When people think about analytics in software, they usually picture charts, dashboards, and numbers updating in real time.
What they don’t see is the engineering challenge behind the scenes.
How do you give customers rich, flexible insights into their data — without building an entire analytics platform from scratch?
At Zeffer, this was a question we spent a lot of time thinking about.
Our customers don’t just want static reports. They want to:
Building that level of analytics “properly” is a huge undertaking. It involves data modelling, visualisation, permissions, performance, and security — all at once.
Why not stand on the shoulders of something already proven?
Rather than starting from a blank slate, we decided to build on Metabase, a well-established open-source analytics platform.
For us, that meant:
Crucially, it also aligned with our values as an engineering team: transparency, sustainability, and long-term thinking.
Of course, dropping an analytics tool into a product isn’t enough.
Our goal wasn’t to bolt on dashboards — it was to make analytics feel like a natural part of Zeffer.
That meant engineering work in a few key areas:
We carefully integrated analytics so they inherit Zeffer’s look, feel, and accessibility standards. To users, it feels like one coherent product — not a separate system.
Every customer sees only their own data. Permissions are enforced consistently, so insights respect the same rules as the rest of the platform.
Analytics should be fast and dependable. We’ve invested heavily in how data is prepared and delivered so dashboards remain responsive, even as datasets grow.
Because Metabase is open source, we can adapt and extend it as our customers’ needs evolve — without waiting on a vendor roadmap.
All of this engineering effort boils down to something simple:
Whether you’re checking trends, spotting issues early, or sharing insights with your team, analytics are just there — working alongside everything else you do in Zeffer.
We believe good engineering decisions shouldn’t be invisible.
Using open-source technology isn’t a shortcut — it’s a deliberate choice to focus our time on what makes Zeffer unique, while relying on proven foundations where it makes sense.
It also keeps us honest. Open systems encourage better architecture, clearer thinking, and long-term maintainability — all things that ultimately benefit our customers.
Analytics isn’t a “finished feature”. As Zeffer grows, so will the questions our customers want to ask of their data.
By building on a flexible, open foundation, we’ve set ourselves up to evolve quickly — adding richer insights, smarter views, and better ways to understand what’s really happening across your organisation.