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🎊Introducing your New Community Manager— Cam Barnes
Hello Domo Community!
We have an exciting change to announce. @CamBarnes is taking on the role of Community manager. Some of you already met him at Domopalooza, and if you did, you know that the Domo Community is in good hands. Cam has over 11 years of experience working in Customer Success at Domo and brings a strong passion for optimizing the value Domo brings to its customer base. He is thrilled about his new role and can't wait to implement fresh ideas into the Community.
Please join me in welcoming Cam Barnes to the Domo Community!
Re: Reflections from Domopalooza 2026 and my Case for Cards
@DavidChurchman i should have checked the ideas exchange when I started agitating on the flex chart….I think I got some of yours on my list. But will see if we can squeeze any more in. Some of mine were tooltip for labels, abbreviate values, option to just show label for first/last or min and max. Ability to change the sort when interacting. It can be the GOAT card, I agree. Will share this with the engineer as well
Re: Reflections from Domopalooza 2026 and my Case for Cards
What we could use now, is a BPTC. 🤣
Re: Reflections from Domopalooza 2026 and my Case for Cards
@DavidChurchman @ArborRose @MarkSnodgrass I also think that sometimes we are not good about putting things into release notes that impact cards. Sometimes it could be the small things like a setting on a donut. but sometimes other bigger things. I actually just reviewed some changes I requested to Flex Tables (had started this before this thread was a thought in your mind) as I use them a lot to show change over time for product metrics internally. Maybe like 5-6 changes to take it from sometimes useful to really awesome (sorting, some better labeling options). The engineer did mention there were a couple other new cards he was working on. And I would also call out that I think this ability to let a slicer filter set a variable is huge and game changing and I have been pushing for it for a while (https://www.domo.com/product/new-features/slicer-card-and-variable-linking, includes a video from yours truly explaining part of why I love it ).
Also, there is a balance between the "exec pushing for AI" narrative (which is true) and the reality of a new world. I have been doing a lot with Claude desktop chat and our early versions of MCP and it is game changing what I can do. Now at the end of it I want the option to create some old fashioned cards too if needed or maybe a few cards and one pro code component/brick with cards around them. And that is coming soon. Still some of that atomic unit of a card but letting AI make us faster and quicker.
I would also look at the new editing experience in app studio for cards. I was a hater at first. I liked my old analyzer (which yes maybe needed some refreshing). But editing in one canvas is super powerful and I am so glad we got this out to people now. https://www.domo.com/product/new-features/domo-bi-domopalooza-announcements
It is a balance always in the life of a product leader. Listen to customers, solve pain points, understand what is coming new, align with business priorities. that is the life I chose I suppose!
Re: What are the Advantages/Disadvantages of picking Snowflake vs. Databricks vs. AWS S3?
Correct, you save on Domo credits, but it does increase your CDW usage. However, we find that the overall cost trade-off is usually in your favor.
Since I don't have the full context for your follow-up question, I can say that the decision to use a CDW depends more on table sizes. For example, our product usage data contains billions of rows. Snowflake, like Domo, charges based on usage, but when dealing with hundreds of billions of rows, the CDW handles larger tables more efficiently. Overall, I recommend maximizing the use of Domo connectors until you encounter limitations like slow data loads or Magic runs. Then, evaluate which option makes the most sense.
Re: What are the Advantages/Disadvantages of picking Snowflake vs. Databricks vs. AWS S3?
I asked this question to more than one of the company booths at Domopalooza last week. The Snowflake people basically said what @Dhuddleston mentions - users find the Snowflake UI is more intuitive. And it already has close ties with Domo and Connectors, and assets available.
There are other solutions than what you mention but here's what I gather - think of these as doing different jobs—not direct replacements. I do use these myself, as I am researching the same question.
S3 is just storage. It’s cheap and scalable, but it doesn’t actually analyze anything. You still need another tool on top to run reports.
Snowflake is built for reporting and dashboards. It’s the easiest way to turn data into answers. Fast, reliable, and low effort for teams. The tradeoff is cost and less flexibility for advanced data work.
Databricks is built for heavy data work and AI. It’s powerful, but more complex and usually needs engineers to run it. Better for building pipelines and models than for simple reporting.
How to think about it
- If your goal is reports and business insights → pick Snowflake
- If your goal is data pipelines or AI → pick Databricks
- If your goal is just storing data cheaply → keep S3
What most companies actually do
They don’t choose one.
They use:
- S3 for storage (cheap)
- Snowflake for reporting (simple, fast)
- Databricks only if they need advanced data work
Re: Reflections from Domopalooza 2026 and my Case for Cards
Terrific post @DavidChurchman.
Domo’s competitive advantage is making the data-to-dashboard workflow simple and accessible. Strategies that reinforce that strength will continue to add value; those that pull focus away from it risk diluting what makes Domo effective.
I agree that continued investment in the foundational layer—cards, data modeling, and overall usability—is critical. Personally, I’m not looking to use Domo for building workflows or writing code. If I need that, I can use tools like Claude or Cursor directly. It’s also worth considering the added cost implications when similar capabilities exist outside the platform.
It feels like some of the current direction is being influenced by executive demand to highlight how AI is being used, rather than how data is being effectively leveraged. In practice, I still see challenges with AI reliably handling even relatively simple data relationships, like joins across a few tables. That can lead to impressive demos, but inconsistent results in real-world use.
With that in mind—and acknowledging that some of these may already be in development or beta—here are a few suggestions focused on strengthening the core experience:
Cohort / Retention Card (simplified)
• A card that shows how groups of users behave over time after they start
Example:
Group users by when they signed up (e.g., January, February, March), then track what percentage of each group returns in later weeks or months
Signup Month | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
Jan | 100% | 60% | 45% |
Feb | 100% | 55% | 40% |
Funnel / Conversion Card (simplified)
• A card that shows how people move through steps in a process—and where they drop off
Example (website flow):
Visited site → Signed up → Made a purchase
What you’d see:
Step 1: 10,000 users
Step 2: 4,000 users (40% conversion)
Step 3: 1,000 users (25% conversion from step 2)
Time Comparison Card (Smart)
• Automatically compares WoW, MoM, and YoY performance
• Includes % change and clear visual indicators
Variance / Waterfall Enhancements
• More robust variance analysis (plan vs. actual with contributing drivers)
• Moves beyond basic waterfall charts into clearer financial storytelling
Text / Narrative Card (non-AI)
• Rule-based summaries (not generative AI)
Example:
“Revenue increased 12% vs last month, driven by X”
Parameterized Cards
• A single card that can dynamically switch metrics or dimensions
• Reduces the need to duplicate multiple versions of the same card
Card-Level Versioning
• Track changes over time
• Ability to roll back when needed
Cross-Dataset Cards
• Blend data directly at the card level without requiring heavy ETL processes
Improved Debugging Tools
• Step-by-step data inspection
• Clearer error tracing and troubleshooting
Re: Reflections from Domopalooza 2026 and my Case for Cards
Very well said @DavidChurchman and I agree 100% with your comments. I am thankful that product leaders like @BenSchein see these comments and are appreciative and mindful of them. I was encouraged by some of the actual Domo releases that were announced and look forward to them. The Domo visualizations, connectors and ETLs are amazing and so much easier to use than their competitors and I hope that Domo does not lose sight of that.
Re: Reflections from Domopalooza 2026 and my Case for Cards
@DavidChurchman very thoughtful reflection. I agree with much of it and have some context and clarification on other parts including the role Claude can and should play (among other AI tools) and even how that potentially impacts what a card means and is. Ping me at ben.schein@domo.com and can find some time. Likely later in April as I am taking some time to rest later this week.
Reflections from Domopalooza 2026 and my Case for Cards
Last week, I attended my first Domopalooza and I wanted to take a moment to share my reflections. I'd be curious to hear what everyone else took away, so I hope to hear from some of you. My biggest takeaway was how impressed I was by the product managers I got to meet and see present. They seem genuinely engaged with the user community and announced/demoed a host of features that will make my life better in Domo (as they eventually trickle out into GA). More than once, I saw screenshots of posts from this very forum as part of their presentations, showing the demand for the features they built. Also, more than once, and for different features, I heard the claim that a new feature was the "most requested" by the community. That makes me think we could use a better system for merging similar requests and creating a more reliable metric for ranking the "most requested" features.
My second big takeaway was that the Domo community is, in fact, a community. I felt warmly welcomed by everyone, especially those that, like me, spend too much time on this forum. It made me realize I would benefit from putting more of myself into this community. Those two things—that Domo leaders take to heart the posts on this forum and my renewed appreciation for the members of this community—motivated this post (and maybe some more posts in the near future).
Which brings me to my third takeaway from Domapalooza: bookends to the conference that made me think that Domo leaders misunderstand why people use Domo. The opening bookend was a series of breathless demonstrations of the powerful capabilities of…Claude. The demos were (it was proudly declared) prepared at 1:30 am that morning. I'm curious what was pushed off the agenda by that early-morning brainstorm. One can imagine someone had thought about something for more than a few sleepless hours that they were ready to present to the thousands of attendees at their freshest and most excited.
What was the point of the Claude demos? Was the point that Domo's core features are so clumsy that you need to use a different company's robot-god-brain to extract any meaningful value from them? Was the point that none of Domo's own new features were exciting enough to compete with Anthropic, so let's play with the exciting stuff before we have to slog through all the boring Domo stuff the next couple days? They opened with Claude in an apparent vote of no-confidence of Domo.
The closing bookend for me, if not the literal one, was when Domo's CEO reacted with exaggerated dismay to Domo being called a "dashboard company". What's wrong with being a dashboard company? What does a well-made Domo dashboard represent? Useful data has been connected, transformed, and analyzed, and is being put in front of the people that need to see it.
Which brings me back to why (I believe) people use Domo. That process from connecting raw data to presenting it clearly has never been as easy as it is in Domo. That is Domo's competitive advantage. Anything that adds to that ease of use will build on Domo's advantage, and anything that distracts from it is a missed opportunity. The vision laid out in the general sessions started and ended with Claude and some dubious promises of using AI in Domo. Happily in contrast to that vision, when I look at the product announcements from Domo, I think most if not all are building on Domo's ease of use; you don't need to use Claude to benefit from Worksheets or the myriad enhancements in MagicETL. That mismatch between what Domo is saying they're doing and what they're actually doing gives me hope.
What I do see missing is any investment in cards. What was the last new card type we got in Domo? I think it was packed bubbles back in October 2023 almost three years ago? (I'm not counting the minor updates to donuts and gauges in January 2024). Worksheets and the new App Components serve a similar function as cards, so those are welcome and helpful additions, but they don't play across the entire Domo ecosystem the way that cards do.
So I'll close with my case for cards. The card is the atomic unit of analysis in Domo. They determine what can be built with the rest of Domo with the least friction. Wouldn't it be nice to expand the periodic table a bit? I'm not talking about features that can only be used in AppStudio or that you need Claude to help you create in a ProCode app, but cards that my least technical users can make from anywhere in Domo and have a better handle on their data than they did before.
I have some ideas for the types of cards that I'd love to see, and my intention is to post some ideas in the coming weeks making a more specific case for those cards. I hope you upvote some of those ideas and contribute some of your own. I also hope some resources are left at Domo after they pay for all their Anthropic subscriptions to continue to develop the part of Domo that makes Domo what is is: a dashboard company.





