Likelihood to Recommend The product is especially useful when you have real-time and/or time series data to analyze. If you have more mundane, simpler requirements, other products might do the job you need for less money (there are even some decent open source visualization tools you can find.) I know the product is very widely used in capital markets applications to monitor and analyze risk and price and volume changes; if you're working in that area, I don't think there's a better tool to use.
Read full review IBI (Information Builders)
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
Read full review Pros Creating a basic model to extract data from a report is very easy. Advanced features like Calculated Fields and External Lookups allow you to augment the raw data. You can create a "project" to automate the data extraction. Combined with Datapump (a separate DW app), you can fully automate the process once the raw report is generated. Read full review IBI (Information Builders)
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. Read full review Cons Recently, we had some major sticker-shock when we wanted to upgrade Data Pump. It is an exceptional product, but when the price jumped from $6,000 to over $60,000, it was impossible to get the funds approved internally for the upgrade. We also paid for yearly maintenance contracts which included Professional Services, but rarely found those services beneficial. However, we did receive all software upgrades for Datapump as part of the contract which we found to be very beneficial. However, with the new pricing, that is not longer the case. Read full review IBI (Information Builders)
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 Read full review Likelihood to Renew Even though we do not utilize it on a daily basis, I do hope my current company renews it's license. If not, I intend to purchase myself.
Read full review IBI (Information Builders)
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.
Read full review Usability IBI (Information Builders)
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.
David Maillie Application Development Analyst and Software Engineer
Read full review Reliability and Availability IBI (Information Builders)
Tracking availability formally for almost two years and we are at 99.8%
Read full review Support Rating IBI (Information Builders)
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
David Maillie Application Development Analyst and Software Engineer
Read full review Online Training IBI (Information Builders)
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
Read full review Implementation Rating IBI (Information Builders)
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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Datawatch is very good value of money compared to QlikView; QlikView is really more of a BI tool and has a lot of functions that I didn't need. Datawatch is very strong in the real-time area where Tableau, Panorama, and Qlik don't do very well. If you need to set up a visual monitoring dashboard, Datawatch is the best product I've seen for that. if you want to do a lot of in depth statistical analysis of large databases, Tableau is probably a good option.
Read full review IBI (Information Builders)
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.
Read full review Return on Investment Data Pump reduces complexity of report solutions by offering a standardized approach for organizing and scheduling 97% service level for past 5 years for all of our jobs going through Data Pump Read full review IBI (Information Builders)
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 Read full review ScreenShots Altair Monarch Screenshots