Amazon QuickSight announces the all-new QuickSight Mobile app

AWS is happy to announce the release of QuickSight Mobile for iOS and Android devices. This release is both a major update to the existing iOS app and the launch of a new Android application. The app enables you to securely get insights from your data from anywhere; favorite, browse, and interact with your dashboards; explore your data with drilldowns and filters; stay ahead of the curve via forecasting; get email alerts when unexpected changes happen in your data; and share those insights with colleagues.

To download the QuickSight Mobile app, visit the iOS App Store and Google Play.

The new QuickSight Mobile optimizes the dashboard consumption experience with newly added features and enhanced interactivity. In this blog, we will walk you through the new Mobile experience in detail.

Features and capabilities

Home page

After authenticating with the app, you land on the QuickSight home screen. From here, you have quick access to your favorite dashboards (synched from the browser application), and most recently viewed dashboards. The recently viewed list can display up to the last 100 dashboards you previously opened.

The following screenshots show your favorited and recently viewed dashboards.

Dashboards

You can browse through all your dashboards via the Dashboards tab. You can sort the dashboards by name or updated (published) date and change to a list or a grid view. You can also search for dashboards by name. Lastly, you can easily add any dashboard to your favorites by choosing the star icon next to the dashboard’s name.

The following screenshots show dashboards in grid view, display preferences and search tool.

Dashboard view

The dashboard view is optimized for your mobile device by showing the visuals in vertical stack view, with each visual expanded to full width. A multi-sheet dashboard shows the first sheet by default. To navigate across sheets, choose the sheet title and select the sheet name you want to view.

The following screenshots show an opened dashboard with visuals in vertical stack view and how you navigate across different sheets within the dashboard.

To apply filters to visuals, choose the funnel icon to view all available filter controls and options for your dashboard sheet. After you’ve made your selection, choose Apply, and choose Done. You can see the number of filters applied via the small blue tag next to the funnel icon. You can also expand the filter control view and reset a given filter to the default.

The following screenshots show dashboard filters, expanded filter pane and how you select filter values.

Some visuals have a scroll bar, which allows you to customize the range to zoom in on a visual. A long press on a data point on most charts, such as a line or a bar, brings up the context menu. You can focus on this data point, drill up or down if the visual has a drill hierarchy, and exclude the chosen data point.

The following screenshots show interactions with zoom bars and context menu.

To go back to the full view, choose the … icon in the upper right and choose Undo. To exit the dashboard view, choose the back arrow.

If it is an anomaly detection widget, you can click on “Explore anomalies” and get redirected to the detailed anomalies page. Here, you can see all of the anomalies detected for the latest period. To perform contribution analysis to uncover the hidden drivers, long press the anomaly data point and you will see the option show up in the bottom sheet. To find out more about anomaly detection and contribution analysis, see Amazon QuickSight Announces General Availability of ML Insights.

You can expect contribution analysis to extend support to all visuals beyond anomaly detection on the app in the near future.

The following screenshots show the anomaly details and contribution analysis flow.

Visual view

From the dashboard view, choose the expand icon in the upper right corner to expand the desired visual to full-screen. The app supports both portrait and landscape modes in the expanded visual, and you can use the same interactions such as zoom, drill, focus, and exclude.

The following screenshots show expanded visuals in both portrait and landscape modes.

Settings

The Settings tab allows you to change language, Region, and biometric authentication methods. You can also provide feedback by choosing Provide feedback, which initiates an email to our mobile team.

The following screenshot shows you the options on settings page.

Setup and authentication

The QuickSight Mobile app supports authentication by any provisioned user. You can authenticate by using either your Amazon QuickSight username and password (with MFA, if this option is enabled), or through your own identity provider (IdP). After authentication, you can re-authenticate using biometric authentication such as face ID or touch ID, if supported by your mobile device, or an application-specific PIN.

The following screenshots show the generic sign-in flow.

IdP-initiated login

For IdP-initiated logins, set up your account with identity federation. For more information, see Federate Amazon QuickSight access with Okta. You can federate using standard mobile federation processes that your IdP provides, either through an app or through the web. This post uses the Okta mobile app. When you are federated, you receive the prompt to either continue your session using the mobile web experience or in the QuickSight Mobile app.

Account administrators can set the duration of mobile sessions to be anywhere from 1–30 days through the administrative console. The default session length for new accounts is 30 days.

The following screenshots show IdP-initiated login flow.

Microsoft Active Directory

If your account uses Microsoft Active Directory, you can log in to the app using your current AD credentials. If your account requires MFA, you also need to provide your MFA token to authenticate. For more information, see Can I use AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory to authenticate users in Amazon QuickSight?

Email Invitations

If you receive an email invitation to Amazon QuickSight, follow the instructions in the email to set your username and password through the website (mobile or desktop). Use these credentials to authenticate with the mobile applications.

IAM Users

If your account is an IAM user, you need to provision yourself as an Amazon QuickSight user before authenticating in the mobile application. For more information on provisioning users, Provisioning Users for Amazon QuickSight.

Summary

This post provided an overview of the key features and functionalities as well as sign-in flows for the new QuickSight Mobile app. The app is available as a free download in Google Play and the iOS App Store. You can expect the app to continue to evolve its features and capabilities to give you the best experience for getting insights from your data while on the go!

If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment.

About the Authors

Susan Fang is a senior product manager for QuickSight with AWS.

Brian Stein is a software development manager at AWS.