Why we're encouraging you to move beyond current reporting tools

A Marval blog about data ownership, trust, and focusing on what we do best.

We need to have an honest conversation about reporting.

For years, we have all invested heavily in our reporting capabilities, dashboards, visualisations, and pre-built analytics. They are good tools which many of you use daily. But we're now actively encouraging you to move toward direct, raw data access instead.

This might seem counterintuitive. Why would a software provider steer customers away from a feature we've spent years building? The answer is simple: because it's what's right for us, and ultimately, what's right for you.

The uncomfortable truth about reporting-only access

When vendors only offer reporting capabilities, they create an asymmetry of power and information:

• We have complete access to your raw data (we have to, it lives in our database)

• You only see what we choose to show through curated reports

• You have no way to independently verify what we're doing with your data

• You can't audit whether your data is being harvested, aggregated, or shared

• You have to pay for data leaving a supplier platform

This arrangement requires you to trust us implicitly. And in today's environment, where data harvesting for AI training, third-party sales, and vaguely-defined product improvement has become disturbingly common, that's asking too much.

We don't want your relationship with us to be built on blind trust. We want it built on transparency.

Our commitment to raw data access

Transparency over obscurity: we believe that giving you direct access to your raw data is the clearest signal we can send about our intentions. We have nothing to hide. Your data is yours, not ours to gatekeep, monetise, or obscure behind limited reporting interfaces.

Data sovereignty matters: when you can extract your complete raw data to your own infrastructure, you regain control. You're not dependent on our promises about privacy and usage policies. You can verify, audit, and move it if you need to. And let´s not forget, in the current world your data is the gold, not the algorithms. Algorithms are common and use your data to get smarter.

Your analytical needs will outgrow our reporting: this is inevitable, no matter how sophisticated our dashboards become. We cannot anticipate every question your business will need to answer. When you hit those limits with reporting-only access, you're stuck, but with raw data access, you're empowered.

The modern data ecosystem is better than what we can build alone: your teams might want to use dbt for transformations, Snowflake for warehousing, or cutting-edge BI tools we haven't even heard of yet. Why should our reporting limitations constrain your analytical sophistication?

Let's be honest, reporting isn't our core business

Here's something else we need to say plainly – we are not a business intelligence company.

Our expertise is in Service Management and that's where we excel. That's where we innovate. That's where we want to focus our engineering resources and strategic energy.

When we try to be everything, both a best-in-class [domain] platform and a comprehensive reporting solution, we end up being exceptional at one and mediocre at the other. You deserve better than mediocre reporting, and frankly, the market already has exceptional tools built specifically for analytics.

We don't want to be held long-term accountable for your reporting needs. Not because we don't care about your success, but because we believe you'll be better served by:

• Specialised BI tools or enterprise reporting tools like Tableau, Power BI, Looker, or Metabase that are built for analytics

• Your own data team's expertise in building analyses tailored to your exact business context

These tools and teams will always outperform our general-purpose reporting because reporting is their core business.

Our commitment during the transition

We recognise that many of you have built workflows around our reporting tools. We're not going to leave you stranded.

We will work with you to transition successfully:

• Migration support: we will help you understand your current reporting usage and map it to new solutions

• Temporary bridge solutions: we will help you rebuild critical reports in your chosen BI platform

• Documentation and training: we'll provide comprehensive data dictionaries, schema documentation, and example queries

• Transition timeline: we'll work with you individually to establish a realistic timeline that works for your organisation

• Partner recommendations: we'll connect you with BI tools and implementation partners we trust

What we will not do:

• Continue expanding reporting features that duplicate what specialised tools do better

• Guarantee long-term support for legacy reporting as our platform evolves

• Build custom reporting solutions that should live in your analytics layer

What this means in practice

We are making raw data access a first-class capability:

• Direct database replication to your data warehouse

• Comprehensive APIs with no artificial throttling

• Complete data exports with full schema documentation

• No additional fees for accessing your own data

• Clear, contractual guarantees about data usage, isolation, and your ownership rights

Our existing reporting tools will remain available during your transition, and we'll maintain them at their current functionality. But our innovation roadmap focuses on our core platform, not on building the next generation of analytics features.

The red flags you should watch for (even with us)

We want you to hold us accountable. Here's what to watch for with any enterprise software provider:

• Resistance to providing raw data access, coupled with vague data practices

• Terms claiming ownership or broad rights to customer data

• "Aggregate anonymised data" clauses that permit harvesting without your explicit consent

• Expensive fees or technical barriers to exporting your own data

• Lack of clarity about where your data lives and who can access it

If you ever see these patterns emerging in our product or terms, call us out.

Why this is good for both of us

This isn't altruism. This is strategic alignment.

• We get to focus on what we do best. Every hour our engineers spend building reporting features is an hour not spent improving our core platform. Refocusing lets us deliver more value where we're truly differentiated.

• You get better analytics. Specialised BI tools will give you capabilities we could never match, advanced visualisations, sophisticated data modelling, ML-powered insights, and seamless integration with your broader data ecosystem. As well as combining data from different systems giving even more insightful information.

• Trust is our competitive advantage. In a market where data practices are increasingly scrutinised, transparency differentiates us. Customers who trust us stay longer, expand more, and refer others.

• Lock-in through value, not hostage-taking. We want you to stay because our core product is excellent, not because switching would mean losing access to your historical data. That's a stronger, more sustainable moat.

• The future is composable. The enterprise software landscape is moving toward best-of-breed tools that integrate seamlessly. Fighting that trend with walled gardens is a losing battle. We'd rather be an excellent component in your data ecosystem than a mediocre all-in-one solution.

What we're asking from you

• Start planning the transition. If you're still primarily using our reporting tools, talk to us about moving to raw data access and selecting a BI platform. We'll help you every step of the way.

• Be patient with us during the transition. We're committed to supporting you, but we're also learning as we evolve our approach. Your feedback will shape how we help other customers make this shift.

• Hold us accountable. If our data practices ever become unclear or if accessing your data becomes difficult, tell us immediately.

• Share your successes. As you build analytics in your new environment, show us what you've created. Your innovations help us understand what data structures and APIs are most valuable.

The standard we want to set

Your data is yours. You should be able to:

• Extract it completely at any time

• Verify exactly what we collect and how it's structured

• Integrate it with any tools you choose

And you should partner with a vendor who focuses on their core competency rather than trying to be everything to everyone.

This shouldn't be a radical position. We're committed to making raw data access not just available, but genuinely easy and encouraged. We're equally committed to helping you transition away from dependency on our reporting tools, because in an era where data harvesting has become normalised and vendor lock-in is disguised as convenience, the most trustworthy thing we can do is give you complete control and honest guidance about where we add value.

Your data. Your infrastructure. Your specialised tools. Our core platform.

That's the relationship we want to build.

Let’s discuss this in more detail. Schedule a time that works for you.