Disclaimer: It is worth noting that, like all my blogs, I am not getting paid to write this piece. I just really, really like Hex and think you will too.
Dashboarding tools do not spark joy.
I believe that political data teams of all sizes should adopt the modern data stack. I have proselytized the life-changing magic of dbt for analytics engineering teams and the necessity of using a real, bona-fide orchestrator like Prefect for data engineering teams. Now I want to add the final piece to my series on the modern data stack: the best, world-class tool for analytics teams.
I have spent an unreasonable amount of time wrestling with bad dashboards. I am sure you are familiar. I have written sprawling, multi-CTE SQL queries and copy-pasted them into multiple chart cells, only to realize I need to make a slight tweak to the logic—leading to a tedious, cell-by-cell editing process. I have spent hours lovingly crafting a dashboard, carefully aligning elements and fine-tuning the visuals, only for the stakeholder to look at it once and never again. A stakeholder will flag an error in a dashboard, and I will jump to fix it, but my efforts to troubleshoot the bug often make the dashboard look even worse, triggering even more frustration. I have also struggled with dashboards that inexplicably break when a dataset updates, forcing me to retrace my steps to pinpoint what went wrong.
Yet every tool I’ve used has made my life harder than it needs to be. Traditional BI tools are slow, rigid, and—quite frankly—ugly. The drag-and-drop interfaces that promise ease-of-use often turn into a nightmare of misaligned charts, inconsistent formatting, and visual elements that refuse to behave predictably (I know you feel my pain here). Customization is limited, leaving us stuck with dashboards that feel like they were designed a decade ago. Worse still, the rigidity of these tools means that even small tweaks—like adjusting a date filter or reordering charts—require a frustratingly long series of clicks and edits.
I am complaining about how difficult traditional BI tools are for me and my fellow data professionals, but let's not forget the real impact here: our non-technical stakeholders. I am talking about the organizer director who wants to be able to click into a dashboard and drill down on insights. Or the political director who is never satisfied with how your dashboard looks, no matter how hard you try to get it to conform to your organization's branding guidelines. Then there’s the finance director who needs accurate, real-time fundraising reports but finds themselves waiting on outdated exports.
I want to provide my stakeholders with the best possible dashboards—ones that not only meet their expectations but exceed them in ways they never imagined. Nothing frustrates me more than having to tell a stakeholder that, no, the dashboard can’t do that, or that their request is impossible within the limitations of our current tools. We shouldn't have to accept this kind of subpar experience as the norm.
Then I found Hex. And for the first time, an analytics tool actually sparked joy.
Introducing Hex
Hex is the first analytics tool I’ve used that actually understands how political data teams work. It’s a collaborative data notebook that lets your switch between SQL, Python, and no-code tools in one seamless environment. If you have ever used a Jupyter Notebook, it is similar, but much, much more powerful. You can explore data, build models, and publish interactive dashboards—all without leaving the tool. Did you catch the part where you can write SQL and Python in the same notebook? More importantly, Hex makes analytics fast. You can go from query to dashboard in minutes, not hours. I can't tell you how many times I've turned to Hex when I only have 20 minutes to whip up a visualization for a stakeholder.
Enough talking though. Take a look for yourself.
The Features That Make Hex a Game-Changer
Here are some of the features that, to me, make Hex the clear winner out of all the BI tools I have used:
📁 Easily ingest CSVs and other files
Of course, having all my data in the warehouse would be ideal, but that’s not always the reality when creating quick dashboards and reports on the fly. With Hex, I can simply upload a CSV and immediately query the data in a SQL cell, streamlining my workflow. This eliminates the need for tedious data wrangling, allowing me to focus on analysis rather than formatting. Plus, I can quickly merge uploaded files with existing warehouse data, making it easy to integrate ad-hoc datasets into my broader reporting pipeline.
🤝 SQL and Python in one place
You can write a SQL query and reference the output as a dataframe in a Python cell. Likewise, you can query the output of a Python cell in a SQL cell. This flexibility allows me to use the right language for each step of my analysis without switching tools. For example, I can quickly clean a phone number in Python and seamlessly pass it back into my SQL query to generate a refined table. The ability to mix and match languages in the same workflow significantly speeds up my analysis and makes data transformation effortless.
📊 Quick and easy professional looking visualizations
I have always dreamed of learning D3 and of making super intricate, amazing visualizations with JavaScript. That never happened. And I do not have time to spend hours fussing with my charts and graphs. I really like Hex's take on viz. You have these "Chart" cells where you can select your dataframe (from either a SQL or Python output) and then configure its look and feel with a handful of options. I can also quickly make more complicated charts without having to mess around with my SQL code--Hex makes it easy to change the aggregate type, group, sort, and add faceting all within the UI.
Hex also has one of the best map-making tools I’ve used in a BI platform. Sure, nothing beats loading up ArcGIS and crafting something intricate from scratch, but let’s be real—I don’t always have the time for that. With Hex, I can easily create point, area, text, and heatmaps with just a few clicks. The interface is intuitive, and I don’t have to wrestle with clunky settings or weird limitations. It’s a game-changer for quickly visualizing geographic data without the usual headache.
🔮 Magic AI Assistant
I think Hex gets AI right where so many AI data tools gets it wrong. Hex builds AI tools for data practitioners, meaning that AI helps us write code faster while letting us be the experts. It understands warehouse schemas, suggests optimizations, and even provides explanations for complex queries, reducing friction in the analytics process while ensuring accuracy and control remain in the hands of the user.
I’m usually skeptical about text-to-SQL features—I don’t trust that an AI can write SQL better than I can. But Hex was built by data nerds for data nerds, and their Text-to-SQL output always lets me have the final say on my queries. When I’m starting a complex analysis, it often gets me 80% of the way there—sometimes even 100% for simpler requests. I’ve been consistently impressed with how well it understands my warehouse schemas and generates accurate queries, making it easier to refine my logic instead of starting from scratch.
Hex's Magic can also auto-fix failing queries. Look, I'm no superhero—I make mistakes when writing SQL, and I don't always catch my errors. With Hex, I can click the 'Fix with Magic' button, and it generates a corrected version of my SQL in a separate window for side-by-side comparison. I can review the changes, accept the revised SQL, or continue refining it until I'm satisfied. This feature not only saves time but also helps me learn from my mistakes, improving my SQL skills along the way.
Hex's Magic can do so much more than what I’ve shared, and I find myself relying on these features constantly. Whether it's fixing SQL errors, suggesting optimizations, or making my workflow smoother, Magic has become an essential part of how I work. If you've been skeptical about AI in data analysis, I totally get it—I was too. But after using Magic, I’ve realized that AI isn’t here to take over; it’s here to make our work easier, faster, and less frustrating. Give it a try, and you might be surprised at just how much time it can save you.
🔗 Share your dashboards with ease
Okay, you've spent hours writing your SQL and building your charts, and now you need to share your work with your organizing director. Hex makes it super easy to create professional-looking dashboards with its App Builder. Hex has two parts: a data-team-facing notebook where you write all your code and a stakeholder-facing app that presents the results of your notebook. In App Builder, you can take all the charts and other objects you've generated in the notebook and simply drag and drop them into the app—without frustration. Hex makes it effortless to arrange and order your charts exactly how you want them.
The best part about App Builder to me is having more control over my dashboard versions. Hex has a bunch of options when you go to publish your dashboard. Let me explain:
Status: You can mark if your app is Approved, Exploratory, In Progress, or in Production.
Category: You can denote if your app is external, internal, a template, or any of your own categories.
Permissions: You can invite specific people to view your app or your entire organization.
Data freshness: You can select the behavior when a user open the app: make the app load faster by immediately showing results from the latest publish or scheduled run, automatically rerun the app in the background if its stale, or have the app run in full each time it is visited.
SQL caching. You can speed up your dashboard by using cached results of previous SQL queries.
Version details: You can give each version of your dashboard a name, which makes troubleshooting and stakeholder management so much easier. You can also compare versions of your app to previous versions with a click of a button.
All of this means I have more control over when and how stakeholders see dashboard updates, cutting down on the number of frantic emails about a dashboard being "out of date" or "broken." Hex makes dashboarding a genuinely collaborative process. It’s easy to track changes, request reviews, and mark when a dashboard is ready for stakeholders. This level of transparency means fewer surprises and a smoother workflow for both data teams and the people relying on their insights. Instead of dashboards being a static, one-way reporting tool, they become a dynamic and iterative part of decision-making. Instead of dashboards being a static, one-way reporting tool, they become a dynamic and iterative part of decision-making.
This is more than a sales pitch.
For the past five years, I’ve made it my mission to convince anyone who will listen that the modern data stack is a must for political data teams. It started with dbt, my first love—a tool that completely transformed how I thought about analytics engineering. Then I became a vocal advocate for Prefect, which I see as the holy grail for data engineering teams managing workflows and syncs. And now, I’m here to champion Hex, the analytics tool that has redefined how I approach dashboarding and reporting.
And just to be clear—I'm not getting paid to advertise these tools. In fact, I don’t make a dime from this. If anything, I’m operating at a loss—I spend more on my Wix subscription than I’ll ever make from blogging. If this is a grift, I’m definitely doing it wrong.
I want to win. I want every person in this country to not just survive but thrive. My own childhood was marked by poverty and violence, and I don’t take for granted that I’ve been able to build a stable, fulfilling life. But I know that my story isn’t unique—too many people are still trapped in cycles of struggle, with barriers that seem impossible to break. That’s why I’ve dedicated my life—not just my career, but my life—to making sure no one else has to endure what I went through.
And to win, I have to think beyond the confines of my specific job or role. It’s not enough for my team to be good—I need all progressive political data teams to be strong, agile, and well-equipped. Our fights are interconnected, and our victories are collective. If one organization is operating in a silo, struggling with outdated tools, or lacking the infrastructure to leverage data effectively, it weakens the entire movement.
That’s why I care so deeply about sharing knowledge, advocating for better tools, and helping others level up (and why I also spend a fair chunk of my time also championing the vital work of The Movement Cooperative). Because when every progressive data team is operating at its best, we’re not just improving our own efficiency—we’re increasing our collective power to make real, lasting change.
So, yes, I want you to use Hex. But more importantly, I want to push data teams of all sizes to move beyond janky, duct-taped infrastructure built on fragile Google Sheets. We owe it to ourselves and our movements to do better.
When we use the right tools for the job, when we challenge ourselves to master the harder, more powerful solutions, and when we refuse to settle for the bare minimum, we unlock a level of accuracy and scale that was previously out of reach. Better infrastructure doesn’t just make our lives easier—it directly impacts our ability to win elections, push policy, and create lasting change.
This isn’t just about technology; it’s about power. When we invest in better data practices, we build a smarter, more responsive movement. We stop wasting time fixing broken systems and start using that time to mobilize, strategize, and win. And that, to me, is worth writing about.
Great write-up! Do you use the Team pricing tier?