Answers to the Top 5 Questions Heard by our Data Team

One of our major investments in 2015 was the creation of the Data Customization Team. This team now has three dedicated individuals that focus 100% of their effort on ensuring that our customers have their data tailored to the way they want to see it. Here’s a list of the top 5 most popular questions they receive.

Meet Kristian, Rick, and Randall: our Data Customization team

Can We Get More Data?

Yes and no. If you’re on premise, most likely yes. We limit our default queries so as to not put a strain on the SQL database but we often have queries in house ready to apply to accounts for people wanting more data, so just ask! Sometimes they don’t work and we need to limit data being pulled in and often removing data related to automated tickets works best (removing boards or tickets/time entries associated with these automated users). Some databases however do not allow for this extended data pull. We’re constantly looking for ways to make our queries more efficient or find new tables that allow for larger data pulls, so do not hesitate to ask.

If you’re using a cloud product, then the answer is most likely no. We’re often limited by the vendors on how much data we can pull through their APIs. That being said many vendors are switching over to newer API protocols and/or changing how their APIs are structured so this could change at any point. This is a continual work in progress to constantly try to bring more and more data for our customers.

Can We Add a Custom Field?

Yes! Send our team a screenshot of the field you want to use and any associated data. If it’s a custom ticket field, send us the screenshots for a few tickets. If it’s a custom company field, then send that screenshot for a few companies. We will then find it in the database and see if it can be added. Most likely there are no issues and we can add it in at no cost. There are some instances where the data needs to be manipulated and if that’s the case, then we will need to have our Professional Services team take a crack at it, but you never know if that’s the case until you ask us and get the process started!

Can We Get the SLA Data in Business Hours?

Depending on your PSA, it most likely already is! SLAs are something you’ll configure in your PSA tool and different tickets can be assigned to different SLAs, so if ticket 1 is on a business hour SLA, then BrightGauge will show it with that data. If ticket 2 is on a 24/7 SLA, then BrightGauge will show it with that.

Now not all PSAs report SLA data. For those that don’t, we manually calculate SLA data as times from opened to close and that is on a 24/7 clock and unfortunately we have no way of doing that on business clocks at the moment.

We Had Our Own KPI Tool In-House Before Signing up with BrightGauge. Can We Get That Data Replicated in BrightGauge?

Of course you can! There are two ways to get this tackled:

• Take a look at our default datasets. Many of these will contain much of the same data that you were pulling in previously, just in a different format. If the data is there, then just build a gauge to reflect the data in the way you want to show it. You can also reach out to us on the Data Team to help you build those gauges.
  
  
• If the data is not contained in the default datasets, then you can take the SQL queries that you were using before and put them in BrightGauge. On your datasets page, you’ll see a “Create New Dataset” button and that’s where you can paste in your SQL query. If it’s an advanced SQL query, then there may be some issues, but our support forum contains documents that can help you format it or our support desk can help you with it too. Just send an email and we’ll be glad to assist.
  
  

There’s Data I have In-House That isn’t in a SQL Database. How Can I Use It in BrightGauge?

Use our DropBox integration! This integration allows users to take spreadsheets, save them as CSV files (a basic form of spreadsheets that most spreadsheet tools can save as), and then upload them to BrightGauge. Info on this process can be found here. Once you’ve uploaded the file as a new dataset in BrightGauge, it will automatically update anytime you update the file! It’s just that simple.

Have a question that wasn’t answered here? You can reach out to the Data Team via support.