A Comprehensive Guide to a Dataview

Dataview helps in transitioning from data preparation to data analysis. All the preparatory steps such as data collection, cleaning, grouping, blending, etc. culminate in a table with business context and KPIs. This table is a dataview which is ready to be fed into a BI tool for analysis and visualization.

A dataview’s data is typically derived from a variety of sources, including ad platforms, analytics, CRM and other data sources. It contains centralized and harmonized data from multiple data sources. Dataviews are always up to date and require zero maintenance. Its analytical capabilities enable organizations to get valuable business insights from their data, allowing them to make better decisions. 

That’s it: essentially dataview is a table. It keeps your reports and dashboards active, relevant and refreshed.

But it is much more than a table. Here are some of the distinguishing features:

• Universal availability: It can be imported in any BI tool. No need to worry about data warehousing and available connectors in BI tools.

• Simplified data access management: Advertising and analytics accounts are added/ removed over time. Dataview keeps track of these changes and the table reflects active data sources at any time. 

• Historical data for speed: Dataview caches 6-month data for faster import in BI tools. During scheduled refresh in BI tools, there is no join resulting in faster refresh. Cache limit could be increased on request.

• Cross platform: Dataview blends data across platforms. There is no limit on the number of the platforms which can be included in a single dataview.

• Updated dimension: Any new grouping defined by the user is picked up by dataview if it is compatible with existing dimensions in the dataview. It eliminates the need of manually adding a new business dimension to every single table.

• Export: Dataview can be exported to google sheets and file storage (S3, GCS) for archiving and downstream operations.

Some other technical features of a Dataview

• Read only
• Can sort or filter rows without modifying the underlying data
• A live reference to a data source; any changes in the Data source data is immediately reflected in the dataview 
• Supports calculated fields i.e. Custom Dimensions and Custom Metrics
• Can be connected to any BI tools by Postgres. Any BI tool worth its salt will have a Postgres connector available.
• Automatically refreshed
• Require no data warehouse

Key Benefits of a Dataview

• Unified data from all your marketing channels, analytics Tools & CRM: Dataview consist of data from all the sources. This helps in creating a view consisting of Ad costs & clicks, app analytics, website conversions and CRM data to get the complete picture of your marketing performance.

• Transformed and business ready data: Dataview consists of centralized and harmonized data. It saves you from the silo data that gives you a full-funnel picture of your marketing. Dataview gives you access to clean, accurate, and granular data from all of your connected data sources. It allows users to quickly generate dashboards that are ready for analysis.

• Cross platform – Interconnected data: Dataview contains combined and grouped data from various sources. It assists you in making well-informed decisions based on comparable data. It provides in-depth analysis and answers to topics that appear to be too abstract to be answered otherwise.

• Automated Refresh: Dataviews are refreshed automatically. It helps to speed up the dashboarding process that enables executives to act on time for any follow-up action or course correction to their marketing campaign and strategy.