Quest Software has introduced Toad Data Point 5.6, a cross-platform, self-service, data preparation tool that empowers business analysts to retrieve and work with data from disparate sources in a simple and effective way.
The data preparation market continues to follow an upward trajectory as businesses strive to get more value from their data in order to drive growth. According to forecast reports, the data preparation market was valued at USD 1.32 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 2.98 billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 14.5% during the forecast period (2021 - 2026).
However, business analysts typically have to sacrifice about 80% of their time for data preparation tasks like accessing, cleansing, normalizing and blending disparate data sets, and such challenges often require them to rely on IT, which can become a major roadblock.
Toad Data Point 5.6 offers a simple and effective way to empower business analysts to retrieve and work with data from disparate sources, including native connectivity to Snowflake, without relying on IT.
“As organizations increasingly turn to data to inform critical business decisions, non-database professionals have a pressing need to better understand and access available data so they can prepare and use it for analysis,” said John Pocknell, Senior Market Strategist, Quest Software. “Since it’s no longer practical or possible to involve IT in every request for data retrieval, it’s become critical to give business users the tools they need to extract and prepare their own data.”
As the demand for faster, more advanced data analytics rises, companies are further incentivized to modernize their data warehouses and leverage the latest cloud-based technologies.
The traditional data warehouse, typically deployed on-premises and used for storing vast amounts of data, is being challenged in the face of demands for greater data diversity, faster analytics, ease of use, SaaS services and cloud deployment.
With Toad Data Point 5.6, business users are empowered to:
• Easily connect to and query multiple data sources, including Snowflake, to bring data together for reporting rather than relying on separate spreadsheets.
• Elevate their role by preparing their own data sets and reports without relying on IT.
• Securely share dynamic data sets with colleagues so they are continuously up-to-date.
New updates and enhancements available to Toad Data Point 5.6 customers include:
• Native Snowflake connector – allows Toad Data Point users to navigate through Snowflake databases and query Snowflake data.
• Toad Data Point Workbook – provides a non-technical interface for business users with moderate technical skills but not proficient at writing SQL queries.
• Toad Data Point Automation – eliminates manual processes by combining multiple tasks into automated workflows that can be scheduled and shared, thus enhancing productivity and increasing accuracy.
“Toad Data Point requires minimal effort to set up, the cost is reasonable, and support is top notch,” said Deandra Suderman, National Senior Manager Reporting and Business Intelligence, Staples. “Compared to Hyperion, it offers much more advanced abilities with subqueries. Some reports that needed multiple queries in Hyperion can be executed with one run in Toad.”
