Clear Analytics vs. Microsoft BI (MSBI) vs. Progress MOVEit

Clear Analytics has almost all the features which are mostly required by the organizations for their data analytics and transformation activities. Clear Analytics is built on the support of a parallel query engine which makes it handle large volume requests and also provides optimized results. However, every solution has some limitations, Clear Analytics lacks advanced features such as Predictive Analytics which is a very demanding feature in the market as most organizations are adopting AI/ML automation for their businesses. Also, it needs to add a lot of advanced visualizations so that the user has the choice of selection. Overall a good solution to be recommended.

Incentivized

Microsoft BI is well suited for Stream analytics, easy data integration, report creation and UI/UX designs (limited but what all available are great ones) Microsoft BI may be less appropriate for handling huge number of datasets and difficult queries. It may also be difficult for a company with heavy data.

MOVEit is actively used on a dedicated server to supply clients with SFTP transactions. Automation is configured easily and safely. We rely on MOVEit to provide the transmission of daily, weekly, and monthly files across many companies and businesses. MOVEit is recommended by my group for any SFTP needs etc.

Incentivized

• Quick management of the data through Excel thanks to the tools Clear Analytics provides such as filtering different information for an easier view.
• Ability to add new KPIs to measure different areas of our business.
• Drag and drop tool which makes an easier usage of Excel.
• Cost-effective. I find Clear Analytics to be affordable considering the number of features added and the unlimited sharing and editing it provides.

Incentivized

• Comparatively easy to use compared to other data analytics solutions, collaborating with other colleagues on data work is simple.
• Using Visual Studio for database, ETL, reporting, and analytics development save time and money.
• Transfer of data from one application to another via Excel and comparison of data attributes between applications
• Dashboard functionality, as well as Python support, are available, allowing you to add additional charts and graphs.

Incentivized

• Dashboard provides good insight and quick access to troubled jobs
• Being able to handle file transfer across various protocols securely
• Ability to connect to various cloud sites and storage (SharePoint, Amazon S3)
• Easy SSL certificate implementation of the web UI
• Easy SSH with certificate implementation
• Strong permissions configuration.

Incentivized

• For Charts and Graphs , getting the Power Point Deck would be helpful. As of now we use the data from Excel Reports

Incentivized

• The race to perfect gathering of Non-Traditional datasets is on-going; with Microsoft arguably not the leader of the pack in this category.
• Licensing options for PowerBI visualizations may be a factor. I.e. if you need to implement B2C PowerBI visualizations, the cost is considerably high especially for startups.
• Some clients are still resistant putting their data on the cloud, which restricts lots of functionality to Power BI.

Incentivized

• Drag and dropping of files to attached to packages.
• I believe there is room for improvement when it comes to setting up folder and group security.
• A better mobile app is absolutely needed. The current app lacks in features.

Incentivized

Microsoft BI is fundamental to our suite of BI applications. That being said, Northcraft Analytics is focused on delighting our customers, so if the underlying factors of our decision change, we would choose to re-write our BI applications on a different stack. Luckily, mathematics are the fundamental IP of our technology... and is portable across all BI platforms for the foreseeable future.

I have really enjoyed working with Clear Analytics. This platform has contributed to increased production and reliable data control processes. It has flexible user interface that can be operated by any organization member. Reports are shared on simple and transparent way in the dashboard for easy access. Data analytics from all departments have created manageable working environment that have increased production.

Incentivized

The Microsoft BI tools have great usability for both developers and end users alike. For developers familiar with Visual Studio, there is little learning curve. For those not, the single Visual Studio IDE means not having to learn separate tools for each component. For end-users, the web interface for SSRS is simple to navigate with intuitive controls. For ad-hoc analysis, Excel can connect directly to SSAS and provide a pivot table like experience which is familiar to many users. For database development, there is beginning to be some confusion, as there are now three tool choices (VS, SSMS, Azure Data Studio) for developers. I would like to see Azure Data Studio become the superset of SSMS and eventually supplant it.

Incentivized

The product has been reliable.

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) can drag at times. We created two report servers and placed them under an F5 load balancer. This configuration has worked well. We have seen sluggish performance at times due to the Windows Firewall.

I have had multiple scenarios where I had to reach out to the support team of Clear Analytics, be it access-related, general queries, during initial implementation, etc. My overall experience has always been good. I got the needed support every time without any delay. I can definitely recommend Clear Analytics simply on the basis of its excellent support team.

Incentivized

While support from Microsoft isn't necessarily always best of breed, you're also not paying the price for premium support that you would on other platforms. The strength of the stack is in the ecosystem that surrounds it. In contrast to other products, there are hundreds, even thousands of bloggers that post daily as well as vibrant user communities that surround the tool. I've had much better luck finding help with SQL Server related issues than I have with any other product, but that help doesn't always come directly from Microsoft.

This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.

I have used on-line training from Microsoft and from Pragmatic Works. I would recommend Pragmatic Works as the best way to get up to speed quickly, and then use the Microsoft on-line training to deep dive into specific features that you need to get depth with.

We are a consulting firm and as such our best resources are always billing on client projects. Our internal implementation has weaknesses, but that's true for any company like ours. My rating is based on the product's ease of implementation.

There are other great tools that are out there but Clear Analytics is reasonable for our business and provides a lot of features that we specifically needed

Incentivized

We have used the built in ConnectWise Manager reports and custom reports. The reports provide static data. PowerBI shows us live data we can drill down into and easily adjust parameters. It's much more useful than a static PDF report.

Incentivized

We previously used Attunity MFT (Formerly Repliweb MFT); We were looking to move away from the platform becuase, while flexible, it was too flexible. The flexibility was gained by running scripts with each job to do what you want. So, not only did you have to define the job (Source and Destination), you had to have a fairly strong programming background. Tasks as simple as renaming files with a date stamp, required a script be written. MoveIt has many of these basic macros available for file name manipulations like various date pieces, times, file names, etc, and they're all well documented. Ex: [OrigName] = Original Filename (TestFile.pdf), [OnlyName] = Just the filename, no extension (TestFile), [OnlyExt] = Just the file extentions (.pdf). Pretty much every field within a job can use pre-defined Macros, which is a huge benefit. We also moved away from that platform because it had gone stale, it wasn't their "Core" product. The vendor supported it, but was not actively developing it or fixing bugs or anything. We went 2-3 years without even an update to the binary. MoveIt is one of Progress's "Core" products, so they are adding features / functionality and fixing bugs actively

Incentivized

• Super useful to get started immediately
• Didn't have to rely on migrating data
• Easy to add members
• Easy to learn and build charts

Incentivized

• As a SaaS provider we see being able to provide self-service BI to our client users as a competitive advantage. In fact the MSSQL enabled BI is a contributing factor to many winning RFPs we have done for prospective client organisations.
• However MSSQL BI requires extensive knowledge and skills to design and develop data warehouses & data models as a foundation to support business analysts and users to interrogate data effectively and efficiently. Often times we find having strong in-house MSSQL expertise is a bless.

Incentivized

• It gave us the ability to exchange files with customers and vendors in a secure manner.
• Given the sensitivity of our files exchange, MOVEit helped in gaining the trust of our customers that their data is safe.
• Using its API, we were able to build a custom app that is adding even more features, specific to our needs, like empowering project managers with more permissions on their folders

Incentivized