Sisense > Case Studies > Interfolio's Modern Data Strategy: A Case Study

Interfolio's Modern Data Strategy: A Case Study

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Database Management & Storage
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Buildings
Education

Applicable Functions

Maintenance

Use Cases

Building Automation & Control
Time Sensitive Networking

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

The Customer

Interfolio

About The Customer

Interfolio is a software service provider that is leveraged by over 300 institutions of higher education across the globe, including Cal Poly, Northwestern, and NYU. Its software services are used to track faculty hiring processes, streamline accreditation and activity reportings, and improve workflows for promotion, tenure, and review. As Interfolio’s user base grew along with the volume of data, the company realized the need for a modern data strategy that could unify internal data, streamline reporting processes, and be flexible and scalable enough to serve as an embedded solution within the Interfolio platform.

The Challenge

Interfolio, a software service provider for higher education institutions, faced a significant challenge as its user base and data volume grew. The company needed a modern data strategy that could unify internal data, streamline reporting processes, and be flexible and scalable enough to serve as an embedded solution within the Interfolio platform. The primary challenge was selecting a BI platform and a cloud data platform that could handle multiple data sources, model complexity, and enable straightforward dashboard creation. The company had been using a competing BI vendor and an in-house solution for managing their consumer-based SaaS metrics and reporting, and for managing reporting data for quarterly business reviews. However, as data sets grew exponentially, these solutions were no longer performant or scalable.

The Solution

Interfolio decided to implement a cloud data strategy with Sisense and Snowflake. The company recognized that if they were investing in Sisense, they would need a data warehouse that was sound and could scale with the organization as their data and analytics needs expanded. With Sisense and Snowflake, performance, scalability, and maintenance would no longer be an issue. Sisense’s platform provided the flexibility to prepare, query, and manage data within Snowflake using both code and a web-based, visual data modeling experience. And with the option to use both live and in-memory data options, Interfolio’s ability to derive greater insights from their data would be limitless. The company is now planning to deploy an embedded analytics project, specifically, an embedded reporting capability within Interfolio’s Faculty Search module.

Operational Impact

The implementation of Sisense and Snowflake has empowered departments across Interfolio to get more hands-on with their data. The company is nurturing a culture of curiosity and data literacy at all levels of the organization. As internal stakeholders become more familiar with the data they have access to, power users are being given the ability to design their own dashboards. The new data environment has also enabled the company to quickly understand trends in application utilization, ensuring the Interfolio workforce is supported and enabled to do their best work, especially in the transition to a virtual working model due to COVID-19.

Quantitative Benefit

Speed and efficiency of data analysis and reporting improved significantly, with tasks that previously took over a month to complete now taking only a week.
The scalability of the new solution allowed for the handling of exponentially growing data sets.
The flexibility of the new solution enabled the integration of all major 3rd party data sources into the analytics workflow.