DataHero vs. Microsoft BI (MSBI) vs. Phocas Business Intelligence

DataHero ensures every business user in my organization is up to date on key performance metrics and insights through robust data analytics and a configurable data dashboard.

Incentivized

Microsoft BI has a lot of features and is a very powerful tool, especially if you have folks on your team that know how to utilize all of its capabilities. To truly unlock all that it can do, it does require people to have a deep understanding of its capabilities. That's where the software really shines. If you are looking for a simpler, more basic reporting tool, there are other programs available that do not require such a steep learning curve.

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If you would like your data in one place with easy access, this is the software for you. You can have data from multiple systems and bring it into one view so that you have a quick and easily visible dashboard for the data you wish to see.

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• Collecting data from on-premise and cloud data repositories.
• Availability of drag and drop chart creation improves data visualization.
• It makes it effective to share insights with KPI dashboards.

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• 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.

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• Custom reports are simple to create.
• The ability to manage users and their dashboards is solid.
• Easy to navigate web interface makes the software accessible from anywhere.

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• Collecting data from on-premise tools like Concur Invoice was overwhelming, but we were able to partner with external service providers.

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• MSBI designs can work on increasing data processing capabilities enough to handle the huge datasets etc.
• It would be a lot better if it is a little low on cost.
• it needs to create opportunities little more than they do regarding customization of some very unique visualization effects

• Phocas needs to make it easier to connect to different types of databases.
• The data in Phocas needs to be updated faster in some cases.
• It needs to provide functions to create better charts and graphs.

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.

DataHero has intuitive and easy to use user interface making it easy to navigate features.

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.

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It is a very user-friendly product and is easy to understand. You can get your data from just a quick click and the dashboard loads. You can take the data and drill down easy to find what you are looking for.

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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 haven't interacted with DataHero support, but they must be knowledgeable and responsive regarding how they have documented the features on this tool.

Incentivized

MSBI natively has a site that allows you to vote on user enhancements and bug fixes. This allows the largest nagging issues to float to the top and the development team can prioritize accordingly. As mentioned earlier, the large community base of MSBI developers assist technical resources in handling technical questions.

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Support is responsive. You log a call and they will respond quickly and resolve your issues. We have only had great experiences with the support team.

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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.

Both DataHero and Excel4apps are great business intelligence tools, but the latter don't offer room for growth due to unavailability of large and global enterprises BI tools.

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.

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Phocas is easy to use for end users and can be used on desktops, laptops, and phones.

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• Seamless insight sharing across teams in different departments increase productivity.
• DataHero keep us updated by getting insights across all datasets.
• No stale data or manual procedures when reporting with DataHer.

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• 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 has given our business a view on data
• We can access it from anywhere
• You can have multiple dashboards for different information

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