Dundas BI vs. iDashboards Enterprise Suite

For all the scenarios I have so far worked on or I am currently working on, Dundas BI has proved to be more than adequate and apt to handle all of those. It is a very easy-to-use tool with quick shortcuts enabling you to prepare ad-hoc reports or dashboards in a matter of minutes.

Incentivized

iDashboards is well suited for an office environment or organization with fewer personnel and resources. Its efficiency allows for less "man" hours. In terms of selection, the primary key question during process was cost, great tech support service, and efficiency. About where it may be less appropriate, it will be an office where information production, consumption, and dissemination is not a priority

Incentivized

• Project organization from Development to Production, you get a production and development license but I think the best way to do it is with DEV and Prod project in the Production box. Use the development box for testing updates and really crazy things. With the Dev and Prod projects on the same box, you just publish from Dev to Prod and you are done. Users only have access to the Prod projects so no one can mess up what you are working on.
• Security - If you have a hierarchy (subsidiaries, divisions, department, teams) and you want each group to see only their data, then Security hierarchies are for you!
• Dependent filters! What's this you ask? Here is an example of how it can be used, in your company you have departments and who works for what department is in your database. You make a dashboard that has a department filter (only show these departments), a managers filter, and employee filter. Not every manager or employee is in multiple departments usually only one. With dependent filters you can say that the manager and employee filter are dependent on what is selected in the departments filter so when you go to filter them they only show the managers or employees that are part of that department, and you can even it do so employees are not only dependent on department but on manager as well. Then it gets even better as it can be done in reverse as well so when you select a manager then go to the department it only shows the departments he works for (there are better situations where this is more useful).
• It is scriptable! From calculate columns, null replacements, button actions, load actions, hover over events there a way to do what you want.
• They are constantly improving and listens to your suggestions.

Incentivized

• Designing a dashboard is easy. In other words, it is fairly easy to make data look really nice!
• Data Analytics. This makes it easy to do calculations on your data (averages, etc.)
• Training and examples: Our introduction to iDashboards was thorough. There are plenty of tutorials as well, plus manuals.

Incentivized

• Not too many cons for how we use the application. It really is easy and powerful. Very powerful.
• Licensing is one thing that could be looked into. It is simple, but a little confusing. For example, if I get a license today, but a new release comes out tomorrow, it seems that the license doesn't work with the new release. Maybe that is by design, but it would be nice to clearly understand.

• Provide basic video training tutorials
• Ability to upload/convert Excel data to non-Windows servers such as Linux or AIX
• Increase the data row limitation

Incentivized

Our executive leadership relies on the dashboards provided through the iDashboards software. Thus, there is no doubt the contract will be renewed.

Incentivized

We are still in the implementation phase, but so far we are finding it to be easy to use and learn. The eLearning courses that they have made available for free, as well as User Forums and other training videos have made even difficult concepts easier to understand.

iDashboards are fairly logical and easy to use once you get started. I have taught myself most of what I know on my own, by taking webinars, reading through all the knowledge base, and doing the tutorials. Expertise is needed to do some of the data manipulation, but most graphs are simple to make.

Incentivized

We have bi-weekly calls with our Success Manager, as well as access to support as needed. Any question that I have had, multiple people have been willing and able to jump on a call to talk me through it, or send an email with the solution

Providing that you have the client's needs well known, creating BI content using Dundas BI is a walk in the park!

Per dollar spent, it offers the widest range of features of the tools that we evaluated. It offers lots of options for how to configure your environment, though they are not always intuitive to figure out. Having an ETL layer was a must have for us, as well as the ability to host to secure HIPAA compliance. It is not a replacement for ad hoc reporting, but does a great job of creating parameterized reports and dashboards that look great.

Incentivized

iDashboards is easy to use right out of the box. The price point is very, very appealing and it offers everything the other products offer - ease of use and low cost.

• Coming from an SQL based standard delivery model, Dundas BI has provided a fantastic rate of ROI.
• The preparation and delivery time has reduced from weeks to just a few hours.

Incentivized

• iDashboards saved us from making a sizable investment in another HR dashboard
• iDashboards has improved the patient flow metrics
• Multiple FTEs have been repurposed as a result of automating the visualization and dissemination of data