The collective sum of the world’s data will grow to 175 zettabytes by 2025, with a compounded annual growth rate of 61 percent.

– IDC

Today, the volume of data produced in an organization has grown incrementally. It is stored in various formats across their SharePoint Servers and Farms. When analyzed properly, this data can help organizations to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their existing business processes, giving them a competitive advantage over others. However, converting data available in SharePoint into insightful reports is not an easy job. It requires both time and effort from the business user, and has huge dependencies from the IT department. Such roadblocks often deter organizations from leveraging SharePoint data to transform their operations.   

Below we have enlisted some of the most common data aggregation and visualization challenges faced by SharePoint business users and how web apps can help in data analysis.

Common Challenges of SharePoint Online Data Aggregation

1. The amount of data being collected

Data-driven decision-making is the norm of the times. New data analytics technologies simplify the process of deriving actionable insights from business data. As the most popular document management and collaboration platform, SharePoint Online holds terabytes of business-critical information that can have a huge impact on profitability and growth. However, organizations are often overwhelmed with the voluminous structured and unstructured data collected in their SharePoint environment. Consequently, the data analysts or IT engineers are often overwhelmed with customization requests to fetch SharePoint data into a single report. This is one of the reasons why requests for data can’t be delivered on time. SharePoint Online web apps enable business users to create impactful reports with voluminous data without any coding.

2. Aggregation of data from multiple sources

Organizations using SharePoint as their organization’s information hub have data stored across multiple SharePoint sites and site collections. Additionally, because SharePoint is easy to integrate with third-party data management systems, the data can be stored in them too. However, to analyze the data and get accurate insights, real-time data need to be aggregated from various systems and locations. Organizations that do not have a data aggregation strategy in place, risk developing bottlenecks that can disrupt data analysis while also slowing the productivity levels, wasting time and money while also causing frustrations for the top-level decision-makers. Products with System Integration (SI) web apps allow the business users to easily bring together data from multiple third-party systems.

3. Interpretation and visualization of data accurately

Having bulk of data available is not what makes an organization data-driven. Organizations need proper tools and strategies in place to make sense of their data and then present it to the decision-makers in a visually appealing format. However, this becomes a challenge when the data present is in large volumes, different formats, and at different locations. SharePoint web apps help business users to view, group, and filter data available in different lists and farms.

4. Real-time availability of accurate and updated data

When the information is stored in disparate systems, it is hard to keep all of them updated in real-time. However, for data analysis to be effective and accurate, its quintessential that all data aggregated is up to date, then only the insights will be reliable. Organizations that do not have solutions integrated with their SharePoint environment to support real-time data updates, face issues with data redundancy, quality and governance. SharePoint web apps can help organizations keep their data updated.

5. Lack of support from other departments

Data siloes are a leading challenge for organizations. While every department is creating a huge volume of business-critical data, it can’t be brought together to create a comprehensive report. As a result, the stakeholders or managers are unable to view a holistic report to make data-driven business decisions. For an organization to reap maximum value from their SharePoint data, all departments need to collaborate. With SharePoint web apps in pace, organizations can bring together data across multiple locations and systems together seamlessly.

How No-Code web apps help in Data Aggregation?

No-code solutions for SharePoint deliver a suite of web apps that empower business users to bring together data and create visually stunning reports without any IT dependence. Users with business knowledge can leverage such solutions to simplify data aggregation and reporting. Leveraging web apps, organizations can significantly reduce the costs and complexities involved in SharePoint data reporting. Powerful web apps for SharePoint help business users to aggregate, customize and represent data in compelling 3D charts, list views, graphs, etc. by leveraging data from multiple lists, calendars, discussion forums, and more such avenues.

Using QuickApps for Data Aggregation

QuickApps is an innovative ‘No-Code’ solution with a set of pre-built templates and 21 powerful web apps available for SharePoint on-premises and SharePoint Online. Leveraging these QuickApps’ No-code web apps, organizations can create visually appealing reports utilizing data from multiple sources within SharePoint. Users can build powerful reports in minutes, without the need for custom coding, based on SharePoint content, Microsoft SQL databases, business connectivity services, and third-party data sources. Some of its popular web apps that helps in data aggregation and visualization are:

• qListView: Combines data from multiple lists, even across sites, site collections and web applications.
• qChartView: Creates compelling 3D Charts with data fetched from multiple lists across sites, site collections, and web applications.
• qCalendarView: Syndicates all calendars into one view, including data from non-calendar lists.
• qExcelView: Displays data in Microsoft Excel based on criteria passed from qListView, even when that data is not shown in the qListView.
• qDiscussionView: Shows the topic and responses of multiple discussion lists in a single tree view and preview selected items in a preview panel.
• qSIChartView: Display external data in compelling 3-D charts
• qSIListView: Display external data in a SharePoint list
• qSIListForm: Create, view, and edit external data in a form

Take QuickApps 30-days free trial to overcome your SharePoint data aggregation and reporting challenges and realize the true value of data.