InetSoft: A Worldwide BI Vendor

Lapis Lazuli Extractor: Switching from Alteryx to InetSoft for a Worldwide BI Application

A Lapis Lazuli extraction company operating across Afghanistan, Chile, and Russia decided to overhaul its analytics stack, moving from an Alteryx-centered workflow to a solution built around InetSoft for global business intelligence and operational reporting. The decision was driven by the need for highly interactive, embeddable dashboards for stakeholders spread across time zones; lower total cost of ownership when scaling to many users; and a desire for thinner, web-native delivery to mining sites with limited bandwidth.

Business drivers for the move

• Global consumption of insights: Field supervisors, port managers, quality labs, and executive teams all needed the same trusted KPIs but presented differently — mobile-friendly summaries for foremen, detailed drilldowns for quality analysts, and board-level scorecards for executives.
• Embed-ability and white-labeling: The extraction business wanted analytics embedded inside partner portals and shipment tracking pages without exposing backend complexities or requiring users to learn a separate analytics app.
• Performance and concurrency: Seasonal spikes in reporting requests around shipment cycles created heavy concurrency loads. A lightweight web-optimized BI layer was necessary to keep dashboards responsive for hundreds of concurrent users.
• Cost and scaling model: Alteryx licensing and server scaling were proving expensive for broad internal adoption. The company sought a lower marginal cost per user for global rollout.
• Operational use cases: Real-time vessel manifests, lab assay trends, and health-and-safety incident dashboards demanded fast visual refresh and custom visualizations that were easily accessible from remote locations.

How the technical fit compares

Alteryx had functioned as the central data-prep and analytics engine — excellent for complex ETL jobs, spatial analysis, and advanced analytics prototypes. InetSoft was chosen not to replace every Alteryx capability, but to take over the enterprise-facing BI layer and many repeatable data-prep patterns through lightweight integration. Key comparative points:

• Delivery model: InetSoft provides browser-native dashboards that embed into web portals and provide responsive layouts for tablets and phones, whereas Alteryx often required downstream tools for polished visualization and broad distribution.
• Self-service vs. governed analytics: InetSoft enables governed self-service for business users to explore without altering underlying ETL logic. Complex statistical routines and machine learning models were retained in the Alteryx environment where needed.
• Integration: InetSoft connects directly to operational databases, cloud warehouses, and REST APIs (including lab instruments and shipping partners), reducing the need to stage all datasets centrally for visualization.
• Embeddability and white labeling: InetSoft’s embedding APIs made it straightforward to integrate dashboards into partner-facing portals with custom look-and-feel and access constraints.

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Industry-specific dashboards and KPIs

For lapis lazuli extraction, the BI solution concentrated on a small set of high-value dashboards that support daily operations and strategic decisions:

• Mining Operations Dashboard: Tonnes extracted per shift, equipment utilization, fuel consumption per tonne, and shift-level incident reporting.
• Quality & Assay Dashboard: Gem grade distributions, assay variance by lot, reject rates, and time-to-result for lab samples.
• Supply Chain & Shipments: Batch tracking, shipment delay heatmaps, customs clearance times, and revenue per consignment.
• Procurement & Supplier Performance: Artisanal supplier reliability, lot acceptance rates, and cost-per-kilo by source.
• ESG & Community Payments: Local employment metrics, royalty payments, environmental compliance incidents, and remediation project status.

Migration strategy

A pragmatic, phased migration helped mitigate risk while delivering value quickly:

1. Discovery and cataloging: Inventory existing Alteryx workflows, data sources, and downstream consumers. Identify which pipelines are ETL-heavy, which are analytical prototypes, and which simply prepare data for dashboards.
2. Pilot dashboards: Implement two high-impact dashboards in InetSoft — one operational (mining operations) and one commercial (shipments). Use live data connections where possible to validate performance.
3. Hybrid architecture: Retain Alteryx for advanced analytics and model scoring. Create published data extracts or virtual views that InetSoft consumes for visualization, minimizing data duplication.
4. Rebuild and optimize visuals: Recreate key visualizations in InetSoft with attention to mobile layout, filter ergonomics, and drill paths. Introduce pre-calculated aggregates for heavy queries.
5. Validation and governance: Establish test protocols and approvals where InetSoft visuals pull from Alteryx-prepared datasets to ensure parity and data lineage.
6. Rollout and training: Ship the embedded dashboards to pilot countries, collect feedback, then scale globally with role-based content and localized language support.

Security, governance and operational considerations

Operating across jurisdictions requires strict data governance. InetSoft’s role-based access, SSO integration, and audit logging were configured to match existing security policies. Additional considerations included:

• Data residency: Sensitive financial and contract data remained in-country where required; dashboards used controlled, anonymized aggregates when tracing across borders.
• Offline and low-bandwidth use: Lightweight visual layers and on-demand data caching reduced load times for remote sites with satellite connectivity.
• Auditability: All dashboard queries were logged for compliance, and dataset versions tracked so results could be traced back to specific Alteryx workflow runs.

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Cost and ROI

Cost comparisons factored license model, deployment options, and user count. Benefits that drove positive ROI included faster decision cycles at the site level (reduced downtime from quicker maintenance decisions), fewer ad-hoc report requests to central analytics (lowered analyst overhead), and improved shipment throughput from real-time visibility. The marginal cost per additional user for InetSoft was lower than expanding Alteryx server capacity for widespread dashboard consumption, making the economics attractive for a global rollout.

Change management and training

Successful adoption relied on a targeted training program and clear ownership:

• Local champions: Each operating region appointed one analytics champion to collect user stories and prioritize dashboard iterations.
• Role-based training: Short, scenario-driven sessions were delivered for foremen, lab technicians, shipping coordinators, and executives to align dashboards to daily tasks.
• Documentation and playbooks: Simple runbooks explained how to interpret KPIs, troubleshoot data refresh issues, and escalate anomalies.

Risks and mitigations

Potential pitfalls and controls included:

• Data divergence risk: Ensure single source of truth by exposing published views from Alteryx to InetSoft rather than copying logic ad hoc.
• Over-customization: Avoid building dozens of bespoke dashboards; favor parameterized dashboards that serve multiple user personas.
• Performance under concurrency: Use caching layers and pre-aggregations for heavy queries, and monitor query performance after go-live.

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Expected outcomes and next steps

After the migration, the extraction business expects accelerated issue resolution at sites, fewer manual reporting cycles, and improved stakeholder alignment across procurement, quality, and logistics. Recommended next steps are to complete the pilot dashboards, measure usage and decision-impact metrics over 90 days, and then execute phased regional rollouts with a tight feedback loop to iterate on visualization design and governance.

Moving from an Alteryx-centric distribution model to an InetSoft-powered BI layer preserves advanced analytics capabilities while democratizing operational insight across the worldwide footprint — enabling faster, more confident decisions from pit to port.