This FAQ is designed to answer general public questions about the GoodData platform and covers a very broads range of general interest topics. It is intended for moderately technical readers and remains introductory.

1. What is Good Data?
GoodData is an on-demand BI analytics platform in the cloud.  GoodData covers everything from sophisticated visualization (reports/dashboards) to deep ad-hoc analysis and trending of critical business data.

2. What kind of data can I analyze?
GoodData's sweet spot is analysis of "customer data".  Customer data is any business data resulting from interaction with a customer over time. So for example, it's the type of data you accumulate in CRM applications like Salesforce.com and can include sales pipeline analytics, marketing analytics, sales performance metrics, service metrics, or web analytics (clickstream and log files) to name a few.  

3. Who is GoodData intended for?
Good Data was designed for use by both Business Analysts (non-technical) and BI developers (technical, OLAP and BI architects).

4. How do I get started?
Sign up for a trial account. Load and describe your CSV data (or integrate with your existing CRM like Salesforce). Then create reports and dashboards, orchestrate mashups, and discover business insight via deeper ad-hoc analysis.

5. Do I need to install or download anything?
No. All you need is a browser and some business data to analyze. (Cookies must be enabled).

6. Will this work through my firewall?
Yes, unless specifically blocked. All GoodData traffic is secured HTTP on the wire. This means it's as easy to get your work done at the office as it is at home.

7. How much data can I analyze?
Trial accounts are limited to 10MB.   

8. How do I upload my data?
If your data resides in a legacy system (a database like Oracle, SQL Server or even Microsoft Excel, for example) you can export it to CSV format and upload it to your account via our user interface (select the file, click upload). If you are integrating GoodData with another hosted application (for example, Salesforce, NetSuite, or Google Analytics) the load process is script-based and uses our API library. Our support folks can quickly assist you with integrated uploads.

9. How can I  manage incremental uploads?
Subsequent manual uploads into an existing data set automatically append the new information by default unless overwrite mode is selected. Uploads can also be automated via our API. Some programming is required and we have sample scripts available.

10. Can I upload other file types like Excel or Access?
No. Currently the only external format supported is CSV.

11. How do you compare to cloud BI applications?
Good Data is a native SaaS Web 2.0 platform designed and implemented in and for the cloud from birth. Many other on-demand offerings are simply hosted versions of legacy software. GoodData is also best described as a platform rather than a simple tool or application. Getting up to speed on GoodData takes minutes, not days. Its functionality is deep but never overwhelming. GoodData also integrates nicely with other applications and is extensible via API. GoodData also enables a collaborative "intra-social" BI workflow unique in the industry.

12. Is GoodData limited to reporting?
Definitely not. Under the hood, Good Data is a full-fledged distributed ROLAP analysis engine, a cross-tabulation engine, its own multi-dimentional language, in-memory analytics, and mass storage. GoodData runs the gamut from fancy visualization (reports/dashboards) to deep sophisticated ad-hoc analytics.

13. How long does it take to produce reports?
Typical pivot-table style slice & dice reports with common aggregation metrics can be generated  in minutes after signing up for an account and uploading data.

14. How steep is the learning curve?
We believe in starting simple and ramping up smoothly. We abstract complexity away by handling the modeling and cubing of your data internally. So you don't need to worry about OLAP, MDX, SQL or "cubing" hell. Externally, all you need do is tell our slice and dice wizard what and how you want to analyze and Good Data does all the hard work behind the scenes.  But if you happen to be an OLAP expert, you can still leverage your skill set and implement custom data models, calculated dimensions, filters, drill paths and specialized metrics as needed.

15. Do you have sample projects I could check out?
Yes, your trial account comes loaded with the famous FoodMart database all setup into a project.  We also have sample projects for your perusal.  And for some of the best BI tutorial videos in town, tune in to GoodData TV.

16. How do I define my data model inside Good Data?
The GoodData LDM (internal Logical Data Model) is snowflake. So no matter how your data is uploaded, at the end of the day, it is mapped to a snowflake representation. Typically, uploaded CSV files are not normalized as such and represent a more transactional view of the data (this is the case then pulling in Salesforce objects, for example). In this case, you must tell GoodData at upload time which fields are "facts" and which ones are "attributes" (or dimensions, in warehousing terms). GoodData then automatically creates the model internally. Alternatively, you might have an existing model where your CSV files are already laid out as fact and dimension tables (perhaps if converting from a legacy DW model to GoodData). In this case, all you need to do it upload your data and tell GoodData how to "connect" dimensions to facts via "connection points" (which are really PK/FK relations called joins).

17. What data types do you support?
We currently support string, numeric and date types.
 

18. How do you handle date and time?
Dates are entered as MM/DD/YYYY (regular US format) or YYYY-MM-DD (ISO format) in CSV format. Timestamp is not currently supported. It is possible to connect to the default GoodData Time Dimension in order to break out date attributes into Year, Quarter, Month, Week, etc.

19. Can I do snapshotting of my data?
Yes. Typical customer analytics data is interesting to analyze from a trending perspective, which means you need to incrementally load time-based "snapshots" of the data. To do this, you typically add a date column to your CSV files when uploading, and associate it with our built-in date dimension. When set up as such, snapshot-specific slicers will appear for time attributes (dimensions) as follows in your report slice and dice wizard:




So then you can also pick snapshot-related attributes as such for filtering purposes, as needed:

20. I'm used to working in Excel. How different is Good Data?
Good Data is less overwhelming than Excel from the get-go yet more powerful and flexible than Excel for experienced users. GoodData presents a pivot-table and charting interface much like Excel (without the complicated interface) but with intuitive wizard-based slicing and dicing functionality.  Just tell it three things: what to measure (facts), how to slice it (dimensions), and how to filter results (if applicable).  Beyond that, you also have access to powerful custom metric definitions, drill-down and drill-across functionality, composite dimensions, and a sophisticated multi-dimensional querying language called MAQL. Just as importantly, GoodData offers collaborative workflow and integration capabilities not found or easily achieved when using Excel.

21. How different is Good Data from Pentaho or JasperSoft?
Like proprietary software, open source solutions must be downloaded, installed and maintained. Even if the software is initially free, the cost in resources and time to setup and configure each stack can be daunting.  Both Pentaho's Mondrian (their ROLAP server) and JasperSoft's reporting platform (which uses Mondrian for analytics) are heavy footprint stacks.  Additionally, these products require significant OLAP and dimensional analysis knowledge and training to become productive.  GoodData has no installation, configuration or maintenance requirements.  Good Data works from any major browser, anywhere, at anytime. And Good Data provides immediate results with a smooth ramp-up learning curve.

22. What happens to my data inside the GoodData platform?
Your data is parsed and mapped out to our snowflake internal logical data model (LDM).  It is stored in an instance of relational database system and managed by a proprietary ROLAP engine.  Externally, you access your data via a project/folder based interface. 

23. Will my data be safe?
GoodData software is deployed on the Amazon EC2 cloud in a true multi-tenant architecture. You can read about EC2 and security here

24. Can I delete my data once it's uploaded?
Yes. When you delete a project you delete all the data sets associated with it.

25. What type of charts do you support?
Currently we support line, bar, stacked bar, pie and area charts.

26. Can I export back my data or reports/dashboards?
Reports (but not the original CSV data) can be exported back to your local environment in PDF or Excel format.

27. What kind of support can I expect?
Good Data offers multiple support channels - you can email support@gooddata.com, visit our support community, call us at (415) 200-0194 or hail us on Twitter.

28. Does it cost anything?
Your trial account includes 10MB of data.  After that you pay a monthly subscription based on seats and data volumes. Contact us for more pricing details.