Business intelligence software tools are the different types of business intelligence software. Each tool is designed to help organizations in some way. The tools are complex, but they can be grouped into four components. Each major component has several specific types of tools that fall into it.
Choosing a business intelligence tool should be tailored to your specific needs and your company’s size. Learn how the right business intelligence tools can increase efficiency and lead you to better customer insights.
Looker
Data discovery app, Looker is another business intelligence tool to look out for! Now part of Google Cloud, this unique platform integrates with any SQL database or warehouse and is great for startups, midsize-businesses or enterprise-grade businesses. Some benefits of this particular tool include ease-of-use, handy visualisations, powerful collaboration features (data and reports can be shared via email or USL as well as integrated with other applications), and reliable support (tech team).
Website: www.looker.com
Tableau
Tableau is a Business Intelligence tool specialised in data discovery and data visualisation. With the software you can easily analyse, visualise and share data, without IT having to intervene. Tableau supports multiple data sources such as MS Excel, Oracle, MS SQL, Google Analytics and SalesForce. Users will gain access to well-designed dashboards that are very easy to use. Additionally Tableau also offers several standalone products including Tableau Desktop (for anyone) and Tableau Server (analytics for organisations), which can be run locally, Tableau Online (hosted analytics for organisations) and many more.
Website: www.tableau.com
Domo
Domo is a completely cloud-based business intelligence platform that integrates multiple data sources, including spreadsheets, databases and social media. Domo is used by both small companies and large multinationals. The platform offers micro and macro level visibility and analyses (including predictive analysis powerd with Mr. Roboto, their AI engine). From cash balances and listings of your best selling products by region to calculations of the marketing return on investment (ROI) for each channel. The only setbacks with Domo are the difficulty in downloading analyses from the cloud for personal use and the steep learning curve.
Website: www.domo.com
SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS
SAP BusinessObjects is a business intelligence suite designed for comprehensive reporting, analysis, and data visualization. They provide Office integrations with Excel and PowerPoint where you can create live presentations and hybrid analytics that connects to their on-premise and cloud SAP systems. They’re focused on business categories such as CRM and customer experience, ERP and digital core, HR and people engagement, digital supply chain, and many more. To be accurate, more than 170M users leverage SAP across the world, making it one of the largest software suppliers in the world. On Capterra, the company obtained a review of 4.2 stars, confirming its well-established place in the market since 1972.
KEY FEATURES:
A BI enterprise reporting system: Reporting and analysis are done with ad hoc queries and a complex BI enterprise reporting system designed to guide your overall company strategy.
Self-service, role-based dashboards: Analytics applications and data visualization are focused on self-service capabilities, similar to other tools, where you can build your own role-based dashboards and applications to assess risks, for example.
Cross-enterprise sharing: You can create a cross-enterprise sharing functionality that will enable you to communicate your findings with other stakeholders and partners.
Connection with SAP Warehouse and HANA: Multidimensional data analysis enables you to filter and manipulate data with real-time analytics when you connect with SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW) or SAP HANA.
Integration with Office: By using Microsoft Excel with SAP, you can analyze larger volumes of data, and embed analytics in PowerPoint, making this solution easily integrated with Office.
SHORTCOMINGS:
Some reviews report that extensive analysis functions are rarely usable without additional user training. In addition, the costs for the individual modules are relatively high and there are comparatively few feature updates.
METRIC INSIGHTS
Metric Insights is an enterprise BI portal that offers content organization, anomaly detection, and enterprise distribution of content under a single point of access. In essence, the company has built a portal where users can search and find BI content that is most relevant to them and save time in looking for the right information. Moreover, sending an email of significant changes makes sharing the data quite easy and fast, therefore, this tool deserves to be one of our top business intelligence tools on the market.
KEY FEATURES:
Business intelligence portal: The number one feature of this company is the portal that is built based on the premise that metrics, KPIs, reports, and dashboards need to be consolidated into a single portal. The portal can be used as a board of your BI data which you can easily distribute throughout your enterprise.
Anomaly detection: As with many of the business intelligence products on our list, anomaly detection is one of the key features here as well. By adding your own rules and thresholds, or using the automatic profile for detecting anomalies, the tool will send a notification via email, SMS, or mobile app.
Managed alerts: An interesting feature of this business intelligence program is the possibility to manage alerts and ensure that users are acting upon triggered data. By creating and assigning workflows, team members can take ownership while the tool will keep the history so you can access the completed workflows at any time.
Portal pages: One of the most interesting features that this solution contains is the portal pages where users can create user-designed pages that feature highly relevant data. In essence, you can build a single or multi-page website, hosted by Metric Insights, as well as contact them if you need a customized layout solution.
Chatbots integration: If you want to go a step further into the automation process, Metric Insights is another business intelligence platform that offers integration with chatbots with Slack and Microsoft Teams being the most prominent ones. You can build a Slack app with bot functions or connect the Microsoft Team Bot App with the portal.
SHORTCOMINGS:
There aren’t many reviews about the software so we can’t rely on real-life user experience, although there are reports about difficulties in communication with the company. There is also no trial period so you would need to schedule a demo to see how the solution actually works.
Dundas
Dundas BI is a browser-based business intelligence and data visualization platform that includes integrated dashboards, reporting tools, and data analytics. It provides end-users the ability to create interactive, customizable dashboards, build their own reports, run ad-hoc queries, and analyze into their data and performance metrics, regardless of programming experience. With Dundas BI, users get a flexible BI platform that enables users to gain more insight from their corporate data.
Conclusion
Simple or complex? Select the tool that is right for the job, whether it is a simple Excel pivot table or a complex data warehouse. This summary can help you select the right business intelligence tools to fit your company’s needs. What’s Next