How to deliver data stories with context with Yellowfin Present

With businesses becoming more data-led, there's now an expectation that you will use numbers when talking about strategy and the state of your business. You can’t do that by just looking at a dashboard because they don’t provide any context to the data. You may see that revenue has gone up but it doesn’t tell you what’s happening in the business or how different parts are performing. The context you give to data is far more valuable than the data itself, so we’re trying to close that gap by letting you build data stories when you're working with numbers. This is possible in our next release through Yellowfin Present.

Rather than having to screenshot something and go into Powerpoint, you can work with numbers and tell your story simultaneously in Present. Present is as easy to use as Google Presentations, Keynote, or PowerPoint. It's a presentation tool built into Yellowfin. You can drag in a text box, type in text, and drag an image. It’s super simple and gives you the ability to share, collaborate, and build content with your colleagues.

Present + Stories: the ultimate data storytelling duo

Present has also been designed to complement Stories - the biggest difference between the two is the method by which you deliver your story. Stories are the long-form narrative. It’s a written report or journalism piece where you describe in detail aspects of your business and underpin that narrative with numbers. While Present makes it easy for you to stand up in front of people and walk them through a story with words rather than text.

While Present is quite similar to tools like Powerpoint, it isn’t designed to replace them. We believe it’s valuable and convenient for people to use tools within the same environment as their data. It’s also important for the governance of your organization. If I can explain to you what's actually happening in your business, what the key drivers are and underpin that with numbers, that’s far more valuable competitive intelligence than if I’d just given you a profit loss statement. So we believe organizations should be careful about who can access their narratives. That’s why we’ve put not just the numbers but also the context behind the numbers in a governed and secured place.

Present in action

One of the most interesting use cases we’ve seen for Present is where customers have used it to present to their own customers. For example, an automotive ERP organization can use it to give each of their customers insights about their business from the data they’ve collected. They can walk their customers through a story that helps them to build stronger relationships. Because they’re sharing the context of the data and the opportunities, they’ll open a conversation about how to build your business together and that’s really exciting. Present is really powerful for this use case because our customers can build these data stories within their analytic toolset.

At Yellowfin, we do all of our month-end reporting through Stories and Present and we’ve found that it also saves us time. Because people have already read each other's Stories their presentations are much shorter. This means we spend less time in our end of month meetings.

Whether you’re running a business or working with customers, everyone tells stories every day. Until now, BI software was designed for people who are highly numeric, not for people who tell stories. I believe the ability to write and tell stories and present effectively are core competencies that organizations should be looking to develop across the board. That’s why we’re helping them do this.

Yellowfin Present is now available in Yellowfin version 9.