At ClicData we are busy finishing the year strong and ensure that we can deliver the best features possible as quickly as we can. 2021 was a busy year for us, and as such we have increased our hiring to make sure we can fulfill our promises for 2022.
Our Road Map is built based on feedback from our customers, our partners, our Professional Services team, Engineering team, and our Sales team, and it is a demanding one at that.
Although we have unique functionality that does not exist in any other BI platform, we continue to be compared with applications and vendors that have been around for 20+ years and developed solely for local installations of Windows which enables them to do certain things that today’s browsers simply can’t do. But we keep pushing the envelope and we are catching up quickly and in some cases, we have surpassed our competitors.
This blog is a recap of what we have done in 2021 and all the features we currently have on our Road Map for 2022-2023 and that we will do our best to deliver. Please make sure to visit our release schedule as well as our Vision and Road Map available here.
2021 – Delivered!
Version 2021.08, released on the 30th of November, was our last one for the year. This release was mostly a bug fix release but we still managed to release a brand new Media and Document Manager, 2 new connectors (Sellsy and Google Analytics 4), a new widget (Multiline text input) and new features on Alert such as sending alerts via Slack and calling Web Services.
Over all in 2021 we delivered the following:
- User Roles, Team Folder Security
- GraphQL Connector
- Connection Broker – Connect to multiple databases and feed data into one table
- Data Form Widget – Capture user data right from the dashboard
- Close to 50 new Smart Views across most of our App connectors
- Manual and Auto Cache on Views, Merges and Fusions
- Filter Panel Widget
- Improved Notification Control Settings
- Set 2FA rules across entire account, reset 2FA, and monitor use
- 15 new dashboard formulas
- Ability to add custom fonts
- API Bulk Data Insert
- Data Stream – Stream data into any destination
- Manage Service Projects and Support Session
- Native NetSuite Connector
- Charts Drilldown
- Map Bubble Widget
- New Formula and Query Editor
- Data templates – connect to open data sources and built in sources
- Microsoft Azure Blog Storage connector
- Sellsy Connector
- Google Analytics 4 Connector
- Document & Media Manager
- Plus hundreds of usability improvements…
What’s Coming in 2022
I am hoping that COVID will be a thing of the past in 2022 and that we can all resume our normal lives. Regardless of what is in store for us on the COVID front, we are hiring more software developers to add even more features. Here is what is planned for 2022:
Data Flow Module
The Data Flow module allows flows of data to be built, step by step, that can include anything from basic transformations that we can currently do using our Views capability but in addition, it will have other features such as split tables, advanced table machine learning trending and segmentation, sentiment analysis, creation of sub-tables from multiple value fields, and much more.
The alpha version has been released on December 15, 2021, to those customers wishing to test it out.
Report Module
This new module allows you to create multi-page tabular reports PDF reports and distribute in a similar way we publish and share dashboards today. With this designer, you will be able to publish multi-page reports directly to users.
The alpha will be released on Feb.20, 2022, and the beta on Apr.12, 2022.
Insights Module
The Insights module is the fastest way to quickly get a bird’s eye view on any table, view merge or fusion. Quickly pivot and group data, segment it, or trend it. Save the analysis for future comparison or use it in other modules. Lots is planned for this module in the future to allow for data exploration.
The alpha will be released on Feb.20, 2022 and the beta on Apr.12, 2022.
Data Stream – New Destinations
With Data stream we want to be able to send data out to as many systems as possible. Using existing connectors, we want to add more target destinations in 2022 such as Box, OneDrive Business, Azure Blob, and Amazon S3. In 2023 we will add more database-oriented targets such as SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, Airtable, Smartsheet, Oracle, MongoDB.
New Connectors
In 2022 we are planning on developing the following connectors, Amazon Seller Central/Marketplace, Magento, Alchemer, Monday.com, Podio, Azure Data Lake, WorkflowMax, and Acrobat PDF. Also new versions of XERO v2, Quickbooks v2 are also on deck.
New Visualizations
Our dashboards will receive some love ❤️ in the form of revamped widgets that perform better, render faster, and that have better options. Two such widgets are the simple table and drilldown table which will be completely revamped throughout the year including adding the drilldown capability.
Additionally we are adding a Table Data Editor, and Scorecard/KPI table to the table family. So 2022 is mostly about tables but we will also squeeze in a Document & Media widget, a Card Indicator Widget and a Period Button Selector.
In 2023 we are going to work on Venn Diagram, Calendar Heat Map, Timeline Chart.
We are also working on adding animations to the some widgets such as charts, so that the bars or lines and related to making charts more pretty by adding annotations.
The Tree Map widget will also get some attention and improvements over the first half of the year.
Schedules & Alerts
We are ahead of schedule on this one where we just released Slack and Web Service callbacks on Alerts. The same type of functionality will be added in 2022 to schedules and in addition we will add Microsoft Teams to both.
Application Enhancements
By January 2022 we will introduce the capability for users to select the style of ClicData’s interface. It could even be available before the end of the year!
Home Pages
We are also working on the ability to customize the home page and create different homes pages with panels containing dashboards, notes, etc. You can use this to send announcements or publish the more recent dashboards to the team.
API
The API is getting a complete makeover with versioning, standardization and loads of new endpoints allowing you to fully work with ClicData programmatically. We are adding more capabilities to create connections, tables, data flows and insights using the API.
Additionally we are looking at a performance increase in some endpoints to allow for IoT, high volume/frequency transaction loading.
Mobile
Our mobile app is not forgotten but we did not receive a lot feedback on how we can improve it. Still, we are planning on adding the ability for users to comment on dashboards directly on the mobile and have discussions threads. Additionally, we are looking at better use of Alerts on the mobile and also the ability to trigger tasks from the app.
Conclusion
ClicData continues to add unique and useful functionality to our platform. In between adding new features we constantly improve our infrastructure within Microsoft Azure offering even more locations (Australia, Brazil, and Germany) for your data. We also work very hard at optimizing and squeezing every little bit of performance without necessarily increasing our cost of operations and hence keeping our BI accessible to all companies.
We are counting on your constant feedback to improve ClicData and make it the best and only BI Platform you will ever need.
Give ClicData a try with your own data
Connect all your data, blend it together and publish interactive, fully automated dashboards to your team or clients.
All of it by EOD.
