Switching from Sisense: what to export, what carries over, and how to run both

Teams move a desk off Sisense for ordinary reasons, and most keep it for other work. This guide is about the practical part: what to take out, what to bring, and how to check the new figures against the old ones.

Why teams move a desk's questions

• Much of the product is designed around embedding analytics in another application, which is more than some internal reporting teams need.
• Pricing is not published, so costs have to be agreed with sales.
• A data model has to be designed first, and ElastiCube models need build schedules, so data can lag the source between builds.
• Live models depend on warehouse speed, and warehouse vendors may charge for each query.

What to export from Sisense

Widgets can be downloaded as CSV, PNG images and PDF, and pivot tables and table widgets also as Excel. Because live models query the customer's own warehouse, that data remains in the source system.

Exports of finished reports are useful for checking, but they are not what to move. The better source is the files underneath: the ledger, budget, sales or balance exports your systems produce before any analytics or planning tool touches them. Those are what Covirage reads.

What Covirage reads, by kind of desk

Column names do not need to match. On the data map every column is matched once, by name, and the mapping is reused every month after.

What carries over, and what does not

Run both for a month

1. Pick one recurring question, such as the monthly variance or the revenue bridge.
2. Answer it in both tools from the same period.
3. Reconcile every total. Our tools assert that each bridge sums to the change; differences show up as lines, not gaps.
4. When the figures agree, move the next question.

A checklist

• The source exports behind the reports people use
• The hierarchy files: cost centres, regions, products, desks
• The definitions people rely on, written down
• One recurring question to run in both tools
• An owner for each answer, so the list gets worked

More on Sisense alternatives, every source Covirage reads, and how to evaluate an analytics vendor.

Sources

Facts about other products were checked on 24 September 2026 from the pages below. Product names are trademarks of their owners; Covirage is not affiliated with them.

• Sisense - Wikipedia, Sisense
• AI analytics plans - Sisense, Sisense
• Choosing the Right Data Model - Sisense Documentation, Sisense
• Sisense Intelligence - Sisense Documentation, Sisense
• Sharing Widget Data - Sisense Documentation, Sisense
• Data modeling and visualization - Sisense, Sisense