From Data to Dashboards with Amazon QuickSight
Exploring the Standout Features of QuickSight
QuickSight is a cloud-based Business Intelligence (BI) service by Amazon that equips organisations with the tools needed to transform and visualise data into insights. The tools' user-friendly interface, powerful analytical capabilities, and wide range of data source support allow teams across the business to create interactive dashboards that drive strategic decision-making and enhance operational efficiencies.
In my capacity as a Data Visualisation Consultant at Version 1, I support clients in harnessing the power of their data by utilising BI tools like QuickSight to craft insightful reports and dashboards. In this blog post, I share some of the features I find particularly powerful in QuickSight.
Cloud-based
QuickSight provides a user experience that is browser-based, cloud-hosted, and version-less, thereby eliminating the need for any software installation. This means that new users can be onboarded within minutes, as there’s no application setup required. This not only removes any access barriers but also ensures that the tool is completely version-less. As a result, users are always equipped with the latest features and updates without the need to manually run them. Being browser-based, QuickSight can be accessed from anywhere, laptop, desktop, or smartphone, which also makes it highly portable.
Flexible and scalable
QuickSight operates on a flexible pay-as-you-go model with no contract obligations or upfront license costs. This allows for scalability at any time, organisations can easily go from a few users to a few hundred as and when required. What is more, QuickSight’s serverless architecture scales automatically to support thousands of users without manual server management. Admins are equipped with user-friendly management tools to increase user numbers without the necessity of buying licenses or handling infrastructure deployment and management, making QuickSight both cost-effective and efficient.
Data source connectivity
QuickSight provides a comprehensive solution for interfacing with a variety of data sources, whether it’s AWS data, data from third-party providers, big data, or SaaS applications. It allows for connection to a wide range of data sources in the cloud and on-premises, including but not limited to SaaS applications like Salesforce and ServiceNow, third-party databases such as Google BigQuery, Snowflake and MySQL, and AWS’s own services like Redshift, S3 and Athena. Additionally, QuickSight supports the uploading of Excel, CSV, and JSON files.
SPICE engine (Super-fast, Parallel, In-memory Calculation Engine):
SPICE is a robust in-memory engine that delivers fast performance at scale, replicating data for high availability and enabling simultaneous interactive analysis for thousands of users. It’s designed to perform advanced calculations quickly and securely, with data encryption at rest in the Enterprise edition. Importing data into SPICE accelerates analytical queries, eliminates the wait time for direct query processing, and allows for data reuse without additional costs, making it a cost-effective solution for data sources that charge per query.
Dataset versioning
QuickSight incorporates dataset versioning directly into its user interface. Each time you save and publish a dataset, it automatically generates a new version. This feature allows you to access a historical record of your dataset versions at any moment, and with just a few clicks, you can effortlessly roll back to a previous version.
Child datasets
Once a dataset is created in QuickSight, it can serve as a source for additional datasets, preserving any data preparation like joins or calculated fields from the parent dataset. This allows for further data preparation in the new child datasets, such as incorporating new data. The use of child datasets promotes centralised management of datasets, minimises the need for managing multiple data sources, ensures key metrics are predefined, synchronizes data updates, and provides the flexibility to tailor existing datasets to meet the specific needs of various teams. This approach streamlines the process and enhances efficiency.
Cross dataset filtering
QuickSight provides built-in cross-dataset filtering capabilities that allow seamless integration across multiple data sets without any development effort required. When constructing a dashboard using multiple datasets, QuickSight intuitively maps fields from various datasets based on their name and type and subsequently applies these mappings to filter all related fields. These mappings can be used within filter controls to be applied uniformly across all visuals, irrespective of the dataset they originated from. This ensures a consistent user experience and provides a unified view across your dashboard.
QuickSight themes
Amazon QuickSight themes offer a powerful way to customise your analyses and dashboards. They are a collection of settings, including colours and font, that can be applied across multiple visualisations for consistency. You can choose from pre-existing themes or create your own using the theme editor to make it reflective of your brand’s identity. Themes can easily be shared with other users in the organisation for reuse.
One-click embedding
Embedded analytics in Amazon QuickSight provides the power to embed data-driven insights directly into your websites and applications. With the help of an embed code, you can seamlessly integrate visuals or dashboards into your application. This allows users to engage with data right within the confines of the application, thereby simplifying the cognitive process. Not only does this elevate your brand by enabling you to customize the style of the embedded elements, but it also significantly enhances the user experience.
Machine learning
The QuickSight Enterprise edition is a powerful tool for advanced users, offering features like reliable forecasting, outlier identification, trend discovery, and key business driver analysis. Its ML Insights provide three major features: ML-powered anomaly detection, which uses Amazon’s machine learning technology to analyze data and detect anomalies; ML-powered forecasting, which enables non-technical users to forecast key business metrics with ease; and Autonarratives, which translate data into easy-to-read narratives, creating a shared understanding of the data within your organization.
QuickSight Q
Amazon QuickSight Q, a tool powered by machine learning, leverages natural language processing to promptly respond to business inquiries, thereby saving BI teams considerable time that would otherwise be spent on constructing predefined data models and dashboards. Q is engineered to comprehend everyday business language and employs machine learning to grasp data relationships and construct indexes, delivering insights in a matter of seconds. It also provides autocomplete suggestions, spell-checks, and allows for the customization of acronyms and synonyms. In the event of an incorrect answer, feedback can be given to Q for rectification, assisting the BI team in refining the data model or incorporating additional data.
In this blog post, we’ve merely skimmed the surface of the features that QuickSight has to offer. If you’re keen on delving deeper into Amazon QuickSight and taking your data visualisation skills to the next level, don’t hesitate to reach out to Version 1.
Learn more about Version 1’s partnership with AWS here https://www.version1.com/about-us/our-technology-partnerships/amazon-web-services/
About the author
Sarah King is a Senior Data Visualisation Consultant here at Version 1.
