BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE

Transcription

1 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE A PEEK INTO WHAT REAL USERS REALLY THINK 2014 IT Central Station helps enterprise tech professionals by providing A comprehensive list of all enterprise level business intelligence software solutions. Several real user reviews from enterprise tech professionals and vendor information. Specific information to help enterprise tech professionals select the product that is right for their specific needs. DISCLAIMER IT Central Station Ltd. does not endorse or recommend any products or services. The views and opinions of reviewers quoted in this document, IT Central Station websites, and IT Central Station materials (i.e. Content) do not reflect the opinions of IT Central Station. We make no guarantees about the accuracy, currency, suitability, or quality of the content, and we assume no responsibility for unintended, objectionable, inaccurate, misleading, or unlawful content made available by Content authors or other third parties

2 ABOUT IT CENTRAL STATION User reviews, candid discussions, and more for enterprise technology professionals. The Internet has completely changed the way we make buying decisions. We now use ratings and review sites to see what other real users think before we buy electronics, book a hotel, visit a doctor or choose a restaurant. But in the world of enterprise technology, most of the information online and in your inbox comes from vendors but what you really want is objective information from other users. We created IT Central Station to provide technology professionals like you with a community platform to share information about enterprise software, applications, hardware and services. We commit to offering user-contributed information that is valuable, objective and relevant. We protect your privacy by providing an environment where you can post anonymously and freely express your views. As a result, the community becomes a valuable resource, ensuring you get access to the right information and connect to the right people, whenever you need it. Use IT Central Station to: Read and post reviews of vendors and products Request or share information about functionality, quality, and pricing Contact real users with relevant product experience Get immediate answers to questions Validate vendor claims Exchange tips for getting the best deals with vendors ITCentralStation.com 244 5th Avenue, Suite R-230 New York, NY USA +1 (646) [email protected] ABOUT THIS REPORT This report is comprised of a comprehensive list of all enterprise level business intelligence software solutions. We have also included several real user reviews posted on ITCentralStation.com. The reviewers of these products have been validated as real users based on their LinkedIn profiles to ensure that they provide reliable opinions and not those of product vendors.

3 IMPORTANT NOTICE Did you find this whitepaper helpful? At IT Central Station, our philosophy is Give to Get. Our rich community and unbiased reviews are made possible by your participation and as such, we ask that you share your expertise with us as well. Please expect to be contacted shortly by an IT Central Station Community Manager. We will ask you for 10 minutes of your time to review a product that you use either via a 10 minute phone interview or questionnaire. You can choose to review anonymously or not and your company name will not be included in the review. If you found this report and/or the reviews on IT Central Station useful, we would greatly appreciate your participation in giving back to our community.

4 VENDOR & PRODUCT LIST VENDOR Microsoft Logi Analytics QlikView Microstrategy IBM SAP SiSense iccube SAP Verix BIME Analytics SAS Tableau Oracle IBM Arcplan Birst Actuate Bitam BOARD International IBM Domo PRODUCT Microsoft BI Logi Info QlikView Microstrategy Cognos Business Objects Prism iccube Crystal Reports Verix BIME SAS BI Tableau OBIEE Cognos Express Arcplan Birst BIRT Bitam BOARD Cognos TM1 Domo

5 Dundas Actuate MID GmbH Jaspersoft Oracle Panorama Software Pentaho Salient Management Company SpagoBI TIBCO Targit BellaDati Decisyon Entrinsik Information Builders GoodData Lavastorm Analytics emite Yellowfin Dundas Dashboard e.report Innovator Jaspersoft Essbase Panorama Software BI Pentaho Business Analytics Salient SpagoBI Spotfire Targit BI Suite BellaDati Decisyon Informer WebFOCUS GoodData Lavastorm Analytics Platform emite Yellowfin

6 FEATURED ARTICLE I evaluated Business Objects, Tibco Spotfire, Tableau, Qlikview, Sisense Prism, and Pentaho. I just completed an evaluation of (and ultimately a final selection from) several vendors and identified about a dozen high-level evaluation criteria (using Gartner capabilities as a starting point, and adding those specific to our focus). We were primarily concerned with an efficient, competent dashboarding tool with a secondary focus on ad hoc analysis. Keeping in mind that my focus was first and foremost a competent dashboard tool suited to our particular needs and environment, here are the criteria and associated descriptions I used to complete our evaluation and selection. In addition to these criteria, budget was of course a consideration, as well as Vendor support and the overall support community (i.e. free help). The vendors I was evaluating were Business Objects (already used at our company for flat report building but not much else), Tibco Spotfire, Tableau, Qlikview, Sisense Prism, and Pentaho. By: Jhornber Verified by IT Central Station BI Expert, Tech Services Firm with Employees Has 10+ years of experience Skills: QlikView, Business Objects, SharePoint, Tableau, Visio 1. Easily combine a mix of data sources Our data landscape contains many sources and an array of source types. We need a tool that can pull a variety of sources (e.g. SQL Server, CSVs, etc.) together in an easy, efficient manner, and generate visualizations and dashboards that reflect the combined data. 2. Broad range of Visualizations The tool should, out of the box, have an array of visualizations beyond the basic pie, bar and line charts, as it is important that we are able to select the most effective visualization for a particular measure. 3. Responsive Data Engine Users need to be able to slice, dice and filter data, without the tool taking more than a few seconds to refresh the visualizations and dashboard accordingly. 4. Low development time/quick turnaround of dashboards - There will be a number of dashboards needed in 2014, and it s likely that requests for additional pages, visualizations, and entire dashboards will increase as more of the business is exposed to what is released. The dashboard tool selected should facilitate the rapid design, development and deployment of new dashboards and

7 enhancements to those already deployed. 5. Scheduled refreshes and publishing - It is necessary for the refresh of dashboards to be automated and occur in conjunction with the update of other BI components, so as to have data up to date and ready for the business at the start of the work day. 6. Considerable design control and theme application The tool selected should allow a high degree of control over layout, colors, fonts, and overall look and feel of the entire dashboard and individual visualizations. This is necessary to incorporate data visualization best practices and align with company style guides where and when appropriate. 7. Central portal & cross-platform (Mac/PC/Mobile) Type of device or OS should not impede users from accessing the dashboard. Dashboards should be accessed via web browser and be HTML5 based. 8. Client install not required, web friendly Access to deployed dashboards should not require the installation of software on a user s desktop. (thick client/desktop software for development is acceptable) 9. Intuitive interaction, enabled data discovery The tool selected should employ components such as gauges, sliders, and checkboxes, and enable users to analyze the data by interacting directly with a visual representation of it. Navigation through a dashboard and its pages should be easy and intuitive. 10. Quick response to filtering, drilldowns, and data manipulation The use of filters and other components to manipulate data should result in a rapid refresh of the visualized data. A tool that takes more than a few seconds to respond is likely to have a low adoption rate.

8 Microsoft BI Vendor: Microsoft Robert Goodman Verified by IT Central Station BI Expert, University with Employees SQL Server is flexible and relatively straightforward to deploy. It is fantastic that reports can be delivered via Report Manager without any additional license fees. Reports can also be placed on subscriptions with the Enterprise version of SQL Server. This allows different people to get the same report with data that is tailored to their perspective. The product would be better if it came bundled with Microsoft SharePoint. Some of the more advanced business intelligence dashboards must be run through SharePoint (SharePoint dashboards, PowerView, etc.). We also found that SharePoint Dashboards are time intensive to design. WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING SQL Server is a cost-effective, all-in-one package for business intelligence. Great wizard that is valuable in designing and implementing complex queries. Most complete business intelligence suite for the least money. SQL Server offers high performance & low cost BI solutions with ability to integrate with other third party tools. MY EXPERIENCES Getting back to the license costs, we have found SQL Server to be an effective tool at a very good cost. Compared to purchasing 2 or 3 other products, SQL Server is a very nice all-in-one package (SQL Server database platform - MS SQL, SQL Server Integration Services - SSIS, SQL Server Reporting Services - SSRS, SQL Server Analysis Services - SSAS). The educational discount is also very helpful for K-12 or Higher Education customers. Installation and deployment was relatively straightforward. There is a slight learning curve on SSRS, but easy to pick-up. BUSINESS METRICS If you are looking at cost savings alone, Microsoft SQL Server will pay for itself when compared an Oracle/Informatica/IBM Cognos solution. In a direct comparison of one-time software fees and ongoing annual support fees, Microsoft SQL Server will come out much cheaper. I would also argue that the software features are similar between the tools as well - so you're not foregoing functionality to save cost. We have found that BI developers are also easier to find on the Microsoft platform - which over time - may lead to lower TCO.

9 WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT? It would be nice if the Report Manager portal interface were more updated. It is much nicer to deploy the reports through the "shiny" SharePoint interface, but it is not as integrated with SSRS as the Report Manager. ambapo Verified by IT Central Station CEO, Tech Services Company with Employees SQL Reporting and Analysis services provide me with a suitable way of analyzing queries and data objects. Automated reports can be generated using SQL Reporting and Analysis in XML and PDF formats which are easier to read and understand. Reports can be generated on demand using Reporting Services or can be delivered based on a subscription. Reporting and analysis tools require additional skills rather than basic database programming such as Reporting Definition Language which may be a challenge for inexperienced developers. The installation requirements are quite demanding and only computers with relatively high processing power and large primary memory are able to run some SQL Reporting and Analysis tools.

10 Logi Info Vendor: Logi Analytics Wayne Bullington Verified by IT Central Station Senior Manager of IT, Manufacturing Company with Employees Easy to use, Quick deployment and little to no maintenance Excellent TCO Support Staff is professional and responsive The only feature I would like to see at this point is a normalized curve for Histograms SUMMARY A must have for the business looking to understand their processes in an easy to consume way WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING Logi Info is a very capable & flexible low cost BI solution especially for SMBs. Outstanding customer service and technical support, straightforward initial setup. I like the speed and flexibility of development, speed of deployment, and licensing model. A must have. Nigel Montgomery Verified by IT Central Station BI Expert, Media Company with Employees Rapid development/deployment of solutions. Latest versions cope much better with large data sets. Low cost server based licensing attractive in high user count environments. Performance dependent on back-end much more than some other toolsets. Large data sets a major issue until recently.

11 QlikView Vendor: QlikView lazarmihai Verified by IT Central Station Project Manager, Software R&D Company with Employees Qlikview has its own ETL engine built-in You can analyze millions of data - QlikView is easy to use, letting you easily analyze large volumes of data Time to implement - Any user / manager can define its own set of analyzes Partner Network Qlikview has more than 1000 partners world wide Development - Qlikview has Scripting 64-bit in-ram DB - Qlikview is faster than Tableau QlikView is based on a different technology from OLAP technology. Called AQL (Associative Query Logic), this technology has been patented since 1994 Interactive graphical interface - Extremely intuitive interface (requires almost no training) QlikView can display better analysis but it takes more skill and time to develop/design than with Tableau. Qlikview it is stronger than Tableau for reporting only, but it requires more training and is less intuitive than Tableau You have to employ IT specialist It is limited by RAM, so Qlikview is not very scalable OTHER Good price compared to other solutions Flexible licensing system (but not complicated and consists of dozens of modules) Very little development time WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING QlikView is a highly effective management tool, allowing a broad analysis. QlikView is a very useful business intelligence tool because it uses in-memory analysis which makes it very fast, it is user-friendly and its graphics makes the analysis easy and understandable. Intuitive and easy to use. Collaborate, in real-time, on the same QlikView dashboard. Qlikview really comes alive when you link to others. Once you see what it can do, you will want it.

12 Easy maintenance Ability to provide Business Intelligence Off- The-Shelf In QlikView, you can develop analyses in just minutes Elizabeth Gray Verified by IT Central Station Project Manager, Local government with Employees OVERVIEW QlikView was a great solution for us based on our requirements: small business size (1200 users, mostly blue collar); no requirement for data warehouse, ability to do ETL within the load script (that's what eliminated Tableau for us); ability to share interactive reports readily between users; and most important: optimized user experience, including easy to learn/use and short development cycles. We also needed integration with ESRI GIS which is (finally) coming this year with a functional extension. As other departments come on (we are one department in a large-ish City) I think we will be able to manage the enterprise deployment through expression repositories, change management tools, and following other best practices. Our business users love it.

13 Microstrategy Vendor: Microstrategy Sergii Iatsenko Verified by IT Central Station Head of Data Analytics, Financial Services Firm with Employees Easy to develop new reports Easy to change metadata layer We automatize daily management reporting, ad-hoc reporting, and schedule reporting with fixed structure. Web interface has to be more quick-response and user friendly. There is a desktop application that we still use. Creation of a report with complicated structure (documents) is not easy. Scalability Issues: sometimes the webapplication is unstable with large amounts of data (it's not actually a big problem for most cases but if you need few hundreds of thousands records - there could be an issue.) WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING Microstrategy provides more control on the solution being developed. Incredibly powerful but it s not for everybody. Even if the costs are high, the benefits are huge. High ROI, dynamic and user friendly. A great tool which is serving both big and small clients with equal strength. Maria Yasyuk Verified by IT Central Station Business Development Staff, Outsourcing Company with Employees Our BI consultants single out MicroStrategy BI. The solution proofs to be efficient and full of capabilities: large volume data is easy to process, capability to tweak the attributes for complex reports and dashboards. One more plus is its widgets that enable to realize user-friendly interface. For really complicated and huge projects, one should take into account great number of relations between metadata entities. New analytic

14 capabilities presuppose R language background. And yes, it will cost you. But both money and pleasure to work with. Anurag Singh Chauhan Verified by IT Central Station Consultant, Financial Services Firm with Employees MISCONCEPTIONS Business now a days stack Microstrategy against Tableau, Spotfire, SSIS, QlikView and other 'newer' tools (previously they used to compare against Cognos, BO, Actuate, SAS BI) and all in all no one comes closer to return-on-investment when compared to MicroStrategy. Yes, initial setup cost and resource cost may be higher than most but you will get most of what you will spend. And in most organizations MicroStrategy is rolled as a shared platform which ultimately reduces 'actual cost' for any new project using MicroStrategy as solution. In other words, which BI platform will give you cube, mobile, clustering, scalability, object reusability, and detailed SDK with one of most power SQL engine? Vicepres5211 Verified by IT Central Station BI Expert, Insurance Company with Employees I think the total cost of ownership is lower than other products, it is flexible and enterprise class. The licenses model is complicated. New features are slow to get to market (in comparison to niche tools).

15 Prism Vendor: SiSense Lior Libman Verified by IT Central Station COO, Tech Services Company with Employees OVERVIEW We chose Prism because it had four primary advantages over the competition, which made it an easy choice: The agility of the Prism software to answer current and future questions in a very simple and efficient way The ability of the company s in-house team to easily create, maintain and modify Prism reports and analytic applications for any future needs without the need for expensive maintenance and support services The rapid analysis of large amounts of data using inexpensive hardware, as demonstrated even before purchasing the software The extremely short implementation time: it took only three hours of planning and ten hours of implementation to be up and running with all the initial reports we wanted SUMMARY Our management now enjoys the benefits of a comprehensive dashboard which presents live transaction and project data, as well as drill-down views into specific customer, transaction and translation project data. All the managerial and operational reports required by our company are available, and the ability to easily make modifications means that the dashboards and reports are improving all the time to answer new business questions. The ability of our management to monitor all business processes in realtime allows fast responses to take advantage of new business opportunities as they arise and to prevent small problems from becoming big ones. WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING SiSense offered the most cost efficient and end-user friendly solution. Excellent ability to deal with large volumes of data. We chose SiSense for agility, rapid analysis and extremely short implementation time.

16 Wesley Smith Verified by IT Central Station VP of Development, Tech Services Company with Employees The ability to deal with large volumes of data is excellent, and is very valuable for us Flexibility and ease of design of dashboards Handling large data sets SiSense has allowed us to offer a browser based business intelligence solution for our customers much faster than we could have done on our own Customer support - Excellent. Very responsive, and when necessary they go above and beyond what is typically expected. It was the responsiveness and eagerness to help us solve problems, along with the ability to handle large data sets, that led us to choose SiSense over other competitive offerings. Very simple initial setup The SiSense tool has brought in a significant new capability and has opened a sales channel that was previously closed to us SiSense is lacking in richness of data analysis capabilities, particularly standard deviation, median, percentiles, and other aggregates. Mean, min, and max only take you so far.

17 Cognos Vendor: IBM Meu1124 Verified by IT Central Station Senior IT Manager, Government with Employees IBM Cognos is a flexible, database-driven Human Resources Management, forecasting and project planning tool, which is fully integrated with all core IBM Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) modules - replacing the use of multiple, diverse, unlinked spreadsheets. Cognos provides invaluable support for all participants in the HR and project planning cycles, of even the largest, most complex or fast-changing businesses. It supports a rich Web enabled planning and modeling framework that supports driver based planning to help connect HR assumptions to operational outcomes. IBM s Cognos Enterprise offers a unique architecture, which delivers true "Post- Implementation Agility", allows changes to your system long after initial installation - in response to changing requirements, and without depending on expensive external consultants or constrained IT resources. This makes Cognos the ideal choice for service-based organizations that are affected by frequent and dynamic business change. Underpinned by IBM technology, Cognos is the only planning tool that can efficiently adapt to major business change without re-implementation. You can start with native integrations from HR Management to other core talent management processes in order to support a holistic, end-toend cloud talent management strategy. IBM Cognos Enterprise Software offers customers the industry s most flexible delivery and deployment options, including IBM smarter cloud solutions. WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING Cognos Enterprise has a very powerful toolset with many options. Great support with broad set of analytic capabilities, but needs improvement with integration of Data Discovery capabilities. Excellent new functionality. IBM Cognos Enterprise Software offers customers the industry s most flexible delivery and deployment options. Cognos Enterprise offers a unique architecture, which delivers true Post- Implementation Agility."

18 RTDiaz Verified by IT Central Station Business Analyst, Transportation Company with Employees Very powerful toolset with many products and option. Has various ways to present data to meet requirements. Complex to learn and use. Need technical team to build solutions. OTHER Cognos is a complete performance management system that can work with both Unix data server and Microsoft Windows out of the box and it is known for its performance, scalability and caching. But there are few things that need some improvement like Error Handling and documentation storing. Director53196 Verified by IT Central Station IT Director, Manufacturing Company with Employees Can do most things we need it to do. We like the scheduler. Visualization is not as good as some others. françois gregoire Verified by IT Central Station Head of Data Analytics, Manufacturing Company with Employees Data Manager is a great ETL tool. Query Studio is a great tool for ad-hoc queries, simple but powerful. Report Studio is a bit more complicated but also very powerful for complex reports.

19 The reporting tool can be tricky and you'll need to get used to it but it's worth the effort. Deployment issues: there may be compatibility issues but as long as you read the requirements and do not apply the latest Fix Pack blindly as soon as they are released, it's pretty stable. Stability issues: as with many 3-tiers applications you rely on a web server, an application server and a database, so for example- a huge load of connections can bring down the app server when using LifeCycleManager, a great tool for assistance in the upgrade process.

20 Business Objects Vendor: SAP Mike.buff Verified by IT Central Station Project Manager, Manufacturing Company with Employees Business Object is truly a scalable and complete business intelligence solution for larger organizations. We have made use of the following components: Live Office, Xcelsius, Crystal Reports, and Web Intelligence. We extensively use the publication features of Crystal Reports and scheduling features of Web Intelligence. For an organization that uses Excel extensively, the Live Office direct connect is fast, accurate and user friendly. Be sure to have some super users in the business that can develop Crystal Reports and well as Web Intelligence ad hoc queries. This will make the life of the IT developers and administrative employees much easier. Overall, with past experiences, I would have to rate our opinion of BOBJ very highly. WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING As a single-platform business intelligence program, Business Objects is not just designed for flexibility and scalability but also for performance. SAP Business Objects is created as a single intelligence platform to maximally reduce the effort necessary for cooperation of different users and it has a clear and transparent structure. Business Objects is a truly scalable and complete business intelligence solution for larger organizations. On the downside, we have had some challenges with upgrades. Be sure to fully test every aspect in your development environment before applying any patches or service packs to Business Objects production servers. SAP was quick to respond to issues, but this still caused problems for users. The bugs we found were deep into software features (displaying column headings, formula logic, etc.) and weren t something we found in our extensive testing. I do admit we pushed the limits and had a lot of custom coding, but we expected these features to work and not break in future releases. Alin Radu Verified by IT Central Station Developer, Transportation Company with Employees I can say that in SAP Business Objects the structure of information is flexible, offering good

21 scalability and all the information is unified, which simplifies the access to all resources independently on their format or location. This product is created as a single intelligence platform to maximally reduce the effort necessary for cooperation of different users and it has a clear and transparent structure. I noticed that multiple locations options work well but their enabling was inconsistent and SAP BO has the risk of gaining inconsistent data results.

22 Verix Vendor: Verix reviewer Verified by IT Central Station Director of Sales Analytics, Pharma/Biotech Company with Employees OVERVIEW One of the most valuable features of Verix is the flexibility that the solution provides. Depending on the end user s needs, the data can be presented either broadly or in a more detailed, in-depth manner. Because of this flexibility, the solution lends itself well to both highly analytical end users as well as users who are less analytically oriented. Verix has an excellent understanding of what drives sales and what data is needed most by pharma sales representatives. This is apparent in the way the solution is organized in that it has the flexibility to accommodate the needs of the sales representatives. They have preconfigured the solution to automatically analyze the data and alert the rep of any anomalies requiring action. This expertise also shows up clearly in their understanding of Managed Markets (i.e. health insurance payers). There are tools in the market that have very slick graphical interface features. It would be nice to have the graphical user interface upgraded with some of these latest graphical features. I believe there are modifications being made to have it become more visually oriented. Stability issues arose periodically, but any problems were resolved quickly. There were a few times where access became an issue, sometimes due to a connection with Verix's service provider. Issues were solved and fixed within a day at most. Verix has recently switched service providers and there has not been a problem since then. The customer service team is very responsive to issues and willing to work with us. WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING Business Analytics enables us to better understand our business and compare ourselves meaningfully to our competitors. Verix creates dynamic data which helps us predict future sales trends & identify vulnerable points in the sale process. Verix has enabled us to standardize the view of our sales data and analytics; overall flexibility is excellent.

23 Michael Mehringer Verified by IT Central Station Director, Business Segment, Pharma/Biotech Company with Employees OVERVIEW We ve been using Verix for more than a year The Verix solution is designed specifically for the Pharma Commercial Operations market. As such, the analytical applications, like Funnel Management embed specific business knowledge that results in more relevant analysis of the data. Prior to the Verix solution our sales team spent too much time digging into static reporting templates, and trying to piece together actionable insights and information. The end result was less customer facing time, and sales reports that were of limited use. Previously we were using a solution called Business Information Warehouse, and another called Tableau. Neither was as easy to use or as advanced as the Verix solution. Initial setup was straightforward; Verix built a working model of our dashboard and we provided real-time feedback and input throughout the process; they made changes almost as fast as we gave them feedback. The Verix solution created dynamic data which helped us predict future sales trends, identify vulnerable points in sales process, and better target our marketing investments.

24 Tableau Vendor: Tableau Matt Francis Verified by IT Central Station Senior Developer, Pharma/Biotech Company with Employees The ability to quickly connect to all of our datasources, whether its a Oracle or MySQL database, and excel sheet of a csv file and produce a rich interactive visualisation that can then be shared amongst everyone on site is fantastic. The ease of the interface makes it a joy to use. Previously all reporting was very static. Each report would answer one specific question and if someone needed more information they would typically have to ask for another report to be made. Tableau allows us to create interactive reports with filtering, parameters and drill downs allowing the viewers to investigate their own data and find their own answers without having to go through a reporting team. Customer Support: superb on the very few occasions I have had to make use of it. I have had a timely response and my issues have been fixed. Technical Support: again, I haven't had the need to use this very often but when I did it was excellent. The support forums and technical documentation is second to none. WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING Great for users trying to perform data visualization with just Excel, but lacks control for some organizations. Fast and easy data exploration that needs a fast DB or storing in proprietary format. Helps understand data in seconds with lower cost. Fantastic visualizations & dashboarding capability but some basic ETL functionality will do a world of good. One major area where Tableau fell short for us is authentication. I would like to see autosaving, embedded fonts and other options to improve the ease of dashboard layout.

25 BIME Analytics Vendor: BIME Bruno Ferrage Verified by IT Central Station Manager of Network Development, Recruiting/HR Firm with Employees OVERVIEW We chose BIME to provide us with management dashboards. Looking for a solution that doesn t require investing in an infrastructure nor managing servers, we naturally went into the Cloud. The Cloud choice was part of the prerequisites since the very beginning because we didn t have internal IT resources, neither could we afford consultants to develop analysis and dashboards. Finally, the last selection criteria falled on the price, the facility of rolling-out and the software offering good possibilities for development. Further to the ownership and the BIME training, the setting up was fast since after only one week the first dashboards were created. We created several dashboards to track the turnover, balance and contracts. The BIME solution allows us to observe the current situation compared to an historical view permitting us to make decisions. WHAT REAL USERS ARE SAYING We were using Excel spreadsheets to manage our top indicators but moved to BIME to provide us with management dashboards. Previously, hours were spent manually creating reports. Now, business users can analyze data in real time. Daniele Calabrese Verified by IT Central Station CEO, Music Company with Employees OVERVIEW We chose BIME to help us aggregating these data sources and exhibiting the queries in a very simple way. BIME s simplicity and customization were a good fit for getting us started with our analysis process. We are able to analyze several areas of interest as users go from a macro point of view to a detailed one. We have several customizable features (such as event tracking) in the app and in the back end, which allows us to gather crucial information about their core business, and analyze traffic, user activity, user

26 flow, and behavior. Since we started using BIME we have been analyzing through cloud-based dashboards a whole series of factors that influence app features, customer retention or experience across different devices. We set up a layer between the raw data that comes from our server and the BIME engine and since we had the resources to put everything on relational databases, the majority of the data sources were linked through BIME's SQL connector. Once the data flow was up and running, we were able to set up the first version of our dashboards in just a couple of months. By aggregating different metrics from the data sources, we were able to understand and identify a series of key patterns. Real-time dashboards also allow us to enhance our data-driven marketing decision making by connecting to our Google Analytics and Facebook Insights data.

27 Join the IT Central Station Community This report features just a few of hundreds of business intelligence software reviews. If you would like to read more about what real users are saying about the many business intelligence solutions on the market, visit the Business Intelligence Tools page at IT Central Station: There are a number of ways you can participate in the IT Central Station community Write a review, read a comment, or just follow a product. Either way, we ll be sure to let you know when people are talking about the solutions you care about Give to Get Did you find this whitepaper helpful? At IT Central Station, our philosophy is Give to Get. Our rich community and unbiased reviews are made possible by your participation and as such, we ask that you share your expertise with us as well. Please expect to be contacted shortly by an IT Central Station Community Manager. We will ask you for 10 minutes of your time to review a product that you use either via a 10 minute phone interview or questionnaire. You can choose to review anonymously or not and your company name will not be included in the review. If you found this report and/or the reviews on IT Central Station useful, we would greatly appreciate your participation in giving back to our community.