Entrinsik Informer is a web-based reporting and business intelligence application popular in the higher education vertical market. It helps organizations transform real-time data into actionable information by delivering ad-hoc reporting, data analysis, and interactive dashboards.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Systems Specialist in Information Technology at College of the Desert (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
Our organization used to use the built in reporting tool for Datatel, but it required more knowledge about SQL so only a handful of users could actually use it. There was no customization of the output or ability to schedule the queries. If you wanted something more complex …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Contract Consultant for Advancement/Advancement Software at Ferrilli Information Group (Higher Education, 11-50 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
As an independent consultant, I've never been in a position to influence the actual selection of EI. I do, however, recommend it to all my clients primarily based on its price point and on its accessibility by a greater number of staff members.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Director of Technical Information Resources in Information Technology at Meredith College (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
I really liked using the Query Builder that was once part of our Colleague system; however, it really relied on power users to provide the information to the campus. As Query Builder was phased out, our campus moved to Informer. The switch over was very successful. For most end …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Entrinsik Informer
Very cheap solution with 90% same features as top software solutions
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Entrinsik Informer
Informer is much better than the old QueryBuilder tool that was a part of the Colleague interface. Schools using SQL Server for the back end may want to weigh the pros and cons between Informer and SSRS (Sql Server Reporting Services) since SSRS comes with no extra costs in …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Programmer/Database Administrator in Information Technology at Danville Area Community College (Higher Education, 201-500 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
We needed to implement a new reporting tool due to Query Builder being eliminated. We went with Entrinsik Informer because it was already being used at some other Colleges that were also using Datatel/Ellucian Colleague, and the reviews from those Colleges were very positive. A …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Entrinsik Informer
I have experience with Advizor AnalystX, and it was just awful. It is advertised as an interactive reporting tool, in which you can use your mouse to select and segment constituents by where they live (by clicking on a map), how much they've given to your institution, when they …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Entrinsik Informer
As stated it works well for extractions, but lacks report design capability. One other thing it does well is query multiple database platforms at the same time. E.g. mysql and unidata.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Director- IT Solutions Consulting and Information Management in Information Technology at Berklee College of Music (Music, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
We use Informer with Ellucian Colleague instead of Ellucian's solutions which were substandard when we implemented Informer and remain unattractive for a variety of reasons with the standouts being cost and support. Informer is a fraction of the cost and the admin …
Programmer Analyst in Information Technology at The College of Wooster (Higher Education, 51-200 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
Informer is not as advanced as Business Objects or Tableau, and we have had to use Tableau at times with reports that used a lot of aggregation, but the simplicity is often a strong suit of Informer, allowing users without programming experience the ability to create simple …
Accountant in Finance and Accounting at Cape Fear Community College (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
The closet thing we had to Informer before was something called Query Builder. However, unless you were really good at coding and technology, it was like reading greek to the basic user of our system. Informer provides such an easy user experience that most people who were …
Business Application Specialist in Information Technology at St Ambrose University (Higher Education, 51-200 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
Informer is more cost effective and easier to teach end users to write their own reports, but it still provides just as much functionality as the other products I've used. Informer is easy to manage and administer with a small number of IT employees per number of end users.
DBA in Information Technology at Elgin Community College (Education Management, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
Before purchasing Entrinsik Informer we used Query Builder or Excel via an odbc driver to access and report of off Unidata. Both of these other products only allowed us to report off of one table at a time. If you wanted data from multiple tables that had to be done with some …
Director, Information Technology Services in Information Technology at Davidson County Community College (Education Management, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Entrinsik Informer
Crystal Reports with UniDATA ODBC. This works quite well but is cumbersome to set up and maintain. This required several steps outside the UniDATA database as well as setting up security views and a variety of processes that have to be monitored more closely. No other systems …
Verified User
Chose Entrinsik Informer
We have implemented Blackboard for use by faculty with their students, for posting classroom materials and for interaction in many ways, but we have not used it for reporting purposes. We have allowed querying directly from Ellucian Colleague in the past, but that was not as …
It makes creating queries very easy for end users so not only research or technicians can do it. The availability for creating Live reports that are accessible via Excel on the network has given many of our users the ability to get the information they need in a format they can use without needing someone to translate the raw data
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Simple user-interface: Informer is relatively easy to learn and end users can begin running reports and creating new reports quickly.
Email "burst" functionality: This feature allows emails to be sent out based on data in the report. So for example, a report could be scheduled that would email all student employment managers listing out the specific employees that report to them that haven't submitted their time sheets. Each manager would only see the rows that correspond to their email address.
Analytics and grouping: Users can quickly drag columns to group and sub-total, and can use the analytics tab to get deeper insights into the data.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
There are a lot of reports that we have in Informer that say they have never been run, even though I know they have been run. So that makes it really difficult to determine which reports can be deleted to keep a tidy report list.
The only other complaint I have about Informer is that there doesn't seem to be a properly detailed error code/message when the student information system can't be accessed. For example, I am currently trying to move Informer to its own standalone server and I get an error message saying that our license isn't valid. Informer Support sent a new license, which prompted the same message, and the only explanation they have given me is that Informer can't reach the student information system. I would think that if that were the case, the error message would say that instead of an invalid license.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Informer has been handily meeting most of our reporting needs, and we've created a library of hundreds of reports that are used every day. They have a terrific support service to help when you have questions, and I've found them to be great at listening to what customers would like and adding new features. They are a small company that really listens and really cares, and I've been very pleased over the past few years getting to know them.
From the perspective of the new user and a seasoned user I would say eight would represent both parties. It presents a 'familiar' interface and easy to navigate display. Tagging is quite nice and allows for organization of reports based on those tags. These have to be monitored like anything else to keep them consistent but provides a better than average means of organizing reports.
Always able to get acceptable solutions in reasonable time from friendly support staff. Initial contact is always with knowledgeable person - not someone reading from a script trying to screen calls. Thanks Entrinsik for being in tune with my needs.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
We bought the product on a Thursday morning, and we were writing reports on Friday afternoon. We did take about a month to manage the Mapping, Linking and Security to allow us to open it up across campus. We are now mapping from as many third-party vendors as we can to enable the creation of more ad-hoc reporting.
I have experience with Advizor AnalystX, and it was just awful. It is advertised as an interactive reporting tool, in which you can use your mouse to select and segment constituents by where they live (by clicking on a map), how much they've given to your institution, when they last gave, etc. In practice, their map feature was unusable; it's a static map image (imagine a paper map hung on your wall), rather than draggable and zoomable Google Maps, and it required hours of work to configure one map region. As far as computing constituents' giving statistics, it required way too much back-end work to build simple giving totals.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
We have definitely improved customer service due to better reporting using Informer. All departments are better empowered to help our students in a more timely and accurate manner.
Using Informer has given us the ability to eliminate functionality within our ERP system and offload reporting to a data store instead of the transactional system. This has resulted in successfully upgrading our core systems and improved response times.