NextTables Cloud

On every data platform we build there is a set of tables the business owns and the architecture has no place for: mappings, classifications, corrections, the reference values that decide what a report actually says. NextTables Cloud is where those tables live.

Business teams maintain them in a familiar grid, every entry is validated before it is written, and the records stay on your platform. We design it, build it and run it with you.

What happens today

A mapping changes. Someone asks around for the current version, maintains it in Excel, and hands the file over to be loaded. It fails in the pipeline run, the data engineering team has to pick it up, and by the time it lands the dashboard has already been wrong twice.

What that costs on a project

Spreadsheet maintenance gets rejected in UAT. Custom write-back development eats into project margin. Scope creep and post-go-live support pile up. And the next project starts the same problem again from scratch. It is the requirement that arrives late, carries no budget line, and lands on whoever is closest to it.

Governed

Validated and authorized, at the platform boundary. Every entry is checked against your rules and your master data before it reaches the platform, and errors surface on the spot so the business user fixes them there and then. Access is role-based with row-level rules, scoped to folders, and those row rules can reuse an access table you already maintain on your platform. Your business data stays on your platform throughout. One security perimeter, the one you already run.

Work in a grid they already understand

Filter, sort, copy and paste, bulk update. The grid behaves the way a spreadsheet behaves, on data that lives in your platform rather than on somebody's desktop. Column setup, data types, required fields and locks are configuration, so a new table is a conversation rather than a build.

The people who own the data maintain it.
Column rules set as configuration, not code.

Build the entry form as configuration

A drag-and-drop form builder puts single-record entry masks together from the fields of a connected table, with validation rules and low-code logic attached where they are needed. A department gets the entry screen it asked for, and it stays configuration rather than a build.

Single-record entry, without a development project.
Validation rules attached where they are needed.

Row-by-row validation of an imported spreadsheet

This is the first question your platform owner asks, and it is worth answering before anything else.

NextTables connects through each platform's native interface and writes directly to your tables, so the platform you already run stays the single source of truth. Business data passes through during a read or a write and remains on your platform afterwards. What lives inside NextTables is configuration metadata: the apps, the table and column setup, the validation rules and the role assignments.

Three consequences follow, and they are the ones that matter in an architecture review. One security perimeter rather than two. One source of truth, with the maintenance layer sitting alongside it rather than in front of it. And because the records were only ever written in place, stepping away from NextTables is an access change rather than a migration project.

NextTables was built inside our own practice, and although it is an independent company today, our consultants wrote it. On a tool whose whole value is configuration, that difference is practical rather than sentimental: it shows up in how quickly the first app is right.

What we bring to a NextTables Cloud project

Platform connection and tenant setup, on SAP Business Data Cloud, SAP Datasphere, Databricks or PostgreSQL.
The first data apps, built with the business team that will own them rather than handed to them finished.
Validation rule design, which is where a maintenance app either earns trust or loses it in the first week.
Role and row-level access design, mapped onto the access tables and the identity provider you already maintain.
Enablement, so your teams add the next table themselves.

And the judgement about which tables deserve an app at all, which is the part that decides whether anybody uses it six months later.

More than 20 NextTables customers

Across 30-plus releases and counting. Product details, pricing and the knowledge base are at nexttables.com

Questions your platform owner asks first

Where is our business data stored?

On your enterprise data platform, in your own tables. NextTables connects through the platform's native interface and writes directly to them. Business data passes through during a read or a write and stays on your platform afterwards. Only configuration metadata, meaning the apps, the table and column setup, the validation rules and the role assignments, lives inside NextTables.

Do our business users need an account on the data platform?

They sign in through your enterprise single sign-on with the credentials they already have, on Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace. NextTables holds the connection to the platform, so a business user needs one login, and the roles you have set decide what that login can reach. Adoption stays light, which is usually what decides whether a maintenance app survives.

How is access controlled?

Identity stays with your enterprise single sign-on. Roles are assigned at folder level with read, write, create and delete rights, and they inherit down to the data sources connected inside each folder. Row-level access is driven by a control table saying which user may reach which rows. Maintain that table in NextTables, or point at an access-control table you already keep on the platform, so your existing policy is enforced automatically.

Is this another system for us to integrate and maintain?

It runs as a managed SaaS app, so upgrades and infrastructure are maintained by NextTables. Your team configures apps, validation rules and roles through the interface, in business terms. The platform you already run stays the single source of truth, with your tables, governance and security perimeter intact. NextTables sits alongside as the maintenance layer, and we do the configuration work with you.

Where are validation rules defined and run?

Rules live in NextTables as configuration. Each app validates entries against the master data tables it is connected to, so a value is checked against your source of truth before anything is written. Every rule runs at the point of entry, ahead of the write, so a user sees and fixes an invalid entry on the spot and only validated data reaches your tables.

How is this different from building a form in PowerApps or another low-code tool?

The form is the easy part. What takes the time is validation against your master data, access decided by role and by row, entry that guides a business user to the correct value, and a write that lands straight in the platform. A low-code tool asks you to build all of that per app and then own it. Here it is configuration, and the same pattern carries to the next table.

How do changes get from a test environment to production?

By promotion transport, a mechanism NextTables provides for exactly this. You build and test an app in one environment and promote the configuration to the next, so the app that goes live is the app that was tested. It follows the promotion pattern your platform team already uses elsewhere, and we set those environments up as part of the project.

Which platforms does it work with?

SAP Business Data Cloud, SAP Datasphere, Databricks and PostgreSQL. Connection is through each platform's native interface, with writes going directly into your tables. Validation can run against master data on one platform while the write lands on another, which is useful when reference data and reporting tables sit in different places. We connect the tenant to your platform as part of the setup.

What happens if we stop using it?

Your records were written in place on your own platform the whole time, so they stay there in your tables. Stepping away is an access change rather than a migration project, and the configuration metadata can be exported before you switch it off. Access is withdrawn, the apps stop, and the tables carry on being read by everything else that uses them.

NextTables Cloud: data maintenance apps for business teams