How to Build a Data Access Platform

Why Data Access Platforms Matter for Data Providers

Whether you're a data provider offering valuable datasets to customers or part of an internal team responsible for distributing data to stakeholders and partners, building a data access platform can be a game changer. These platforms make it easy for users—whether external clients or internal teams—to access, explore, and work with large datasets without needing constant support.

In this guide, we'll walk you through best practices to build a scalable and secure data access portal from the ground up. We'll cover everything from planning your strategy to ensuring scalability, governance, and a great user experience. While this guide is positioned for data providers looking to offer their datasets as a service (DaaS), the principles can apply just as well to internal teams needing to distribute data to executives, teams, or external partners. We'll also compare custom development with Gigasheet's turnkey Data Delivery solution.

Let’s dive in!

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Step 1: Define Your Data Delivery Strategy

The first step in building a data access platform (aka data portal) is defining the core strategy for how data will be accessed and utilized by your customers. Consider the following:

• Identify the type of data you’re delivering: Are you providing financial records, sales leads, or audience demographic data? Understanding the nature of the data helps determine how it will be structured, accessed, and updated within the platform.
• Understand customer needs: Will your customers need real-time data or periodic batch updates? Do they require the ability to filter and segment data on their own, or are you delivering pre-packaged datasets? Clear use cases will guide the functionality of the platform.
• Access and permissions: Consider how customers will access the data. Will there be different levels of access (e.g., read-only vs. admin)? Do you need to provide API access for clients who want to automate data pulls? Defining these permissions early ensures your infrastructure will support secure, role-based access.

Establishing a clear strategy helps avoid feature creep and ensures that the platform is built to meet your customers' specific needs from the outset.

Step 2: Plan for Scalability and Performance

With a defined strategy, the next critical step is ensuring your data access platform is built for scalability and performance. A common challenge with delivering large datasets is that it can lead to slow query responses and degraded performance as user loads increase.

• Choose the right infrastructure: To support heavy data operations, cloud-based infrastructures, such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, offer scalable storage and computing resources. If you're working with a data warehouse, options like Snowflake or BigQuery can help manage the load of large-scale queries.
• Optimize for efficiency: Consider techniques like caching frequent queries or implementing indexing to speed up search times. This will allow your platform to handle heavy traffic and complex queries without slowing down.
• Dynamic scaling: Using cloud services, you can implement auto-scaling to handle peak loads when necessary. This ensures that as the number of users accessing your platform grows, the infrastructure can adjust to meet the demand without interruption.

Planning for scalability from the start prevents performance bottlenecks and helps ensure a smooth experience for all users, no matter how large or complex their datasets.‍

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Step 3: Choose the Right Data Governance and Security Tools

Data governance and security are paramount when dealing with sensitive datasets, especially when delivering data to multiple clients. Without a strong governance framework in place, businesses risk non-compliance with regulations and expose themselves to data breaches.

• Implement proper data governance: Regulations like GDPR or CCPA demand strict data protection measures. It's essential to implement policies that govern how data is collected, processed, and shared, ensuring customer data is handled securely.
• Data security: Protect data by encrypting it both in transit and at rest. Multi-factor authentication and role-based access control (RBAC) can further secure the platform by ensuring only authorized users can access sensitive information.
• Monitor and audit: Implement logging and auditing tools to track user activity and data access. This helps you maintain an audit trail for compliance and can alert you to any suspicious activity.

Strong governance and security measures build trust with your customers and protect your business from potential legal and financial risks.

Step 4: Build the User Interface

A key element of any data access platform is the user interface (UI). The goal is to create a seamless experience that caters to both non-technical users and more advanced data analysts.

• Simplified UI for non-technical users: For users who need quick access to data without getting bogged down by technical details, a clean and intuitive interface is crucial. This could include easy-to-use search functionality, simple data filters, and pre-built reports or dashboards.
• Advanced features for power users: On the other hand, advanced users may need more granular control over data exploration. Offering complex querying, custom filtering, and data visualization tools will appeal to these users, allowing them to get deeper insights from your platform.
• Customizable experience: Consider allowing users to customize their own dashboards or set up personalized views of data. This flexibility increases the value of your data platform by catering to a broader range of needs.
• Responsive design: Ensure that the platform is mobile-friendly and works across different devices. Many users will need access to data on the go, so a responsive UI is essential for a modern data delivery solution.

A well-designed UI reduces friction, making it easy for your customers to access, explore, and act on the data, improving overall satisfaction with the platform.

Step 5: Enable Self-Service Capabilities

One of the biggest advantages of a robust data access platform is enabling users to explore and segment data on their own, without needing to contact your team for support.

• Self-service exploration: Empower users with tools that allow them to run their own searches and filter the data based on their specific needs. This reduces the burden on your internal teams while giving customers the flexibility to interact with the data directly.
• API access: Offering a fully featured API allows users to pull data programmatically, integrating it with their own systems. This is especially useful for clients who need frequent data updates or who want to integrate your data into their own workflows.
• Flexible export options: Allow users to export data in multiple formats, such as CSV, Excel, or through API calls. This gives them the flexibility to download and manipulate the data in their preferred tools or formats.

Providing self-service capabilities will improve the overall customer experience by making your platform more user-friendly, while also reducing the time your team spends on manual data requests.

Step 6: Monitor and Optimize Your Platform

Once your data access platform is up and running, it’s important to continuously monitor its performance and make improvements based on user feedback.

• Performance/stability monitoring: Track key performance metrics like load times, query response rates, and uptime. Tools like Google Analytics or custom dashboards can give you insight into how users are interacting with the platform.
• User feedback: Implement feedback mechanisms within the platform to collect suggestions or reports of issues directly from users. This can be in the form of surveys, feedback buttons, or customer interviews.
• Feature updates: Based on the feedback and usage data, continuously roll out new features and improvements. This not only enhances the customer experience but also helps you stay ahead of competitors.
• Scalability tuning: As user demand increases, continue to optimize your platform’s infrastructure, ensuring it can handle higher traffic and larger datasets without slowing down.

Constant optimization ensures that your data access platform remains a valuable and reliable tool for your customers, evolving as their needs grow.

With these additional steps, your data access platform is not only functional but optimized for long-term growth and user satisfaction.

Using a Turnkey Solution Like Gigasheet for Data Delivery

Building a custom data access portal can provide a completely tailored solution, however it requires significant time, resources, and ongoing maintenance. For many companies, using a turnkey solution like Gigasheet offers a faster and more cost-effective alternative. While Gigasheet is obviously an out-of-the-box solution that might not be quite as customizable, it can be tailored to customer requirements and even embedded within existing web applications. When considering "buy vs build," keep in mind, it’s not the development phase (building of the data portal) that consumes most resources—it’s the ongoing operations and maintenance (O&M). Studies show that 70% of large IT projects experience significant cost overruns, and 83% of custom software projects either fail to meet their goals, run over budget, or are delayed (McKinsey & Company)​(SpringerLink). Even after launch, teams must manage updates, scaling, security patches, and feature improvements, which can quickly become an unsustainable burden.

We believe DaaS companies and data teams should focus their energy on providing the best, most accurate data to their customers, not on the complexities of data delivery infrastructure. By diverting resources to O&M, these companies lose valuable time and money that could be better spent enhancing their core offerings.

Gigasheet provides a smart alternative to custom development by allowing you to skip these costly challenges and project development headaches. With Gigasheet, you can launch a fully operational data access platform tailored for data providers and DaaS companies in a fraction of the time. Plus, our solution significantly reduces the O&M burden by handling performance tuning, security updates, and scalability for you.

• Fast implementation: Gigasheet allows data providers to set up a fully functional data access platform quickly, without the need for custom development. You can start delivering data to customers in days, not months.
• Self-service for customers: Gigasheet offers a user-friendly interface where your customers can explore, filter, and segment data on-demand, removing the need for your internal teams to manage manual requests.
• Embedded or standalone UI: Whether you need to integrate Gigasheet into an existing portal or want a standalone data access solution, Gigasheet’s flexible UI can be tailored to fit your needs.
• Fully-featured API: For customers who need to integrate with their own systems, Gigasheet offers a robust API that supports automated data pulls and exports, ensuring smooth workflow integration.

Additionally, Gigasheet’s transparent, scalable pricing ensures that you’re only paying for what you use. Our pay-per-customer model is based on data volume and the frequency of updates—no hidden commissions, revenue sharing, or listing fees . This predictable cost structure helps you manage your budget effectively as your customer base grows.

By leveraging Gigasheet’s turnkey platform, you can offload the complexity of building and maintaining a custom solution while still providing an excellent data access experience for your customers.

Balancing Custom Build vs. Ready-Made Solutions

Building a data access platform from scratch can offer a custom experience for your users, but it also comes with challenges—especially around scalability, security, and ongoing maintenance. If your organization has the resources and a long-term plan for managing the platform, a custom-built solution could be the right fit.

However, for many companies looking to deliver large datasets quickly and efficiently, a ready-made solution like Gigasheet provides an ideal alternative. It eliminates the need for complex development, offers a user-friendly interface, and scales to meet the demands of your customers.

Ready to explore how Gigasheet can simplify your data delivery needs? Contact us to learn more about how we can help you get up and running with a powerful, scalable data access platform.