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Why use BI platforms vs. native analytics?

Why Tallyfy connects to BI tools instead of building native reports

Section titled “Why Tallyfy connects to BI tools instead of building native reports”

Instead of building basic reporting inside Tallyfy, we connect your process data to BI tools you already use, like Power BI, Tableau, or Looker. The connection is Tallyfy Analytics, a paid add-on that copies your workflow data into a private Amazon Athena environment, where your BI tool queries it with SQL. To turn it on, ask Tallyfy support or your account manager. Tallyfy sets it up, sends you your credentials, and can load your past processes as well as new ones.

What a BI platform adds

Section titled “What a BI platform adds”

A BI platform gives you charts, dashboards, and interactive reports, plus statistical analysis and forecasting. Use it for reports Tallyfy’s own screens don’t offer, such as process trends over many months or the steps where tasks get stuck.

Combine Tallyfy data with everything else

Section titled “Combine Tallyfy data with everything else”

In a BI tool, you can join Tallyfy data with data from your other systems. For example, you can:

  • Track how process efficiency affects financial results.
  • Link workflow times to customer satisfaction scores. Workflow timestamps show elapsed calendar time, not effort, so to measure effort you need time tracking form fields (see tracking actual work time).
  • Compare task completion rates with employee schedules or costs.
  • Combine data from sales, support, and operations in one dashboard.

Choosing and changing BI tools

Section titled “Choosing and changing BI tools”
  • Use any BI tool that connects to Amazon Athena, including Power BI, Tableau, and Looker. Sigma Computing can’t connect to Athena directly, so it needs a workaround.
  • Change BI tools later without losing your data. It stays available for as long as you keep the add-on.
  • Build separate dashboards for each team or role.

Working with the raw data

Section titled “Working with the raw data”

Your data team can query the raw process data with SQL, for example to train predictive models on workflow patterns and outcomes. Tallyfy keeps the data as CSV and Apache Parquet files, both standard formats. How Tallyfy Analytics works explains the pipeline.

Use what you already have

Section titled “Use what you already have”

If your company already pays for Power BI, Tableau, or Looker, keep using those licenses, and your analysts stay in a tool they know. You don’t need a separate reporting system. On the Tallyfy side, the cost is the Analytics add-on, priced per seat, per year, on every committed seat (see billing add-ons and usage credit).

When Claude is enough, and when you need a BI platform

Section titled “When Claude is enough, and when you need a BI platform”

Not every question needs a dashboard. If you just want an answer right now (“which processes stalled this week?”), ask Claude through the Tallyfy MCP server. Once the server is connected to Claude, there’s no report to build or maintain. The run analytics with Claude guide walks through it.

Reach for a dedicated BI platform when the same numbers get checked again and again, by a team that needs one source of truth, with history stretching over many months. That’s what Tallyfy Analytics plus Power BI or Tableau is built for. For a side-by-side on which to use when, see one-time questions vs recurring dashboards.

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