Astrato Analytics vs. Entrinsik Informer

Astrato Analytics provides a feature-rich application that it easy to use for the non-technical user yet robust enough to create a sophisticated SaaS application. Astrato Analytics provides native integration to all the major large cloud data platforms and the implementation is very straight forward. The value provided through their feature-rich platform and competitive pricing is unmatched.

It makes creating queries very easy for end users so not only research or technicians can do it. The availability for creating Live reports that are accessible via Excel on the network has given many of our users the ability to get the information they need in a format they can use without needing someone to translate the raw data

Incentivized

• Writeback to the database is simple and straightforward and allows us to build apps in the tool with a level of interation that is not possible with other BI tools
• Version control that is built into the workbooks allows us to quickly deploy changes without the fear of losing the older version and maintianing both a historcal updates and the ability to rollback
• Easy connectivity to a wide range of data platforms including Snowflake, Databricks, and Google Workspace within the same tenant allows us to leverage data from each of these platforms for specific use cases

• Simple user-interface: Informer is relatively easy to learn and end users can begin running reports and creating new reports quickly.
• Email "burst" functionality: This feature allows emails to be sent out based on data in the report. So for example, a report could be scheduled that would email all student employment managers listing out the specific employees that report to them that haven't submitted their time sheets. Each manager would only see the rows that correspond to their email address.
• Analytics and grouping: Users can quickly drag columns to group and sub-total, and can use the analytics tab to get deeper insights into the data.

Incentivized

• The product is still young, as a consequence, some features aren't as mature as competitors. Astrato has worked to catch up quickly, by rolling out new features regularly
• Better ability to control icons and themes from a central point, instead of having to add/change them on each report

Incentivized

• There are a lot of reports that we have in Informer that say they have never been run, even though I know they have been run. So that makes it really difficult to determine which reports can be deleted to keep a tidy report list.
• The only other complaint I have about Informer is that there doesn't seem to be a properly detailed error code/message when the student information system can't be accessed. For example, I am currently trying to move Informer to its own standalone server and I get an error message saying that our license isn't valid. Informer Support sent a new license, which prompted the same message, and the only explanation they have given me is that Informer can't reach the student information system. I would think that if that were the case, the error message would say that instead of an invalid license.

Incentivized

Informer has been handily meeting most of our reporting needs, and we've created a library of hundreds of reports that are used every day. They have a terrific support service to help when you have questions, and I've found them to be great at listening to what customers would like and adding new features. They are a small company that really listens and really cares, and I've been very pleased over the past few years getting to know them.

It is a very intuitive system, a pleasure to use, practical and simple, for medium to advanced activities. BI supervisors are delighted with much of the functionality, but highlight some weaknesses that they still have, such as the loading speed in HEIC-type files.

Without a doubt, it is a tool that has become essential in our business routine.

Incentivized

From the perspective of the new user and a seasoned user I would say eight would represent both parties. It presents a 'familiar' interface and easy to navigate display. Tagging is quite nice and allows for organization of reports based on those tags. These have to be monitored like anything else to keep them consistent but provides a better than average means of organizing reports.

We have 10 concurrent licenses and we average between 6-8 at any given time during the day; and we host the application.

Very friendly, with online help, blog and community. The template documentation could be more complete, however.

Incentivized

I would have given 10 but no one and no system is perfect. The only issue with support is not the staff nor the response but the support Wiki and support pages in general run very slow at times. I believe this has been addressed by the company but the technical speed of the pages have been an issue.

We bought the product on a Thursday morning, and we were writing reports on Friday afternoon. We did take about a month to manage the Mapping, Linking and Security to allow us to open it up across campus. We are now mapping from as many third-party vendors as we can to enable the creation of more ad-hoc reporting.

To scale PowerBi, we would have needed a staff of technical folks and a substantial budget, and we still probably could not have created the robust SaaS application we did with Astrato Analytics. Astrato Analytics allowed for a staff of two to create and rollout a SaaS Application in under 60 days and provided hands on support to us as needed. There really is no comparison.

I have experience with Advizor AnalystX, and it was just awful. It is advertised as an interactive reporting tool, in which you can use your mouse to select and segment constituents by where they live (by clicking on a map), how much they've given to your institution, when they last gave, etc. In practice, their map feature was unusable; it's a static map image (imagine a paper map hung on your wall), rather than draggable and zoomable Google Maps, and it required hours of work to configure one map region. As far as computing constituents' giving statistics, it required way too much back-end work to build simple giving totals.

Incentivized

• The ability to unify multiple platforms in Astrato provides cost savings.

• We have definitely improved customer service due to better reporting using Informer. All departments are better empowered to help our students in a more timely and accurate manner.
• Using Informer has given us the ability to eliminate functionality within our ERP system and offload reporting to a data store instead of the transactional system. This has resulted in successfully upgrading our core systems and improved response times.