By Lavniet Dhillon, Senior Product Manager
In the contemporary landscape of data-driven practices, educational institutions and organizational Learning and Development (L&D) teams heavily depend on learning analytics to extract essential insights to help facilitate well-informed decision-making. At D2L, we recognize the inherent challenges in obtaining such insights – from simplifying data integration and maintenance to ensuring effective communication of results through data visualizations; we've got you covered.
Our Insights Report Builder empowers users to delve deeper into data and visualizations using their existing skills and knowledge of Brightspace Data Sets (BDS), without grappling with the complexities associated with direct interaction with a data warehouse.
In our ongoing commitment to enhance user experience, we are dedicated to making our products more straightforward, consistent, and valuable to meet your evolving requirements. We are excited to announce that, starting April 2024, we will be leveraging Amazon QuickSight as the visualization engine for Insights Report Builder, further elevating the capabilities of our platform.
Our primary strategic cloud infrastructure provider is AWS. The upgrade of the Insights Report Builder visualization infrastructure to AWS reinforces our strong partnership and trust in their services. Amazon QuickSight is FedRAMP-, HIPAA-, PCI DSS–, ISO-, and SOC-eligible, ensuring compliance with industry-specific and regulatory requirements. This infrastructure update assures a solid foundation and unlocks the possibilities of various future capabilities, such as - customized reporting templates for swift value realization, enhanced insights through correlated data, integration of analytics reports in Brightspace for in-context visualization, and the convenience of a natural language and generative AI assistant for seamless insights creation and consumption. We're eager to collaborate with you to bring forth these exciting capabilities.
Before exploring these new capabilities, our initial step is to facilitate a smooth upgrade to this new infrastructure for you. We acknowledge that this represents a substantial change, and we are committed to partnering with you to make the process as seamless as possible. Rest assured, we have a comprehensive plan in place, complete with key milestones designed to guide you through every step of the upgrade.
Key Dates and Phases
Thank you for sharing your feedback about the upgrade timelines from Insights Report Builder to Analytics Builder. We understand the importance of having a clear and reliable timeline. We are committed to ensuring your transition is smooth and successful.
In response to your feedback, we are extending the transition period well into 2025. This extension provides you with more scheduling flexibility, allowing you to choose a time that best suits your needs.
We will also share timelines for additional capabilities in Analytics Builder as part of our roadmap communication. This will help ensure the continuity of your existing use cases and support your transition.
If not already completed, a change assessment will be conducted by September 2024 to capture your preferences. We will work closely with you to develop a transition plan by October 2024. This plan will outline what to expect during the upgrade and what we need from you.
Until the upgrade is complete, you will continue to have access to Insights Report Builder to continue your daily operations.
To summarize the timeline changes for your awareness:
- April 2024: Analytics Builder will be available to all new Performance+ customers.
- July 2024: Timelines for additional capabilities will be shared in the upcoming product roadmap for Analytics Builder.
- July – September 2024: Completion of a Change Assessment document with you and your D2L account team.
- October 2024: Communication of suggested quarter for your upgrade based on your change assessment.
- 2025: Overall project extended into 2025.