Delivering modern embedded analytics that parking operators love to use
Orbility's parking management platform was built to serve parking operators, municipalities, and property managers across the globe. Their customers needed comprehensive analytics to track revenue, monitor occupancy rates, analyze customer behavior patterns, and manage parking operations efficiently.
As Orbility's customer base grew rapidly and their platform evolved, their analytics capabilities needed to evolve as well. The original system had served them well for years but wasn't designed for the scale and sophistication their customers now demanded. With increasing requests for advanced reporting and deeper insights, it was time for a strategic upgrade.
Key growth challenges they wanted to address:
Modern parking operations generate massive amounts of real-time data from multiple sources. Parking operators need to track everything from occupancy patterns and revenue flows to equipment maintenance and customer behavior—all while managing multiple locations simultaneously.
Parking equipment collect a lot of data in real-time
A lot of equipment and technology is used to manage parking
Operations teams need dashboards to monitor and manage facilities in real-time
The complexity of parking operations data:
This data complexity is why parking operators need purpose-built analytics that understand the unique requirements of parking operations, from revenue accounting to predictive occupancy modeling. Orbility recognized this need and wanted to deliver exactly that level of sophistication to their customers.
To meet Orbility's ambitious goals for their next-generation analytics platform, we designed a comprehensive modern data infrastructure from the ground up. This strategic approach meant building custom systems to sync, store, and consolidate parking data from multiple customer sites.
Our team became Orbility's data engineering extension, creating three major custom components plus the embedded analytics platform:
The sync manager is the heart of the system. It connects new parking systems to the analytics platform, handling the complex data sync from parking databases and systems. This means when Orbility adds a new customer, the data integration happens seamlessly without manual setup.
We designed a data warehouse specifically optimized for parking analytics workloads. Unlike generic data warehouses, this one understands parking data structures, occupancy patterns, revenue calculations, and the specific queries that parking operators need to run for their business intelligence.
The API layer seamlessly integrates with Orbility's existing customer database. Each parking operator only sees their own data, with enterprise-grade security and multi-tenant data isolation built in from day one.
On top of this custom infrastructure, we embedded Sumboard's analytics platform directly into Orbility's existing product. Their customers now access powerful dashboards and reporting tools that feel completely native to the Orbility platform.
Building custom data infrastructure for a company like Orbility isn't just about writing code—it's about understanding their business, their customers, and the unique challenges of parking operations. Here's how we approached this complex project.
We started by spending weeks analyzing Orbility's current database structure and existing analytics capabilities. Their team walked us through years of accumulated parking data — everything from entry/exit logs to payment processing records to equipment maintenance schedules.
What became clear was the rich complexity of Orbility's data ecosystem: multiple schemas optimized for different aspects of parking operations, with each customer having unique configurations. We needed to understand not just the technical structure, but how parking operators actually used this data day-to-day.
Rather than building in isolation, we embedded with Orbility's engineering team. We held regular sessions where their team explained the business logic behind different data, the edge cases they'd encountered over the years, and the specific reporting needs of different types of parking operators.
Together, we mapped out the ideal data architecture: a purpose-built warehouse that could handle the unique structure of parking data, APIs that would integrate seamlessly with their existing system, and analytics dashboards that parking operators would actually want to use.
With the design finalized, we started building the core infrastructure. The sync manager was our first priority—a system that could connect to any new parking customer's database and pull data without manual configuration.
We built custom data transformation pipelines for each type of parking data: occupancy events, revenue transactions, equipment status, and customer patterns. Each pipeline was designed to handle the sophisticated requirements of modern parking operations—exactly the level of precision Orbility's customers expect.
Complete data flow from parking databases and systems to customer-facing dashboards
The most strategic part was migrating Orbility's existing reports into the new platform. Rather than just recreating existing functionality, we enhanced the reports while preserving the familiar workflows that parking operators relied on.
Working closely with Orbility's team, we identified their most valuable reports and enhanced them with modern visualizations. We added interactive features that weren't possible before and created new dashboards that helped parking operators spot trends and insights they'd never been able to access.
The moment of truth came when we connected the first real parking customer to the new system. Months of development had to work seamlessly with real-world data from actual parking operations.
We worked side-by-side with the parking operator's team fine-tuning the analytics based on their feedback. The beauty of the embedded approach became clear: the analytics felt completely native to the Orbility platform, not like an external tool bolted on afterwards.
Parking operations handle sensitive data including vehicle license plates, payment transactions, and customer patterns. Enterprise customers need clear answers about data security and GDPR compliance.
The whole process is GDPR compliant. All parking data stays in the customer's own local servers. Neither Orbility nor Sumboard stores parking data. Data is processed through encrypted APIs we developed in-house with the highest level of encryption. Each parking operator's data processing is completely isolated, with enterprise-grade access controls and full audit trails.
This comprehensive security framework ensures parking operators can focus on analytics insights while maintaining complete data sovereignty and regulatory compliance.
The entire project took 3 months from initial requirements to having the first customer using embedded dashboards in production. Here's how we broke it down:
Building custom data infrastructure, sync systems, APIs, and analytics from scratch while maintaining existing product development priorities.
Complete custom infrastructure plus embedded analytics platform ready for production use by customers.
Important note: Standard Sumboard integration takes just 10 minutes. The 3-month timeline reflects the comprehensive custom data infrastructure work required for Orbility's sophisticated parking data ecosystem.
The new system successfully delivered Orbility's vision for a modern, scalable analytics platform that their customers love using.
With beautiful, easy-to-understand reports that help your customers make better business decisions. Trusted by CEOs and business leaders who want clarity, not complexity.
Sumboard exceeded our expectations with its performance and ease of integration. We've now embedded it into our product line, enabling our customers to access reports through a cloud portal.
CTO and CPO at Orbility