Before Sigma, my world was Power BI and Tableau. I knew where things lived, what a measure was, what a calculated field was and how to get a dashboard to look right. Then I was introduced to Sigma. For the first week, I kept translating everything back into the tools I already knew.

That stopped working pretty quickly, and in a good way. My first Sigma project showed me that a BI tool can do more than report what happened. It can be the place where the next decision gets made.

What I Built in Sigma

My first project is a Sigma workbook called Inventory Health, built for a clothing retailer. It tackles a problem every retailer has: stock that sits on the shelf too long. The home page opens with a line I’m fond of: “Somewhere in the warehouse, a bomber jacket has been sitting on a shelf for 29 months.”

The workbook turns that slow-moving inventory into decisions in four steps:

1. Rules run across every SKU and flag anything with weak sell-through, long shelf time or heavy discounting.
2. An analyst looks at the flagged items and decides how urgent each one is.
3. If a discount makes sense, the analyst proposes one. Nothing changes on the shelf yet. It’s only a request.
4. A manager approves, counters or rejects it.

Analysts and managers each pick their own path from the home page. Analysts land on a triage page with flagged SKUs, priorities and tied-up capital by brand. On the day I took these screenshots, it had flagged 1,683 SKUs. Managers land on a decision queue with one card per pending request. Analysts also get a My Requests page that tracks everything they’ve submitted and where it stands.

The Part That Surprised Me

In Power BI and Tableau, I was used to building reports that people look at. Someone checks the number, closes the dashboard and the real work happens in an email thread or a meeting.

In Sigma, the work happens inside the workbook. When an analyst clicks Request Discount, the request is written back to the warehouse through an input table. When a manager clicks Approve, that decision is saved too, and the requester gets an email with the status. I still remember the first one that landed in my inbox. It closed the loop on the whole process, and that’s when the project stopped feeling like a dashboard and started feeling like a small app.

Five Features I Leaned On

1. Input tables. This was the biggest one for me. Capturing requests and decisions right where the data lives, without a separate tool, is what makes the whole approval flow possible.
2. Controls that drive everything. I set up controls for sell-through %, months on shelf and discount %. Change one, then every calculation and chart downstream updates with it. It’s much easier to see what a threshold change actually does when you can watch it ripple through the page.
3. Building in stages. Instead of one giant formula, I split the logic across five staged tables, from sell-through trailing averages to comparing each SKU against its item type. Each stage is easy to check on its own, which made debugging much less scary.
4. Drawers, modals and forms. Clicking a SKU opens a detail panel with its flag reason and a chart comparing it to the item-type average. From there, you can request a discount or dismiss the flag with a reason, and you never leave the page.
   
5. The repeater. The manager queue is one repeated container, so each request becomes its own card with Approve, Counter and Reject buttons. It was far simpler to build than I expected.

What Felt Different Coming from Power BI and Tableau

Sigma doesn’t split the tool into neat parts the way I was used to. Data prep, calculations, visuals and even app behavior all happen in the same place. It feels closer to a spreadsheet that grew up. That took some getting used to. In Power BI, I always knew where a measure lived.

In Tableau, I knew where to drag a calculated field. In Sigma, I kept looking for the “place” where I was supposed to build my logic. Perhaps it was some separate model view or calculation pane. There wasn’t one. The formula just goes in a column, right on the table, like a spreadsheet. I spent far longer than I’d like to admit hunting for a menu that didn’t exist before I realized I was already standing in the right spot.

I haven’t forgotten Power BI or Tableau. I still think in their terms sometimes, and I’m glad I know them. If you’re coming from Power BI or Tableau and wondering whether Sigma is worth a look, my answer is yes. Start small, pick a real business problem and see how far one workbook can take you.