user-friendly platform. This tool does not require any technical or coding experience.
Characteristics of a Unified Data Analytics Platform
The characteristics of a unified data analytics platform are:
- Data connection and integration
- Data preparation
- Analysis tools
- AI increase
- Administration
- Deployment
Data connection and integration
The foundation of a unified data analytics platform is the connection with a variety of data sources: internal and external, structured and multi-structured, cloud and on-premises, files and applications. Zoho Analytics integrates with over 250 data sources.
Data preparation
Filtering, formatting, normalizing, and merging data, as well as using logical formulas to modify and enrich data, are all part of this process. All these features are available in Zoho DataPrep for all users who deal with data, whether they are ordinary professionals or data analysts and engineers.
Analysis tools
Data visualization, like reports and dashboards, is used by businesses to assess financial data and consumer insights. While some people prefer to use a separate tool to access them, others prefer to have them integrated into their apps. Zoho Analytics offers excellent visual analytics capabilities, with plenty of scope and support for information integration.
Increase in artificial intelligence (AI)
For unified data analytics platforms, incorporating AI across the full spectrum of their advanced analytics capabilities has become the norm. Data preparation and modeling, descriptive and predictive analytics, scenario analysis, and data alerts are all areas where Zoho Analytics is constantly expanding its AI-augmenting capabilities. You can read more about the subject here .
Administration
This is an important part of any unified data analytics platform. Data management, security and privacy , access control, backend management (including configuration, upgrades, and monitoring), and disaster recovery are all included in a single framework. Zoho Analytics is backed by a solid security and management structure that is accredited and certified, thanks to Zoho’s experienced administration practices.
Zoho Analytics is currently accredited to ISO/IEC 27001 (Confidential Information Management), 27017 (Cloud Security Management), and 27018 (Personal Data in the Cloud) standards. Additionally, it is GDPR, SOC 2 Type 2, and HIPAA compliant.
How to configure Zoho Analytics?
Cofinia helps companies understand, analyze and visualize data collected across multiple platforms. Zoho Analytics is an easy to understand platform, but there is a learning curve that Cofinia will be more than happy to help you with. Our team is made up of business specialists and Zoho Analytics specialists, we will help you better understand the performance of your business.
We take care of all the work for you. We analyze your data, connect it to Zoho Analytics, build the elements and dashboards, then send it to all your devices using secure cloud technology. Depending on your plan, daily or every three hour syncs keep data up-to-date, so you can always get instant insight into your business performance, wherever you are.
