BigQuery is Here: What It Means for Your Data & the Retirement of MS SQL

At e-satisfaction, we’re constantly evolving to provide the best solutions for our customers. As part of our vision to become the center of your data and bring all your Voice of the Customer into our platform helping you create custom reports that meet your unique needs, we’re embracing BigQuery, a best-in-class data warehouse solution. This shift will allow us to focus on what matters most—delivering the best insights and services to our customers.

As we move forward with these integrated data solutions, we’re streamlining how we handle “Data Out Integrations,” enabling our customers to easily export and sync data to their own systems—whether it’s a data lake or database. 

To achieve this, we are gradually phasing out and decommissioning any self-hosted MS SQL server previously offered to clients. MS SQL has proven to serve clients so far, yet given it doesn’t align with our vision yet given it is a self-hosted solution it has limitations with respect scalability and flexibility, while requiring heavy maintenance, slowing down innovation. It requires heavy maintenance, slowing down innovation. In contrast, BigQuery is cloud-native, built for speed, scalability, and seamless integration, enabling faster, more insightful data processing. This shift ensures we stay at the forefront of technology, providing our customers with the cutting-edge solutions they need.

Why Are We Making This Change?

By transitioning to BigQuery, we’re making a strategic move toward a more integrated and future-ready data environment. BigQuery is a best-in-class, scalable data warehouse solution that offers faster processing, better integration with BI tools, and enhanced analytics capabilities—ensuring that we can continue to provide the best insights and services. This shift enables us to:

✅ Embrace next-generation technology – Strengthening our infrastructure with advanced, scalable, and high-performance data solutions.
✅ Improve data speed, scalability, and flexibility – Managing and analyzing data becomes faster and more adaptable to your needs.
✅ Enhance analytics and reporting capabilities – Access deeper insights with a more seamless and powerful data experience.
✅ Ensure e-satisfaction remains the central hub for your VoC data – Bringing everything together for a more cohesive and integrated data ecosystem.

This way, we continue evolving to serve you better with cutting-edge solutions. 

What Does This Mean for You?

This change impacts you differently based on whether you use MS SQL or not . 

How Do I Know If I Am Using MS SQL?

If you’re unsure whether you’re using MS SQL, don’t worry—chances are, you’d already know. If you were using it, you’d likely be in close contact with your IT or Dev teams, as they manage and maintain the setup. But if you’re still unsure, reach out to them for confirmation!

If You Don’t Use MS SQL

Since you are not using MS SQL this change will not impact on your existing setup—everything remains the same.

However, if you’re looking to optimize how you extract and analyze data, now is a great time to explore our Data Out capabilities with BigQuery. BigQuery offers faster data processing, greater scalability to handle large datasets, and seamless integration with your Business Intelligence tools, making data analysis quicker, easier, and more insightful.

If You Use MS SQL

As we move toward a more integrated data environment, there are key changes to the way we manage data. Starting in January 2026, we will no longer support our self-hosted MS SQL database for data reception from e-satisfaction. While this shift brings exciting improvements, it’s important to understand how it affects your data access. Although your MS SQL database will no longer receive new data, rest assured that no data will be lost. Your historical data will still be accessible, but it will only be available through BigQuery moving forward.

MS SQL Servers will gradually fade away as 2025 progresses, which will give us plenty of time to help you with the integrations that you need. In more detail:

  • January 2025 – Full Automation: As part of establishing BigQuery at the center of VoC data and improving Data Out integrations, we have instituted full automation of data flows to MS SQL Servers, eliminating any  will be part of our full data flow automation and will require no manual work for updates to be updated. This is part of our bigger Data Out Integrations initiative which will be fully automated to help you migrate to any database / data lake you desire.
  • May 2025 – MS SQL support ends: May 31st, will be the last day we will support requests for updating MSSQL tables manually. After that date, we will no longer be able to perform any manually update to custom tables on MS SQL Servers. Given BigQuery, any data updates will run automatically, updating Automated data will still be updated on the servers on a daily basis.
  • December 2025 – MS SQL Server is officially decommissioned: By the end of December 2025, MS SQL Server will be fully decommissioned and put to sleep. There will be no going back from this moment onward. 
  • January 2026 – Data will only be accessible via BigQuery: Client VoC Data will be available only via BigQuery. 

Transitioning away from MS SQL to BigQuery.

As we move away from supporting MS SQL and fully transition to BigQuery, customers should consider the following factors to ensure continued access to their data and minimize disruptions to their workflows:

  • Data Storage & Access: Transitioning to BigQuery means adjusting how you pull and access your data. If you use BI tools or manage your data elsewhere, you’ll need to update your configurations to pull data from BigQuery instead of MS SQL. Planning this transition early will ensure you avoid any gaps in your data access.
  • Historical Data Availability: If you have historical data older than 2018, it’s important to extract it from MS SQL before the full decommissioning. Failure to do so may result in permanent data loss, especially since our retention policy limits availability to the past 5 years.
  • Data Exports & Integrations: After the May 2025 deadline, all data extraction will need to be done via BigQuery. This means reconfiguring your data pipelines to integrate with BigQuery instead of relying on MS SQL. Customers should review their plan and subscription license with respect to applicable export limitations or included integrations and make any necessary adjustments to ensure smooth data exports. Upon transitioning to BigQuery, clients will be able to export data collected during the subscription period and per their plan. If data older than 2 years must be exported, it may require making commercial arrangement with account managers.
  • BI & Reporting Tools: If you use Power BI, Tableau, or other BI tools, you’ll need to update the data sources to connect with BigQuery. Be mindful of schema changes that may impact how your data is presented in your reports, and plan your updates accordingly.
  • Custom Queries & Views: Any custom queries previously run on MS SQL will need to be adapted to BigQuery’s syntax. This may require some changes in your queries to ensure they work with the new schema, so plan ahead to avoid delays.
  • Automation & Workflows: If you have automated workflows that rely on MS SQL, you will need to reconfigure them to interact with BigQuery. Updating any scripts or scheduled jobs will be essential to maintaining the automation and smooth operation of your processes.

For a smooth transition and avoid disruptions, it’s important to begin planning now. Depending on your current usage and dependencies, some actions may require more time, so take the necessary steps well in advance of the January 2026 deadline.

What You Need to Do

We recommend planning your transition between May 2025 and December 2025 to ensure a smooth shift. Here’s what you need to do:

✔ Consult Your IT Team:
 If you’re unsure whether you’re using MS SQL, your IT or development team can help confirm this.

✔ Extract Your Data:
 If you need historical records older than 2018, back them up before the transition to ensure no data is lost. If you need data that is either a) older than 12-months but within 5 year retention, or b) part of previous subscription periods, you may need additional plan privileges to extract from BigQuery  

✔ Adapt Your Integrations:
 If you use visualization tools connected to MS SQL, update them to work with BigQuery’s schema to maintain seamless integration and functionality.

✔ Set Up Your Own Database (if needed):
 If you need to maintain a separate database, you will need to set up your own database in your environment after the transition.

Got Questions?

You can reach us via our Support Portal for assistance .

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