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Embedded business intelligence (BI) software, also known as embedded analysis software, gives users self-service analytics capabilities within business applications. Software developers use embedded business intelligence tools to build analytics into business applications, giving users access to analytics without relying on third party BI consultants or customer support. The software in this category makes it easy to house analytics inside a specific application. Additionally, some embedded business intelligence platforms provide businesses with embedded dashboards; this allows employees easy access to relevant analysis.
While these tools may be sold to enterprise companies for internal systems such as HR or ERP systems, they are usually sold to other software companies who integrate them in existing software to give the software embedded business intelligence capabilities.
Key Benefits of Embedded Business Intelligence Software
Business applications produce vast amounts of data which can be very useful for end users. Traditionally, business users that wanted to extract and analyze data would use business intelligence platforms; they would need to extract the data from the application and upload it to the platform. Embedded business intelligence is an alternative approach where users can access analytics from within the user interface of the given application. Embedded business intelligence provide users with interactive visual dashboards and reporting functionality within the actual business application.
Analytics is no longer out of reach for the everyday employee. Thanks to self-service analytics and embedded business intelligence, data analysis is open to many, and insights can be drawn from data by anyone with basic software capabilities. However, there are still specific positions that utilize this software more than others.
There are two areas where embedded business intelligence software are typically used, externally and internally. In both cases, analytics capabilities are built into business applications, the only difference is the end user.
Embedded business intelligence software tend to have a wide range of features, including visualization and reporting and data modeling. The following features are found in most embedded business intelligence software.
Other features of embedded business intelligence software: Automodeling, Collaboration & Workflow, and Search Capabilities.
Where the product lives — There are a few considerations to make when buying embedded business intelligence software. It may require lots of work by a skilled development team or vendor support staff to embed the business intelligence tool, especially if the data is particularly messy. Some data might not be compatible with different products. Additionally, embedded software still offers self-service qualities that vary in levels of difficulty.
Plan for adoption — At the start, analytics tools may not seem valuable to all employees; end users might struggle to adopt the solutions. Therefore, it’s important for companies to have a plan to encourage and promote user adoption.
Time to market — As with any software implementation, it’s important to think about how long it will take to implement. It’s important to consider related software that a company might need, such as data integration software.
Data security — Don’t make data security an afterthought. Companies must consider security options to ensure the correct users see the correct data. It must also have security options that allow administrators to assign verified users different levels of access to the platform.