Roambi iOS7 Screen shot Roambi has just introduced a complete reworking of their flagship product for the iOS7 platform: Roambi Analytics 7. In an interview with Quinton Alsbury, co-founder and president of Product Innovation, I spent time with him discussing the difference between the mobile user, who is typically out in the field, and the typical desktop user of BI. Quinton and his partners understood that the desktop is a “work first” environment, and the new app ecosystem created by Apple first was (and is) a consumer-grade, high-end experience.

Therefore, when they approached creating Roambi, around 2008, they had to start from scratch, orienting to the mobile, rather than the desktop, experience. That meant giving up the assumption that the user is always connected, a serious issue if you are looking to process large sets of data. Even in 2013 this issue still holds true. Despite the the massive proliferation of wireless devices there’s no assurance of a connection everywhere, much less one that’s completely up to speed to deliver torrents of data rapidly.

The other assumption that had to be faced is whether or not the user is sitting down and can spend a great deal of time looking at a large screen and perusing a great deal of data at leisure. This isn’t the case for the user on the go, needing to reference their data quickly and with direct focus on specific points.

“We want the user to experience data in their hands… the typical Roambi user is out in the field… [Roambi is] the mobile dashboard perfected,” Alsbury said.

Most strikingly, compared with the previous version, the look of Roambi Analytics 7 has completely changed to match the aesthetic of the new iOS7. The old user experience was for those who had to be taught how to use gestures, such as tapping, swiping, and pinching. These were all introduced with the first hand-held iPhone and iPad apps.

When Alsbury saw that his one-year-old could navigate an iPad, he realized that natural gesture touch-based navigation was now mature enough that Apple had made a sensible revision to the flatter graphical interface, and Roambi was ready to make its biggest evolution since the iPad version of 2010 was released.

Apart from being truly still a mobile experience, the new version has a brighter and wider aesthetic. But, as the saying goes, there’s more: they have added bubble, scatter and waterfall charts, a new card view, views that users can control, a “sandbox” where users can replicate many dashboard functions, and a 2 row by 3 column grid that scrolls vertically.
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Although their biggest market of users are enterprise customers, who often have thousands of field representatives or a sales force that needs to travel with the data in their hands, it’s a valuable tool for companies of all sizes. Additionally, it can be used by companies that sell data, as content can be formatted and delivered to a wider audience looking to consume the information without desiring all of the front end BI work.

As Roambi works everywhere because the datasets live on the device, this must be taken into account if you’re looking for a number-crunching, data-visualization tool. Alsbury said, “Roambi is not a BI tool…it’s a mobile app.”

But there is a cloud version to consider: subscription-based and hosted by Roambi, the user can upload excel formatted data or use an API. Then the mobile app becomes a publishing tool for creating a rich experience around data.

“All of the BI companies have launched ‘mobile products’, taking an entire application and dropping it into a mobile environment. No one was willing to start from scratch for mobile.”

They did it when the first version iOS launched, and they have started (almost) from scratch again for iOS7.

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Roambi for iOS7 – Card view

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Detail of Roambi’s new iOS7 interface on the iPad

 

The new Roambi Analytics 7 is available now:
Download Roambi Analytics 7