How AlphaSense Harnessed Metadata to Control Dashboard Sprawl

Amidst the challenge of managing extensive dashboard sprawl, AlphaSense, a company heavily reliant on data-driven decision-making, faced the risk of double-counting in their nearly 2,000 dashboards due to planned changes in Salesforce data tracking. Tim Hughes, the BI architect at AlphaSense, used Select Star to identify and mitigate the impact of these upstream data changes, leveraging column-level lineage to pinpoint affected dashboards, which ultimately led to delaying the rollout for further preparation. The process involved documenting the upstream changes, quantifying the impact, and collaborating with RevOps to co-design a solution, eventually identifying and archiving or modifying impacted dashboards. This experience underscored the importance of metadata in managing dashboard sprawl, with plans to migrate data transformation tools, monitor for upstream changes, and automate dashboard archival processes. The story highlights the effectiveness of tools like Select Star in providing critical insights and data lineage, aiding organizations in making informed decisions and maintaining the integrity of their analytics pipeline.