Gephi vs. Salesforce CRM Analytics

It is well suited for projects that are more discovery related. If this is a one-time project that we create a visual for, this would definitely make sense to use. If this is an ongoing analysis (monthly for example), we might look to another software that we would be able to automate a little further in how the visualization comes together

Incentivized

For us it really comes down to that book management and next best contact for our advisors. When we're thinking about a book of business that may range, depending on the advisor, from 400 clients to a thousand clients, how do they really optimize their time? Who do they call next? Who do they work with to make sure not only they're keeping those clients engaged, they're not leaving the firm going to other advisors who they haven't talked to in a while who might need their attention. That's really where that CRM analytics is really proven pretty powerful for us.

Incentivized

• In comparison to other tools such as GraphWiz or Circos, Gephi comes with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface that makes it easy to load your data, and quickly start building all sorts of different graphs. There's absolutely no code that needs to be written for either loading or modeling. And without downloading additional plug-ins, Gephi ships with quite a few standard graph models, as well as some "fun" extras such as the Sierpinski triangle, and a variety of force atlas types.
• Most of the layout types (maybe all) are highly configurable, which can make for extremely customized and unique displays of your data. Again, none of this requires the user to write any code. That said, it is possible to script custom functionality for your models, or even update the Java source code yourself, if you feel like getting technical. Gephi builds are available on GitHub, and the developers encourage people to contribute ideas, improvements, and plug-ins.
• There's a plug-in for Gephi that allows for streaming data to update your model. This essentially allows you to create near realtime graphs of your data in motion. This plug-in was by far the biggest reaston we invested time in the product; to create animated data visualizations without exhaustive hours in development.

• Interactive Dashboards, it [consists] of wide variety of charts
• Data from different sources can be easily integrated with it
• Security, it provides easy way to secure and share the information with the users
• Support actions like opening hyperlink etc
• Almost everything can be done from configuration
• Data can easily be managed from dataflow.

Incentivized

• I (and many others) have had to expand Gephi's memory manually by experimenting with the configuration file. I'm glad it's possible, but it should be easier.
• Gephi sometimes crashes inexplicably and loses your work, so I have developed a habit of explicitly exporting versions of my graphs as csv's, but I think this should be handled automatically in Gephi.
• Because it is prone to crash, ideally, Gephi would help the user manage his/her use, by estimating processing and memory for very large tasks and prompting the user to confirm their requests before executing. Instead, I just tend to avoid certain functions.

• Implementation takes time and resources. It is a heavy lift to implement and at first, it can take a little bit of time to understand what you are looking at. But once it's implemented it's easy to get started.
• Without any BI expertise or resources available to your organization, the implementation of this is difficult. If you aren't used to BI tools and don't have an expert in house, the terminology can be difficult to understand at first.
• Their support is not on hand to help you if you encounter any issues, at least not on all the plans or the basic plans. Real-time support service is an add-on, so you'll need to be patient if you require help or pay extra money.
• More functionality for the tool is needed to compete with other heavyweights in the arena like Tableau, Qlik, and Microstrategy. Still lacks the robustness, functionality, and flexibility other competing products possess.

Incentivized

While Gephi isn't perfect, it's a powerful tool for mathematical graph modelling that's hard to find in other products, particularly by way of its interface. It grants non-software developers access to a point-and-click way of creating accurate, beautiful visualizations that would normally take hours in other applications. The fact that it allows for live streaming data is also something that's hard to come by, at least for visualization software

Gephi is very intuitive and the fact that it shows its process helps the user understand what's going on. However, the animation features can really slow it down and there isn't a way to shut them off. Furthermore, the failures on saving mean you frequently have to start over. These problems disrupt the workflow and can be frustrating.

For someone who don't have coding background, this could be a useful tool and fairly easy to learn and use given the good support. However, if you know other open source tools, it would be much easier to use the other tools and the knowledge is more transferable in the future.

Incentivized

I was not able to be in interaction much with Salesforce support team since every feature works the way it should be working. So far I have not experienced any bug or major glitches that would delay the result of my work and performance. There is also a hotline in our company for Salesforce issue but so far I have not used it.

Incentivized

An implementation partner would certainly result in greater output in a more efficient amount of time. However, I have found implementation partners to be extremely expensive for the output received (at least working for a non-profit company they are frequently unaffordable). Internal implementation does help with usable output though since internal knowledge would better know the data architecture and business processes

Incentivized

The interactivity in Gephi and the quality of the output figures are impressive. However, the selling point was the fact that we were able to link Gephi into our pipeline using Java's interface. Other products were less customizable and lacking of the sophistication Gephi provided without too much pain during the liking process.

Incentivized

Tableau is the absolute top of the class when it comes to business intelligence, but it doesn't make sense for every business case. In our case, we needed a simple data visualization platform for our CRM platform and sales pipeline. Salesforce Analytics, while nowhere near as robust, did the job we needed it to do perfectly in a significantly more cost-effective manner.

Incentivized

• I have only used the product for education purposes. I will not be the best person to provide details about ROI and business efficiency and customer service. I was personally very excited about the tool and am continuing my work on the tool.

• I would say it's been positive just because as a company, anyone that has access to it can go in there and pull any company information and we're very up to date then on all of our client base. So I would say it's been a very positive impact.

Incentivized