Corporate Consulting
Transforming Survey Reporting: Odaptic's Scalable, Self-Service Platform
How Odaptic transitioned from a manual, high-touch survey and reporting process to a scalable, self-service custom platform, delivering enhanced visuals, seamless client impersonation, and significant cost reductions.
01
The challenge
Odaptic had been relying on Microsoft Forms and Power BI to deliver survey and reporting solutions to their customers. While this setup allowed for the creation of elegant, complex reports, the system failed to scale efficiently. Each new customer onboarding required significant manual effort, making the process expensive and time-consuming. This inefficiency hindered growth and drove up costs as the user base expanded.
Additionally, Power BI posed several limitations in terms of customisation—especially around UI/UX. While powerful analytics features were possible, creating highly tailored, rich visualisations was either constrained or required building custom components anyway, adding further complexity and time.
Odaptic needed a scalable, self-service solution that could handle growth, reduce manual overhead, and deliver a fully customisable reporting experience aligned with their needs.
02
The solution
To address these challenges, Odaptic decided to replace their Microsoft-based survey and reporting system with a fully custom solution built on AWS. The new platform enabled users to:
- Self-Service Onboarding: Customers could sign up and start using the platform without any manual intervention from Odaptic, drastically improving scalability and accessibility.
- Scalable Architecture: Using Amazon DynamoDB to handle the high-load of survey response ingestion, paired with Postgres on Amazon RDS for structured reporting, the system balanced cost optimisation and performance. DynamoDB allowed scaling for input-heavy operations without bottlenecks, while Postgres handled reporting with minimal costs.
- Custom Reporting Solution: Instead of relying on third-party tools like Power BI or Apache Superset, the team built a custom reporting engine using Svelte, AG Grid, and AG Chart. This approach unlocked full control over visuals and user experience, enabling rich, interactive reports with AI-driven insights.
- Advanced Admin Capabilities: A seamless impersonation feature in the admin panel allowed Odaptic's team to instantly log in as any customer, providing troubleshooting and support capabilities that were nearly impossible with Power BI.
- Security by Design: Built-in multi-factor authentication (MFA), password resets via SMS/email, and user management powered by Amazon Cognito ensured enterprise-grade security.
03
The results
The transformation yielded significant benefits for Odaptic:
- Scalability: Users can now sign up independently and start working on the platform without delays, allowing for exponential growth.
- Reduced Costs: Automating customer onboarding and leveraging DynamoDB/Postgres architecture helped Odaptic cut operational costs significantly.
- Improved Visuals: Reports matched Power BI's analytic depth while offering a richer, more interactive experience with complete control over visuals.
- Streamlined Admin Support: The impersonation feature enabled Odaptic admins to troubleshoot or review client data instantly, saving support time and effort.
- AI-Powered Insights: Advanced integration of AI insights ensured reports delivered actionable, dynamic data in a user-friendly format.
The delivery journey
How the transformation took shape
01
The journey
Odaptic's journey represents a natural evolution in their platform strategy. Our long-standing relationship began with building their initial solution using Microsoft's SaaS offerings - leveraging Power BI and other Microsoft tools to deliver their survey and reporting capabilities. While this first iteration successfully served their immediate needs, it became clear that true scalability would require a different approach.
Through our established partnership, Odaptic trusted us to take their vision to the next level. Rather than continuing with third-party solutions, they made the strategic decision to invest in a platform they would completely own. This transition from Microsoft-based tools to a custom-built solution wasn't just about addressing technical limitations - it was about creating a foundation for Odaptic's future growth and independence.
The key turning point came when Odaptic recognized that their business potential was being constrained by the limitations of third-party tools. With complete trust in our technical expertise, they embarked on the journey to build a truly bespoke platform that would give them full control over their destiny.
02
Implementation strategy
Leveraging AWS as the foundation, the implementation was split into key phases:
Architecture Design:
- Adopted DynamoDB for handling high loads of survey response ingestion.
- Chose Postgres on Amazon RDS for cost-effective, structured reporting.
Development:
- Built API Gateway and Lambda functions to transform data from DynamoDB to Postgres.
- Developed custom reporting using Svelte for the front-end and AG Grid/AG Charts for data interaction and visualisation.
Automation:
- Configured CI/CD pipelines to streamline deployments.
- Automations for sending survey invitations, follow-ups, and managing responses.
Testing & Iteration:
- Ensured the admin panel's impersonation feature worked seamlessly across different client environments.
- Conducted stress tests for handling high traffic to ensure smooth scalability.
03
Long-term impact
Over time, the new platform has enabled Odaptic to:
- Expand their customer base without scaling costs proportionally.
- Deliver a superior user experience, increasing client satisfaction and engagement.
- Maintain a competitive edge in the market by leveraging a platform specifically designed to meet their business needs.
- Future-proof their solution with built-in scalability and flexibility to adapt to evolving requirements.