Pyramid 2020.10 is a perfect 10

Across-the-board enhancements make Pyramid an even stronger bet for organizations looking to make Trusted Analytics the foundation of their enterprise data and analytics strategy.

We’re pleased to announce that Pyramid v2020.10 is now available. While this is technically a point release, make no mistake, this is a big one: it dramatically extends the power and capabilities of our platform. This release builds on that groundbreaking v2020 release, introducing across-the-board product enhancements to reinforce the concept of “trusted analytics.” When you trust your analytics platform, your teams become more confident about their decisions, and a data-driven culture thrives.

Because this is such a large release, in this post, I’ll focus on the highlights.

Discover more: Code-free data discovery

A core roadmap goal is to create a codeless analytics experience that makes advanced analytics accessible without shortcutting analytic depth. From our perspective, many BI vendors leave users stuck in the middle: they’re too simplistic to answer complex business questions or too complicated for people to use regularly. Pyramid strikes the perfect balance so all types of users can discover insights in a shared analytics environment.

For this release, we enhanced our data discovery module with even more code-free capabilities, empowering everyday users with yet more advanced capabilities. For example, in v2020, users can now create custom reports that automatically resolve ragged queries and reduce unnecessary visual noise with just a few clicks of the mouse.

We also upgraded filters to be more intuitive and powerful. A new calendar slicer lets users display any combination of date-time data without manually configuring the controls. In addition, quick filters and the advanced filter wizard now support statistic, numeric, and label filter functions to greatly enhance query flexibility.

Even the visuals get an upgrade: there’s a new shape drop zone to add visual differentiation for graphics with data points; new lollipop charts and pie/donut charts; new labels that provide greater detail for maps; expanded formatting capabilities (background fills, colors; and settings); and much more.

Connect more: Enhanced data modeling

So many analytics tools lead decision-makers to bad decisions because of a tenuous relationship with the supporting data. Pyramid v2020.10 makes the already rock-solid (read: direct) connection between data and analytics stronger than ever.

With this release, Pyramid now supports read and write operations for Exasol (high-scale in-memory database); Netezza (MPP database); Greenplum (MPP database); Impala (Distributed SQL query engine for Hadoop); MariaDB (enterprise open-source database); and MemSQL (cloud-native operational database built for speed and scale). This brings an impressive array of sources that can be brought together in Pyramid and analyzed.

In addition to existing certified integrations with SAP BW and SAP HANA, we expanded first-class support to all SAP data sources through native integration with Datavard’s Glue connector. Also worth noting are new data flow documentation capabilities that let users automatically generate model-based system documentation. This allows them to retrace their steps in the model, which leads to even greater trust in the data and the resulting analytics.

Build faster: Present Lite for effortless authoring

At Pyramid, we believe trust comes with familiarity. And the best way to create familiarity is to make difficult tasks easier. This breeds skill and confidence progressively: novices become intermediates, intermediates become experts, and a data-driven culture takes root and flourishes.

In our big January v2020 release, we introduced two new data discovery modes (Smart Discover and Discover Lite). Now, Pyramid offers Present Lite—an end-user interface that makes it easy for casual users to create presentations and dashboards using an intuitive, clutter-free environment. This makes Pyramid friendlier for entry-level users and brings more people into the fold.

Present Lite is just a start to the improvements to the Present and Publish modules. With new flow grids and charting capabilities, users can effortlessly build multi-page dashboards. And new navigation and UI enhancements make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for and collaborate with others. While other tools slow you down, Pyramid v2020.10 helps your teams maintain their momentum.

Chart the course: Content management and migration

Getting from point A to point B on your analytics journey shouldn’t be a struggle. With v2020.10, let Pyramid be your guide. The new Content Migration Wizard lets users easily copy content from one server to another. This optimizes the process of setting up test and development environments, and then ensures continuity of governance and security when you’re ready to move them to center stage.

Other content management upgrades include improvements to the Data Source Changer and Structure Analyzer, a new and improved Object Audit Log to track the history of analytic content, and numerous UI upgrades to make the product experience more fluid.

Go further: Under the hood upgrades

Pyramid gets stronger with every release, and administrators will be thrilled with the under-the-hood upgrades we made. Highlights include: a complete audit log that provides deeper understanding of who is creating what and provides an audit trail that can be followed when something goes awry; a custom font manager so admins can apply your corporate fonts to dashboards and reports; and a R Machine Learning Version Manager to deploy and administer standard R libraries.

You asked; we delivered

That’s just a quick look at all the new capabilities in v2020.10. Overall, Pyramid v2020.10 includes over 150 new enterprise-grade features and capabilities. As always, a significant portion of our development efforts are driven by customer feedback. So, keep the great ideas coming. We’re here for—you!

Read More. . .

Pyramid 2020.10 is chock full of powerful features like the content migration tools described above. For more detail about some of the other new headline features contained in the 2020.10 release, please see these additional write-ups:

• Post 1 – Calendar Slicer: The smart Calendar Slicer in Pyramid is designed to make date-time operations fast and simple for both novice and advanced users alike. It is especially useful when more date-time structures in the original data source do not exist and users do not want to use complex formulas to filter data with dates.
• Post 2 – Ragged Queries: The ragged query feature in Pyramid helps users create highly complex views of data, allowing them to easily “laser” out content items they do not want to see in a report—effectively building an “asymmetric” query.
• Post 3 – Self-Building Data Catalogs: Pyramid provides users with a self-building and self-maintaining documentation mechanism for data and analytics. The ‘Data Catalog’ helps analysts and administrators to find the data or analytical assets that they need.
• Post 4 – Data Catalog Toolkit: Learn about Pyramid’s Structure Analyzer, Data Source Changer and Lineage tool, all of which provides a graphical, intuitive set of mechanisms to all the elements in the system, fully exploiting the power of centralized data and asset cataloging.
• Post 5 – Flow Grids and Flow Charts: The flow grid and flow chart tools in Pyramid are designed to dramatically extend the grid and chart capability for publications.
• Post 6 – Present Lite: The new Present Lite tool is designed to create quick and easy dashboards for non-technical users. Users will experience a simplified UI with fewer advanced features, and they will get all the essential tools required for creating self-service, self-built dashboards.
• Post 7 – Audit Logs: Pyramid’s Audit Trail provides users with a framework to track all changes made to key objects throughout the system – providing administrators with a clear view and history of when an object was created, changed or deleted, by date and by user.
• Post 8 – Datavard Glue: Pyramid now integrates seamlessly with Datavard’s “Glue” – a third-party tool that allows users to trigger and extract raw SAP ERP data. The data can then be ingested into Pyramid by end users for further analysis and reporting.
• Post 9 – Content Migration: Pyramid users can easily migrate content from one Pyramid instance to another with an easy, intuitive wizard assisting them through the process. This facilitates re-use of content items with efficient processes to ensure governance and security.