Sigma's Winter Product Launch introduced a series of impressive updates, ranging from subtle improvements to an exciting preview of Data Applications. Centered around the theme, “Old School BI or New School AI – Which Are You,” the launch challenged users to rethink their approach and expectations of data platforms.
One thing I’ve always loved about Sigma is how they embrace the spreadsheet at scale while constantly rethinking what’s possible. At the same time, I’ve heard users point out areas where Sigma didn’t check all the boxes they were expecting from a reporting solution. A phrase I often hear from Sigma: "We are standing on the shoulders of giants.” This product launch really shows what that means—they’re building on the best ideas while listening to feedback and delivering features like write-back and Ask Sigma that push the product forward. If Sigma didn’t feel like the right fit before, now’s a great time to take another look. It’s clear they’re paying attention.
In this blog, I’ll cover what features were announced, how you can use them in your organization, and talk about the future of data Sigma is building.
Old School BI Features
One of the features that originally sold me on Sigma is built-in pivot tables. Pivot Tables are a simple but compelling way to consume and investigate data. So, seeing several updates to expand this already great feature is exciting.
Pivot Table Hierarchies & Ragged Hierarchy Support
Hierarchies create collections of columns to split out data in a logical order. For example, a geographic hierarchy would include Country, Region, State/Territory, and City. A Ragged Hierarchy has a similar logic but sometimes skips levels.
For example, in the diagram below, this sales team has most accounts split out by geography, like state. However, one Account Manager has two named accounts that belong to them regardless of where the account is located. In this pivot table, we can now have Sigma treat the named accounts as a “top-level” dimension, just like the Region. This change helps us avoid that excess of null rows we would see when expanding to Named Accounts.
While the built-in support for ragged hierarchies is impressive, I look forward to additional ways Sigma can utilize hierarchies. For instance, I would appreciate the ability to reference a hierarchy with an action to simplify the dynamic switching of data. Additionally, it would be great to support the reuse of hierarchies across various elements or data sources. Hopefully, we’ll see these updates in coming Product Launches!
Custom Subtotals for Pivot Tables
With custom subtotals, users can now apply different aggregation types (e.g., Sum, Avg) for subtotals than what’s used in the original column. This flexibility makes it easier to explore complex data from different angles.
For example, let’s say you’re tracking employee performance across Morning, Day, and Evening shifts each month. You could average an employee’s monthly scores, use the median for each shift to minimize the impact of outliers, and then average the shifts for the grand total. This layered approach ensures your insights are accurate and meaningful, capturing both individual trends and the bigger picture without getting distorted by extremes.
A couple of important things to note when using different aggregation types is first, you can have different aggregation types for each layer of total or sub-total in your pivot table. And second, on the backend, Sigma is changing the aggregation type for that sub or grand total. This means that if your pivot table has an aggregation, like CountDistinct, on the column, the custom total will replace that aggregation. If your analysis requires the first aggregation, apply it in the parent element before the Pivot Table.
Report Bursting
Report bursting lets you generate a single report and automatically create personalized versions for different recipients based on filters or criteria—scaling reporting without extra effort. Sigma’s “Export as Email Burst” feature makes it easy to deliver tailored data directly to stakeholders on a schedule.
For example, retail partners can automatically receive inventory updates specific to their stores or regions without anyone needing to manually customize reports. This not only keeps everyone informed, both internally and externally, but also frees up your team to focus on acting on insights, not building reports.
New School BI Features
AI in Sigma
As everyone rushes to add AI to their organizations, it’s easy to overdo it or roll out half baked solutions. Sigma’s approaches enabling AI in two ways: built-in and build-your-own capabilities.
In the last launch, we saw built-in features like Explain a Viz and the Formula Assistant, which make understanding and creating workbooks easier. This time, Sigma previewed a natural language query interface, Ask Sigma, which makes data exploration as simple as having a conversation. The best part about Ask Sigma is how users are brought along on the AI journey. Ask Sigma clearly shows how answers are calculated to better inform and guide end users toward meaningful analysis. Sigma also highlighted how organizations can leverage their AI builds by passing parameters back to the warehouse to run models and executing more complex queries.
It’s exciting to see how Sigma provides options for organizations, no matter where they are in their AI journey. By focusing on flexibility and transparency—not creating black boxes— Sigma empowers teams to unlock AI’s potential while keeping full control over their data and insights.
Looking for guidance on your AI journey? Contact us to explore how we can help you achieve your goals.
Management Simplified
This launch included several announcements and previews of features to make managing data and data security more streamlined. Some of the highlights include more intelligent materializations, to help reduce unnecessary materialization requests, database and catalog parameterization, to more easily control access to data at scale, additional regional support, including Azure West Europe and AWS US East, and other items updates making life easier for Sigma Administrators.
Check out the full list of items here: Sigma Winter 2024 Product Launch
Future School BI Features
The most exciting part of this launch wasn’t just the new features but what’s coming next: a preview of Data Applications. Sigma gave us a glimpse into the future, showing how their powerful tools are evolving into fully realized applications that let users create, track, and manage data seamlessly. This is a big step forward, redefining how organizations interact with their data and unlocking endless possibilities for dynamic, actionable insights.
Building Sigma Data Applications is nothing new for us—we’ve been perfecting them long before they became the spotlight feature. With our deep expertise, we’re ready to tackle your toughest data challenges and turn them into powerful, tailored solutions. Let’s talk about how we can help—contact us today!
Summary
In summary, Sigma’s Winter Product Launch showcased how they’re evolving to meet user needs with powerful new features like custom subtotals, report bursting, and Ask Sigma, while giving us a glimpse into the future with Data Applications. Whether you’re streamlining workflows or embracing AI, Sigma continues to empower teams with tools that are both innovative and practical.
If you're ready to see how these features can help your organization, contact us to learn more about our Sigma services.
