In today's data-driven world, businesses rely heavily on insightful dashboards to make informed decisions and monitor their performance. Rather than investing valuable engineering time into building a dashboard from scratch or requiring users to log in to a separate platform, you can seamlessly embed dashboard analytics into your application, offering numerous benefits to your organization. Luckily, Dataflake is not only a data visualization but also an embedded analytics tool - might be a game-changer.
In this article, we'll explore the advantages of Dataflake embedded analytics solution, provide step-by-step instructions for integration, discuss three practical use cases, and emphasize the importance of security.
When you integrate Dataflake Dashboard into your application, your engineers can allocate their time and resources to other critical tasks. Building a dashboard from scratch can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. Dataflake Dashboard allows you to leverage pre-built templates and functionalities, reducing development efforts significantly.
Your viewers and users won't need to navigate away from your application or log in to Dataflake to access the dashboard. This seamless integration enhances the user experience, increases engagement, and ensures that your users remain within your application's ecosystem.
Data security is paramount. By embedding Dataflake Dashboard, you retain control over what data your viewers can access. You can restrict their access to specific data sets, preventing any unauthorized data leakage. This ensures that sensitive information remains protected while providing valuable insights to your users.
Integrating Dataflake Dashboard into your product is a straightforward process. Follow these steps to get started:
If you haven't already, sign up for Dataflake Dashboard and create your first dashboard.
Dataflake Dashboard provides an option to generate a URL or an embedded iframe. Customize the settings to fit your requirements, such as choosing the authentication method, dashboard pages, and access permissions. Once you've configured your dashboard settings, copy the generated embed.
Configure information
Customize dashboard in view mode
Sealing
Sealing helps protect your parameters and make sure your users cannot access unauthorized information from your database.
Param appears in the URL. So, when embedding through a URL, if a customer changes the param value into another, they can see the analytics of other customers. It means that the information of other customers is leaked.
That's why we should configure sealing when sharing for the security matter. There are 2 sealing methods: no sealing and quick seal (sealing specifics parameters values in alpha order)
If you want to share your dashboard publicly and anyone can see the full dashboard, you can disable sealing (no sealing). However, to make sure the right audience can see the right analytics related to their data, you can select “Quick seal", helping seal param value
Configure Quick Seal when embedding dashboard
You need to choose the param that you need to seal and type the seal params value.
For example, if you want to take the seal param “to_date”, you fill the seal param value “to_date = 2023-12-12”. So, with the link generated with param “to_date = 2023-12-12”, if a user changes into “to_date = 2023-12-13”, the result is that the user can't see the analytics with the param “to_date = 2023-12-13”
Hash function
A hash function processes an input value, such as a string, and produces a consistent, fixed-length output. There are 3 hash functions: MD5, SHA-1, SHA-25
MD5 creates a 128-bit hash, whereas SHA1 creates a 160-bit hash (20 bytes). The SHA-256 algorithm returns hash value of 256-bits, or 64 hexadecimal digits
For example, Your string: to_date = 2023-12-12 (param value you want to seal using Hash function)
MD5 Hash: Df491bce52045a447683f82bf9936173
SHA1 Hash: 889e732df68ae54778977e2869a5210102dd9d46
Now, the URL link returns: https://app.dataflake.co/s/………?to_date = 2023-12-12&quick_seal=Df491bce52045a447683f82bf9936173
Salt
To the high level of protection, hash salting generators matter. Salt is a cryptographically strong random string applied to a password before hashing. This salt is stored alongside the hash, enhancing security by thwarting attempts to decipher the original plaintext unless both sources are accessible to an attacker.
The applied secret key formula: Secret key = hash (params + salt)
When you want to create a secret key, you just need to enter plain text to compute the hash and type “salt”. For instance,
Paste the embed code into your application's HTML or use an iFrame to display the dashboard where you want it to appear.
Security is the top priority. Therefore, we recommend you use HTTPS when embedding analytics in your applications or websites.
Test the integration to ensure it works seamlessly within your application. You can refine the layout and appearance as needed.
Sales teams rely on up-to-the-minute data to make informed decisions and drive revenue growth. By embedding Dataflake Dashboard into your CRM platform, you empower your sales team with real-time access to critical sales performance metrics. They can effortlessly track key indicators such as conversion rates, lead generation statistics, and revenue insights, all without leaving the CRM interface.
This integration eliminates the need for manual data entry and time-consuming report generation, enabling your sales professionals to focus on what they do best-closing deals and nurturing customer relationships. With Dataflake Dashboard seamlessly integrated, your CRM becomes a one-stop-shop for sales analytics, boosting efficiency and ultimately leading to improved sales outcomes.
Unlike traditional methods that require viewers and users to navigate away from your application or log in to a separate platform, Dataflake Dashboard can be seamlessly integrated directly into your application's interface. This means that your users can access the dashboard effortlessly without any disruptions.
As a result, they are more likely to explore and utilize the dashboard's features, leading to a deeper understanding of the data and insights you're providing. This user-friendly approach ultimately enhances the overall satisfaction of your viewers and users, contributing to a positive perception of your application.
Embedding your Dataflake Dashboard directly on your website offers a powerful way to share data insights with a wider audience. This use case enhances transparency, makes data readily accessible, engages website visitors with interactive visualizations, and maintains brand consistency. It also allows for access control, real-time updates, and improved decision-making, making it an invaluable tool for showcasing your data-driven insights to customers, partners, and the public.
Integrating Dataflake Dashboard into your application through URL or iframe offers a multitude of advantages, from saving engineering time to enhancing the user experience and ensuring data security. By following the steps outlined in this article and exploring practical use cases, you can harness the full potential of Dataflake Dashboard to drive informed decision-making and empower your users with valuable insights.
Get started with Dataflake now to create your first dashboard and embed into your product!
