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Deep, Effective Product with an Equally Deep Learning Curve
July 07, 2014

Deep, Effective Product with an Equally Deep Learning Curve

Anthony Chou | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

11

Overall Satisfaction with QlikView

Our team was looking for a BI tool for analyze and create reports from NIH clinical trial data. The data itself is simple, but we needed a tool that could handle many joins, large data sets, and produce clean reports. We tested Tableau software and Qlikview for about a year and ultimately selected Tableau
  • Generates reports quickly, if the joins are not too complex. If you need a quick Excel report, this works great.
  • Lots of flexibility when it comes to developing applications, including basic charts and graphs
  • Great at taking "data snapshots" and generating reports in that frozen moment in time. Also easy to update reports by updating the data set
  • There is a significant learning curve, in my opinion. A user needs to be highly versed in database management, including SQL. A non-technical user will struggle mightily especially if they don't truly understand their data
  • You probably need a dedicated specialist on the team to take full advantage of the software. Complex analytics start appearing rather quickly in our field.
  • Qlikview can do automatic joins in a flat file structure. This may or may not be a good feature.
  • Generate quick reports for requirements that don't require complex calculations. ROI was fine, but Tableau software was much more intuitive for non-technical users on our team
  • When putting Qlikview reports side by side with Tableau, we ended up delivering Tableau reports since they were quicker to generate and required no technical expertise
We like Tableau over QlikView. QlikView has depth, but we do not necessarily have the time or man power to become full fledged experts in QlikView. Tableau is far quicker to pick up and generates reports that are neat and clean as well. Just check their stock symbols QLIK vs Data and see for yourself :)
We chose Tableau over QlikView. If Tableau did not exist we would use QlikView, but in a fast paced environment, our clients can respond most effectively if we stick to one tool. As great as QV is, we think Tableau is even faster with their drag and drop interface. Also, right click solves most problems in Tableau, which isn't as straightforward as QV.
There is a learning curve, so I would recommend this to anyone with technical expertise who wants to generate quick reports. Slicing and dicing data is kind of intuitive, but being able to write and join scripts is not an everyday user skill. Simple questions like "Who?" "What?" and "When" are easily answered. Surface level calculations are also not too difficult. When you want to get into more depth with complex calculations, you definitely need support.