Ectobi

What is it?

It's a suite of tools which are intended to take data from some sort of raw form and take it through to a final state where it can be reported on live, or turned into static reports or some other kind of output.

What sort of data?

Ideally, anything reasonably structured. There'll be various data validation, gathering and transformation tools too.

Validation?

Sure. Set your parameters and Ectobi will check your incoming data. Do the email addresses conform to appropriate standards? Is that email address on a red list or "do not contact" list?

Data gathering?

Yep. Initially, that'll be a survey module. Say you start with data that's just a name and an email address. Import it into a configured instance of Ectobi, tell it which email provider you'd like to use, it'll send out survey links and associate the incoming survey data with your original data.

What about outputs?

You'll be able to select how you want to output. That might be updating a master Excel file, or it might be running a script which produces a PowerPoint presentation. You'll be able to put the data into PowerBI, and Ectobi will have its own web-based reporting suite, as well as an app for mobile, tablet and even wall mounted screens or kiosks.

Sounds complicated. How usable will it be?

We'll be offering hosted solutions, so it should be pretty easy. Alternatively, you'll always be able to install and use the tools (including commercially) for free, and we'll try to provide useful documentation.