Building a data infrastructure to help a real estate company improve efficiency and scale
| Client | Industry | Solution Provided | Technologies Used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real estate and property management technology company | Consumer & eCommerce | Data & AI | Python, GCP buckets, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, Tableau, PGAdmin, Cloud Functions in GCP |
The Challenge
This real estate property management and technology company offers tech-enabled systems and processes to 25,000+ clients across 23 U.S. states. But third-party tools like AppFolio and Propertyware controlled the client’s data, limiting their ability to perform analytics or make data-driven decisions, while their use of Tableau connected to BigQuery was causing slow report loading, which delayed critical financial and operational access. Finally, the client’s database infrastructure also struggled with logging, hindering the capture and maintenance of transformation histories and complicating audits.
The Gorilla Logic Approach
With deep experience in building Data & AI solutions, Gorilla Logic's consultants implemented the following solutions:
- Developed a new database from scratch, incorporating key modules (people, leases, and properties) with proper data access and security permissions
- Built an ETL pipeline using Python and GCP buckets to ingest, transform, and load third-party data into PostgreSQL
- Improved reporting by creating a process to query BigQuery, store results in GCP, and load them into Tableau, cutting report load times
- Implemented a logging function to track and audit all database transformations
- Configured PGAdmin for simpler PostgreSQL management
- Automated ETL pipelines with Cloud Functions in GCP
Business Outcomes
In an ongoing partnership, these efforts are resulting in:
Increased Control Over Data: Enabled full data ownership, empowering the client to perform analytics, make decisions, and plan for machine learning
Improved Performance and Efficiency: Cut report generation from minutes to seconds, and database changes from two weeks to a few seconds
Enhanced Data Management Capabilities: Enabled the client to manage data internally without third parties, increasing flexibility and responsiveness
Scalability for Future Growth: Ensured that the new data infrastructure is scalable to accommodate future growth in data volume and user base
