Axway embedded air-gapped Metabase to give banking clients secure, self-service analytics.

The Challenge: Axway’s team was relying on a long-standing, custom-built analytics solution for their accounting software. While it had served its purpose over time, evolving customer expectations called for a more modern, high-performance approach. The previous system was more dedicated to monitoring, required several days of work to implement new dashboards, and did not answer modern expectations for analytics.

The Solution: They embedded Metabase Enterprise into their app and used Metabase’s air-gapping features to securely deliver white-labeled analytics to their heavily regulated, on-premise banking clients. Metabase’s ability to run completely disconnected from the outside world made the partnership possible while providing enterprise-grade security and an embedded SSO solution between AFAH and Metabase.

The Results: Giving customers both out-of-the-box dashboards and a self-service way to explore their data completely turned the user experience around. The slick new interface became a major selling point during product demos, helping prospects project themselves into the solution.

"When I try to sell my solution, the dashboard is a very important element. It’s the graphical part the prospect remembers. Having a modern solution like Metabase with self-service analytics helps a lot in our sales process because the users can project themselves inside our solution. "

Thibaud Kahn
Product Manager at Axway

Axway (part of 74 Software) builds B2B software, handling everything from API management to file transfer management and more vertical solutions such as accounting integration.

In that field, the product called Axway Financial Accounting Hub (AFAH) takes business events and turns them into financial data for ERP systems and other financial applications. AFAH is considered a business-critical application for many of its customers.

The previous system was not answering modern expectations for analytics needs and was requiring several days of work to implement new dashboards. Axway looked at other BI tools, but they were way too heavy and required too much computing power just to run alongside Axway’s actual product. They needed something lean and easy to use. By introducing Metabase’s powerful new capabilities, they gained a lean, embeddable BI solution that delivers a smoother experience, faster performance, and greater flexibility for customers building their own financial reports—without putting extra strain on system resources.

Why Metabase?

Axway went with Metabase Enterprise for four main reasons: security, solid embedding features, white-labeling, and ease of use.

The absolute dealbreaker was air-gapping. Many of Axway’s clients are major French banks with strict on-premise data centers. These clients refuse to open external network ports just to ping a license server. Metabase’s ability to run completely disconnected from the outside world made the partnership possible, while providing enterprise-grade security and allowing them to build an embedded SSO solution between AFAH and Metabase.

The data

Axway’s data runs mostly on SQL databases (PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle) and MongoDB.

Because their data model is highly customized, Axway spins up new database tables almost every day. If they did things manually, they’d be building new Metabase dashboards constantly. Instead, they built a custom virtualization layer to interpret this changing data for Metabase on the fly.

They also rely heavily on the Metabase API. When a user adds a new table in Axway’s system, they hit the API to force an automatic database sync, keeping the frontend and backend perfectly matched without manual rework.

How the Axway team uses Metabase

Axway embeds Metabase into their software in two ways:

• Embedded Analytics: Pre-baked, read-only dashboards for supervising financial workflows.
• Self-Service Analytics: Since every client has unique financial data, Axway gives them builder access to create their own custom reports and alerts.

Internally, the team uses Metabase to whip up quick proofs-of-concept for sales pitches or custom client requests.

The Results

Dropping an old monitoring module for Metabase immediately upgraded Axway’s core product. Existing customers got a beneficial UX improvement, going to a smooth, modern UI for their financial reporting.

But the biggest unexpected win was in sales. Metabase’s clean visuals and self-service features became a centerpiece during pre-sales demos. Instead of just talking about data integration, the sales team can now show prospects exactly how they will interact with their financial data, helping them project themselves into the product right away.