Blog | eyko

How eyko works

Written by Danny Nguyen | Jun 3, 2024 2:23:51 PM

The Outer Workings of eyko!

Blog Author: Danny Nguyen

How does eyko empower business users to merge and transform multiple data sources into reports, dashboards, and insights in minutes?

The beauty of eyko is that we built software shielding you from having to be, say, a mechanic. There is no hood or bonnet to unlock and lift, no wrenches, no torque specifications, etc. or additional complications. Just select the car, pick your colors, if you want glass top, self-driving features or back up cameras, and put on your seat belt and start driving. 

Let’s chat about how we get going. I’m calling this the outer workings of eyko. A picture tells a thousand words...  

At the highest level, one can view eyko in two pieces: data transformation and analytics. Both are built for business users. This is important when we talk about what’s in the right bottom corner. Hang tight for that.   

Let’s break the diagram down going left to right from within the dark grey boxes. 

CONNECT and INGEST  

We need to connect to multiple data silos to get started. Data comes from anywhere today: on-premises, cloud, cloud apps or data services. I recall the old days when data was siloed, then ERP brought them back together and today it’s broken back into siloes. These are the cards we’re all dealt with. All apps will be cloud apps in a future theoretical world. eyko’s approach to setting up a connection is a simple ‘fill in the blank’ form, just the right amount of information needed. Typically, all eyko needs is your application credentials for each data source.

Now that we have data, we need to put it somewhere. No worries here.  Just know it’s stored in the backend safely and securely. Think of it as a virtual data warehouse.

CLEAN, ENRICH, AND BLEND

Human checks AI. Machine learning, natural language processing and other AI services take the initial heavy lifting cleaning, enriching, and blending data. This takes a massive amount of time and resources off our human plates. Humans confirm and validate AI’s results, add additional enrichment, and finalize how data is blended or most of us call it data relationships. Blending or merging, cleaning, and enriching creates a Data Stream. 

DATA STREAM 

What the heck is a data stream? Simply, an analysis ready curated set of data that a human validated. A data stream can be simple or complex. It can be just one table or a complex data stream with multiple fact tables. It can cover a business process like Procure to Pay or Inventory Management. It can focus on financial reporting with data from your general ledger. It can cross systems with data from your CRM, Support systems and ERP data in one. You make it as simple or as complex as you like optimized for how you and your colleagues use the data for reporting and analysis.

I said hang tight for a bit earlier. A data stream is the start of the prettier side of eyko Analytics. I’ll get to eyko Analytics in a bit. Data stream is also how your existing analytics tools like Power BI or Tableau connect to our data platform.  Cool, yeah? We know everyone tried to tackle getting data from multiple systems on one report or dashboard already. And it has been a nightmare for the average user and organization. eyko makes all of this easier. We get it! You just need a bit of time to fully transition to eyko 😊!!!  You have choices!  

Data stream is like a Spotify playlist. I can share it with friends or even use it in a competing tool like Tidal. Nothing wrong with frenemies.   

Let’s recap before moving along. Connect to any source to create a data stream that can be used in eyko Analytics, your choice of analytics tools and, drum roll, the world's most popular reporting tool, Excel. We have an Excel Add-in for you too! We have been doing this for over 30 years, so we know where users live and we know other tools limitations.   

ANALYTICS

The prettier side of eyko is what everyone consumes – reports, dashboards, and generated answers, tables, and charts via the AI Assistant. It too starts with a data stream. Here’s where you or your business user colleagues create your own reports and analytics. The data stream has already been blessed. So no need to engage a data scientist!

Self-service analytics has been an "ideal" for so long but the market has failed by pushing complex tools. However, eyko gives our users free reign to merge data and perform analytics.

We use Power BI Embedded. It’s easier for business users. Period. You know it.  It also allows us to add our secret sauce on top of Power BI Embedded like the ability to create a pixel perfect income statements and balance sheets. Beautiful to an Accountant like me.   

We have a collection of templates that users select along with a data stream to design how they and their users consume that data stream. Select, point, click, save and share. 

I wanted to write more but there’s not much to write about. Easy is easy. eyko is easy. Easy is eyko.

Use eyko to merge multiple data sources and get reporting, analytics, and insights in minutes.

Author: Danny Nguyen, eyko specialist