Board vs. ibi WebFOCUS

Board is a useful tool with a great set of features. We migrated from human apps to board and we find it relatively fast in search results and better-managed threads and forums. There are some areas, such as UI and interactions which could be improved but overall a great product. The learning section is also pretty good.

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

• The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate
• You don't need programming knowledge to create dashboards which is a great flex for non-technical users
• You can seamlessly convert large, raw, and complex data to meaningful reports to visualize better and plan to act accordingly
• The financial forecasting that Board provides post-analysis is truly reliable

• 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

• Board BI tool has a steep learning curve and can be challenging for a new user to reach to board's full capacity.
• We have to use a windows scheduler to schedule data import tasks; it would be great if Board could provide its own scheduler.

• 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

Board is a fantastic product for swift BI solution delivery when compared with its peers. Ease of use, support and integration with Microsoft Office Addin open a wide horizon of opportunities for further enhancements to solutions. Easy bespoke app development capabilities make it a winner for us. BOARD is just like a white canvas, it lets you explore your creative side while designing and delivering a solution

Incentivized

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

From a user perspective, Board is quite simple to use. You
can evaluate the presentation of the data, the navigation, the configuration of
the users, the selection of the data etc ... It would have a better rating if
it were even more intuitive as regards the construction of a project, starting
from the database, to the info-cubes, to entities, to data acquisition
procedures from other servers.

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

very fast and no integration problems

Incentivized

The only time I needed assistance was due to a problem in
the prints: the colors of the brochures as they were on the screen were not
reproduced in the print, but a series of standard colors were reproduced. This
fact made colored numbers on a colored background illegible. From the
assistance they confirmed that it was a problem of version 10.2 that occurred
when leaving the brochures with the default colors proposed by Board. To obtain
the desired colors, they had to be personalized ... I didn't like the solution
very much and the technician who recommended it didn't like me either, but they
would have solved the problem with the following versions. In any case, the
assistance was quick and effective even if not exactly efficient.

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

Board is fairly simple and straight forward. Advance training on workflows and procedures is a good one but the training content only touches through the interesting areas. training content needs to cover a few areas more in-depth

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

The problem of user profiling in our context is certainly
quite complex. The complexity is given by the fact that the company is divided
territorially into logistic points of sale, but at the same time they are
virtually divided into divisions (or specific implementation areas) and points
of sale of competence. The same operator can have access to data at different
logistic sales points, sales points of competence and divisions.

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

Board has been more complete when compared to Anaplan. Although I didn't participate in the buying decision of any of those products I have used both and by far Board just has more features. It's more than a CPM, it's BI and CPM put together. If I had to make a choice now it would be Board.

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

• Board facilitates proactive decision making - it gives all the insights of the company's needs, which includes predictive analytics and manipulation of data to make different types of reports.
• Easy to use for non-programmer and integration with other software is seamless. It has [the] ability to handle large amounts of data.
• It facilitates advanced decision-making.

Incentivized

• 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