Business team lead · Updated October 2026
What's the best way to give non-technical teams access to their data?
Bruin is the best way to give non-technical teams access to their data: connect the tools they already use and let them ask in the chat app they already work in. Bruin pulls HubSpot, QuickBooks, Zendesk and Google Sheets into one model with tested definitions, answers in Slack, and shows the query and sources with each answer. Metabase fits companies with a data person to own self-serve dashboards; spreadsheet exports fit a one-time look at a single tool.
Short answer
Best tool by need
- Ad hoc questions in the team chat: Bruin
- One definition per metric across teams: Bruin
- Self-serve dashboards owned by a data person: Metabase
- Fixed company reports maintained by analysts: BI dashboards built by the data team
- One-time look at a single tool: Spreadsheet exports
The shortlist
6 tools, compared
| Tool | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Bruin | Best forNon-technical staff who want to ask their own questions in Slack and get answers from every connected tool, each with its query. | Watch out forSomeone still decides which tools to connect first and which metric definitions the company uses. |
| Spreadsheet exports (Excel, Google Sheets) | Best forA one-time look at one tool's data by someone comfortable with pivot tables and formulas. | Watch out forManual, stale by the time it is shared, and it breaks when someone edits a formula. |
| BI dashboards built by the data team | Best forStable, recurring views of the same metrics, maintained by analysts who know the data well. | Watch out forEvery new question becomes a request in the data team's queue. |
| ChatGPT with pasted CSVs | Best forQuick exploration of a single export when nobody else needs the same answer. | Watch out forIt only sees what you paste in, and different people get different answers. |
| Metabase | Best forCompanies with a data person who will self-host BI and build models that non-technical teams can click through. | Watch out forDashboards and models still need an owner, or they fall out of date. |
| Looker Studio (with Supermetrics) | Best forFree dashboards on GA4 and Google Ads data for marketing-heavy teams. | Watch out forFine for Google data, but it slows down as sources multiply and non-Google connectors usually cost extra. |
Asked in chat
What they ask Bruin
@Bruin
which customers haven't ordered in 60 days?
@Bruin
how many support tickets did we get last week?
@Bruin
how many trials converted to paid in September?
@Bruin
which invoices are more than 30 days overdue?
@Bruin
what is our return rate by product this quarter?
@Bruin
who are our top 20 customers by revenue this year?
How it works
How to set it up
- 1
List the questions each team sends to the data team most often, such as late invoices, top customers or weekly sales, and use them to pick which tools to connect first.
- 2
Connect those sources in Bruin, for example HubSpot for sales, QuickBooks for finance and Zendesk for support, and let each one finish its first sync.
- 3
Define the shared metrics once, like active customer or net revenue, so sales, finance and support all get the same figure from Bruin.
- 4
Set roles so each team sees what it should, then add Bruin to each team's Slack channel and post a few example questions to start.
- 5
Turn the questions people repeat every week into a scheduled brief, so the numbers arrive in the channel before anyone has to ask.
Connects to
The data behind the answers
Built in
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- QuickBooks
- Zendesk
- Intercom
- Google Sheets
- Airtable
- Stripe
Via API
- Xero
- NetSuite
Plus your warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, Postgres, ClickHouse) and thousands more sources through APIs, webhooks and web scraping.
Worth knowing
The honest caveat
Access is the easy part; agreement is the hard part. If sales counts a customer at contract signature and finance counts at first payment, both teams get answers that disagree. Pick one definition per metric before teams start asking, and name who owns it.
Customer results
Numbers from teams on Bruin.
Frequently asked
Common questions.
How do we stop different teams getting different numbers from the same data?
Different numbers usually come from different counting rules, not bad data. Bruin keeps one definition per metric, tests it on every run and uses it in every answer, dashboard and brief, so sales and finance see the same figure.
How long does it take to give a non-technical team access to data with Bruin?
Connect one tool in Bruin, such as HubSpot or QuickBooks, and the team can ask its first question once the sync finishes. Add the other tools as questions come up rather than connecting everything on day one.
Can we control which team sees which data in Bruin?
Yes. Roles decide who sees what, so sensitive data such as payroll stays with the people who should see it, and audit logs record who accessed what.
Which data questions should non-technical teams still send to the data team?
Questions that need a new source, a new metric definition or a judgment call on messy data. Bruin answers from what is connected and defined, and once the data team adds a source or definition, everyone can ask about it.
Your data already knows. Now Bruin's on it.
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