Reporting in SaaS
Some of the key benefits of true, multi-tenant SaaS rely on the fact that all users run the same version of the software. As a result, they:
- Are always on the latest version
- See fewer bugs
- Get bugs fixed quickly
- Pay less, because their software isn't customized
That's something that's always been very important to us as an enterprise software vendor. We were warned about this when we started Molecule -- that people in the ETRM industry all want different things. What we found was slightly different from that sentiment. ETRM buyers generally want the same functionality. They do, however, want bespoke reporting.
So, in Molecule, we've spent a lot of time making sure our reporting customizes (even though our code doesn't). To that end, we make pretty much everything in Molecule available in three different ways:
- On Screen (Standard). Users see a report whose X and Y axes are standard, but that has lots of sorting, filtering, bookmarking, and drill-down capabilities.
- Dashboard (Customizable). We've integrated a business intelligence (BI) solution into our app. That enables us to build custom, screen-based and e-mailable dashboards for just about any data our app holds. These are customized for each customer. Thanks, Looker!
- API (Bespoke). Technical users can access just about any data for their account, through our JSON and CSV APIs. These are easily integrated into Excel, as well as downstream systems.
Because our reporting is customizable, we can make sure the core logic in Molecule is sound, tested, and updated frequently--while our users get exactly what they want.
