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Enterprise Enhancements to Apache Superset

· 4 min read
Aidan Mulgrew
Aidan Mulgrew
Software Engineer

At Millersoft, we’ve continued to invest in making Apache Superset more powerful, flexible, and enterprise-ready. Superset is already a fantastic open-source BI platform, but we’ve found that with a few key enhancements, it can become even better suited to real-world business needs, especially around automated reporting and usability.

Here’s a look at the improvements we’ve made to make Superset a more capable and adaptable analytics platform for our teams.

Smarter Data Handling with Detokenisation​

One of our main goals was to make sensitive data handling both secure and user-friendly.

We introduced a new Detokenisation feature, available in both SQL Lab and the charting interface, which allows users to view tokenised data in a more readable format.

When enabled, this feature manipulates the returned dataframe to replace tokens (marked with a prefix like t:) with their plaintext values, which makes data exploration and analysis more intuitive for users who have permission.

This balances data security with ease of analysis, ensuring that tokenised values can be revealed only when needed, and only for authorised users.

Enhanced Email Reporting Capabilities​

Out of the box, Superset’s email reporting capabilities are relatively limited, typically supporting only basic recipient and subject fields.

We’ve expanded this functionality significantly by adding CC and BCC fields for broader communication flexibility, and a custom email body, allowing teams to tailor their message content beyond the standard “Explore in Superset” link.

Enhanced Email Reporting

These changes make it easier for teams to send reports that are functional, context-rich, and branded, helping analytics outputs fit seamlessly into business workflows.

New S3 Integration for Report Delivery​

In addition to enhanced email support, we’ve added AWS S3 as a new notification and delivery method for Superset’s reporting system. While Superset natively supports Email and Slack, our enhancement allows users to additionally export and deliver reports directly to S3, providing a simple and secure way to integrate reports into external systems or make them accessible via an SFTP server.

S3 Export Example

This functionality is built as a new S3 notification plugin, extending Superset’s base notification framework used by Email and Slack. It’s fully integrated into the Superset UI — users can select S3 as a delivery option directly from the Alerts & Reports configuration screen.

Integration with Superset’s New Alert and Report System​

With the release of Superset 4.0, a new Alerts and Reports framework was introduced, replacing the previous reporting mechanisms. To ensure full compatibility, we reimplemented our enhancements, including the S3 delivery option and custom email body support, within this new framework. The updates extend the base notification class used by Superset’s core notification methods, ensuring that our improvements remain upgrade-safe and consistent with Superset’s architecture.

To access the new features, users simply select “Alerts & Reports” from the Superset settings menu, where they’ll find the additional configuration options for S3 delivery and enhanced email fields.

Secure, Enterprise-Grade Authentication with Keycloak​

We also integrated Keycloak authentication, enabling teams to manage user access through a central identity provider. This integration supports enterprise requirements like single sign-on (SSO), role-based access control (RBAC), and multi-factor authentication, allowing organizations to manage Superset users securely and at scale.

A More Robust and Flexible Superset​

Taken together, these improvements make Superset not only more powerful, but also more aligned with modern business needs:

  • Secure and user-aware data handling through detokenisation.
  • Richer, more customizable reporting with enhanced email options and S3 delivery.
  • Enterprise-ready access control with Keycloak integration.
  • Seamless compatibility with Superset’s new Alerts & Reports system.

By enhancing these key areas, we’ve turned Superset into a more complete BI platform — one that integrates deeply into existing enterprise workflows while maintaining the speed, openness, and flexibility that make it so popular with analysts and engineers alike.

Looking Ahead​

We see these enhancements as the foundation for future improvements. As our use of Superset continues to grow, we’re exploring further ways to make it smarter, more automated, and more connected with the wider data ecosystem.

With the right enhancements, open-source analytics tools like Superset can deliver the best of both worlds: enterprise-grade capability and open-source agility.