Slingshot by enterprise software giant Infragistics, has launched a solution to enable everyday business users to see what data their organisation possesses, access and analyse. The data is available when they need it and can be used to guide informed business decisions.
Slingshot’s new Data Catalog enables companies to bring together all data sources that track performance, process, people, and profitability. The data can come from across departments, platforms and channels – all in one place. As a result, teams can easily generate visual snapshots of their work, in real-time or over time. This helps organisations to better understand and drive action using data.
Slingshot is a digital workplace that connects everyone you work with to everything they need to get work done. It set out to solve the challenge of bringing the power of an integrated business intelligence, into teams’ everyday workflows. This allows everyone within the organisation to access data all in one place. Additionally, analyse it through the creation of visual dashboards. Unlike other BI tools, Slingshot’s Data Catalog is designed for business users, making data a natural part of team collaboration.
Bringing intelligence and data from multiple sources
Teams are already working in Slingshot to manage projects, communicate, and store and share content critical to their work. Now, they can also track performance and progress around this work on the same platform.
Slingshot brings together analytics from multiple data sources. This includes databases and spreadsheets (e.g. Excel and Google Sheets), SaaS systems, Big Data and Cloud data products (e.g. Google Analytics, BigQuery and Snowflake). Additionally, financial, marketing and sales tools (e.g. Salesforce Marketing Cloud, HubSpot and Marketo).
The new data catalog functionality acts as an organisation’s only source of trusted information. Key business insights that were previously siloed and held behind gatekeepers due to job functions and seniority now exist in one place, together.
Organising visualise data in a way that makes sense
Not all teams need the same data. Slingshot users can choose what they want to be able to access and organise it by department. (e.g. sales, marketing, product, HR, finance) Product or offering, channel (Google, LinkedIn, Instagram), system (e.g., payroll, CRM, people management). Because data is easily searchable, teams can find what they need, exactly when they need it.
They can then generate visualisations to help them understand the metrics that tell the story of their performance and progress. When teams hear the word data, they often think of complex numbers, and equations only fully understood by a data scientist.
But teams work with data every day, from sales numbers and marketing performance to employee productivity goals and customer sentiment. Often, the biggest problem teams face is deriving value from this information. Often, they only see bits and pieces of the wider company performance. To make impactful decisions, teams–regardless of their specific function–need a birds’ eye view of the organisation.
With Slingshot, any business user–or employee without prior data analysis experience–can go from spreadsheets of raw data to multi-source visualisations in just minutes. When connected directly to outside sources, these dashboards update in real-time. This helps them to analyse data from across the organisation to identify trends, assess performance and forecast the next best steps for a given project–or the business.
Integrate data into teams’ daily workflows
Because data is neatly organised, indexed and readily available for use in Slingshot, teams can move it directly into the projects they are working on. For example, a team member can create a data visualisation, take a screenshot and annotate it with notes before sharing it with the wider team for further discussion. This allows teams to go from insight to collaboration to decisions, and work back as needed–all in one place.
Slingshot brings data to the centre of every organisation. There is no guessing or decisions based on one person’s opinion. Teams are enabled to make data-driven decisions that drive productivity and business growth.
According to Dean Guida, Slingshot’s Founder, “The digital workplace of the future must put data at the centre of collaboration. To introduce data-driven cultures that will drive the results companies want.
“While many people work on the assumption that data is out-of-reach or the domain of data teams alone. We are making it clear data of any metric tells the story of individual, team and organisation performance and progress. Empowering everyday business users with this knowledge is an essential first step to changing the way teams make decisions. Furthermore, and get work done.”
Enterprise Times: What this means for business
Many of today’s organisations today are data companies collecting information daily on everything. From customers and products to marketing and sales. For enterprises, this data is spread across several systems and applications.
However, data requires analysis to make it actionable. As a result, teams do not have a quick, holistic lens into the data they need. Furthermore, enterprises are put into a position to make critical business decisions without comprehensive data. This often leads to decisions based on gut instincts–or worse, the most senior or loudest person in the room.
Slingshot’s innovative Data Catalog supports teams to generate real-time snapshots of their performance, processes, and revenues to make knowledge-driven decisions. The solution should enable everyday business users access data across all departments, platforms and channels. All of this takes place in one space.
