Astera ReportMiner vs. ibi WebFOCUS

Astera ReportMiner is well suited for those who work with EMR Data or business operations data where different platforms may report on similar data but not everything is the same between the different systems and how they export their data. It works especially well when systems can't edit their exports so you need to clean up data a lot before they are combined into a single file. It is less appropriate a solution when you are trying to combine large data, let's say thousands of files and need some sort of platform to deduce analytic patterns out of it. This is more used for data preparedness rather than big data analysis. This may have changed with recent updates, however they do not do a good job of updating customers on new releases so keeping track of their developments is something worth doing if data management is an important part of your/your company's role.

I would less recommend it because it looks like IBI is receding a bit from the European market. I would not be certain for future support. Knowledge in the market in western Europe is limited Functional wise the application suits almost all situations. I would for sure recommend it purely based on its capabilities

Incentivized

• ReportMiner's OCR accuracy is flawless to my experience. I use the program to pull values from check details, and have yet to find an error.
• ReportMiner's interface is easy to learn. I never even got formal training on the program. I watched some YouTube videos and learned as I went.
• ReportMiner training personnel is very knowledgeable and quick to respond. Anytime I ran into a problem I could not figure out on my own, they would get back with me within a half a day.

• One thing that has always been good at WebFOCUS is how they interact with the customer on items. They take suggestions and implement them. In addition technical support is timely and very detailed.
• I think they keep up with and lead in implementing new technologies in the BI space. One case of this are the ability for user to create their own easy dashboard using the green plus buttons. Also the ability to link d3 into and have the ability to implement new types of graphs is nice.
• I have been to a spoke at one of their user conferences and they are worth going to. In addition to all of the great seminars the interaction you get with vendors and other users is key in the growth of your knowledge. I've learned so much for my time at these conferences.

Incentivized

• Could provide some features to help with advanced analytics for big data. (i.e. larger data sets)
• Too much clutter on their Youtube page, they should highlight the tutorials so they are easier to find for new users. Get rid of old tutorial video playlists so the organization is clean and up to date.
• Have sales rep follow up with customers to offer product updates, new product releases, and do check ins to see if customers have suggestions for feature improvement.

• The newest versions of WebFOCUS have an unnecessarily complicated security layout that makes configuration difficult to accomplish without bringing in the vendor for installs.
• This software tries to cover too many bases allowing you to switch from writing code manually to creating reports using only GUI tools. This sometimes complicates screens and functionality where the two methods don't always work well together. -though its nice to have the choice.
• The sales force is not as top notch as many software companies

Incentivized

It is the best way to get a multi line record from pdf to Excel in one row.

This software is deeply engrained with my organization and has become a tool that would not easily be replaced without spending more money and resources to get the same results. License cost is comparable to other report writing tools and the capabilities are greater than the competition without having to buy multiple apps to do the same thing.

Incentivized

Best BI tool/product I have used. The others don't compare overall. Some can look fancier, but when you actually use them with large data and data from numerous systems/sources that is where most of the competition falls away. I also don't like downtime. I have basically none for a large user base with WebFocus. Even SAP Crystal Reports went down for 4 days once - 4 days because the admin password got locked out due to a glitch and we had zero reports for 4 days. WebFocus has never had more than a few minutes of downtime. It's like a tank that just keeps rolling. There is no other choice for reliable BI.

Incentivized

Tracking availability formally for almost two years and we are at 99.8%

Incentivized

They have extremely knowledgeable techs that I have worked with over the years. Some have actually become really good friends of mine. I see them often at local user groups and when we show them how we are using their tools to save millions of dollars throughout the company

Incentivized

It's hit and miss, the last class was overcrowded and people were having trouble connecting which took up much of the time. Instructors vary

Incentivized

Plan ahead on what data will be accessible and the type of security required on the database and if you will want to use security that is built into the software. It is worth consulting with the vendor on what your plan is and how they recommend you proceed in order to get results you are happy with.

Incentivized

I have never actually used another program like ReportMiner. Before I was just using PDF viewers such as Adobe that had OCR capabilities. I would have to select a range of numbers and copy and paste to Excel. It was tedious, slow, and sometimes error prone. I chose to learn ReportMiner because it saves me at least 4 times the amount of time I would have to use by copy and pasting.

Webfocus handles the side of our business that is involved with our catalogs. Our catalogs is a huge revenue driver for us and this tool has been extremely useful with planning feature catalogs. Tableau is used more for marketing and merchandising purchases since we can filter data based on website sales.

Incentivized

• Efficient and automated data extraction. Saves time and resources.
• User-friendly interface and good documentation. It is therefore easiest to learn and apply in a short time.
• Documents, which have various formats of data tables or arrangement, needed a lot of manual fixing. So it required a lot of time for validation and quality control.

• We are not yet a success story. Though we've been implementing WebFOCUS for over a year, we have very few products in our Production portal. Of course, this is not all the responsibility of Information Builders, but we were ill-advised by our 'training coordinator' in our training of staff and coming up to speed with the tools has been very slow.
• Once skilled analysts and professional IT staff achieve a grasp of the products, they are able to very quickly create polished and well-received products.
• The DW/BI project has helped us to establish standards and protocols of communication that will allow us to more quickly meet knowledge transfer requirements