“Fulton Analytics delivered a critical solution under tight deadlines - providing analytics to Covid-19 testing organizations around the Country””
Mere months into a global pandemic - organizations where scrambling to rollout timely and reliable Covid-19 testing to as many as possible. Late last summer, a Midwest based laboratory testing company was seeking to enhance their reporting capabilities by embedding an analytics dashboard that tracked Covid-19 testing results right inside the company’s client portal application.
The team of Data Consultants at Fulton Analytics architected and built an embedded analytics solution to meet the needs of this clinical laboratory and all of their customers.
Critical Testing Insights
With clients across the United States, the organization was seeking a way to communicate Covid-19 testing rates, and most importantly, positive test results from the tested population. In addition, the organization wanted to move past simply presenting data on a table and provide interactive data visualization to uncover insights and trends in Covid-19 testing. A major concern that came with publishing the results was ensuring strict data privacy was applied to the data. The organization was seeking an embedded analytics solution that could:
Provide row-level security so each individual client would only see data specific to them
Show testing volumes, positive test rates, trends over time, and geographical area
Embed analytics directly within the client portal application (Coldfusion)
Selecting The Right Platform
With time being of the essence - Fulton Analytics was able to quickly architect and build an embedded analytics solution using the Microsoft Power BI platform.
Our team of Data Consultants engaged with key stakeholders on a daily basis and were able to respond to continuously changing business needs. The embedded analytics solution was built on top of Microsoft Power BI, recognized by Gartner as the industry leading business analytics platform. (read)
Collaborative Execution
Our Data Success Framework allowed our team to deliver the solution in a series of agile iterative sprints. Our team of Data Consultants partnered closely with the client’s database developer and applications administrator to build a custom analytics solution. Our consultants designed a Power BI report that met the UI/UX requirements of the client. Following a continuous iterative approach, we worked side-by-side to create changes to the report and embed it successfully in the client portal.
Power BI Embedding
One key challenge was embedding the Power BI report inside the client portal application. The client portal was built on a Coldfusion web hosting platform, which presented several challenges when we attempted to embed the Power BI solution. Working with the client’s web developer and applications administrator, our team was able to quickly troubleshoot these issues and successfully embed a fully functioning Power BI report within the Coldfusion based client portal. We were also able to configure the authentication and security to filter the data by the client login credentials.
The End Result
Slowing the spread of the virus was vital. During the Covid-19 pandemic, testing and monitoring positive cases was the number one priority for companies monitoring the health of their workforce. Leveraging the embedded analytics solution built with Power BI, this laboratory testing company was able to provide visual reporting to their clients in a frictionless manner and help identify potential outbreaks before they happened.
To design a custom data analytics solution contact: info@fultonanalytics.com
Robert Gerads is CEO of Fulton Analytics, a data analytics strategy and consulting firm based in St. Paul, MN.
He is also the founder of the Twin Cities Power BI Meetup.