"Robot X" on its own replaced Power BI with Analytic Workspace

2023: Move to Analytic Workspace

The company "Robot X" on its own carried out the operational import substitution of the Power BI system on the self-service BI-analytics platform Analytic Workspace. The data was transferred seamlessly, carried out without interrupting the main business processes and took no more than a month. This became known on March 29, 2023.

A feature of the project implemented by Robot X was the independent implementation by the customer of a BI system, without the help of a vendor or professional integrators. Analytic Workspace's BI solution has been built into the RX-Loyalty platform, which allows customer customers - small and medium retailers - to organize and monitor the performance of various loyalty programs in their retail chains.

During the migration, more than 30 dashboards were transferred, including graphic information on the operational summary - the average check and the number of checks, analysis of the customer base and customer behavior, analysis of revenue over different periods of time, analysis of goods and the use of bonus cards.

In addition, personal accounts were set up for more than fifty users^[1] X on^[2].

Project details

The group of companies Robot X"" Russian IT is an integrator, creates and maintains services that help to business to work efficiently by implementing the most suitable IT solutions. The Robot X company has created the RX-Loyalty loyalty platform, which allows their clients - medium and small to retailers - to carry out retail several mechanics of loyalty programs in networks at once: discount, bonus, referral and coupon.

To analyze the effectiveness of these loyalty programs, retailers are provided with a personal account in which BI data analysis is implemented, and the user can monitor in real time operational summaries with indicators of revenue, average check, number of checks, and so on in various time sections. For the functioning of the system, a well-known foreign Power BI solution was used.

However, the ability to use Power BI for the company has been reduced due to difficulties with payment and renewal of licenses and sanction restrictions of functionality, which could not be corrected by self-written additions.

The company decided to select a Russian BI system that could meet the following requirements:

• Easy integration into third-party IT solutions (in this case, into a loyalty platform for retailers) as a BI analytics module
• Cost comparable to Power BI, sufficient functionality to replace it
• easy user mastering and clear interface (self-service).

To ensure the functioning of the analytics system on the RX-loyalty platform, it was necessary to transfer dashboards from Power BI in the following main areas:

• graphic information on the operational summary - the average check and the number of checks;
• Analysis of customer base and customer behavior
• Revenue analysis for different time periods
• analysis of items and use of bonus cards.

The self-serviceBI platform AW BI was selected to solve the tasks. SQL DBMS is used as the main data source. The data warehouse is organized inside AW BI on the basis of ClickHouse, where the collected data mart is loaded after processing and transformation through the Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) layer. A bundle of services seamlessly built into the interface and process is responsible for the functioning of ETL in AW BI:

• Apache Airflow;
• Apache Spark;
• Apache Drill.

The visualization is based on the AW BI internal storage window data.

The features of AW BI that are most important for the implementation of this project:

• Fast Implementation - AW BI fully deployed, configured and ready for use in less than 2 months
• Quick employee training - AW BI belongs to the class of self-service BI systems, that is, it opens up the possibility of self-learning for users thanks to an intuitive interface that does not require programmers to create data models and their visual representation;
• A complete ETL module - despite its ease of use, AW BI is suitable for deep data transformation and solving complex analytical business problems;
• the best cost-functionality ratio on the market.

In total, more than 30 information panels were implemented, reflecting typical reports and metrics of the loyalty system, among them:

Operational summary with figures for revenue, average check, number of checks, and so on in different time sections:

• graphic information on the operational summary;
• "photo of the day" - analysis of the average check and the number of checks by hour and by day of the week;
• Revenue by hour, by day of the week, and by check amount ranges.

Customer Base Analysis:

• general information on the client base - demographics, quantitative indicators on issued cards, relevance and quality of filling in information about clients;
• outflow and inflow of customers, number and dynamics of unique customers;
• analysis of buyer behavior: new, active, sleeping, returned, lost.

Commodity Analytics:

• rating of goods by amount and quantity;
• the average check by company and the proportion of customers with a larger and smaller average check;
• Customer Shopping Analysis - frequency, average check, number of customers and unique customers.

The introduction of AW BI made it possible to effectively replace the BI solution of Power BI, integrated into the loyalty platform for RX-Loyalty retailers from Robot X Group of Companies.

According to the results of the project, more than 50 clients of Robot X Group of Companies - small and medium-sized retailers - use the RX-Loyalty personal account with updated analytics based on AW BI.

Notes