Meet Ayesha, a Customer Success Manager at GoodData. Ayesha manages the success of a GoodData customer's project from start to finish. She works with client like Gazelle, Pandora, and Enterasys on planning and implementing their project requirements. From what to measure, how to visualize and how to analyze the data, Ayesha ensures best practices and domain expertise are incorporated into every project.

One of her favorite GoodData features is the ability to snapshot. Data is interesting and becomes extra valuable when analyzed from a trending perspective. The gauge report, on the right, reveals the actual quarterly opportunities against a quota and shows only a "point in time" view into the revenue. The missing piece to the gauge report is the ability to measure revenue at any point in time and analyze overtime.

The line charts on the left reveals closed business versus the quarterly goal, with the blue line indicating the total revenue closed by week.  By capturing a full snapshot each week, it is possible to identify trends in the overall movement of the data. The following two line charts go well beyond the "point in time " view of the sales pipelines and reveal changes in pipeline over the quarter. 

This snapshot report answers the question, “When did we close the most revenue?”  Weeks four and eleven presented the biggest jumps in closed revenue. 

The final report is set with a defined drill-in. In this case, clicking on the W6 revenue will create a new chart, breaking down the specific point by sales reps. The new chart answers, “Which sales reps have closed the most revenue this quarter?”

What will snapshots tell you about your data?

San Francisco, CA, January 25, 2011 (PRWeb) -- GoodData, the world’s fastest-growing cloud-based Business Intelligence (BI) platform, today announced the company achieved over 600% year-over-year revenue growth in 2011. More than 11,000 business users now rely on GoodData operational dashboards, with over 50 large enterprise organizations moving to GoodData in Q4 alone.

“GoodData customers are at the forefront of a business revolution,” explained Roman Stanek, founder and CEO of GoodData. “Instead of getting buried by data, our customers harness data to drive great performance. GoodData delivers the information businesses have been searching for—quickly and without an army of analysts.”

In addition to breakneck customer and revenue growth, the company attracted $15 million in new venture financing to fuel its expansion. Andreessen Horowitz led the company’s most recent round along with existing investors: General Catalyst Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners and Windcrest Partners. The company added two key new members to its board: John O’Farrell, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz; and Dave Girouard; vice president, apps and president, enterprise at Google. Capital raised now totals $28.5 million.

“2011 was a hockey stick year for GoodData user adoption and revenue growth,” said Stephane Panier, chief financial officer of GoodData. “We experienced an unprecedented ten-fold increase in Powered by GoodData partnerships, a four-fold increase in the number of direct customers, and strong renewals and upgrades from existing customers.”

To keep pace with explosive customer demand and support global customers, GoodData opened offices around the world. In addition to the company’s worldwide headquarters in San Francisco, new locations include: New York, Boston, Portland (Oregon), and Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam).

GoodData 2011 Momentum Highlights

Game-Changing User Adoption:

• GoodData users created over 13 million business-critical reports in GoodData.
• Number of active business users grew by over 800% year-over-year.
• GoodData is the source of truth for over 5,000 dashboards. 

Relentless Commitment to Agile Product Development and Operational Excellence:

• GoodData delivered over 20 new releases in 2011.
• Key releases included enhanced UI, reporting, dashboards, charting, and expanded API capabilities.
• GoodData customers experienced over 99% uptime.

Direct Customer Wins:

• Industry leaders in the high technology, ecommerce, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), and financial services industries adopted GoodData faster than any other Business Intelligence technology platform.
• Key customer wins include Carbonite, Living Social, Pandora, Time Warner Cable, and Zinch. 

GoodData Embedded in More Solutions (Powered by GoodData): 

• Market changers, including Coupa, Pardot, Genius, Compare Networks, Twilio, and Demandware, choose GoodData to power vital reporting, data visualization, and analytics.

About GoodData
GoodData is a disruptive, cloud-based enterprise platform for business intelligence. The GoodData technology is intuitive, secure and fast. It helps convert big data into profitable insights and strategies for business executives. GoodData is trusted by companies like Enterasys, Capgemini, and Software AG, and embedded into offerings from cloud innovators like Zendesk, Get Satisfaction and Pardot. Headquartered in San Francisco, GoodData is privately held and backed by leading venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners and Windcrest Partners.

A favored dessert around the world, pie is so loved that there's an entire day dedicated to it. But unlike its flavorful friend, the pie chart doesn’t have quite the same appeal. Maybe it’s because it lacks any delectable fillings. Or maybe it’s because it can't be served fresh out of the oven with a glass of milk. Either way, the pie chart often doesn't cut it—just ask GoodData’s own Hubert Palan.

While pursuing his MBA at Berkeley, Palan’s statistics professor told the class that whoever submits a paper with a pie chart in it would automatically fail.

So, instead of dedicating an entire day to it—and to ensure the graduate students of Berkeley pass statistics—we give it room to shine under the dashboard spotlight—sometimes.

Don’t confuse your love of pie with your love for pie charts. There are several circumstances under which pie charts should not be used:

• Too much data. When it comes to dashboards, data should be displayed as simple as possible. If there are a lot of components within a given set of data, don’t try to cram them all into one pie chart. As a rule of thumb, pie charts should not display more than six different categories of data.
• Too-similar data. If you are working with values that are similar to one another, avoid using pie charts altogether. Unlike a real pie, pie charts should be sliced and served disproportionately for clear and easy comparisons.
• Negative numbers or actual values. A complete and functional pie chart needs to include 100 percent of the data collected. If you are working with numbers that are negative or need to be displayed as actual values, choose a chart that allows for more flexibility.
• Limited space. Pie charts can take up a lot of space, so they should only be used if there is room and don’t interfere with other dashboard metrics. Remember, your data should always be displayed on a single screen with attention given to the most important data first.
• Don't cop out. It’s important to remember that there are many different ways to display data—and 99% of the time they're better than a pie chart. So before settling on a pie chart, exhaust all other options. 

As for you, apple pie, you’re welcome around anytime.  

Graphic: Image of an actual pie as a pie chart (from Daniel Pink)

Dashboard filters allow users to filter by date or attribute and have it applied to every report on the dashboard tab (or only for those reports specified).  These interactive filters are completely customizable - filter by a specific date, date range, email campaign, account type, lead source, and the list continues.  These favored features were recently revamped, making it an extra popular dashboard item. Let me introduce you to floating filters…..

With GoodData's floating filter feature, the filters can be placed anywhere on the dashboard tab.  Displaying only a subset of data provides intuitive and user-friendly reporting. Below is one instance of how to use floating date filters. 

The examples shown are taken from a Consumer Package Goods (CPG) dashboard.  The top headline reports reveal revenue, goal, profit, customers and items.  The reports that fall under the headline reports reveal further breakdown for sales vs. profit and key revenue drivers. These reports have greater benefit when dates are presented by weeks (or perhaps for your organization monthly or quarterly).

The filters are applied and the selected reports are excludes.  In this example, we excluded all headline reports and dragged to the desired location on the dashboard.  Now, the headline reports will still provide the week's Key Performance Indicators and the following reports will be broken down by weeks.  By moving the filter to the corresponding location, users have a clear representation of where the filters are applied.  

Where are you going to put your floating data filter for improved visualization?

Dashboard filters allow users to filter by date or attribute and have it applied to every report on the dashboard tab (or only for those reports specified).  These interactive filters are completely customizable - filter by a specific date, date range, email campaign, account type, lead source, and the list continues.  These favored features were recently revamped, making it an extra popular dashboard item. Let me introduce you to floating filters…..

With GoodData's floating filter feature, the filters can be placed anywhere on the dashboard tab.  Displaying only a subset of data provides intuitive and user-friendly reporting. Below is one instance of how to use floating date filters. 

The examples shown are taken from a Consumer Package Goods (CPG) dashboard.  The top headline reports reveal revenue, goal, profit, customers and items.  The reports that fall under the headline reports reveal further breakdown for sales vs. profit and key revenue drivers. These reports have greater benefit when dates are presented by weeks (or perhaps for your organization monthly or quarterly).

The filters are applied and the selected reports are excludes.  In this example, we excluded all headline reports and dragged to the desired location on the dashboard.  Now, the headline reports will still provide the week's Key Performance Indicators and the following reports will be broken down by weeks.  By moving the filter to the corresponding location, users have a clear representation of where the filters are applied.  

Where are you going to put your floating data filter for improved visualization?