What We’re Hearing About the Spectrum Release

Everyone likes to see that their hard work has been recognized, and our team is no exception. For the recent launch of GoodData Spectrum, we spent several years developing a platform that allows for every single step of the decision-making process to be made and supported by data through contextual, personalized analytics right where people work. It was a labor of love that resulted in a solution that radically transforms the ways that everyone works with analytics.

We’re immensely proud of the work we’ve done with Spectrum, and others are taking notice as well. Kevin Smith, an industry expert in embedded analytics, recently did an evaluation of Spectrum and its capabilities, and the results are glowing. He’s graciously agreed to allow us to share an excerpt here, and you can read the rest of his review on the NextWave Business Intelligence blog. Disclaimer: the first paragraph is technical, but keep reading.

“Spectrum allows you embed any D3.js, Highcharts or Chart.js analytic you can dream up right alongside GoodData-native analytics. Moreover, you have complete access to ANY React.js component available today. From thermometer bars, to filter pickers, to tree controls — I counted about 2500 components available — they can all be used in your GoodData-based analytical application.

Big deal, you say. So I can create any analytic imaginable and embed it seamlessly alongside my core application’s workflow. It’s just a pretty picture, right? Wrong.

The new GoodData embedded analytics are fully interactive. *Fully. Interactive.* This not only allows you to perform everyday tasks like drilling down and filtering, but you can also fully customize analytics and perform ad hoc exploration from with that same React-based dashboard. From within analytics that are embedded right alongside a form or other workflow functionality, you can click a button and start creating entirely new analytics.

Click that banana chart and start building a new analytic that shows banana farm output by month for the south-central farming region. You can then save that ad hoc analytic element and make it available for re-use, perhaps adding it’s seven lines of code to the dashboard for other to use.

I was impressed by the new visualizations and embedding methods, but I was blown away by the ability to perform ad-hoc analysis right alongside such a flexible interface. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this before, and it’s excellent.”

This is exactly what we wanted our customers to experience with Spectrum: a completely seamless and intuitive user interface that revolutionizes the way analytics are used, making analytics truly pervasive.

Parts of Kevin’s blog post have been reposted here with his permission.