Sigma Computing: From training to team enablement
A large multinational organization introduced Sigma Computing alongside Tableau to maintain broad reporting coverage while reducing pressure on BI licensing costs. WaveAccess supported the rollout with structured training and hands-on enablement, helping distributed teams learn the platform in the context of their own reporting needs and build the skills to use it independently.
When BI licensing costs are growing faster than the number of people who actually need advanced analytics, adding a second platform can make more sense than stretching the first one further.
A large multinational organization with a distributed team and a substantial reporting footprint was exactly in that position. They were running Tableau across the business and needed a way to maintain reporting coverage while reducing licensing spend without disrupting existing workflows.
Adding Sigma as a complementary BI layer
WaveAccess supported the adoption of Sigma Computing as a complementary BI layer. Sigma is a cloud-native, AI-powered analytics platform with a spreadsheet-like interface that supports live queries to the data warehouse.
Compared with Tableau, where building a report typically requires a BI developer, Sigma allows users to start building simple and ad-hoc reports shortly after initial training and produce a working report in a single session with minimal extra effort. By working with pre-built, connected data models prepared within the organization, users in most cases do not need to understand the underlying database sources or the relationships between them.
More complex reporting takes more work, and rolling the platform out across a distributed organization with multiple teams, different data use cases, and hundreds of existing reports requires someone who understands both Sigma and the reporting logic already in place.
Training teams in their own reporting context
Our engineer ran a series of structured, topic-based training sessions for teams across the company, covering everything from navigating data models and understanding the platform’s logic to creating visual dashboards. Sessions were short enough to fit around regular work and specific enough to get each group productive in its own reporting context.
The reports built during the engagement went beyond standard tables and included KPI tiles, trend lines, ranked bar charts, and color-coded status views, helping teams read the situation at a glance.
From complementary platform to broader reporting capability
While introduced as a complementary layer, Sigma proved capable of serving as a main reporting system, covering both everyday dashboards and fast, self-service reporting.
That became the focus of the consulting and enablement work: making sure the team could take ownership of the platform and continue using it independently after the engagement.
