Tackling ‘Toggle’ Trouble, Alation Extends Data Intelligence To Chrome

Toggles are troublesome. In fact, toggling between various enterprise applications and data services is – according to the Harvard Business Review — something that the average user does early 1,200 times per day on average. That’s almost four hours per week, which is an afternoon off by anybody’s measure.

Even for those of us who attempt to work primarily in a single browser environment, it’s more than likely that a user would be running Twitter/X, LinkedIn, a calendar, an email inbox, perhaps WhatsApp and certainly a spreadsheet and word processor. There is always a need to move and “toggle” between applications because we need different services from different app specializations. All of which is okay for many use cases, but for knowledge workers who require data intelligence, data analytics and data management functions to be more readily available in a secure way, it’s less than ideal at best.

Without a so-called “single source of truth” (that expression that technology vendors are so fond of using when want to they sell us orchestration, automation and centralization technologies), the new breed of modern data users often have to leave their applications running on Google Chrome (other browsers are also available, but Chrome has around two-thirds of the market) to locate relevant data scattered across systems. These inefficiencies slow decision-making, introduce errors and delay time to value for data and AI initiatives.

Contextual Data Discovery

Data intelligence platform company Alation has been working to address these issues with its release of Alation Anywhere for Google Chrome, a software service designed to streamline contextual data discovery and enable users users to act on data intelligence within Chrome.

This extension allows users to search, preview and retrieve critical metadata from Alation without leaving their browser. It’s all about being able to get trusted, governed data at the point of need for real-time enterprise decision making. and accelerated time to value. The extension is the latest addition to Alation Anywhere, which integrates data intelligence into Slack, Microsoft Teams, Excel and Google Sheets.

“Organizations today are overwhelmed by the influx of data from countless sources, creating unprecedented complexity in managing their data environments,” said Diby Malakar, VP of product management at Alation. “The Alation Anywhere for Google Chrome extension directly addresses this challenge by delivering trusted, governed data straight into the user’s browser. It empowers teams to instantly find, understand and act on data—without disrupting their workflow. This isn’t just a productivity tool; it’s a critical asset that accelerates decision-making, reduces errors and drives meaningful business outcomes in today’s decentralized, data-driven world.”

Creating Collaborative Data Cultures

Alation Anywhere integrates data intelligence applications that many of us use as daily tools. The extension surfaces data intelligence – such as business term definitions, metadata previews and database details – directly in the browser, eliminating the need to switch away from Chrome. As a working illustrative example, knowledge workers often rely on applications like Snowflake’s Snowsight and Power BI. With the new extension, users gain a side-by-side view of data assets and corresponding metadata from Alation, which the company suggests creates a more collaborative data culture across the enterprise.

Workers can teams can instantly discover trusted data and business intelligence assets using natural language search. This democratizes access to data across the organization, allowing users to locate relevant data assets quickly without specialized knowledge. The extension boosts productivity by delivering the right data at the point of need, enabling faster, more informed decision-making.

“The extension enhances productivity by providing automated, side-by-side previews of data assets in Snowflake’s Snowsight and Power BI dashboards alongside Alation’s metadata. For example, data teams can access context – such as data quality flags and descriptions about a data asset – directly within Snowsight and Power BI. This comprehensive view lets users explore contextual metadata, like schemas, tables and BI objects, all without leaving Chrome. The extension supports better decision-making by streamlining workflows, improving data accuracy, reducing errors and ensuring teams rely on trusted and governed data,” said Alation’s Malakar.

Users can also search for and interpret standardized organizational terms directly within Chrome. For instance, an analyst working on a report or PowerPoint can find clarity on organizational terms through the Alation glossary.

Hammering Out Applications

The trends surfacing here run closely in line with the wider drive to provide users with automations and intelligence services built around real workplace workflows i.e. it’s not so much a case of knowledge workers having to hammer out their application use cases into a form that fits the jobs they need to carry out, it’s more a case of the application functions themselves bending (in this case extending) to the particular fit requirements of the user base.

We’ll likely see more of these trends moving forward, which may be a welcome development… at least until the next big thing needs to be bolted on and we need even more extensions and augmentations, but at least we know the drill now i.e. too much toggle makes the brain boggle.