Best Reporting Software Tools Of 2024

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Why We Picked Power BI

Our researchers ranked products on a whole bunch of features. They include data management, querying and visualization, advanced and embedded analytics, mobile BI, and IoT and location analytics.

In our rankings, Power BI scores 87 for connectivity, leaving behind Tableau, Oracle Analytics and Dundas BI. Robust Microsoft technology is one reason, for sure. Besides, intelligent techniques like DirectQuery and easy data modeling make it popular among users.

In product reviews, some users mentioned a lag when sharing reports from the desktop to the cloud. For me, the platform was a tad slow to start, but otherwise, it stayed performant for my average-sized dataset.

When dealing with sales data, total sales, the top-performing products, seasonality and period trends are common queries. Creating a sales KPI report in Power BI was an excellent way for me to answer them. My CSV files included sales, calendar, products and store data.

Connecting to sources is straightforward with Get Data on the home screen and toolbar. Once I had pulled in the data, I clicked on Transform Data and opened the Power Query editor. It automatically detects the data type for strings and numbers but can get confused with dates and currency, which it marks as text. It involved some manual wrangling, but I had it sorted in no time. Read my article on KPI Reports to learn how I did it.

But I wouldn’t call it a deal-breaker as it’s not a tedious task. I had the same experience with Qlik Sense, but Tableau was way better as it recognizes seven data types — string, number, date, date and time, boolean, geographic and cluster values.

Tracking sales over periods required a greater level of detail, so I added new columns to the calendar data — start of month and start of week. Column statistics were immensely helpful in identifying unique, distinct and null values and correcting incomplete records. Clicking on the number of products selling at a particular price allowed me to see which toys sold at that price.

Creating a relational data model by defining primary keys is a manual process and seems dated once you’ve used Qlik Sense. Adding calculated measures is where DAX shows its magic. For data workers well-versed with SQL, DAX is a ready-to-go tool they’ll be glad to have in their corner.

Creating visualizations wasn’t as intuitive as Tableau as it involved drag-and-drop onto the canvas, and frankly, I felt like I was flying blind. I didn’t feel that way with Tableau, and it’s slicker.

Power BI offers a paintbrush tool that lets you define the layout, the card arrangement and the maximum number of cards. You can define the canvas settings, background and headers and determine the filter pane settings. It took me longer to create a dashboard from scratch than it took in Tableau.

Some users found the pricing structure too complex. While using Azure data in Power BI for basic queries is free, costs can add up when you go for text and sentiment analysis. With Microsoft Fabric, the pricing complexity is set to rise. Though Power BI is available separately too, you’ll need to rely on Fabric to manage users, licenses and other administrative tasks.

About 31% of the users mentioning cost complained about onboarding difficulties, possibly because DAX introduces the complexity of learning syntax. It can daunt non-technical users initially, but guided formulas can make the task easier. That said, I agree with the majority of user reviews that training will speed up onboarding and help your team maximize the investment.

Overall, Power BI has many powerful features and will give you value for your money. If you’re not a Microsoft user yet, it’s worth checking out for the baked-in vendor technologies like Azure and SSAS. If you are an MS user, Power BI might be a no-brainer, though be prepared to shell out a little extra for advanced functionality and additional modules.

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Pros & Cons

Integrations: Around 95% of users who mentioned data sources said they were satisfied with its flexibility in connecting to sources.
Data Visualization: About 93% of the users who discussed visual analysis said they relied on it for daily reporting.
Functionality: Over 75% of the users reviewing features said they were impressed with its live queries, DAX calculations and data modeling.
Ease of Use: Approximately 72% of the users who mentioned its UI said it was straightforward to use.

Speed: About 95% of recent reviews citing performance said the platform lagged when dealing with large data volumes.
Adoption: Around 81.5% of the reviewers mentioning adoption said the learning curve was steep.
Cost: Approximately 71% of users discussing pricing complained about the platform being expensive.

Key Features

Dataflows: Save time with reusable workflows that lock the logic in. While shared datasets are open to interpretation, dataflows will take your users in one direction only, ensuring consistent results. It’s like a written recipe, just follow the steps to get the taste right.
Analyze in Excel: Focus on the end game. Give your teams the freedom to analyze their data in Excel and move the results back to Power BI.
DAX: Empower your people to go beyond raw data. Derive calculated columns and measures with Data Analysis Expressions. Watch them update as you apply filters and slicers and interact with data in other ways.
Data Alerts: Act in time to keep things running smoothly. Stay informed of changes with alerts. Subscribe to receive notifications via email or the Power BI notification center (available only with Power BI Service). Among visualizations, KPI cards, cards and gauges have the alert option.
Data Refreshes: Stay ahead of trends with the latest insight. Update data on demand in Power BI or schedule refreshes with Power Automate. Power BI Pro and Premium allow up to eight and 48 refreshes daily, respectively.
Key Influencers Visual: Decide the next steps by spotting the factors affecting a critical metric. As a transporter, does only the terrain impact how consistently your trucks deliver, or is the average age of the fleet vehicles also a factor?
Decomposition Tree: Identify which product category or region contributed most to sales increase or decrease. For instance, you can analyze sales trends by channel with the decomposition tree.

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Pricing

License/Subscription Cost	Based on the number of users for Power BI Pro and capacity-based pricing for Power BI Premium
Maintenance Cost	Included in the subscription cost
Installation/Implementation Cost	Included in the subscription cost. Additional charges may apply for data migration during implementation of Power BI, maintaining on-premise data sources and building dashboards and reports
Customization Cost	Dependent on functional requirements and specific needs of the organization
Data Migration Cost/Change Management/Upfront Switching Cost	Dependent on your current software, amount of data to be migrated, availability of migration tools, complexity of data and gaps between the existing system and the new system.
Recurring/Renewal Costs	Renewal cost is included in the fees paid monthly or annually

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Oracle Analytics Cloud

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^$16

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Why We Picked Oracle Analytics Cloud

Oracle Analytics Cloud is among the vendor’s many data services, including a business intelligence suite and a data intelligence platform. Besides, Oracle offers bespoke solutions for HCM, supply chain and customer experience. What differentiates Oracle Analytics is that extra dash of augmented capabilities.

Embedded BI is where it truly shines, giving you natural language insights with a single click. This feature extends to its mobile app, and it outperforms many leading platforms with natural language queries and podcasts on mobile.

According to our researchers, Oracle Analytics Cloud has fewer out-of-the-box features than its competitors, such as Power BI and Qlik Sense. Plus, licensing becomes complex when combining the database, middleware and analytics applications.

It’s common for large vendors to offer specialized platforms, but the downside is that they can be out of reach of small organizations. But there’s a silver lining. Many vendors offer customized solutions, so we advise reaching out to the vendor for quotes.

Users appreciate its regular updates, but some report initial bugs due to its relative newness. Despite a positive user experience, the learning curve can be steep. Some users found technical support slow and inadequate, as did I. They took two business days to get back to me when I needed assistance with my account.

Oracle Analytics, though a robust platform, is suitable for mid- and large organizations. If you seek a powerful, scalable platform, consider opting for a trial, but be prepared for sticker shock, especially if you’re new to the Oracle ecosystem.

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Pros & Cons

User-Friendly: Citing its interface, about 91% of users agreed that a drag-and-drop UI makes it easy to use.
Machine Learning: Around 86% of users who discussed augmented analytics were impressed with its ML capabilities.
Integrations: Approximately 84% of users who mentioned connectivity said the platform worked well with other systems, especially Oracle products.
Functionality: According to 83% of users who reviewed capabilities, it has all the required features to support data tasks.
Data Visualization: Around 73% of users who mentioned visualization praised the platform for its storytelling features.

Price: About 88% of reviews citing pricing said that it’s too expensive.
Adoption: Approximately 87% of users who discussed onboarding said there’s a significant learning curve.

Key Features

Deployment: Install and run anywhere, including as a hybrid solution. Scale the instance depending on your workload — deploy OCPUs in multiples of two, extending up to 52. Or pause it when idle. Though identity management is available, there is the option to use one’s own SSO provider. Admins can set user, group and role-based permissions.
Connectivity: Make decisions based on data; connect to social media feeds, data lakes and IoT sources. Store and process data at scale, irrespective of its volume, velocity and variety. Get started as soon as you log in with over 40 readymade connectors.
Direct Query: Oracle Analytics Cloud uses live queries and data caching to fetch responses. Each has its downside. Live connections are heavier on the system, and you might have to compromise on data freshness with data caching. A combination of both might be best. Consider live queries for critical KPIs and data caching for less frequent queries.
Data Preparation: Enrich data from the interface — get data quality insights as you work. Remove the grunt work — create reusable flows for transforming data you can test, share and schedule. Add custom calculations or write regular expressions in the dataset editor.
Semantic Data Modeling: Engage business, dev and data teams in meaningful discussions. Give them data views with a presentation layer that simplifies metrics. Hide the physical data structure with a logical one that speaks the business language. Give stakeholders the power to explore data independently.
AI/ML: Boost productivity with embedded machine learning and natural language insights every step of the way. Display quick forecasts, trend lines and clusters from a popup menu with one click. View the basic facts, key drivers and anomalies with the Explain option. Hit the ground running with recommendations on dimensions, measures and attributes to use when you don’t know where to start.
Oracle Analytics Publisher: Generate reports from any dataset or semantic model. Create formatted documents unique to your business, be it shipping labels, checks, letters or PDF forms.
Data Visualizations: Put your best foot forward with suitable charts and graphs that convey your message effectively. Modify them to answer users’ questions better. Choose from over 45 visualization types, or build your own using extensions from its vast library.
Embedded AI On Mobile: Get real-time alerts and intelligent recommendations on mobile. The Oracle Analytics mobile app captures your preferences and location. Upload datasets just like on the desktop or create a workbook from existing data. Powerful searches enable access to your favorite worksheets; add them to your home screen for a quick view. Use voice-enabled searches and listen to the results as a podcast.

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MicroStrategy

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^$25

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Why We Picked MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy is a patchwork quilt of products on the web, desktop and mobile. There’s MicroStrategy Library where you can access published content and Auto Express for dashboarding and bot creation. Anyone with basic data skills can feed information to a bot and gain insights in seconds.

You don’t need a credit card to sign up for the free trial, but you won’t be able to publish content to the server without a paid upgrade. As for choosing which edition to use, there’s the web and the desktop instance. Which one will suit you? Maybe both?

MicroStrategy Workstation is for developers and data analysts and is more robust for manipulating data. It provides administrative control, even when offline, and helps prototype content before it goes live. Combining multiple visualizations on a single page provided me with more context for the same data.

On the other hand, the Workstation version lacks the same level of natural language processing as the web version.

MicroStrategy Web is for delivering content to your clients. Being online, it’s open to seamless upgrades and customization, and identity management and collaboration are built in. If you have a small organization, the web version might suffice, but you might want to consider going for both if you deal with large data volumes.

Metadata mapping was immensely useful to me when designing a bot using MicroStrategy Auto Express. All I needed to do was feed it the data, and it generated a slew of questions I might want to ask.

With a semantic layer, Microstrategy is among the BI tools that work best with large data warehouses. If you’ve just started in business or haven’t got large data volumes yet, you might want to consider a simpler tool.

An oft-repeated sentiment in user reviews was that this motley crew of products — web, desktop and mobile — didn’t always sync. The vendor positions MicroStrategy One as a unified solution that’ll, hopefully, eliminate these annoyances.

On the flip side, quite a few users said it could be clunky for inexperienced users. Also, some reviewers said it slowed on occasion. Most people said the solution was expensive and found its learning curve quite steep.

In summary, MicroStrategy is worth considering, especially if you’re a medium or large-sized company looking for a web reporting tool with a user-friendly interface.

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Pros & Cons

Data Visualization: Users were satisfied with its powerful dashboards and personalization options for self-service analytics.
Functionality: Reviewers praised the platform for delivering on capabilities and scaling with their data needs.
Ease of Use: User reviews appreciated its reusable objects and semantic layer for automating data wrangling and visualization workflows.

Cost: A majority of the users found the platform to be expensive.
Adoption: Most reviews said the platform had a steep learning curve.

Key Features

HyperIntelligence: Learn about departments or employees by hovering over their names. To get ready information, add the HyperIntelligence extension to your Chrome instance and configure it to your MicroStrategy environment.
Auto Express: Shift the heavy lifting to AI bots — have them analyze your dashboards and suggest deep-dive questions, many of which you might not have thought of. Pull data from Amazon Redshift, Azure SQL Database, Databricks, Google BigQuery and Snowflake, among others.
Action Triggers: Update data in Salesforce CRM, trigger email campaigns in Marketo, or approve expenses in Workday from a MicroStrategy dashboard. Triggering workflows from dashboards is available in MicroStrategy One and Auto Express.
Intelligent Cubes Technology: Drive targeted marketing campaigns by digging deep into buyer demographics, purchase histories and engagement levels. Create an Intelligent Cube to store data in memory and reuse it for as many reports as desired.
Metadata Management: Organize data using a handy index that points to where everything is. It also gives contextual names to datasets so everyone uses the same terminology. Metadata management establishes data lineage by narrating its entire journey — where it started, how it was changed and which tasks use it now.
Role-Based Displays: Remember skimming through your course book a day before an important test? You read the important parts while you skipped the rest. If that’s what you feel when decisions are at stake, role-based views are what you need. CEOs can choose high-level overviews, while middle management might want detailed reports.
Free-form Subscriptions: This is a new feature that allows users to view updates as PDF or Excel files without signing in to MicroStrategy. It’s a great functionality for those who are away from their desks and for their teams in the field.

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Pricing

License/Subscription Cost	On-Premise: It includes an upfront fee for the server software installation. Cloud-based: It includes user-based pricing for the web and mobile-based platforms. CPU-based payment models are also available.
Installation/Implementation Cost	On-Premise: Included in the upfront license cost. Cloud-based: Included in the subscription cost.
Customization Cost	Dependent on the functional requirements and specific needs of the organization.
Change Management	Dependent on the current software, data complexity and volume, availability of migration tools and the gaps between the existing system and the new system.
Training Cost	Online training and video tutorials are available free of cost. Enterprises can choose from in-center training, live online lectures, on-demand learning, and private on-site engagements to meet their training requirements. Each day of training costs $700 and most courses are two days in length.
Recurring/Renewal Costs (including maintenance costs)	On-Premise: Includes cost for updates, maintenance, upgrades, and patches. Cloud-based/SaaS: Renewal cost is equivalent to the fees paid monthly or annually. The vendor manages upgrades and add-ons at no extra cost.

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Spotfire

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^$0.99

Monthly, Quote-based

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Why We Picked Spotfire

In online reviews, Spotfire emerges as a user-friendly big data platform. Most users found data exploration easy with a drag-and-drop interface. Some users said the UI was dated, though, and said it could use a revamp. Most users praised its interactive visualizations and dashboards, saying they helped them interpret data better. But, a few said they would love to have more visuals to choose from.

A user mentioned they did the calculations in Excel and imported them into Spotfire for visualization. It's a common scenario when a steep learning curve slows down adoption, and teams fall back on Excel. Most users said Spotfire takes time to learn. You might have to opt for a balance of multiple platforms to balance your departmental and enterprise needs.

Spotfire surpasses Excel in data management, especially data prep. Customizable visualizations and custom Mods give you enough freedom to work within the platform.

Though 72% of reviewers were happy with the integrations, Spotfire lacks some standard connectors, such as for Apache Kafka, forcing users to rely on workarounds.

A majority of users found its pricing structure complex, especially as users increased. In such cases, organizations often tend to opt for a cheaper alternative for less advanced use cases while using the pricier platform for the critical ones. We advise doing a deep dive into the vendor's pricing plans to avoid making your tech stack top-heavy.

Ultimately, Spotfire's appeal lies in its balance. It's visually captivating and user-friendly for casual users while offering enough depth for seasoned analysts. However, its pricing and learning curve might deter organizations on a tight budget.

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Pros & Cons

Data Visualization: About 86% of reviewers were satisfied with the available options when designing dashboards.
Support: Around 74% of users praised vendor support for their timely response and helpful attitude.
Integration: Almost 72% of users were satisfied that it integrates with their preferred systems.
Friendly Interface: Around 68% of reviewers said the platform was easy to use.
Functionality: About 64% of users said it had a rich feature set.

Cost: Around 96% of the user reviews said it the price was high and licensing complex.
Adoption: 90% of reviewers said there was a significant learning curve and users would need specialized knowledge of data science and statistics.

Key Features

Spotfire Actions: Decide what to do with and act instantly — no need to switch to your procurement application to pause new orders. This powerful feature allows you to run scripts within analytics workflows. You can also trigger actions in your external system through visualization. Spotfire can set up over 200 commercial connections and has 1800 community connectors.
Mods: Build reusable workflows and visualization components, much like apps in Power BI and Qlik Sense. They allow your users to tailor their analytical processes so they don’t have to start from scratch every time. Based on code, they run in a sandbox with limited access to system resources for security. Users can share them through the Spotfire library. Mods improve efficiency and collaboration.
Batch Edits: Make similar changes to multiple files in one go. Write custom scripts to call the Spotfire API that’ll make changes to the files. Update the IronPython version to the latest one or embed the Spotfire JQueryUI library instead of its references.
Recurring Jobs: Simplify event scheduling to better manage your time and tasks. Improve efficiency and deliver reports at the same time on the same day of the week or month. The latest Spotfire version allows you to set recurring automation jobs to occur every X hours, days, weeks or months.
Web Player REST API: Share insight with clients and partners without them needing to sign up for a paid Spotfire account. Engage them via data visualizations on the web browser, thanks to Spotfire Web Player. Update analyses on the web with real-time data in the latest Spotfire version.
Roles: Invest wisely — opt for licenses that align with user roles. Choose Spotfire Analyst for data analysts, scientists and power users who need deep-dive analysis. Get the Business Author license for enterprise users, analysts and power users to create and consume insights without deep expertise. Choose consumer licenses for users who’ll interact with and consume data. They include the C-suite and non-technical users within the organization.
Information Designer: Prepare fully governed data sources for business users in a dedicated wizard. Set up their preferred data sources and define in advance how Spotfire will query and import data into storage. Specify which columns to load and which filters, joins and aggregations to apply.
Audio and Image Processing: Add user feedback from customer calls and videos. Interpret public sentiment about your product by analyzing social media pictures and videos. Spotfire enables writing code to extract text from audio and image files. You can then import the data into the platform for analysis.
IoT Analytics: Gain insight at lightning speed; build microservices and deploy them at the edge. With Spotfire, you can add IoT data to your regular data for the complete picture.

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Qlik Sense

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^$30

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Why We Picked Qlik Sense

Qlik Sense focuses on independent data analysis for enterprises with advanced tools that include AI, natural language processing and automation. User reviews praise it for its associative engine, interactive visualizations and sophisticated analytics.

Its dataset-linking functionality gets my vote as the most significant differentiator since it makes data modeling seamless and saves time. In comparison, manually linking tables in Tableau and Power BI feels like a huge task.

It supports fewer features out of the box (69%) compared to Tableau (72%) and Power BI (74%), but this could be intentional. Qlik has ready-to-go modules for analytics, automation and printing, so keeping it lean is a smart vendor move. Users should be aware that additional modules will cost extra, though.

Qlik Sense SaaS is multi-cloud, so unless the admin assigns separate workspaces, your users won’t be able to create personal dashboards — everything is shared otherwise. Some users said the platform slowed when processing large workloads, which is a common issue with many other platforms. Assess your need for speed before committing to a purchase.

If upgrading from QlikView, you’ll need to create new objects initially, as both platforms have different architectures. However, the vendor assists in seamless migration with the Qlik Analytics Modernization program.

Overall, Qlik Sense is an efficient platform that offers many analysis capabilities worth considering. We recommend checking it out if you’re looking for an alternative to Power BI, entrenched in Microsoft technology, or Tableau, with its emphasis on visualization.

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Pros & Cons

Integrations: Approximately 86% of users reviewing data sources were satisfied with its wide connectivity.
Ease of Use: About 84% of users who cited usability praised the platform for self-service BI.
Functionality: Around 80% of the reviews that mentioned features praised it for ETL and data visualization.
Data Visualization: About 66% of the users discussing dashboards were satisfied with its interactive displays that allowed them to dig deep.

Cost: About 87% of users who mentioned pricing found the tool expensive.
Performance: Around 86% of users citing speed said it lagged when processing large and complex datasets.
Training: Approximately 69% of users who discussed adoption said there was a significant learning curve.
Customization: Around 65% of users who mentioned the freedom to design dashboards said the tool offered limited options.

Key Features

AI Integration: Ask and answer questions in natural language and automate processes using OpenAI and H2O.ai. Feed massive datasets to the LLM and watch as it summarizes the insight for you. Move beyond traditional analysis by working with the IBM Watson API for natural language.
Qlik Sense Management Console: Develop apps, manage tasks and connections, and track performance. With QMC, create content and consume data insights.
Reporting Service: Keep partners and clients on the same page by sending reports to everyone involved, even non-Qlik users. Download reports, subscribe to charts and sheets, or automate report delivery with its Reporting Service, available with Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS.
Apps: Create interactive dashboards and visualizations for separate tasks within Qlik Sense. An organization can use hundreds of Qlik Sense apps in its tech stack.
Associative Recommendations: Save time defining how data tables relate with its intelligent suggestions, something Tableau and Power BI lack. Bubbles represent data tables and color-coded rings — green, orange and red — inside them indicate the possibility of links between the tables.

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Pricing

License/Subscription Cost	On-Premise: License fees include an upfront fee to own the software, plus IP for a fixed term, installation, customization and integration costs Enterprise Edition is offered on-premise and is based on a token system Based on a combination of server, user, document and application-based licensing Cloud-Based/SaaS: Based on recurring subscription-based model: $X per user, per month Cost may vary depending on the Qlik Sense Pricing plan selected: Cloud Basic, Cloud Business, Desktop, Enterprise Edition or Personal Edition
Maintenance Cost	On-Premise: Maintenance cost is over and above the upfront fee Cloud-Based/SaaS: Maintenance cost is included in the service fees charged at the time of purchase
Installation/Implementation Cost	On-Premise: Included in the upfront cost/subscription cost Cloud-Based/SaaS: None
Customization Cost	For both on-premise and cloud-based/SaaS, customization costs vary depending on the product and pricing tier chosen, and the level of customization requiredCosts will vary depending on the package selected
Recurring/Renewal Costs	On-Premise: Annual recurring fees to be paid over and above the upfront cost include annual renewal, upgrades and ongoing support Cloud-Based/SaaS: A recurring monthly fee is charged, which typically includes maintenance, monitoring, upgrades, training and support

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SAS Visual Analytics

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^$8,000

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Why We Picked SAS Visual Analytics

SAS Analytics is a versatile business intelligence and analytics tool that empowers users to explore and understand data through interactive data visualizations. Many users who reviewed data analysis said that, coupled with the power of predictive analytics, the platform offers a plethora of graphics options — charts, graphs and dashboards — with deep-dive capabilities, such as filtering, to zero in on pertinent business data. Many users who reviewed functionality and data preparation said that, possibly because of its capable ETL engine and in-memory architecture, data processing speed is very high and reports load faster. A majority of users who reviewed data connectivity said that the tool is efficient in pulling data from multiple sources for data modeling and analysis.

On the flip side, quite a few users who reviewed functionality said that the platform’s integration with Python and R is still in the development stage and this limits its functional scope. Some users who discussed user-friendliness said that the processes are not the most intuitive — errors and warnings in logs are misleading, and new users may find adoption difficult. Though the industry scope of user tutorials is limited, a majority of users said that the steep learning curve of the platform is sufficiently addressed by training. For many users, its cost-prohibitive licensing plans caused them to not consider it their first choice when it came to purchasing a BI solution.

Overall, SAS Visual Analytics is a versatile tool with fast data processing capabilities and strong visualizations to generate reports for insightful data analysis.

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Pros & Cons

Data Analysis: Around 81% of users who reviewed its data analysis capabilities said that the tool offers out-of-the-box advanced analytics to identify patterns and relationships in business data.
Functionality: Citing its powerful in-memory technology, approximately 62% of users who reviewed functionality said that the solution provides a single, compact interface for data exploration and modeling for faster analytic computations.
Data Visualization: Around 60% of users who reviewed data visualization said that they can perform exploratory data analysis with a multitude of graphics options, such as bubble charts, line charts, dual axis charts.
Ease of Use: Approximately 54% of users who mentioned ease of using the software said that it is easy to generate reports with some basic SQL knowledge.

Cost: Around 80% of users who discussed the platform’s cost said that they find the pricing to be cost-prohibitive.

Key Features

Ad Hoc Reporting and Analysis: Assemble reports from data creatively in real time as opposed to relying on a predesigned template. Run queries and perform analysis on data on demand without knowing code.
Predictive Analysis: Make predictions about future conditions based on historical data through data mining, machine learning and predictive modeling.
Mobile Apps: Leverage the power of native apps on iOS, Android and Microsoft devices, with an optimized mobile interface. Interact with visualizations on the go, view previous reports, leave comments, capture screenshots and set mobile notifications.
Interactive Discovery: Identify outliers, clusters, relationships, trends, etc. by exploring data in a natural query-based way rather than through coding.
Location Analytics: Lasso data points on a map through OpenStreetmap or Esri ArcGIS to select them for analysis and then enrich demographic data through point clustering, map pins, custom polygons and more.
Trend Indicators: Identify which types of data to observe through built-in trend indicators that attempt to predict future movement of data points based on historical trends.
Visualizations: Get desired insights from data and easily discover patterns through a range of visualization options, such as bar graphs, pie charts, donut graphics, line graphs, scattergrams, heat maps, bubble maps, dot maps, needle graphics, numeric series, schedule charts, vectors, key value infographics and more.
Scheduled Reporting: Programmable to send reports at scheduled intervals or based on triggered events to ensure they are delivered regularly.
Customizable Dashboard: Access only relevant tools, visualizations and data through the customizable dashboard interface. Engage with data as well as collaborate with others on data visualizations, irrespective of technical skill levels.
Embedded BI: Embed the system into web applications or other software solutions for a seamless interface and direct data draw. Also, embed individual reports and dashboards using SAS SDK.

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Pricing

License/Subscription Cost	Price is based on server and user capacity. It includes license and hosting infrastructure cost 150, 300 and 600 GB storage is provided by the SaaS Now environment. The price of additional storage is $0.50 per GB per month
Maintenance Cost	On-Premise: An additional cost over and above the upfront cost has to be paid for ongoing support and maintenance Cloud-based/SaaS: Upgrades and add-ons are managed directly in the cloud at no extra cost
Installation/Implementation Cost	On-Premise: Typically charged in addition to the license cost Cloud-based/SaaS: Included in the subscription cost
Customization Cost	Will vary depending on the functional requirements such as configurable dashboards, dashboard and operational reporting needs, type of data elements required for tracking, complexity of workflows, forms to collect additional data, UI changes, etc
Data Migration Cost/Change Management/Upfront Switching Cost	Dependent on your current software, amount of data to be migrated, availability of migration tools, complexity of data and gaps between the existing system and the new system
Training Cost	Provides free e-learning and online demos
Recurring/Renewal Costs	On-Premise: Includes cost for updates, maintenance, upgrades, and patches Cloud-based/SaaS: Renewal cost is equivalent to the fees paid monthly or annually

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Domo

Start Price

^$15

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Why We Picked Domo

Domo has everything data teams could wish for — self-service ETL, advanced analytics and data science. Its rich set of connectors makes users happy as they praise its robust integration APIs. Its scripting language is similar to Power BI, and knowing SQL will shorten your team's learning curve. The vendor offers daily refreshes, currently capping them at 48.

On the flip side, the interface seemed a bit clunky to me. Dashboards don’t display in the edit mode by default, which was a tad annoying. The Getting Started documentation is dated and doesn’t match the new interface. I could find my way around with help from user forums.

While the vendor earns praise for releasing frequent updates, quite a few users say some much-needed features lack depth. According to our research, Domo offers only 64% of the required functionality out of the box, which is much less than what Power BI and Tableau provide. It also underperforms in data querying, scoring only 53 in our analysis.

Some reviews mention bugs and that performance can lag when handling anything complex than simple visualizations. The slowness could be due to the multitenant SaaS model that provides shared computing. As for the mobile app, it didn’t work in the offline mode for me. I should mention here that I had opted for the trial version. A proof-of-concept will help you check if the issue persists in the paid edition.

Domo’s pay-as-you-go model is great for estimating usage but be prepared to pay more for workload spikes. According to our research, about 89% of users who reviewed the price found Domo’s consumption model expensive. Small organizations working with a lean team might find it challenging to handle billing.

Here’s what’s great about subscribing to Domo. You can create as many reports and dashboards as required — there’s no limit or additional cost. Plus, Domo allows adding an unlimited number of users. Domo accepts external data models from OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, Hugging Face, Databricks and Jupyter Workspaces.

Despite a competitive market, Domo is an excellent product for organizations seeking data visualization and strong integration. Its flexible pricing model and recent AI updates make it a strong challenger to leading data platforms.

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Pros & Cons

Source Connectivity: About 86% of users citing data integration said they could connect to their preferred sources easily.
Ease of Use: Around 82% of users discussing the interface said options and tabs were straightforward and intuitive.
Data Visualization: About 74% of people who reviewed Domo for graphics appreciated the ease of creating and sharing data stories.
Functionality: Around 73% of users who mentioned features said Domo performed as expected.
Support Services: About 71% of reviews discussing assistance praised the support team for being helpful and responsive.

Speed: About 78% of users discussing speed said the platform lagged sometimes.
Cost: Around 89% of users discussing price termed the platform as expensive.

Key Features

Domo App Studio: Design custom apps for needs Domo might not address out of the box. Build your own functionality without coding knowledge. Create branded visualizations with your trademark colors, logos and fonts. ESPN enhances the fan experience by capturing and analyzing customer data using a Domo Studio app.
Analyzer: Save time spent cleaning data manually. Use a special editor to set up checks for data inputs. Keep tabs on which charts and dataflows use a specific dataset with the lineage option. You can choose the best chart to present your data and annotate it. Use the Beast Mode for complex math.
DomoGPT: Get answers to data queries using AI Chat (currently in beta). Convert text to SQL or calculations and understand your data using text summaries. Use Domo.AI in a safe, governed space.
Personalized Data Permissions: Create custom data views for your users and hide sensitive data. Your regional managers get exclusive views specific to their roles, while senior management can switch between full and filtered views.
Domo Mobile: View cards and text summaries on the mobile app. Cards fit within the small screen, giving a great user experience. Domo Buzz allows sharing files to WhatsApp, Gmail, QuickShare and Google Drive. You can even save a screenshot to your phone gallery.
Alerts: Stay informed about KPIs that matter to you. Set new alerts and share them with selected users or subscribe to existing ones. Choose where you want to receive the notifications — email, mobile app or SMS.

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Dundas BI

Start Price

^$2,500

Monthly, Quote-based

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Deployment

Cloud On-Premise

Platform

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Why We Picked Dundas BI

Dundas BI is a web application that stands out for placing the buyer first with built-in ETL, shared licenses and unlimited refreshes. It surpasses market leaders like Power BI and Qlik Sense in native functionality. It’s feature-rich, with 77% of capabilities available out of the box.

About 72% of users reviewing the interface praised the platform, whereas others felt it was confusing. An open API architecture might be one reason for the UI's clutter, but the vendor offers a way out. You can make onboarding easier by removing components that seem complex.

Usually, reporting is a loose term for dashboards and static reports and not much else. However, the vendor packs these tools into a neat package at no extra cost. Dashboards are usually static, single-screen views, but Dundas allows embedding reports in them to complement your KPIs. The support team is responsive with clear SOPs and quick responses, and the documentation is detailed.

On the downside, many users felt it slowed when handling heavy workloads. Performance is critical in business, but every data tool has accompanying tradeoffs, and sadly, it’s often speed. That said, keep in mind that many factors are at play here — the hardware, internet speed, data complexity and database efficiency. Consider them for your use cases when evaluating performance, as they significantly impact how a program responds to user interactions.

Ultimately, it boils down to this — how much lag can you accept before it impacts your business? A proof-of-concept or, even better, a trial would be your best bet to assess how the platform fares.

Due to its rich scripting options, the learning curve can be steep. Users felt the feature documentation should cover more information on Javascript and APIs. Most reviewers were satisfied with the pricing, saying it offers value for money.

In summary, Dundas BI is a powerful tool if you need a high degree of customization, scalability and flexibility. It can handle complex data environments and supports many users concurrently. It would be a good fit for mid to large-sized enterprises as they have diverse data needs and are open to investing in training.

Organizations with simple data requirements may find the tool a bit over the top and the cost excessive. In such a case, opting for a tool with basic functionality might be a good start. One non-negotiable would be frequent, stable updates. It'll ensure the tool grows with your business over time.

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Pros & Cons

Cost: Around 88% of reviewers mentioning pricing said the platform offered value for money.
Data Analysis and Visualization: Around 86% of users reviewing dashboards said they helped in decision-making.
Service and Support: Almost 83% of users praised support services for being prompt and said they got the help they needed.
Functionality: Around 75% of users praised the solution's rich feature set for helping them accomplish their tasks.
Ease of Use: Around 72% of users citing user friendliness said they could use it without much difficulty.

Training: Around 86% of users citing learning said there was a steep learning curve and documentation was inadequate.
Speed: Around 75% of users who reviewed performance said it lagged when handling large data volumes.

Key Features

Data Visualization Sandbox: Create and test data visualizations before using them in dashboards. Experiment with different chart types, color schemes and data combinations without risk. It's an excellent learning tool for teams that want to start using data for decisions.
Pattern Identification: The Identify Clusters button is a tool within Dundas BI that examines your dataset. It helps you find patterns in your data by clicking a button rather than manually sorting it. The tool puts similar data into groups that can help spot trends or unusual patterns.
Small Multiples: They allow you to compare values on the same scale and axes but in separate charts and graphs. One example is comparing the prices of hotels on an aggregator site.
Mobile Insight: Collaborate with your teams through an HTML5 browser, whatever the device. Leave comments and annotations for colleagues on visualizations and share them as a PDF or link. Double-tap to zoom into views, and pinch in and out to see maps and charts.
Content Scheduling: Share content by setting a schedule or trigger. Dundas BI offers scheduled sharing via the notifications option. Select the content type from among Excel, CSV, PDF, PowerPoint and PNG formats. Choose from email or file delivery. More distribution methods are available if you install Dundas BI extensions.
Administrator Privileges: Create, edit and delete projects and configure security settings. Share projects among tenants and assign or revoke permissions as required. Set up and manage user accounts and view login history. Monitor system and warehouse performance and keep tabs on memory storage with application logs.
DundasScript: Do more with your data. Write custom formulas and expressions that aren’t possible with standard connectors or visualization tools. Apply conditional formatting and define how users should interact with visual elements, such as setting up drill downs and tooltips.
Contextual Views: View only the information that matters to your role. Dundas BI has a data connector override function that switches to a different data source or schema based on who’s viewing the content.
Architecture: Dundas BI has JavaScript, HTML and CSS on the back end with a patented in-memory engine. It’s a C#, Asp.NET application hosted on Microsoft IIS for Windows, systemd for Linux or a Docker or Kubernetes container. The platform is available in hosted and managed versions. Supported databases include Microsoft SQL or PostgreSQL. All screens, including dashboards and report designers, are built on a public API with JavaScript or a REST interface. It makes it easy to customize and embed. Tiers include the user, application and data layers. End users get a smooth user experience with drag-and-drop and select actions. It's open to plugins for adding new functions, formulas, controls, and security and tenant and export providers.

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Pricing

License/Subscription Cost	Dependent on the deployment method and the number of users Offers a flexible license-pricing model and concurrent user licenses.
Maintenance Cost	On-premise: Support and maintenance incur additional costs. Cloud-Based/SaaS: Included in the subscription cost.
Installation/Implementation Cost	On-premise: Typically charged over and above the license cost. Cloud-based/SaaS: Included in the subscription cost.
Customization Cost	This information and section are only included for products in a pricing guide.
Data Migration Cost/Change Management/Upfront Switching Cost	Will vary depending on the functional requirements such as configurable dashboards, operational and dashboard reporting needs, type of data elements required for tracking, the complexity of workflows, forms to collect additional data, UI changes, etc.
Recurring/Renewal Costs	Dependent on the model opted – an annual lease or own in perpetuity.

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Sisense

Start Price

^$1,500

Monthly, Freemium

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Platform

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Why We Picked Sisense

Users appreciate how Sisense creates large datasets from constantly evolving data sources to be seamlessly streamlined into actionable data, and presented easily in the form of graphs, bar and pie charts, scattergrams, line graphs, interactive maps and many more visualization types. Regarding customer support, users praise their prompt and informative responses - from implementation to handling subsequent queries — as high quality customer service that comes neatly packaged with pricing plans.

Users mention that the implementation of this solution, though easy for basic setup, can be quite demanding in terms of scripting and configuration setup, especially for advanced analytics. Non-technical users might find it challenging to set up the data objects - ElastiCubes - without strong IT support. On the front-end, dashboard customization and formatting of visualizations can be tricky as these require basic knowledge of CSS, Javascript and development. Though a large number of users find this solution to be cost-effective, smaller businesses and startups that only need a limited number of licenses might find it expensive.

Overall, Sisense is a strong BI solution with strong data capabilities, and its drill-down functionality empowers users to glean insightful and actionable analytics that drive business strategy by aiding in decision-making processes. To maximize its potential, businesses may require strong IT support for implementation and formatting of visualizations. It is certainly worth considering for enterprise BI needs, if the price is right!

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Pros & Cons

Customer Service and Support : More than 92% of users mentioning customer support said that responses to their queries were prompt and informative, and that there’s good access to online user communities.
Data Integration: Approximately 92% of users who mention data source integrations express satisfaction with its ability to import, blend and streamline data from multiple sources into a cohesive database.
Data Visualization: Citing stunning dashboards with a range of visually powerful visual tools like widgets, graphs and scattergrams, 85% of users who mention data visualization say it’s a strong feature of Sisense.
Ease of Use: More than 93% of users mentioning the platform’s ease of use praise it as user-friendly, citing self-service BI features such as interactive dashboards and data visualizations.
Cost: Among users who comment on its pricing, more than 85% said that Sisense offers great value for its cost, with some reviews coming from long-time customers.

Data Preparation and Modeling: About 50% of users who mentioned data modeling say that it is not as intuitive for non-technical staff, requiring strong IT support.
Training: More than 60% of users who write about learning how to use the platform say that with frequent new releases, a lack of sufficient documentation, coupled with the difficulty of using a programming language make this a tricky tool to master.

Key Features

In-Chip Analytics: Free up processing power for other tasks, improve the speed of processing and reduce downtime caused by overworked RAM or disks. Combine a columnar database with smart algorithms in an in-chip cache. Choose between either disk or RAM, rather than solely disk or RAM, as an alternative to in-memory processing.
Data Connectivity: Draw from many different data sources and formats with hundreds of built-in connectors with cloud applications such as Zendesk and Salesforce. Drag and drop to import from databases and spreadsheets. Pull directly from CRMs or embed the BI interface into the CRM, providing versatility in workflow options.
Data Blending: Blend huge datasets from a range of sources instantly into one centralized location, and receive a holistic view of all data. Investigate further through slicing, dicing and exploration of data via a simple, accessible interface.
Data Visualizations: Organize user data into easy-to-understand visualizations like bar charts, scattergrams, pie charts, line graphs, interactive maps, etc. Access a rich library of prebuilt graphics and widgets or open source designs, and easily manipulate them from within an intuitive UI.
Interactive Dashboards: Drag-and-drop to build interactive dashboards that encourage deeper data exploration. Help users to build widgets and filters, and leverage AI-assisted exploration and automatic analysis to provide further insight.
Real-Time Insights: Set up and maintain live connections to data and monitor dashboards in real time. Establish push notification alerts to receive automatic updates when changes to KPIs occur.
Single-Stack System: Perform a range of data preparation tasks, such as exploration, analysis, visualization and collaboration, without needing to switch to other platforms.
Publish and Share: Enable everyone in an organization to access and filter information with web-based dashboards. Publish a dashboard with one click and open it to the entire company for easy access without needing to download files.
Augmented Intelligence: Leverage Sisense Pulse, powered by machine learning algorithms, to continually monitor KPIs and receive proactive alerts when anomalies and variations are detected. Automate previously manual tasks and data-driven workflows, personalize the BI experience with a tailored command center and deliver a dynamically updated feed that keeps users up to date.
Embedded Analytics: Turn data into data products that deliver BI to clients with a white label solution in Product Teams.
R Integration: Perform predictive analysis and access better BI reporting and decision-making through R programming language.
Add-Ons: Extend the functionality of the platform by downloading and equipping any number of free and premium native and third party extensions from the marketplace.
Natural Language Processing: Empower users of all data literacy levels to derive the full value of their insights through natural language generation with Sisense Narratives. Simplify into everyday language the complexities of data analysis for accessibility and easier understanding through AI-generated text-based insights.
Mobile BI: Access BI on-the-go directly from iOS and Android phones with a native app that renders mobile-optimized responsive dashboards with touchscreen integration. Alternatively, access the platform through a browser from any laptop, tablet or smartphone, no downloads or installation required.

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Pricing

License/Subscription Cost	Annual license cost is based on tiers depending on the number of users. The first tier allows up to 10 users (Basic). The second tier (Business) supports up to 50 users, and the third tier (Business+) supports an unlimited number of users
Maintenance Cost	There are no additional costs for training or to maintain the software For each pricing plan, there are free levels of support
Installation/Implementation Cost	The solution can be implemented in a short span of time as there are no additional hardware or servers to set up
Customization Cost	Dependent on functional requirements and specific needs of the organization
Data Migration Cost/Change Management/Upfront Switching Cost	Dependent on your current software, amount of data to be migrated, availability of migration tools, complexity of data and gaps between the existing system and the new system
Recurring/Renewal Costs	Renewal cost is equivalent to the fees paid annually

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Tableau

Start Price

^$15

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Why We Picked Tableau

Tableau Desktop is a BI solution for data visualization, dashboarding and location analysis. In online reviews, users said they found its drag-and-drop charting a boon for creating charts and maps. Regarding customization, many users praised the platform for its various labeling and design options.

I recently tried the Tableau Desktop 2024.1.3 version. The trial is only for 14 days and is enough for a sneak peek into Tableau’s dashboarding and data storytelling capabilities. For more straightforward use cases, Tableau is incredibly user-friendly and fast. Creating a new sheet gives you a canvas to create a visualization. Once you have the required sheets, combining them into a dashboard view is straightforward — select and add.

My dataset included healthcare data, including details of patients, their hospital visits and insurance payer details. One use case was to find the total claim settlement amount. I dragged the Total Claims Cost and Payer fields to the column and row shelves, and Tableau gave me a bar graph. The toolbar had single-click options for sorting data from increasing to decreasing values or the other way around.

To view the number of encounters by payer, I dragged the Payer field to the row shelf and used the SUM(ROW_COUNT()) function on the column shelf. The chart popped up with more visualization and layout options.

I wanted an interactive filter to view the average claim cost by birthdate. I dragged the Birthdate field to the Filters shelf and right-clicked on it to set the end date as October 22, 1961. Selecting Show Filter added a slider conveniently to the right of my visualization. I could see the data for people born before October 22, 1961, and if required, I could change the end date.

Another use case would be viewing the data by the type of hospital visits — how many people were inpatients, outpatients or those who needed emergency care. I dragged and dropped the Total Claims Cost and Payer fields into columns and rows, respectively. Similarly, I dropped Encounterclass into the Filters shelf and clicked on Show Filter to enable a checkbox on the screen. It had all the categories of visits, giving users the option to select the desired views.

One-fourth of the users discussing adoption said there was a steep learning curve. Tableau relies on Python and R scripts for statistics in its visualizations. It's where the named licenses can prove to be a blessing, as you can opt to train upcoming Creators and Explorers. We recommend factoring in training if you want to hit the ground running.

Some reviewers felt discounted packages for business editions should be available, similar to the free student licenses. At $70 per user, the Creator license can seem costly when compared to Power BI ($9.99 per user) and Qlik Sense ($30 per user).

Here's the good news, though. Its built-in user management acts as a permissions layer for your organization - users can only access the relevant content. Plus, an organization will have very few Creators and a greater number of Viewers and Explorers, and the license fee reduces from Creator to Explorer to Viewer.

We recommend opting for a wise license combination to get the most out of the product.

On the upside, the vendor constantly releases new features, the latest one being Einstein CoPilot in beta.

Overall, Tableau is a competitive BI solution, but if the pricing seems inflexible, quite a few other solutions offer live insights and advanced analytics out of the box.

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Pros & Cons

Data Visualization: Almost 98% of users who reviewed its visual capabilities praised the platform for its dashboards and the freedom to play around with data and modify charts as desired.
User-Friendly: According to 93% of users who mentioned ease of use, it makes data accessible with its easy user actions and handy tooltips.
Data Connectivity: About 92% of users who discussed data sourcing praised its ability to pull data from disparate systems.

Pricing: Around 90% of the users citing cost found it expensive.
Speed: About 71% of the users who discussed performance found it slow when processing large data volumes.
Onboarding Woes: Approximately 67% of the users who reviewed the platform's adoption said there was a steep learning curve.

Key Features

Connectors: Combine data from various sources by choosing from a wide range of connectors — no need to spend on expensive third-party data integration tools. Tableau Bridge connects private networks to live data sources via Tableau Cloud.
AI: Tableau now offers AI capabilities thanks to Einstein Analytics.
- Tableau Pulse: Explore data independently and ask questions with AI analytics. Tableau Pulse is available with Tableau Cloud and Embedded Analytics.
- Explain Data: Understand the displayed insights with natural language explanations of data points.
- Einstein CoPilot (Beta): Close the gap in understanding data with AI insights. Discover hidden trends by asking follow-up questions without losing context, thanks to generative AI. Einstein CoPilot is available with a Tableau Cloud subscription.
Tableau Prep: Clean and transform data of all types, including survey results, feedback data and social media posts. Shape and combine it with Tableau Prep, which is available with the paid edition only.
Data Stories: Convey your message with compelling narratives to get stakeholder buy-in. Drag and drop sheets onto the storyboard to show the growth, decline or stability of critical metrics.
Animations: Explain how data changes over time with animated charts and customize them to include graphics, labels and colors.
Filtering: Focus on the data that matters; it’s as easy as dragging and dropping desired fields to the Filter shelf. Specify a value range, set a condition or choose the top values to display.
User-Based Licenses: Explore cost-effective license combinations that work for your team.
- Creators can build dashboards, permissions, and governance rules, and establish connections to new sources. They’re content authors who transform and analyze data. This license is available at $70 per user monthly, billed annually. However, they can’t control the Tableau Server or Desktop environment.
- Explorer licenses are suitable for line-of-business users whose role requires independent data exploration. They can author content but within a governed ecosystem. Each Explorer license costs $42 monthly, billed annually. They can’t connect to new sources, modify data, or use the Tableau desktop or custom SQL.
- Viewers can interact with data, apply filters and follow pre-decided workflows. This license is available for $15 per user monthly, billed annually. Viewers have limited rights and can’t create and edit visualizations and the underlying data.

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Buyer's Guide

The Best Enterprise Reporting Tools Are All About Decision Support

By Ritinder Kaur, Market Analyst at SelectHub

Enterprise Reporting Tools Buyer's Guide Header Info

Are you still working with legacy systems that need manual data entry? Do your reports cover everything, or are critical metrics falling through the cracks? If you seek an efficient reporting system, this buyer’s guide is for you.

It underlines the importance of enterprise reporting and includes software features to consider with notable market trends. Decide what to buy with our software selection tips and free resources.

Executive Summary

Enterprise reporting tools are software programs that gather and present information on organizational performance, customer insights and market trends.
Determine what to look for in software by listing your implementation goals.
Source connectivity, customization and sharing options, system integration and security are essential reporting features.
Big data management, intelligent automation and prescriptive analytics are the prevailing trends for enterprise reporting software.
Ask the right questions during vendor discussions to select the right reporting solution.

What This Guide Covers:

What Are Enterprise Reporting Tools?
Primary Benefits
Implementation Goals
Basic Features & Functionality
Advanced Features & Functionality
Current & Upcoming Trends
Software Comparison Strategy
Cost & Pricing Considerations
Questions To Ask Yourself
Questions To Ask Vendors
Next Steps
Product Comparisons
Additional Resources

See how the top 10 Enterprise Reporting System leaders fare against the most common key requirements

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What Are Enterprise Reporting Tools?

Enterprise reporting tools are software solutions that provide decision support with metrics on performance, operations and crucial trends. Translating information into understandable and helpful insights is their core role.

Their strength lies in extracting relevant data from a sea of information, saving you manual grunt work.

It’s what resolved data silo issues for UPS, the delivery services provider. The company serves 220 regions, has 550,000 employees and moves over 23 million packages daily.

UPS struggled with providing fast information access to employees. Answering a query took a month, and employees entered data manually, checking off as many as 17 sources on a checklist twice a day.

They partnered with Domo for dynamic reporting, live updates and alerts by combining data from various sources. Embedding analytics into transactional applications helped them push live data to customers.

Informatica, a data management software provider, sought a solution to make archived data available for reporting.

Serving over 5,000 companies, the company has a transitional repository for moving inactive data to a separate database. The issue was how to provide customers access to it for historical reporting.

Embedding Logi Symphony, a database-agnostic platform, they connected it to their data archives, pulling non-production data into their platform on demand.

Big data management, self-service BI, integrations and live updates are in-demand reporting features.
Advanced calculations, tailored reports, security, compliance and scalability are others.
Vendor reputation, support and training services must rank high on your requirements list.

Primary Benefits

A capable reporting tool supports efficiencies, helps you manage risk and uncovers lucrative opportunities for your business.

Primary Benefits of Enterprise Reporting Software

Maximize ROI

Save on operational costs — allocate resources optimally and plan for growth with visibility into current performance and market propensities.

Make informed decisions with comprehensive insights. An efficient data reporting tool aggregates data from your preferred sources, leaving no data behind.

Boost sales by enhancing customer experience. Optimize products and services and tailor marketing strategies according to buyer taste. Take advantage of accurate customer insights from data-driven analyses.

Stay Competitive

Steer your business in the proper direction, basing your decisions on reliable information from database reporting tools. Plan long-term by aligning your strategy with evolving trends from in-depth market reports.

A business reporting software solution has data cleaning, parsing and enriching built in, so you have confidence in what the reports tell you.

Different departments need disparate reports, and the best reporting software will enable custom insights for internal users and clients. Personalized reports reduce the time to insight by giving users relevant information.

With the correct information, you can pivot to capitalize on opportunities while mitigating risks.

Boost Efficiency

Show your employees how their actions impact critical metrics via live updates. Visualizations and dashboarding software convey complex information in a digestible format, increasing team engagement and a sense of ownership.

Determine critical business metrics, gaining clear visibility into your data with comprehensive insight from the best reporting tools. Tracking these KPIs (key performance indicators) helps identify improvement areas and successes.

Manage Risk

Financial companies, investors, banks and loan-lending institutions survive on anticipating and avoiding risk.

Enterprise reporting tools scrape through several data points to extract information on credit history, employment status and current financial liquidity.

Then, they match it with payment default trends and project the likelihood of applicants reneging on their payments.

Additionally, you can track compliance with help from reporting platforms and maintain them as records for audits and reviews.

Control Costs

Identifying money sinks — non-performing assets — is a primary advantage of efficient reporting solutions. You can cut your losses and direct resources to campaigns with more winning potential.

An excellent report tool helps you maintain a healthy bottom line while keeping financial goals in your crosshairs. You can build a clear roadmap with visibility into profits and spending through financial reporting.

An enterprise reporting system is your window to the future. It helps anticipate fluctuations in the market by combining historical data and current trends.

You can track your business’ health with regular profit and loss (P&L) reports.

Expert recommendations and analysis on the top Enterprise Reporting System

Implementation Goals

Start with stakeholder expectations — what do they expect the report writer software to achieve?

Goal 1 Save Costs	You want to boost efficiency. You hope to identify and eliminate money sinks. You wish to take advantage of lucrative opportunities.
Goal 2 Boost Revenue	You want excellent returns on your investment. You need better project planning and resource allocation. You want satisfied customers that turn into long-lasting associations.
Goal 3 Support BI	You need the business to grow as planned. You want to support business analytics with accurate data. You want to track factors that impact business.
Goal 4 Streamline Operations	Data-backed decision-making is a priority for you. You want streamlined operations. You need accurate, contextual reports on demand.
Goal 5 Scale With Your Infrastructure	The report generator software should work with your business systems. It should be scalable.

Expert recommendations and analysis on the top Enterprise Reporting System

Basic Features & Functionality

A primary reporting tool should connect to your preferred sources, allow custom report building and sharing, connect to your systems and provide data security.

Source Connectivity	Databases, spreadsheets and data files are standard information sources. Check with vendors if the software works with cloud sources and web apps. Built-in connectors help data reporting software draw information. Custom connectors are rarer, and reporting tools may or may not have them out of the box. Object storage optimizes space when dealing with unstructured data and uses metadata to locate and retrieve datasets on demand.
Custom Reports	Pre-built widgets and charts assist in customizing reports during presentations or ad hoc analysis. You can build department-focused or consolidated reports with drag-and-drop wizards. Filtering, crosstabs and pivot tables aid in analytics. Adjustable date ranges give you the desired views, and conditional formatting highlights pertinent data.
Report Sharing	Email, chat, instant messaging, downloads and exports are standard insight-sharing options in analytic reporting tools. Scheduled report delivery is optional — you can set reports to reach subscribers based on time or event triggers.
Integration	Many reporting engines come with pre-built integrations. Alternatively, public APIs and an open architecture enable working with more systems. ERP, CRM, BI, marketing automation, HRIS and CMS software solutions are common enterprise platforms with out-of-the-box reporting. Check with vendors if their product integrates to pull data from the above platforms.
Security	Ensuring data security is tricky with business solutions consisting of many systems patched together. It becomes stickier if the solution includes open-source software as they aren’t built with many guardrails. Read our open-source reporting tools article for information on the various license types. Data backups, alerts, encryption in transit and compliance certifications are other security features.

Expert recommendations and analysis on the top Enterprise Reporting System

Advanced Features & Functionality

Consider acquiring advanced reporting capabilities at the onset for future growth.

Advanced Reporting	Top reporting tools provide distinct visualizations for your operational, diagnostic, strategic and analytical needs while incorporating big data. Live updates involve dashboard refreshes in real time. Custom calculations, ad hoc reporting and versioning enable self-service BI. Modern reporting engines allow adding location details, and custom alerts and notifications keep you informed. Caching, load balancing and report design optimization are techniques to get the best performance from your software reporting tool.
Data Analytics	Modern analytic reporting tools provide decision support with data mining, exploration and discovery. Descriptive and diagnostic analytics explain the driving factors behind performance and prevailing trends. You should be able to analyze and present the results to stakeholders as tabular reports or visualizations.
Embedded Reporting	Get analytics on demand without switching applications — embed an analytic reporting tool within your business systems. It syncs with your data sources, allows routine reporting and inherits the security protocols of the host application. Personalize to represent your brand, and scale and update it as necessary.
Machine Learning	Workflow automation in analytical reporting tools delegates repetitive tasks to software. These systems accelerate reporting with automated data prep, reducing the chance of human error. Intelligent recommendations drive fast analysis, and prescriptive analytics answers the vital question — What next? Pattern recognition assists in fraud detection and anomaly alerting. Natural language processing enables data storytelling by generating answers as plain text and summaries.
Data Governance	Role-based access and group and user-level permissions maintain accountability and data integrity. Adhering to compliance standards establishes trust in your company.

Expert recommendations and analysis on the top Enterprise Reporting System

Current & Upcoming Trends

It’s challenging to aggregate big data volumes and get accurate insights when accurate means real-time — you’re constantly playing catch-up.

It upends software development norms and spawns new technologies like edge analytics and the data mesh.

Enterprise Reporting Software Trends

Big Data Management

When decision-making rests with one entity, it can be a blocker in time-sensitive situations. Centralized analytics with a single data team at the center of a monolithic architecture can slow down product pipelines.

The data mesh is a domain-driven solution with separate teams owning data products from inception to the pipeline’s end. Treating data as a product involves assigning features and quality attributes, enabling fast retrieval.

Edge analytics is another time–saving technology that involves embedding computing into network endpoints like mobile devices. It removes the need to convey information to analytics systems.

Data sharing without decrypting allows cross-organization collaboration without compromising data security. Self-service analytics and AI-ML owe their origin to big data management.

The Internet of Things (IoT) streams real-time data from web-connected devices like sensors and intelligent bots. The hybrid cloud offers speed and extensibility to organizations wanting to keep their data in-house.

All these technologies support enterprise reporting systems in providing fast, accurate data.

Modern Insight Sharing

Distributing reports via email isn’t the only option. Collaborative technologies like shared cloud workspaces and apps like Slack, Trello and Jira connect teams.

Shared servers enable the publishing of helpful datasets for shared use. Workspaces allow access to the same documents and shared ownership of reports, dashboards and datasets.

Collaborative features include annotating reports and sharing them from your mobile reporting solution.

Report distribution is faster with active intelligence. You can build automation flows to share insights with a single click and embed them within applications and websites.

Workspaces and collaborative features are must-have features in a reporting system for large organizations where multiple teams work on separate projects simultaneously.

Intelligent Automation

AI is an umbrella term for technologies like RPA (robotic process automation) and machine learning. From automating repetitive tasks to mimicking human thinking, automation has come a long way.

While automation bots are rule-based and perform as programmed, artificial intelligence goes beyond it, imparting cognition via machine learning.

It learns from usage and supports reporting solutions with automated data prep, repeatable workflows and automatic scalability with fluctuating taskloads.

Determine your needs internally. Is bot automation enough, or will you need a machine learning module in your enterprise reporting system?

Prescriptive Analytics

No longer limited to traditional tables, reports can be visual data stories generated in real time with natural language queries. You can ask your reporting system to show you the sales trends by country for a specific period.

Reporting solutions are now visual and verbal, requiring no more than a natural language query to produce results and prescribe action. You can get a sneak peek into the impact of your decisions by building projections.

Robust recommendation engines rule your life and sense your every mood, telling you what to watch, listen to and buy. Prescriptive analytics tells you what to sell, who to sell to and how much to charge.

It’s a new technique, and not every reporting system has it, so we advise checking with potential vendors.

Expert recommendations and analysis on the top Enterprise Reporting System

Software Comparison Strategy

Don’t know how to start your report writer software search? Go through our reporting tools requirements checklist to evaluate and list your business needs.

Involve your stakeholders in the requirements-gathering discussions. Compile a request for proposal (RFP) and a working list of potential vendors.

Compare your preferred software using our Jumpstart platform and rank them by feature on a scale of zero to 100.

Arrange vendors in decreasing order of the score, and reach out to the top vendor for demos, proof-of-concept, free trials and further discussions using the RFP.

Factor in the total cost of ownership and modify the rankings accordingly.

Read our Lean Selection Methodology article to know more.

Cost & Pricing Considerations

Pricing models

Pricing tiers depend on features or usage levels.

A subscription license is chargeable monthly or annually and includes support, updates and new features, though check for user limits.
Usage-based pricing includes pay-as-you-go models that scale flexibly based on your data needs.
A concurrent user license is a flexible option when not all users need platform access. An exclusive version of this is the named user license that grants specific user access.
Custom licenses factor in your unique needs, and the vendor prices them according to the selected features.
Open-source and free reporting software is competitive and worth considering. However, not all open-source software solutions are free, and you’ll need technical resources for support and maintenance.

Base Cost

Power BI Desktop is free, but you need at least the Pro version to share reports. The base cost of a subscription is $9.99 per month.
Zoho Analytics has a free plan, while the Basic plan costs $22/month.
Whatagraph charges $49/month for a basic package after a 14-day free trial.
SAP Crystal Reports costs $495 for lifetime individual use with unlimited manual report distribution. A single-user sign-up for business use can cost $1600 for the price of acquisition. It includes a mobile app.
ThoughtSpot Team Edition comes at a $95 monthly subscription.
Cognos Analytics charges $10/user/month.

Please note that software costs are dynamic, so verify the available packages and pricing tiers directly with the vendor at the time of purchase.

Scalability Costs

Ramping up report writer software incurs costs on infrastructure, additional licenses, storage, processing, customization, integration and security upgrades.

Power BI Premium Per Capacity Licenses start at $4,9995 monthly and include eight virtual CPU cores. It autoscales by allocating additional virtual CPU cores as task loads increase.
FineReports offers tailor-made plans, including customization.
Whatagraph offers paid add-ons, including custom API connections, branding and report domains.

Support and Maintenance Fee

Access to online documentation and software tutorials is usually free, but live chat, email, phone and customer support portal are chargeable. Support response time decreases with high-end subscription plans.

Discounts

Some vendors offer discounts for long-term subscriptions.

KISSmetrics offers 25% off on yearly billing.
Olark charges 35% less for a two-year commitment.

Additional Considerations

Software vendors charge extra for onboarding, including training, deployment, data migration and customization.
Vendors like IBM offer paid learning subscriptions.
Beware of hidden costs. In-memory and in-chip technologies for data storage, API usage and additional modules can cost extra.
Free trials are excellent for testing speed, performance and availability, particularly if your business handles fluctuating or heavy workloads.

Expert recommendations and analysis on the top Enterprise Reporting System

Questions To Ask Yourself

To better understand your company’s requirements, ask these questions internally.

Which reporting features do we need?
What are the gaps in the current system?
Do we have the technical resources to deploy, or must we rely on the vendor?
Which integrations will we require?
Is a mobile application essential?

Enterprise Reporting Software Key Questions To Ask

Questions To Ask Vendors

Add the following questions to your list for vendor discussions.

About the Software

What are the software’s core strengths?
Are automations available?
Will we need vendor assistance to generate custom reports?
Does data sync across browser tabs, app instances and devices?
What are its security features?

About the Vendor

How many years of expertise do you have in the industry?
What business sizes do you work with?
What customer support and training do you offer?
Is the software customizable to my business needs?
How long does onboarding typically take?

Expert recommendations and analysis on the top Enterprise Reporting System

Next Steps

A reporting tool provides crucial decision support, vital customer insights and comprehensive market data. Departmental reports are critical for line-of-business decisions, while high-overview insights are priceless for your C-suite.

Are you still using a dated system that requires entering data manually into Excel first? It’s time for an upgrade. Get our free, customizable requirements checklist to easily list your business needs so you can start your search on the right foot.

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Additional Resources

About The Contributors

The following expert team members are responsible for creating, reviewing, and fact checking the accuracy of this content.

By Ritinder Kaur

Technical Content Writer

Ritinder Kaur is a Senior Technical Content Writer at SelectHub and has eight years of experience writing about B2B software and quality assurance. She has a Masters degree in English language and literature and writes about Business Intelligence and Data Science. Her articles on software testing have been published on Stickyminds.

Technical Research By Sagardeep Roy

Senior Analyst

Sagardeep is a Senior Research Analyst at SelectHub, specializing in diverse technical categories. His expertise spans Business Intelligence, Analytics, Big Data, ETL, Cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and machine learning, with additional proficiency in EHR and Medical Billing. Holding a Master of Technology in Data Science from Amity University, Noida, and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science from West Bengal University of Technology, his experience across technology, healthcare, and market research extends back to 2016. As a certified Data Science and Business Analytics professional, he approaches complex projects with a results-oriented mindset, prioritizing individual excellence and collaborative success.

Technical Review By Manan Roy

Principal Analyst

Manan is a native of Tezpur, Assam (India), who currently lives in Kolkata, West Bengal (India). At SelectHub, he works on categories like CRM, HR, PPM, BI, and EHR. He has a Bachelor of Technology in CSE from The Gandhi Institute of Engineering and Technology, a Master of Technology from The Institute of Engineering and Management IT, and an MBA in Finance from St. Xavier's College. He's published two research papers, one in a conference and the other in a journal, during his Master of Technology.

Edited By Hunter Lowe

Content Editor

Hunter Lowe is a Content Editor, Writer and Market Analyst at SelectHub. His team covers categories that range from ERP and business intelligence to transportation and supply chain management. Hunter is an avid reader and Dungeons and Dragons addict who studied English and Creative Writing through college. In his free time, you'll likely find him devising new dungeons for his players to explore, checking out the latest video games, writing his next horror story or running around with his daughter.