Helical IT Solutions has announced the release of Helical Insight version 5.2.1, the latest enhancement to its Open Source Business Intelligence (BI) platform. This new version aims to offer a powerful, cost-effective solution for analytics, potentially redefining the global analytics landscape. Helical Insight stands out as a versatile alternative to traditional BI tools such as PowerBI, Tableau, and Quicksight, offering superior flexibility and functionality.
A primary goal of Helical Insight is to democratize analytics. The platform provides flexible deployment options and a straightforward flat-rate pricing model, enabling businesses to scale their analytics efforts without the financial burden associated with traditional licensing models. The browser-based interface allows both internal teams and external clients to engage seamlessly in self-service analytics.
Helical Insight offers a comprehensive suite of enterprise-grade capabilities. These include embedding and white-labeling options, seamless Single Sign-On (SSO) integration, and advanced features like extensive data export options, dynamic email bursting, strict row-level security, advanced drill-down and drill-through capabilities, efficient data caching, and smooth pagination controls. The platform also supports native Docker and Kubernetes, high-availability load balancing, and a variety of visualization options to meet diverse analytical needs.
Version 5.2.1 introduces new capabilities, including enhanced support for a broader range of data sources. Notably, the platform now offers direct API support, allowing users to utilize any API for data analysis. It also includes a user-friendly interface for working with various flat file formats such as Excel, CSV, TSV, Parquet, JSON, and Google Sheets, which can be hosted on cloud platforms like Azure, AWS, and GCP.
To meet customer demand for more customized charting options, Helical Insight 5.2.1 now features new chart types, including Treemap, Waterfall, Radar, Bullet, Gauge, and Tiny-Ring charts. The update also brings advanced customization options, such as sorting and filtering data in tables, displaying totals in tables, customizing data labels with color rotation in various Axis Charts, and displaying totals at the center of Donut charts with options for prefix and suffix in static values, SVG, icons, or URL images.
New dashboard-level options have also been introduced, providing users with greater control and the ability to create more visually appealing dashboards. Features like Tabbed view dashboards, Overlays, custom dropdown options, and Margins have been added, alongside advanced options like custom HTML and filter dashboard variable access. Additionally, new export options, including PPT and image formats, are introduced in beta.
"At Helical Insight, we are investing heavily in the future. We are already working on GenerativeAI (GenAI) integration, which will allow chat-based data analysis capabilities. It will also support prescriptive and descriptive analytics, among other exciting features," said Nitin Sahu, co-founder of Helical Insight.
In today's rapidly evolving business environment, BI is crucial for enabling data-driven decision-making. Industry forecasts indicate robust growth for the global BI market, with projections from Fortune Business Insights suggesting an increase from $24.05 billion in 2021 to $43.03 billion by 2028, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.7%. Despite this potential, BI adoption remains relatively low, with only 26% of organizations currently utilizing BI solutions according to 360Suite. As small businesses increasingly adopt BI to gain a competitive edge, Helical Insight is positioned to lead this transformative shift, empowering organizations of all sizes to harness data and drive actionable insights.
