Dual-Path Analytics with eyko Grid and Power BI Dashboards

This document presents eyko’s proprietary Business Intelligence capabilities, highlighting the eyko Grid technology and embedded Power BI dashboards. The eyko Grid is a uniquely developed solution designed to deliver high-performance, enterprise-grade reporting and analysis, while embedded Power BI dashboards extend visualization and sharing to broad communities.

Chapter 1: Introduction to eyko BI

1.1 The Evolution of Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) has undergone a major transformation over the past two decades. Early BI tools were often static, IT-driven systems, producing monthly or quarterly reports in fixed formats. These reports were valuable but limited: they provided hindsight, not foresight, and often arrived too late to influence decisions.

Modern organizations demand more. Today’s BI platforms must:

Integrate multiple data sources in real time.
Support self-service exploration for non-technical users.
Enable decision-making at multiple levels—strategic, operational, and even transactional.
Balance agility and governance—empowering business teams without sacrificing accuracy or control.

Put simply: BI is no longer about producing reports; it is about creating a living, responsive environment where insights drive actions continuously.

1.2 eyko’s Philosophy of BI

eyko’s approach is rooted in the recognition that different audiences consume data in different ways. A financial analyst digging into budget variances needs a different tool than a CEO presenting KPIs to the board. A customer success manager preparing a client-facing report has different needs still.

eyko responds with a dual-path BI model:

eyko Grid
- A proprietary data grid technology designed for real-time exploration and operational precision.
- Enables users to filter, group, pivot, and drill into detail transactions with speed and confidence.
- Best suited for analysts, finance professionals, and operational teams who live in the details.
Embedded Power BI Dashboards
- A visualization layer that transforms data into storytelling dashboards.
- Supports polished, presentation-ready KPIs and trend analyses.
- Ideal for executives, boards, and external audiences such as customers or partners.

This two-pronged approach ensures that BI is both exploratory and communicative, supporting the full lifecycle of insight: from raw discovery to broad distribution.

1.3 Why Dual-Path Matters

Many BI platforms attempt to force all users into a single mode—either grid-style reporting or dashboard-based visualization. eyko takes a different stance:

Grids are optimized for exploration: when you don’t know what you’re looking for, grids let you discover patterns and anomalies.
Dashboards are optimized for communication: when you need to present a story, dashboards give you clarity and polish.

By offering both, eyko ensures:

Operational agility (fast answers for day-to-day decision-making).
Executive alignment (clear, visual narratives for leadership).
External engagement (dashboards that can be safely shared with partners and customers).

1.4 Teaching Example: BI in Practice

Imagine a company analyzing quarterly sales performance:

Step 1 (Grid Exploration): Analysts use the eyko Grid to drill into sales data, pivoting by region and product line. They quickly identify that margins are eroding in EMEA due to shipping costs.
Step 2 (Dashboard Communication): Executives receive a Power BI dashboard the next week showing KPIs, a trendline of regional margins, and a forecast projection. This dashboard is also embedded in a partner portal to reassure key distributors.

This simple scenario illustrates why both paths are needed. Exploration without communication stays siloed; communication without exploration risks inaccuracy. Together, they create a complete BI cycle.

1.5 Key Takeaway

BI at eyko is not about choosing between grids and dashboards. It is about using each where it shines—grids for discovery, dashboards for storytelling—so that organizations can both know more and share more.

Chapter 2: eyko Grid – Proprietary Grid Engine

2.1 The Role of the Grid in BI

For decades, grids and tables have been the most trusted format for business professionals. Why? Because they provide precision. A finance analyst wants to see not just that margin is “trending downward” but which accounts, which transactions, and which periods are driving that trend. A supply chain manager wants to know not just that shipping delays exist but which orders, which carriers, and which regions are involved.

The eyko Grid is designed to be the modern successor to this need. It combines the familiarity of a spreadsheet with the power and scalability of enterprise-grade BI infrastructure. It is not simply a static table. It is a dynamic exploration engine that allows users to sort, group, pivot, drill, and highlight data in real time.

2.2 Core Features

Sorting and Filtering

Multi-column sorting with ascending/descending order.
Advanced filtering (equals, greater than, between, contains, date ranges).
Quick keyword filter box for immediate narrowing.

Why it matters: Sorting and filtering are the building blocks of discovery. Without them, large datasets become overwhelming. In eyko Grid, they are intuitive and lightning fast, making it easy to isolate anomalies or patterns.

Grouping and Aggregations

Drag-and-drop grouping by any dimension (e.g., Region, Product).
Expandable groups for toggling between summary and detail.
Aggregations such as sum, average, min, max, and contribution percentages.

Why it matters: Grouping mirrors how organizations think—finance teams roll up accounts, sales teams roll up territories, operations roll up supply chains. Aggregations transform raw numbers into summaries that can be acted upon.

Pivoting for Multidimensional Analysis

Reorganize data by turning rows into columns.
Nest pivots (e.g., Region → Product → Quarter).
Dynamic totals and subtotals calculated automatically.

Why it matters: Pivoting allows users to view the same dataset from multiple perspectives. What was a list of transactions becomes a matrix of performance by geography and time.

Custom Hierarchies and Drill-Down

Build reporting trees (e.g., GL Accounts, Org Charts).
Visualize parent-child relationships.
Drill from high-level summaries to transaction detail with a click.

Why it matters: Business structures are rarely flat. A CEO sees global revenue, while a country manager sees regional totals. Custom hierarchies make reports contextual and intuitive across levels of the organization.

Conditional Formatting

Rule-based formatting (e.g., highlight expenses > budget).
Color shading to identify high/low values.
Data bars for quick visual context.

Why it matters: A sea of numbers can be daunting. Conditional formatting guides the eye to what matters—risks, outliers, or successes—so that decisions can be made faster.

Export Options

Export to Excel for finance professionals who still rely on spreadsheet workflows.
Export to CSV for lightweight sharing and system integration.

Why it matters: While the Grid is designed for in-platform analysis, export ensures compatibility with existing processes. It bridges modern BI with traditional tools.

Performance and Scalability

Virtual scrolling: seamless navigation across millions of rows.
Lazy loading: only fetches data when needed.
Server-side models: handle enterprise-scale data volumes.

Why it matters: Many BI tools fail at scale. eyko Grid is architected to remain fast and responsive, even when datasets reach tens of millions of rows.

2.3 Teaching Example

Imagine an FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis) analyst at quarter-end:

They open the eyko Grid to review OPEX across all regions.
They group expenses by Region and then by Department.
They apply conditional formatting to highlight variances greater than 10%.
They notice EMEA Marketing is overspending. A drill-down reveals multiple large vendor payments.
They export the subset to Excel to prepare a note for the CFO.

Here, the Grid made exploration fast, intuitive, and precise, while keeping the option to hand off details in Excel.

2.4 Best Practices

Start broad: Use grouping to see the big picture before drilling into details.
Use formatting strategically: Too many colors dilute impact; highlight only what matters.
Leverage exports sparingly: Keep exploration in eyko Grid where possible; use exports only for collaboration outside eyko.

2.5 Key Takeaway

The eyko Grid is not just a table. It is an exploration environment—familiar enough for spreadsheet users, yet powerful enough for enterprise-scale BI. It empowers business users to find answers quickly, precisely, and independently.

Chapter 3: Embedded Power BI Dashboards

3.1 The Role of Dashboards in BI

While the eyko Grid focuses on exploration and detail, dashboards serve a different but equally important function: communication and storytelling.

Dashboards condense large volumes of data into a narrative view—where KPIs, trends, and charts illustrate what’s happening, why it matters, and how leaders should respond.

Executives, boards, and customers often don’t have time to drill into thousands of rows. Instead, they want answers to three questions:

Where are we winning?
Where are we falling behind?
What trends should we watch?

Power BI dashboards integrated with eyko are designed to answer those questions by presenting polished, interactive, and secure views of data.

3.2 Core Features

Rich Visualizations

Advanced charts and KPIs: bar charts, line graphs, scatterplots, KPI cards, and gauges.
Conditional visuals: KPIs that change color when targets are missed or achieved.
Composite dashboards: multiple visuals combined into one cohesive view.

Why it matters: Visuals turn data into stories that are easier to communicate and act upon than rows and columns alone.

Interactivity

Slicers and filters: let viewers explore “what if” scenarios without breaking the dashboard.
Cross-highlighting: selecting one visual dynamically updates others, maintaining context.
Responsive design: dashboards adapt to desktop, tablet, and mobile screens.

Why it matters: Interactivity transforms passive viewers into active participants, enabling them to discover insights relevant to their role.

Integration with eyko’s Data Model

Dashboards connect directly to eyko’s governed and secure data sources.
All dashboards share a single source of truth—eliminating the risk of “multiple versions of the truth.”
Data refreshes can be scheduled or real-time, depending on business needs.

Why it matters: By embedding Power BI on top of eyko’s model, organizations gain the power of visualization without losing trust in their data.

Secure Sharing and Embedding

Row-Level Security (RLS): ensures each viewer only sees data relevant to them (e.g., one customer cannot see another’s data).
Internal sharing: publish securely to executives, managers, or teams.
External embedding: surface dashboards in partner or customer portals for added transparency.

Why it matters: Dashboards are often shared beyond analysts. Security guarantees that trust is preserved even in broad distribution.

3.3 Use Cases

Executive KPI Dashboards

Executives need concise summaries. Power BI dashboards distill revenue, margin, and pipeline KPIs into a visual snapshot that’s boardroom-ready.

Customer Community Reporting

Organizations embed dashboards in portals to show customers their own usage, spend, or compliance metrics. This creates trust and reduces support overhead, since customers can self-serve answers.

Board Presentations

Boards require storytelling. Dashboards with historical trends and forward-looking forecasts make strategic conversations data-backed, not anecdotal.

3.4 Strengths and Limitations

Strengths:

Rich, visual storytelling.
Ideal for executives and external audiences.
Scalable sharing with secure embedding.
Built on familiar Microsoft Power BI platform.

Limitations:

More resource-intensive to design than eyko Grid reports.
Requires BI or Power BI developer skills for advanced dashboards.
Less agile for transaction-level exploration.

3.5 Key Takeaway

The eyko platform integrates embedded Power BI dashboards not to replace the Grid, but to complement it. Together, they provide:

Detail and precision (eyko Grid).
Narrative and communication (Power BI).

Organizations that adopt both are able to not only know more but also share more—internally with leadership and externally with customers.

Chapter 4: Comparing Approaches

4.1 Why Comparison Matters

Many organizations try to solve all their BI needs with a single tool or method. This often leads to frustration and inefficiency. Dashboards get overloaded with detail they weren’t designed to handle, or grids become bloated attempts at visual storytelling. eyko avoids this trap by recognizing that different tools are optimized for different purposes.

This chapter provides a structured comparison between the eyko Grid and Power BI dashboards, not as competitors, but as complements. By understanding where each excels, organizations can adopt a “best of both worlds” strategy.

4.2 Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Feature	eyko Grid	Power BI Dashboards
Speed & Performance	Real-time, lightweight	Heavier, suited for visuals
Setup & Maintenance	Minimal setup by business users	Requires BI developer expertise
Visualization Depth	Tabular, hierarchical, inline charts	Rich visual storytelling
Audience	Analysts, finance, operations	Executives, boards, customers
Sharing	Internal, task-focused	Internal + external, community portals

4.3 Case Studies in Practice

Case Study 1: Finance

In the Grid: The FP&A team drills into budget vs. actuals by region. They group, filter, and pivot to find anomalies in OPEX.
In the Dashboard: The CFO presents a Power BI dashboard at the board meeting showing consolidated KPIs, with clear red/yellow/green indicators.

Lesson: The Grid enabled discovery; the dashboard enabled communication.

Case Study 2: Operations

In the Grid: A supply chain analyst monitors late shipments daily, filtering by carrier and product line.
In the Dashboard: Monthly operational trends are summarized in a Power BI dashboard for the COO, highlighting improvement in on-time deliveries.

Lesson: The Grid handles daily detail; the dashboard handles strategic oversight.

Case Study 3: Customers

In the Grid: Internal teams track customer usage by product features, drilling down into transactions when anomalies occur.
In the Dashboard: Customers see their own usage metrics in a secure, embedded Power BI dashboard, reinforcing transparency and trust.

Lesson: The Grid supports internal analytics; dashboards extend BI into customer communities.

4.4 Guidance on When to Use Each

Choose eyko Grid when:
- You need fast answers at a transactional level.
- Analysts or finance professionals must explore the unknown.
- Detail and precision matter more than visuals.
Choose Power BI dashboards when:
- You need to tell a story.
- Your audience is executives, boards, or external stakeholders.
- The emphasis is on KPIs, trends, and visuals rather than raw detail.

4.5 Key Takeaway

The question is not “Which is better?”. The question is “Which is better for this purpose?”.

eyko Grid = Exploration and precision.
Power BI Dashboards = Communication and storytelling.

Together, they form a complete BI system. The Grid uncovers the insight; the dashboard shares it with the world.

Chapter 5: Workflows in Practice

5.1 Why Workflows Matter

Business Intelligence is not just about features; it is about how those features come together in repeatable patterns of use. A feature like grouping or pivoting is powerful on its own, but when woven into a workflow that begins with exploration and ends with communication, it transforms into something much greater: a cycle of discovery and decision-making.

eyko’s dual-path approach—Grid for exploration and Power BI for storytelling—naturally lends itself to a progressive workflow. Analysts begin by asking “What is happening?” and “Why is it happening?” in the Grid, then pass insights forward to executives or customers via dashboards that ask “What does this mean?” and “What should we do about it?”.

5.2 The Four-Step Workflow

Step 1: Explore in eyko Grid

Analysts start with raw, detailed data. In the Grid, they:

Drill into millions of records using virtual scrolling.
Apply filters and sorting to narrow down anomalies.
Group and aggregate to see summaries.
Pivot and restructure to uncover hidden patterns.

At this stage, the goal is understanding. The Grid provides clarity without distraction.

Step 2: Refine in Grid

Once patterns emerge, analysts refine their work:

Save configured reports for reuse.
Apply custom hierarchies to align analysis with organizational structures.
Highlight key findings with conditional formatting.
Export subsets to Excel or CSV where hand-off or offline review is required.

Here, the Grid functions as both laboratory and factory—a place where discoveries are formalized into repeatable assets.

Step 3: Publish in Power BI

With validated insights in hand, attention turns to communication. A Power BI developer or business user builds dashboards that:

Present KPIs and key metrics at a glance.
Use visuals like charts and gauges to tell a story.
Provide interactivity through slicers and filters for different stakeholders.
Align to corporate branding for presentation readiness.

This is the storytelling stage. What was once detail-heavy exploration is now distilled into a narrative for decision-makers.

Step 4: Share with Communities

Finally, dashboards are distributed:

Executives view dashboards in corporate workspaces.
Boards review polished visuals during presentations.
Customers and partners access dashboards via secure portals, with row-level security ensuring they see only their data.

At this stage, BI becomes communal. It moves from internal exploration to external trust-building.

5.3 Illustrative Workflow Example

Consider a global manufacturing company at month-end close:

In the Grid:

FP&A analysts group expenses by region and drill into variances. They identify that EMEA logistics costs are up 15% due to carrier rate changes.

Refined Grid Report:

Analysts save a “Regional OPEX Variance” template and export a summary for department managers.

In Power BI:

A CFO-facing dashboard is created with KPIs, variance heatmaps, and trendlines, summarizing impacts by region.

Shared Externally:

A secure portal provides customers with dashboards showing service-level compliance and delivery performance, reinforcing transparency.

This progression—from detail discovery to narrative communication—is the hallmark of eyko’s workflow approach.

5.4 Pitfalls to Avoid

Skipping the Grid: Jumping straight to dashboards risks building visuals on unvalidated insights.
Overloading Dashboards: Dashboards are not grids—avoid crowding them with raw details.
Fragmenting Data: Always base dashboards on eyko’s governed model; exporting to spreadsheets as the “source of truth” leads to silos.

5.5 Best Practices

Validate first, communicate second: Always use the Grid to refine before moving to dashboards.
Design for audience: Dashboards are for executives and customers; keep them clean and visual.
Leverage templates: Save commonly used Grid configurations to reduce duplication of effort.
Embed strategically: Use external dashboards to strengthen customer trust, not just to display metrics.

5.6 Key Takeaway

Workflows in eyko are not linear checklists; they are cycles of discovery and communication. Insights flow from detail in the Grid to story in the dashboard, ensuring that organizations can both act fast and align broadly.

Chapter 6: Advanced Topics

6.1 Why Advanced Topics Matter

Once organizations adopt eyko Grid and embedded Power BI dashboards, the natural next step is to extend, govern, and optimize their BI workflows. This chapter focuses on the “behind-the-scenes” capabilities that make eyko not just useful but also scalable, secure, and enterprise-ready.

These advanced topics—exports, governance, accessibility, APIs, and roadmap—are the foundation of a sustainable BI practice.

6.2 Exports and Integration

Excel and CSV Export

eyko Grid supports export to Excel and CSV, bridging modern BI with long-standing practices:

Excel: Still the lingua franca of finance and accounting. By exporting Grid reports to Excel, analysts can extend analysis with macros or offline workflows.
CSV: A lightweight, system-neutral format ideal for transferring subsets of data to other tools or platforms.

Why it matters: Export ensures that insights do not remain siloed inside eyko. Instead, they can be integrated into the broader enterprise toolchain.

APIs for Automation

eyko offers APIs that allow programmatic access to BI functions:

Data refreshes: Trigger updates automatically, ensuring that reports stay current without manual intervention.
Automated distribution: Send Grid exports or dashboard snapshots to predefined recipients on a schedule.
Integration: Connect BI insights into other enterprise systems like ERP, CRM, or data lakes.

Why it matters: APIs allow BI to be woven into daily operations, not treated as a separate reporting activity.

6.3 Security and Governance

Role-Based Access

eyko enforces granular roles to separate responsibilities:

Designer: Configures hierarchies, models, and logic.
Creator: Builds and customizes reports.
Viewer: Consumes reports and dashboards with controlled interactivity.

This division ensures both flexibility for business teams and safeguards for IT administrators.

Data Security Controls

Row-Level Security (RLS): Ensures each user sees only the subset of data intended for them (e.g., a regional manager only sees their territory).
Column-Level Security (CLS): Sensitive fields such as salaries or PII can be hidden or masked.

Why it matters: In modern BI, who sees what is as important as what is calculated.

Compliance Alignment

eyko aligns with industry frameworks such as SOC2 ensuring that BI processes meet the requirements of audits and regulatory checks.

6.4 APIs and Extensibility

eyko’s extensibility is not limited to exports. Developers can use APIs to:

Trigger refreshes at the dataset or report level.
Automate workflows, integrating BI into CI/CD pipelines.
Embed reports in other applications or portals.
Customize rendering by injecting business-specific logic, visuals, or calculations.

This allows organizations to shape eyko to their unique context instead of adapting business processes to the tool.

6.6 Roadmap

eyko is not static—it continues to evolve. The roadmap includes:

Incremental loading: Reducing refresh costs by only loading new or changed records.
AI-assisted playbooks: Automatically generating executive-level narratives based on Grid data.
Unified AI + Grid/Dashboard: Moving toward autonomous BI, where exploration and storytelling merge into one seamless experience.

Why it matters: BI is shifting from descriptive (“what happened”) to predictive (“what will happen”) and prescriptive (“what should we do”). eyko’s roadmap is designed to support that shift.

6.7 Key Takeaway

Advanced features ensure eyko is not just a tool for analysts, but a platform for the enterprise. By supporting exports, enforcing security, ensuring accessibility, enabling extensibility, and innovating with AI, eyko equips organizations for both today’s BI demands and tomorrow’s opportunities.

Chapter 7: Appendices

7.1 Glossary of BI Terms

The glossary provides definitions and explanations for common Business Intelligence terms as they apply in the eyko platform. It’s intended not just as a dictionary, but as a teaching aid for users who may be new to BI concepts.

Aggregation – The process of combining values, such as sum, average, or count, to summarize data at a higher level. For example, sales transactions can be aggregated by region to understand total performance.
Conditional Formatting – The application of visual cues, such as colors or shading, to highlight values that meet specific rules (e.g., highlight all expenses greater than budget). It turns raw numbers into signals for attention.
Drill-Down – The ability to navigate from a high-level summary into progressively more detailed layers of data (e.g., from company revenue → by region → by country → by city).
Hierarchy – A structured representation of relationships within data (e.g., organizational chart or GL account rollup). Hierarchies help align reports to the way the business actually operates.
KPI (Key Performance Indicator) – A measurable value that indicates success toward a defined business goal (e.g., revenue growth, customer churn, or net margin). KPIs provide the “scoreboard” for performance.
Pivoting – The process of rotating rows into columns (or vice versa) to reorganize data. Pivoting allows a single dataset to be viewed from different perspectives, such as sales by product vs. sales by region.
Row-Level Security (RLS) – A security technique that ensures users only see the rows of data that are relevant to them (e.g., a sales manager only sees their region).
Slicer – A Power BI visual control that allows interactive filtering, such as choosing a date range or selecting a product category.
Virtual Scrolling – A performance feature that loads data dynamically as the user scrolls through a large dataset, ensuring responsiveness even with millions of records.

7.2 Frequently Asked Questions

These FAQs provide guidance on common decisions and clarify how eyko’s dual-path BI model works in practice.

Q: When should I use eyko Grid versus Power BI?

A: Use eyko Grid for detailed exploration and operational reporting, where you need fast answers from large datasets. Use Power BI for storytelling, presentation, and communication to executives or external audiences.

Q: Can I export a Grid report as PDF?

A: No. The eyko Grid supports Excel and CSV exports, which are designed for detail-level review and integration. PDF exports are supported through Power BI dashboards, which are optimized for presentation-ready output.

Q: Do I need IT support to build a Grid report?

A: No. eyko Grid is designed for business users. Sorting, grouping, filtering, and saving templates can all be done without IT or BI developer involvement.

Q: Can I embed dashboards in customer portals?

A: Yes. Power BI dashboards integrated with eyko can be embedded securely into partner and customer portals. Row-level security ensures that each user sees only their own data.

Q: Does eyko Grid scale to millions of rows?

A: Yes. Features such as virtual scrolling, lazy loading, and server-side models ensure performance even at enterprise scale.

7.3 Quick Reference (Cheat Sheet)

This section serves as a fast decision guide to help users choose between eyko Grid and Power BI dashboards:

eyko Grid

Best for: Exploration, financial variance analysis, operational monitoring.
Features: Grouping, pivoting, hierarchies, conditional formatting.
Exports: Excel, CSV.
Audience: Analysts, finance professionals, and operational managers.

Power BI Dashboards

Best for: Executive storytelling, board reports, customer portals.
Features: KPIs, advanced charts, slicers, interactive dashboards.
Exports: PDF.
Audience: Executives, boards, external stakeholders.

7.4 Visual Index

The following images demonstrate how the concepts look in practice:

Inline Reporting

_{eyko Grid showing sales by Customer 360 across all integrated systems}

Pivot Table_{Pivot table in eyko Grid showing sales by region and product}

Conditional Formatting_{eyko Grid with conditional formatting applied to highlight budget variances}

Dashboards _{Power BI KPI dashboard summarizing As of AP Aging and Processing Performance}

Embedded Dashboards _{eyko Dashboard securely embedded into Salesforce (Customer Portal)}

7.5 Training Exercises Index

Although this document does not include full exercises, teams may wish to design training sessions around the following concepts:

Chapter 2 (eyko Grid) – Building financial variance reports and applying custom hierarchies.
Chapter 3 (Power BI Dashboards) – Creating KPI dashboards and embedding them into a customer-facing portal.
Chapter 5 (Workflows) – Moving from exploration in the Grid to communication via dashboards.
Chapter 6 (Advanced Topics) – Configuring security roles, triggering API refreshes, and testing accessibility features.