Author: Smarten

White Paper – Conversational AI and NLP Analytics Reduces the Dependence and Usage of Traditional BI Tools, and Improves User Adoption and Data Democratization

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January 7, 2026
White Paper – Conversational AI and NLP Analytics Reduces the Dependence and Usage of Traditional BI Tools, and Improves User Adoption and Data Democratization!

Conversational AI and NLP Analytics
Reduces the Dependence and Usage of Traditional BI Tools, and Improves User Adoption and Data Democratization

The incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language processing (NLP) in existing business intelligence and self-serve analytics tools has had (and will continue to have) a profound influence on ease-of-use, on user adoption and on the democratization of data across the enterprise, and the use of Conversational AI and NLP is rapidly changing the face of BI tools and business user and organizational expectations.

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Which BI or Analytics Tool is Best for My Business?

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January 5, 2026

Traditional BI, Augmented Analytics, or Modern BI/Analytics?

Whether your business is planning to acquire a business intelligence (BI) or augmented analytics tool for a first-time installation or looking to upgrade an existing system, the decision starts with the ‘what’ of the solution. What kind of solution will best fit your needs for infrastructure, integration, user requirements, pricing, upgrades etc. and what kind of approach, features and functionality will be most suitable for your business.

‘When considering a new or upgraded business intelligence or advanced analytics solution, it is important to look at your enterprise requirements to accommodate existing technologies and infrastructure, business processes and models and user needs.’

A Recent Study reveals a number of considerations to be included in your choice of BI tools and analytical platforms, including:

  • Zero footprint: 100% web-based, no client-side installs or downloads required
  • Support for role-based reporting and dashboards
  • Support for mobile Business Intelligence
  • Communication features like notes, comments, and likes
  • Updates in real-time: your dashboard is always up to date
  • Basket, advanced and predictive analysis
  • Support for machine learning and generative AI
  • Usability: ease-of-use and ease-of-learning
  • Insights (graphs, definitions, et cetera) that are reusable across BI applications

While this study carves out what it considers to be the optimal analytics framework and platform, some of all of these considerations may not apply to your business needs.

What Do I Need to Consider When Choosing BI Tools and Analytics Solutions?

When reviewing the various iterations of analytics frameworks and platforms, you will need to understand the following capabilities and structures. Understanding how each of these approaches works and what advantages and limitations they include will make it easier for you to choose a solution and approach to suit your needs.

Augmented Analytics

Today’s augmented data analytics incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to streamline, automate and improve the process of data analysis, so business users can more easily gather, interact with, select and report on data, simplifying data prep, insight and collaboration and allowing your team to explore data in a way that is meaningful to them.

Augmented analytics uses machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and algorithms to easily analyze and manipulate large datasets and reduces the time needed for processing, thereby allowing business users to leverage analytics in their day-to-day workflow and freeing Data Scientists to perform more strategic tasks.

Benefits of Augmented Analytics

  • Streamlined data prep and analytics
  • Optimizes business user and data scientist time and effort
  • Faster, more insightful decision-making
  • Increased operational efficiency
  • Democratized data analytics

Traditional Business intelligence

Traditional BI Tools use conventional analytical techniques and technologies to collect, analyze and present data. These systems typically rely on a centralized data source and a selected set of formatted reports. Users leverage data extraction, transformation and loading tools (ETL) to extract data from a data warehouse and online analytical processing (OLAP) tools to analyze data. Reports and visualization are typically delivered through a dashboard with standard key performance indicator (KPI) software to monitor metrics.

Benefits of Traditional BI Tools

  • These tools provide support for a range of data types and data sources
  • IT and/or data scientists can create standardized reports and models to address business and user needs
  • The enterprise can maintain and control data sources on-site

Modern BI Tools and Augmented Analytics

When an organization integrates the use of modern BI tools with more advanced augmented analytics it can leverage artificial intelligence and traditional tools to satisfy the needs of a diverse set of users, business units, etc. Modern Business Intelligence technologies integrates more sophisticated features to bring analytics to all users and allow them to choose the tools that best suit their needs in a self-serve environment with automated data preparation, fast and easy data access and insight, Natural Language Processing (NLP) that allows users to ask questions using common language and receive answers using visualization techniques.

Benefits of Modern BI Tools and Augmented Analytics Combined

  • Sophisticated self-serve analytics suitable for business users with limited technical skills
  • Real-Time insights and reduced time-to-decision
  • Monitoring and managing of trends, anomalies and other factors that impact results
  • Collaboration and data democratization with unique tools to suit every user
‘When reviewing the various iterations of analytics frameworks and platforms, you will need to understand the following capabilities and structures. Understanding how each of these approaches works and what advantages and limitations they include will make it easier for you to choose a solution and approach to suit your needs.’

When considering a new or upgraded business intelligence or advanced analytics solution, it is important to look at your enterprise requirements to accommodate existing technologies and infrastructure, business processes and models and user needs.

Contact Us to discuss the unique needs of your organization and your users and find out more about Smarten Technology. The process of choosing the right Analytics Solution for your busine is crucial and must include a careful assessment of your needs. Explore our White Paper: ‘Enabling Business Optimization And Expense Reduction Through The Use Of Augmented Analytics,’ and our article, ‘How Does Low Code And No Code Development Support BI Tools?’

Original Post : Which BI or Analytics Tool is Best for My Business?

Smarten Support Portal Updates – December – 2025!

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December 30, 2025

We invite you to explore our latest knowledgebase articles and to join the Smarten user community on Smarten Support Portal.

If you have not registered yet, Click Here to obtain your login credentials.

Knowledgebase Articles

  1. Datasets & Cubes : Data Operations
  2. GeoMap : Workflow to create Default geomap
  3. Crosstab : Making use of Cell references

Predictive Use cases

  1. Assisted predictive modelling : Medical Cost Prediction Using Smarten Assisted Predictive Modelling
  2. Assisted predictive modelling : Hypothesis : One-Way Anova test using Smarten Augmented Analytics

Business Use Cases

  1. Business Scenarios : Calculating Pending Completion Months for an Ongoing Project
  2. Business Scenarios : Find out the frequency of repetition of dimension value combinations – e.g. frequency of combination of bread and butter from sales transactions

Manuals and Technical Guides

  1. Smarten User Manual SSDP
  2. Smarten Working with Sentiment Analysis
  3. Smarten Dashboard Design Best Practices

If you don’t find what you need in the Support Portal, we hope you will contact us with your questions, comments or suggestions. We are here to help and to support your business goals and success!

URL: Smarten Customer and Partner Community
Email: support@Smarten.com

Original Post: Smarten Support Portal Updates – December – 2025!

Why on Earth Would I Want to Be a Citizen Data Scientist?

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November 12, 2025

What’s a Citizen Data Scientist and Why Should I Care?

In 2015, Gartner coined the term, ‘Citizen Data Scientist’ and since then, the data analytics community and global business markets have never looked back! The results of Citizen Data Scientists initiatives were spotty, at best, in the early days, principally because enterprises did not spend enough time planning for the roll-out and anticipating cultural, technological and resource issues.

Gartner Analysts Predict that organizations can truly benefits from implementing a Citizen Data Scientist strategy and their research reveals that ‘…citizen data scientists will surpass data scientists in the amount of advanced analysis produced, and that,  ‘Early adopters of augmented analytics have the potential to realize more strategic and differentiating business benefits from their analytics investments than those who wait until these technologies are widely adopted.’

‘With additional skills and knowledge, you become more valuable to the organization and the team and your visibility and leadership in the use of data and analytics will position you well for career advancement.’

Today, the Citizen Data Scientist community is thriving and local, regional and global businesses are reaping the benefits. But, what about the impact on business users? Are there real benefits to team members who embrace the Citizen Data Scientist role, or is it all smoke and mirrors?

The Advantages of Saying ‘Yes’ to Being a Citizen Data Scientist

Benefits for Business Users

  • Improve Your Data Literacy – If you are curious about the use of data, or you consider yourself a power user and love to learn new technology, you will be motivated and challenged by the use of data analytics and you will improve your data literacy. Any and all new skills you learn within your role in an organization can help you advance your career and keep your day-to-day tasks interesting. Today, data literacy and comfort with technology is crucial to personal and career success.
  • Expand Your Career Opportunities – With additional skills and knowledge, you become more valuable to the organization and the team and your visibility and leadership in the use of data and analytics will position you well for career advancement. Using data to make fact-based decisions and recommendations and to present options to management is a great way to get noticed!
  • Collaborate with IT and Data Scientists – Expand your reach across the organization and make your skills known by collaborating with IT and data scientists. When your day-to-day analytics is noticed, and your management team needs to advance strategic initiatives, you can collaborate with IT and data scientists to share and create the insights your team and management.
  • Add Value to the Organization – Discover and explore data and create analytical approaches and formats to share with your team members. Help the organization avoid missteps in the market, identify buying behavior, conceive new products and services and to create a competitive advantage with measurable results that will help you AND the enterprise.
‘Today, data literacy and comfort with technology is crucial to personal and career success.’

If you wish to know more about the Citizen Data Scientist approach and how augmented analytics tools and your industry and market knowledge can position you for success in this role, Contact Us today to find out how our team can help you to improve business results and increase team collaboration, data literacy, productivity and competitive advantage. Get started today with our self-paced FREE Online Citizen Data Scientist course.

Original Post : Why on Earth Would I Want to Be a Citizen Data Scientist?

Augmented Analytics Can Support a Large User Base

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November 7, 2025

Support Your Large Business User Base with the RIGHT BI Tools

According To Finance Online, Allied Market Research reports that small and medium businesses are driving enterprise use of analytics, but World Data Science Initiative reports that 80% of global companies are investing in data analytics, thereby revealing analytics growth across, small, medium and large enterprises.

For your large enterprise, data analytics can and will be a definitive issue impacting your business and market growth. Choosing the right solution to support data democratization and improved data literacy across the enterprise will ensure that your team can create, share, collaborate and report on data, make recommendations and suggestions based on fact, and use data-driven metrics to ensure that strategies and operational decisions are relevant, accurate and effective.

‘While many large organizations are daunted by the idea of implementing analytics across the organizations, it is completely feasible to plan for an deploy this software and to modify business processes to build on fact-based decisions.’

Today’s self-serve augmented analytics and modern business intelligence solutions are designed to support users across the enterprise, and a solution that is built on the right technology platforms, will enable rapid implementation and user adoption and requires very little training or transition time. Auto-suggestions and recommendations allow users to work on their own, no matter their skill levels.

To support a large user base, you will want to select an augmented analytics solution designed with a low-code, no-code, artificial intelligence and machine learning environment to ensure scalability and seamless, responsive, mobile access.

Contrary to Some Opinions, a Large Enterprise with Many Users CAN Adopt Augmented Analytics

Your team can untangle quality and maintenance issues, refine customer targeting and marketing optimization, make appropriate financial investment decisions, and even use external data to analyze trends and patterns and make forecasts and predications.

Real-time data management lets users connect to data sources in real time, and compiles data for fast performance to deliver real time analytics. Cached data management caches data and performs pre-aggregation and other computations for superior performance and analytics, and refreshes data from data sources at a defined frequency.

Your enterprise can choose on-premises or private or public cloud-based data management to access the analytics solution from any business location around the world, or for remote workers or those working on the road, in hotels or airports.

‘For your large enterprise, data analytics can and will be a definitive issue impacting your business and market growth. Choose the right solution to support data democratization and improved data literacy and use data-driven metrics to ensure that strategies and operational decisions are relevant, accurate and effective.’

While many large organizations are daunted by the idea of implementing analytics across the organizations, it is completely feasible to plan for an deploy this software and to modify business processes to build on fact-based decisions. Work with your IT partner to plan a reasonable roll-out and address cultural concerns, and to budget for and implement an affordable, dependable analytics solutions across the enterprise. No matter how many business users your business has, you CAN adopt and leverage self-serve augmented analytics to support your business, improve competitive advantage and gain crucial insight into data for planning, problem-solving and identification of trends, patterns, issues and opportunities.

Ensure appropriate Technology, skills and knowledge, Cutting-Edge Features and an advanced approach to Augmented Analytics And Business Intelligence. Contact Us to find out more about the Smarten suite of products. Explore our free white paper: ‘Enabling Business Optimization And Expense Reduction Through The Use Of Augmented Analytics.’

Original Post : Augmented Analytics Can Support a Large User Base!

Smarten Support Portal Updates – October – 2025!

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October 31, 2025

We invite you to explore our latest knowledgebase articles and to join the Smarten user community on Smarten Support Portal.

If you have not registered yet, Click Here to obtain your login credentials.

Knowledgebase Articles

  1. Crosstab : Spot the Gross Sales highlighters
  2. Data Sources : Improve data extraction performance from database data source
  3. Datasets & Cubes : Manage columns while creating dataset

Predictive Use cases

  1. Assisted predictive modelling : Classification : Customer Churn model using Smarten Assisted Predictive Modelling
  2. Assisted predictive modelling : Hypothesis : Independent Sample T-test Using Smarten Augmented Analytics

Forum Topics

  1. Embedded / API Integration : How to rebuild cubes/ datasets through API call ?
  2. Graphs : Global Variable : How can I plot the dynamic graph based on measure selected from the list of measures

Manuals and Technical Guides

  1. Smarten Concept Manual BI
  2. Smarten Concept Manual SmartenInsight
  3. Smarten Working with Multitenancy

If you don’t find what you need in the Support Portal, we hope you will contact us with your questions, comments or suggestions. We are here to help and to support your business goals and success!

URL: Smarten Customer and Partner Community
Email: support@Smarten.com

Original Post: Smarten Support Portal Updates – October – 2025!

Mobile BI Supports User Access and Adoption and Improves Results

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October 15, 2025

Why Adopt Mobile BI? Data Access and Data Democratization

The global business environment has changed dramatically. With employees working remotely, and even in other countries, it is mandatory to provide technology and tools your team can use to complete tasks and, hopefully, to add value to the organization on a daily basis.

If you have not yet adopted a business intelligence or augmented analytics solution, it is wise to consider one now. Your competitors are already implementing these solutions! If you HAVE adopted a BI tool or self-serve analytics solution, but you have yet to provide your team with mobile business intelligence, it is past time to consider this addition because your competitors area already implementing THESE solutions as well!

‘Out-of-the-Box Mobile BI can provide natural language search analytics, clickless analytics for quick, easy analysis, key performance indicators, dashboards and reports, dynamic charts and graphs, and intuitive visualizations, with self-serve features that are suitable for every user.’

According to Market Research Future studies, ‘The Business Intelligence market segmentation, based on Technology, includes Mobile BI, Cloud BI, and Social BI…’ This market is…’is expected to grow and expand during the projected timeframe as it will help businesses make data-driven decisions, boosting the overall market growth.’ This study estimates that the business intelligence market will grow from USD 33.12B in 2024 to USD 78.42B in 2032.

The reason for that growth is simple. Businesses, large and small, are discovering the value of fact-based decision-making, and the wise business owner, executive or manager understands that their competition is actively involved in improving productivity (to do more with less), in improving customer satisfaction (with targeted products and services), in decreasing re-work and increasing collaboration, and above all in increasing the data literacy of its team through data democratization, easy access to crucial data and improved user adoption of technology.

Access Data From Anywhere with Next Gen Mobile BI Tools for Business Users

But the old methods of BI tool installation can no longer support strategic goals. Your team may be spread across countries, regions or cities. They may work in the field. They may be meeting with a client or a supplier. Any or all of these scenarios require mobile tools that provide your team with the information they need to make the right decision, to review historical data or transactions and work with others to create a pricing strategy, check on stock, understand customer buying behavior etc.

If you truly wish to make your team more productive and effective, it is crucial to give them access to data and the information they need to do their job, no matter where they are working (in the office or remotely). Easy-to-use, self-service tools ensure user adoption and can move your team members toward a Citizen Data Scientist role, with advanced analytics that is intuitive, interactive and flexible.

Out-of-the-Box Mobile BI can provide natural language search analytics (NLP), clickless analytics for quick, easy analysis, key performance indicators (KPIs) for metrics and results, dashboards and reports, dynamic charts and graphs, and intuitive visualizations, all designed for ease-of-use with self-serve features that are suitable for every user.

With these tools, your users can easily find and analyze information, working from anywhere, at any time of the day. They will not have to guess at information, or carry copies of old reports that are no longer relevant.

‘If you have adopted a BI tool or self-serve analytics solution, but you have yet to provide your team with mobile business intelligence, it is past time to consider this addition because your competitors area already implementing these solutions.’

If you want to support your business user team and provide a foundation for BI tools that will better serve your team and your customers, explore Smarten Mobile BI benefits and features, with powerful functionality and access for your business users including out-of-the-box Mobile BI and advanced analytics for every team member. For more information on Mobile BI and Augmented Analytics, read our article, ‘Mobile BI Business Use Provides Real Advantages,’ and take a moment to watch and listen to this informative webinar, ‘Smarten Mobile BI.’

Original Post : Mobile BI Supports User Access and Adoption and Improves Results!

Citizen Data Scientists Are Important to Business Transformation

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October 7, 2025

Transform Your Business with Citizen Data Scientists

The business environment today is competitive. Whether your business is global or local, you are challenged to do more with less, to set and achieve goals more quickly and to stay ahead of your competitors by gaining a comprehensive understanding of what your customers want, what they WILL want, and how to best attract their attention and retain them.

To meet these challenges, every team member and employee must have a thorough understanding of how their roles and responsibilities fit into the grand scheme of things and how the projects, tasks and activities they pursue on a day-to-day basis will affect revenue, outcomes and results.

When a business (large or small) makes the decision to transition business users to Citizen Data Scientists, it supports the alignment of goals and objectives with fact-based decision-making and improved data literacy, encouraging its users to embrace and understand data and use that data to collaborate, present information to management and gain insight into results to identify opportunities and address issues.

‘The Citizen Data Scientist approach transforms the organization by improving time to market, reducing rework and mitigating market missteps and improving productivity and the alignment of workflow and tasks with the goals and objectives of the enterprise.’

World renowned technology research firm Gartner first coined the term ‘Citizen Data Scientist’ in 2016 and defined the role as ‘a person who creates or generates models that leverage predictive or prescriptive analytics, but whose primary job function is outside of the field of statistics and analytics.’

Nearly a decade later, the role has been refined and structured within many organizations and recent Gartner research reports that, ‘Citizen Data Scientists can be leveraged to perform repetitive and redundant tasks in the analytics workflow, and therefore create value to the organization, while allowing expert data scientists to focus on more complex tasks.’

The increased pace and tenor of competition has forced businesses to accommodate rapid change in markets and customer buying behavior by using analytics, data scientists and business analysts to work with IT and create reports and presentations to be used for decisions. But there just aren’t enough professional resources of funds to support this approach. Hence, the evolution of Citizen Data Scientists.

Transform Business Users Into Citizen Data Scientists AND Transform Your Business

The evolution of self-serve augmented analytics tools and technologies like natural language processing (NLP) and NLP search, machine learning, flexible data visualization, and artificial intelligence (AI) provide support for business users without technical skills to gather and analyze data and produce reports, collaborate with other users and make recommendations using insight derived from advanced analytics. And this approach supports data democratization and data literacy.

The Citizen Data Scientist approach also transforms the organization by allowing business users to interact with and collaborate with IT and data scientists to take day-to-day data analytics and translate them into strategic initiatives with measurable results, accurate predictions and rapid flexible processes.

The Citizen Data Scientist approach transforms the organization by improving time to market, reducing rework and mitigating market missteps and improving productivity and the alignment of workflow and tasks with the goals and objectives of the enterprise. It provides a career path for business users and advances their knowledge and skills, allowing them to understand how their role directly influences results and to create and innovate.

‘When a business (large or small) makes the decision to transition business users to Citizen Data Scientists, it supports the alignment of goals and objectives with fact-based decision-making and improved data literacy, encouraging its users to embrace and understand data.’

To plan for and execute a Citizen Data Scientist initiative, the organization must engage an expert in augmented analytics and develop a comprehensive understanding of technology and cultural changes in order to advance this new idea within the ranks of IT, data scientists, business users, managers and executives.

Learn more about how the transformation of business users to Citizen Data Scientists can benefit your business, and how technology and appropriate Self-Serve Analytics Tools can support Citizen Data Scientists in their new role, and provide fact-based decision-making and advantages to the organization. Explore our free white papers and articles: ‘The Potential Of The Citizen Data Scientist Approach And Augmented Analytics,’ and ‘Leverage Citizen Data Scientists For Business And Business Users.’

Original Post : Citizen Data Scientists Are Important to Business Transformation!

Smarten Support Portal Updates – September – 2025!

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October 3, 2025

We invite you to explore our latest knowledgebase articles and to join the Smarten user community on Smarten Support Portal.

If you have not registered yet, Click Here to obtain your login credentials.

Knowledgebase Articles

  1. General : Global Variables : Making use of Global variables
  2. Crosstab : Summary on Crosstab with multiple Row and Column dimensions
  3. Access Rights, Roles and Permissions : AD Integration in Smarten
  4. Datasets & Cubes : Handling multiple JOINs through Step by Step Procedure to create a dataset

Predictive Use cases

  1. Assisted predictive modelling : Regression : Handling Outliers Using Smarten Assisted Predictive Modelling
  2. Assisted predictive modelling : Hypothesis : One-Way Anova test using Smarten Augmented Analytics

Business Use Cases

  1. Business Scenarios : Sales Analysis Report by YoY Performance with Flexible Date Selection
  2. Business Scenarios : Calculation of Working Days Excluding Plant-Specific Holidays and Sundays

Manuals and Technical Guides

  1. Smarten Concept Manual Smartenview
  2. Smarten Concept Manual SnapShot
  3. Smarten Integration With Your App

If you don’t find what you need in the Support Portal, we hope you will contact us with your questions, comments or suggestions. We are here to help and to support your business goals and success!

URL: Smarten Customer and Partner Community
Email: support@Smarten.com

Original Post: Smarten Support Portal Updates – September – 2025!

Case Study : Customer Churn Prediction for India-Based Pharmacy and Wellness Business

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September 25, 2025

The Client owns a leading specialty chain of pharmacy and wellness stores in Ahmedabad, India, providing pharmaceuticals, medications, and wellness products to the community and consumers. As a component of its business, it sponsors a popular customer loyalty program. The Smarten model demonstrated remarkable performance, achieving 98% accuracy in predicting customer churn on the testing dataset.

Continue reading “Case Study : Customer Churn Prediction for India-Based Pharmacy and Wellness Business”