Reporting System for Futurice
Establishing a Data Delivery and Reporting System with Futurice: Rays of Space’s Role in Process Optimization, KPI Design, and Data Architecture
At Rays of Space, we understand that impactful data insights require a tailored approach, blending deep process analysis, clear KPI definitions, and robust data architecture. Working together with Meltlake and Greenstep, Rays of Space’s co-founder, Ksenya Isavnina, contributed to an ambitious project for Futurice, helping establish a data delivery and reporting system with Power BI as the core visualization and reporting tool. This enabled Futurice to monitor internal KPIs in real time, empowering data-driven decisions across the organization. The objective was to build a seamless, end-to-end reporting system capable of integrating data from various operational and financial software sources.
Collaborating closely with Futurice's internal data engineering team—who managed raw data retrieval, sanitization, and ingestion on AWS—alongside data modeling experts at Meltlake and financial reporting specialists at Greenstep, we helped lay the foundation for real-time KPI monitoring and data management processes to support business growth. Together, we designed a multi-step system to structure and visualize data comprehensively, using a multi-cloud approach.
Rays of Space’s Key Contributions
Examining Business Processes and KPI Design: Our role began with a deep dive into Futurice’s business processes to identify crucial performance areas and KPIs aligned with organizational goals. We collaborated closely with Futurice’s management to design KPIs that captured essential business metrics, providing real-time insights into performance. This required hundreds of hours of meetings, discussions, coaching sessions, and addressing challenging questions.
Fine-Tuning and Setting Up the Data Analytics System: We configured Power BI to bring these KPIs and metrics to life, working with Meltlake to develop the underlying data schema and measures. This structured analytics process within Power BI enabled us to build reliable, up-to-date visualizations tailored to Futurice’s needs. This setup required sophisticated querying in SQL, M, and DAX.
Querying and Data Architecture: Initially, Postgres was used, but it was replaced with Amazon Athena for cost optimization. Alongside querying data directly from Athena into Power BI, we contributed to the system’s data architecture by proposing solutions to streamline data flow. Athena served as the primary querying tool, with Databricks proposed as a future option for storing optimized data snapshots to enhance access and efficiency.
Identifying Gaps and Documentation: Ensuring data quality across departments was a priority. We conducted a thorough gap analysis and documented areas for improvement, providing a clear roadmap for future enhancements in data accuracy and consistency.
Building Data Visualizations and Educating Stakeholders: We created numerous visualizations based on Futurice’s data, enabling teams to understand and act on key business insights. An essential part of our work involved training Futurice’s management team to become business data owners and citizen developers. We provided guidance on how to engage with data, create reports, and develop data literacy across the organization.
Demonstrating the Value of Granular Data Access and Security: We showcased the benefits and limitations of granular data access, allowing management to make informed decisions about data availability. Additionally, we demonstrated the security differences between embedded Power BI and Power BI Premium, ensuring Futurice understood the implications of each option to make the best choice for their data security needs.
Emphasizing Data Governance: Given Futurice’s flat organizational structure, tracking access rights consistently posed a challenge. We highlighted the importance of robust data governance—establishing clear data access policies, auditing procedures, and role-based permissions to ensure that data remains secure and accessible to the right people.
Technical Highlights: Power BI in a Multi-Cloud Environment
The data delivery system was designed as a multi-cloud solution with AWS and Azure components working in tandem:
Power BI Integration and Scheduling: Data stored in AWS S3 was queried through Amazon Athena and visualized in Power BI. With the Power BI service hosted on Azure and a data gateway running on a cloud-based virtual machine, we enabled scheduled refreshes to keep reports current for internal users.
Embedded Dashboards for Real-Time Access: Power BI dashboards were embedded within Futurice’s internal portal, providing stakeholders with easy access to real-time insights and metrics that drive daily operations. The most sensitive reports were migrated to Power BI Premium to ensure data security.
Challenges and Strategic Decisions
One of the primary challenges was ensuring data consistency across multiple data sources and business owners, each with varying standards and input methods. To address this, we meticulously documented existing workflows and identified areas for improvement. Ultimately, the need for a scalable, enterprise-level solution became evident. Moving towards a structured multi-cloud data lakehouse architecture within an enterprise management system as an initial data source for raw data would support Futurice’s growth by providing a stronger foundation for consistent, reliable data management.
Conclusion: Building a Sustainable Data-Driven Culture
This collaboration with Futurice marked an important step in establishing a data-driven culture, supporting the company’s growth with actionable, real-time insights. Rays of Space’s contributions in process optimization, KPI design, querying, and data architecture played a vital role in achieving a robust, flexible data system.
Our partnership with Futurice, alongside the expertise of Meltlake and Greenstep, demonstrates how thoughtful, structured data solutions can transform business decision-making. We’re proud to have been a part of this journey and look forward to supporting our partners in reaching new heights with data-driven success.
