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Staying competitive in today’s business world means having access to a greater volume of data than ever before. No-code ETL tools give businesses of all sizes the opportunity to connect to SaaS, social media platforms, and all types of digital marketing data to keep their data warehouses up to date and improve the effectiveness of business intelligence (BI) tools.

No-code ETL is a game changer for businesses that want to quickly transform complex data sets into meaningful insights. By automating the process of extracting, transforming, and loading data into a destination system, businesses reduce their time to insights from days or weeks down to minutes. No-code ETL tools are designed for ease of use, allowing non-technical users with minimal coding experience to quickly connect different sources, manipulate the data needed, and build automated pipelines that can be used across business departments.

Our 5 key takeaways about no-code ETL tools:

  • No-code ETL tools are cloud-based software platforms that allow businesses to create data pipelines without manual coding. These tools are simple and easy to use, making data processing easier and freeing up employees' time to work on other projects or spend more time with customers.
  • The benefits of no-code ETL tools include improved data quality, increased accessibility to business data, and better insights, leading to a more intuitive organization and more confidence in the marketplace.
  • To use a no-code ETL tool, businesses can follow general steps such as choosing a data source and destination, using the no-code interface to create a pipeline, automating the pipeline by scheduling it to run at specific times, and testing the pipeline.
  • Popular no-code ETL tools available now include Integrate.io, Hevo Data, and Fivetran. When choosing a no-code ETL tool, businesses should consider factors such as functionality, pricing, level of support, and specific business use cases.
  • No-code ETL tools also empower citizen integrators to create their own data connections and avoid data silos caused by a lack of alignment between business teams and IT support.

In this article, we will explore the benefits of using no-code ETL tools, how they can simplify your data pipeline, and some popular tools in the market to consider.

What Is ETL and What Are ETL Tools?

ETL stands for "extract, transform, load" and is a popular method of data integration. The ETL process involves:

  • Extract: Connect to a data source and extract relevant data
  • Transform: Hold that data in a staging area to clean and transform it ready to
  • Load: Load data into your data warehouse (such as Snowflake, BigQuery, or Amazon Redshift) or data lake

ETL tools are pieces of software, applications, or entire platforms dedicated to ensuring this process runs smoothly in order to achieve more complete data integration and better data quality.

What Are No-Code ETL Tools?

The ETL no-code approach means using tools that don’t require manual coding. These tools are often cloud-based rather than installed on-premises and are usually simple enough that businesses don’t need to employ a dedicated data scientist to learn how to use them.

No-code ETL tools may use visual or text-based interfaces and may have drag-and-drop options to make creating data pipelines even easier.

What Are the Benefits of No-Code ETL Tools?

Poor data quality isn’t an option for businesses that want growth and success. In fact, Garter estimates that low-quality data could be costing businesses $15 million in losses every year. Most modern businesses understand this, which is why no-code ETL tools are more popular than ever. The overall data integration market is valued at $13.36 billion, an 11.1% growth from the previous year, despite continuing geopolitical unrest and other factors impacting business budgets.

It's clear, then, that you need to have access to as much of your business data as possible, and it needs to be clean and ready to gain insights from. Manually coding data pipelines for data ingestion is time-consuming, tedious, and difficult. No-code ETL tools virtually remove this hassle and generally have a shallow learning curve that allows teams and individuals outside the traditional IT remit to use them.

Making data processing easier means freeing up employees' time to work on other projects or spend more time with customers. The ability to transform raw data into actionable insights creates organizations that seem far more intuitive and that can be more confident in their marketplace.

How Do You Use No-Code ETL Tools?

Each no-code platform will have its own unique interface, but the general steps to follow will look something like this:

  •          Choose your data source
  •          Choose your data destination, which will usually be a data warehouse or data lake
  •          Use the no-code interface to create a pipeline
  •          Automate the pipeline by scheduling it to run at specific times
  •          Test the pipeline

A test will normally involve bringing a full historical data load from a particular source. Some tools will then allow you to set your data pipelines to only collect data when changes to that information occur.

Popular No-Code ETL Tools Available Now

What no-code ETL tools are businesses using right now?

Integrate.io

This award-winning data integration platform offers no-code ETL solutions and currently enjoys a 4.3-star rating on the respected tech review site, G2. As well as no-code ETL tools, this platform provides a complete set of user-friendly tools (Reverse ETL, ELT, Data Observability, Change Data Capture, etc) to help businesses create and manage clean, secure data pipelines.

Hevo Data

Another popular choice is Hevo Data, currently also rated at 4.3 stars on G2. Hevo is heavily focused on reducing data loss and improving data analytics and is generally considered easy to use with good support available.

Fivetran

Fivetran is another ETL tool that also offers ELT/CDC services. This platform is generally more useful for users managing lower volumes of data, as it’s priced on a “pay as you use” structure meaning that scalability is possible but potentially expensive. Users praise Fivetran for its broad range of connectors and the ability to add unlimited users on larger plans.

Choosing the Right No-Code ETL Tool

Because there are so many options available, it can be tricky to know which no-code ETL solution to choose. You need a platform that guarantees fast, effective data transformation, regardless of the type of data sets or schema. As well as functionality, you need to consider pricing, and the level of support offered.

Your business use cases may also determine what type of ETL solution you go for. If you need to connect to dozens of different cloud-based SaaS, you probably want to get an ETL platform with plenty of prebuilt connectors and high levels of data security. If you need to set up dozens of workflows every day for rapidly shifting enterprise data, a drag-and-drop interface is probably essential to ensure you’re being as efficient as possible.

How Can No-Code ETL Tools Empower Citizen Integrators?

Citizen integrators are employees of a company that create integrations between apps and software, but they’re not members of IT or data teams and they don’t necessarily have any coding experience to speak of.

When data integration isn’t effective, it causes data silos that can stall communication and cause businesses to grind to a halt. A survey of corporate Chief Information Officers shows 40% of them had experienced data silos caused by a lack of alignment between business teams and IT support—in other words, the IT teams weren’t creating data pipelines that were beneficial to business goals. With no-code ETL tools, department heads and managers don’t need to wait for data engineers or data scientists to manually code data pipelines. They can quickly create their own connections, ensuring everyone within an organization has access to the data they need to speed up business decision-making.

Encouraging citizen integrators could increase ROI for businesses by reducing pressure on overworked IT teams and increasing collaboration and communication.

Learn More About The Citizen Integrator Advantage

How Integrate.io Can Help: No-Code ETL Tools for Modern Businesses

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Integrate.io provides a whole suite of no-code ETL tools for data management, including reverse ETL which allows you to send critical data to your customer relationship management (CRM) systems, such as Salesforce or HubSpot. Our drag-and-drop interface allows you to create data pipelines in minutes, preparing and transforming your data almost effortlessly.

Our no-code platform also allows you to use ELT (extract, load, transform) or CDC (change data capture), a slightly different method that utilizes your data warehouse’s own resources to add in data as it’s changed or amended. This super-fast method ensures records are kept up to date providing real-time data replication and reducing the risk of human error. You can even use API management services to connect to data sources, and there are already pre-built connectors to well over 100 popular business SaaS, data warehouses, and BI tools. Achieve complete data observability and total data integrity by investing in a no-code platform that doesn’t require you to hire a costly data scientist to hand-code the connectors you need.

Try Integrate.io for yourself with a 14-day trial, and set up a meeting with our team to find out how easy it is to get access to your business-critical customer data.