Better Business Intelligence in Elixir with Livebook

Summary

The post argues that Elixir developers already perform business intelligence when they use iex or a Rails console to query application data, calculate figures, and produce CSV rows for managers. It presents Livebook as a more capable alternative for young projects that need analysis without adopting a large, continuously running BI application such as Metabase. Because notebooks execute Elixir code and can communicate with running applications through BEAM/OTP clustering, they can reuse business logic, Ecto schemas, associations, and external integrations such as Stripe while avoiding direct database access. Livebook also supplies charts, graphs, tables, Markdown-based sharing, and reproducible reruns, with WireGuard enabling secure connections to apps on Fly.io. The resulting notebooks can answer onboarding, sales, and integration questions while preserving work that may later support an admin dashboard.

Takeaways

1. 1

   Livebook notebooks are Markdown files that can be checked into a project, shared with a team, and rerun to produce updated numbers.

2. 2

   Because Livebook communicates with running Elixir applications, analysis can combine application data with results from external services such as Stripe.

3. 3

   A startup can keep its application and database running, then connect Livebook on an as-needed basis instead of maintaining a separate BI application.