Using Data to Understand Life

It won’t come as a shock that working in a data analytics company means data is one of our principal obsessions. We’re more than just believers in the power of data. We’re evangelists. The problem is, there’s just a frankly humongous volume of data out there. Data’s great, but how do you deal with so much of it?

The whole world’s being digitized and the Internet of Things means that infrastructure and machines are communicating with each other on a massive scale. Plus, we’ve all got connected devices — computers, phones, watches, Fitbits, smart fridges, and more. By 2025, we could be generating 175 zettabytes of data, and there’s nothing to suggest that this growth will stop. Mind-boggling, isn’t it?

What we Sisensers love doing is helping organizations handle this torrent of data and benefit from it. For many years, we’ve been providing analytics capabilities to businesses big and small across the globe, with awesome results. Now we’re doing something special with our friends at Google, bringing some of the benefits of our analytics capabilities to everyone who uses Google Sheets.

“We’re passionate about making complex processes simple, breaking data analytics out of ‘techie’ silos, democratizing it, and enabling everyone to enjoy insights derived from their data,” said Steven Larsen, Head of Partnerships and Alliance at Sisense. “We’re excited because together with Google, we’re making these aspirations a reality.”

“At Sisense, we’re passionate about making complex processes simple, breaking data analytics out of “techie” silos, democratizing it, and enabling everyone to enjoy insights derived from their data. So, we’re excited because together with Google, we’re making these aspirations a reality.” Steven Larsen, Head of Partnerships and Alliances at Sisense

Big Data’s not just for big business, it’s for you too

Businesses already knows that data analytics is vital for enhancing productivity and efficiency, honing marketing and communications, gaining a competitive advantage, and more. In recent years, powerful BI tools that help analyze and visualize data, and allow you to collaborate in the Cloud using your data across a wide array of sources. It’s no surprise, then, that the Big Data analytics market that was worth $8.5 billion in 2017, is expected to grow to a value of $40.6 billion by 2023.

Businesses have skin in the game because they can achieve great things using insights uncovered by the most accurate, up-to-the-minute data. Analytics enables businesses to work with data on which they can base decisions for any part of their organizations. For instance, Air Canada improves flight safety with analytics.  And it’s not just enterprises, every company is becoming a data company.

But it doesn’t stop there. Data is also very relevant to helping people achieve their personal goals. With all of our connected devices, and our various online subscriptions, each one of us is essentially our own data factory. If you’re a student, a researcher, or someone who wants to give their life the Marie Kondo treatment, wouldn’t it be great to let your data do the work?

Perhaps you want to manage your personal finances better or track the efficiency of your exercise routine. Maybe you’re trying to reduce your carbon footprint by tracking your car journeys, or you want to improve the balance of the nutrients you’re eating. It’s all within your reach, using the data you generate to identify patterns and behaviors that show you how to live, work and perform better, providing you have the tools to analyze it well and the aptitude to absorb the implications and act on them.

It’s a big undertaking and underlying the development of analytics platforms is some seriously deep thinking and incredible ingenuity. Today’s project with Google brings some of that technical genius to a broader universe of hungry consumers. 

Google Sheets provides a gateway to analyzing data

The folks at Google are constantly improving and expanding what they offer Google Sheets users, regularly unveiling even more new ways to help users uncover and share data insights, that make it easier for them to organize, work with, analyze, and visualize their data. The introduction of the Google Sheets Analytics template built by Sisense creates even more accessibility to data, analytics, and insights for everyone.

What we’ve built with Google is a template that enables Google Sheets users to easily visualize, uncover patterns and trends, and derive findings from their data. The offering engages users in a way that encourages further adoption of charts, functions, and other features built into Google Sheets.

Google Sheets Product Manager, Andy Rudd says, “Google always seeks to add value for our users, and Google Sheets Analytics by Sisense helps showcase how users can analyze and visualize data to support their decision making.”

“Google always seeks to add value for our users, and Google Sheets Analytics by Sisense helps showcase how users can analyze and visualize data to support their decision making.” Andy Rudd, Google Sheets Product Manager

The Google Sheets Analytics Template includes a sample dataset focused on running, with a dashboard that presents an analysis of this data. You can view various slices of the data, such as optimum pace during a run, time of day with the fastest run times, and data on whether altitude or gradient of a run affects speed.

These insights should help you maximize your performance so that you can choose a running sample dataset. Millions of people love running and are eager to improve their wellness, so pairing a personal activity tracker such as a Fitbit with the Google Sheets Analytics template built by Sisense allows consumers to identify goals and analyze their progress.

Sisense

Running isn’t for everyone, of course, so we recommend connecting your own data to the template. Follow the steps on the Instructions tab to replace the sample running dataset with your own. If you’d like, add additional charts to visualize your data in a multitude of ways. The possibilities are endless when it comes to the type of data you can analyze, the insights you can uncover, and the impact you can drive!

Power to the users

These are exciting times for those of us working in the data space. At Sisense, we’re dedicated to creating the tools to simplify complex data and provide insights to everyone — inside and outside their organizations — and we’re committed to constant innovation. Teaming up with Google to democratize analytics for a greater swath of the population, pairing any data set you can imagine with Google Sheets and Sisense’s template, is a case-in-point. It set us the challenge of delivering an analytics function suitable for all, that adds real value to the Google Sheets user experience.

Together, we’ve risen to the challenge, and we’re eager to see how Google Sheets users embrace and employ the new analytics capability that’s available to them at the click of a mouse. Now it’s time to get the best from your data in Google Sheets, so dive in. Welcome to the Google Sheets Analytics template by Sisense!

About the author: Guy Levy-Yurista, PhD is the Chief Strategy Officer at Sisense and an executive leader and entrepreneur with over 24 years of experience in Fortune 500, startup, and venture capital environments.

About Sisense

Sisense offers the only independent analytics platform for builders to simplify complex data, and build and embed analytic apps that deliver insights to everyone inside and outside their organizations. Sisense lets builders collaborate on a single platform, delivered in a hybrid, cloud-native environment with the industry’s lowest cost of ownership, to create true democratization of data and analytics. More than 2,000 customers across the globe rely on Sisense, including industry leaders like Tinder, Philips, Nasdaq, and the Salvation Army.

Learn more at www.sisense.com.