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Lightning Tools Data Viewer vs. Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Lightning Tools Data Viewer

    Score9.1 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    The Data Viewer provides data visualization in the form of reports or charts that can be created and customized to suit a business's needs. Silos of data exist in most organizations and yet contain valuable insights into how well the organization is performing and where action is needed. Those silos often include Microsoft Excel workbooks, Microsoft SQL Azure databases, On-Premises data sources accessible through OData or Business Connectivity Services and even SharePoint Lists. These data…

    $2,200

    per year per installation

    Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/APower BI for Office 365 allowed users to model and analyze data, and query large datasets with complex natural language queries. It has been discontinued in favor of other editions of Power BI going forward.N/A
    Pricing
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerPower BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Editions & Modules
    Data Viewer OnPrem
    $1,000
    per year Per installation, 1 x WFE
    Data Viewer Online
    $2,200
    per year per installation
    Data Viewer OnPrem Enterprise Edition
    POA
    per year Per installation, 4+ WFE
    Data Viewer Online Enterprise Edition
    POA
    per year per installation
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerPower BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsPrices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.20 per user / year on top of base price. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released. (online version)—
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerPower BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    9.0
    11 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Customizable dashboards9.11 Ratings8.011 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates9.11 Ratings10.08 Ratings
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings9.010 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    8.2
    1 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    9.5
    11 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Drill-down analysis6.41 Ratings9.011 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities9.11 Ratings9.011 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration9.11 Ratings10.011 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings10.06 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    3.6
    1 Ratings
    73% below category average
    Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    10.0
    11 Ratings
    22% above category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)3.61 Ratings10.010 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings10.011 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings10.08 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    -
    Ratings
    Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    9.5
    11 Ratings
    15% above category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings10.011 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings10.010 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings9.06 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.64 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.73 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    -
    Ratings
    Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    9.8
    10 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings10.010 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings10.09 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    -
    Ratings
    Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    9.5
    10 Ratings
    21% above category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings10.010 Ratings
    Mobile Application00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings10.09 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    -
    Ratings
    Power BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    7.8
    3 Ratings
    1% above category average
    REST API00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerPower BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
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    Chartio (discontinued)
    Score7.5 out of 10
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Jet Reports
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Kibana
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerPower BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (15 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (10 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (9 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerPower BI For Office 365 (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Lightning Tools
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer is well suited for re-surfacing data and customizing its look and feel.
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    If you're already using Office 365, Power BI for O365 is an easy choice. Start playing around with the free version and then easily add individual Pro licenses with little risk. However, if you anticipate using this with many users, it can get expensive quickly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Lightning Tools
    • Shows Lists created on different sites to be seen and controlled on another site in a Tenant
    • Allows selection of layouts and coloring way beyond what other programs do.
    • Easy to learn and very functional.
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • Easy to make visual dashboards from SQL queries. Previously we had to use a third party application that had to run on a web server that was so complex to setup and run. PowerBI removes all that.
    • Ability to control who/which group has access to each dashboard or report. Ties in well with the rest of the Office 365 ecosystem.
    • Has many connectors to allow pulling data from various systems, both onsite (via gateway) or external (via APIs), and join the data to create a report/dashboard.
    • Ability to show data but also export the data, if permitted.
    • Easy to show PowerBI dashboards on SharePoint or on other websites via embedded code.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Lightning Tools
    • Data Viewer has a graph feature that is old school flat design. We loved the In House real 3D graph Lightning Tools program.
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • Licensing: Currently, Microsoft has a fixed pricing model for Office 365 users, regardless of role/function of the user. Most organizations have a small number of "power users" that create usable content and many more "consumers" that simply view/run reports created by power users. Microsoft does not differentiate between these users, and thus the pricing limits organizations from large deployments of the software.
    • Version incompatibility: Excel 2010 and 2013 workbooks are compatible with each other. However, workbooks created in 2010 that include PowerPivot databases must be upgraded to 2013 format to run in 2013. Subsequently, you cannot open these upgraded PowerPivot workbooks in 2010. This requires ALL users to be on the same version.
    • Visualization: Excel charting with PowerPivot workbooks is adequate for many users. Power View also contains a number of GREAT visualizations, including animated bubble charts and a very flexible dashboard/report design canvas. However, compared to some of the other self-service BI solutions, it is still limited in its visualization capabilities.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    I will continue to recommend this suite to folks looking for a reporting and analytics solution, as I find in MOST cases, it's great at meeting almost every requirement I've been given by a multitude of clients across a range of industries. I've built Capacity Planning solutions that allowed end user input which was then submitted to SharePoint, Executive Dashboards, custom applications, simple analytical tools for teams to easily slice and dice data, and super simple reports as well as some very complicated ones. If you haven't seen the demos online, do a search, and see for yourself - this is a great BI suite! (I do not work for Microsoft, although I do consult out there from time to time. I do occasionally make a recommendation for a different BI reporting tool, but in general, find Excel can accomplish quite a bit for less money and in less time.)
    Read full review
    Usability
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    We are satisfied with the functionality and capabilities of Power BI. Product is cost effective and full-fill the reporting requirements of the organization. You can perform most of the report level complex analysis with the help of DAX which makes Power BI very powerful analytic tool. Power BI for Office 365 has gone away and Power BI is the next evolution of it. Power BI comes with your Office 365 E5 subscription or you can purchase licensing for it separately.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    as of now there is strong community for Power BI, you can get solution for most of your problems from there. Also you can send your error to Microsoft as well. After every 15 days they release updates to overcome all the issues of defects.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Lightning Tools
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer is much easier and more powerful than Infowise similar viewer in their lineup. In this case, we use Data Viewer over the one offered by Infowise.
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    Oracle was nice, super expensive to implement if it's not in use already. JobDiva is choppy and heavy on the system while does not give great reports. Salesforce is good; remote access is good however their support is terrible
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Lightning Tools
    • It allows us to do things that would take a great deal more time to duplicate in SharePoint
    • It cuts down on ugly looking built in SP list layouts
    • Users find it easy to access, thus this product is more productive
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • As a Microsoft Partner implementing Business Intelligence solutions, Power BI has removed the barrier for our clients to begin the "BI journey". So often, projects get hung up in that early phase of procuring and installing/configuring expensive hardware and software. Just simply getting started and designing a beginning solution has allowed our clients to see results in 1-2 weeks using their data that might have taken months to achieve otherwise.
    • One significant ROI example is process improvement. In many cases, individuals or teams are spending days each month gathering data from multiple sources for reporting to their constituents. We are reducing these times to minutes by automating many of the data collection and integration processes that were previously manual.
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Lightning Tools Data Viewer Screenshots

    Screenshot of DISPLAYING EXTERNAL DATA WITHIN SHAREPOINT OR MICROSOFT TEAMS
The Data Viewer Client Side Web Part can be configured by Business Users within a few minutes to display Line of Business Data from Data Sources such as Excel,  SQL Azure, Business Connectivity Services, OData and SharePoint Lists.  Connections to an organizations data such as Customer Relationship Management Systems, Accounting Systems, or Custom Databases can be connected, giving business users a live up-to-date view of business information within the context of their SharePoint Team Sites or Microsoft Teams Tabs.Screenshot of HIGHLIGHTING KEY BUSINESS DATA (NO CODE)
Conditional formatting can be used to highlight key business data. Overdue Tasks, Low Stock, Currency Exchange Rates, Sales Revenue are examples of data to highlight visually allowing for a quick reaction time. Key Financial Indicators and Key Performance Indicators can be configured with a simple dialog and no need to write any code. Choose colours, icons or data bars to highlight key data.Screenshot of SELECTING AND STYLING ICONS
Icons can be chosen as part of the conditional formatting to make data stand out. The Office 365 Fabric icons can be selected and styled and applied to cell values. Pepper pots, Smileys, Envelopes and more icons are available. There are hundreds of options to choose from to highlight data that needs to be acted upon.Screenshot of DATA VIEWER CAN BE A GRID OF DATA OR A CHART IN SHAREPOINT OR MICROSOFT TEAMS
The Data Viewer can be used within Microsoft SharePoint Modern Sites or Microsoft Teams Tabs as a Grid of Data with styling or as a Chart which can be configured. The Charting Feature allows for Pie, Donut, Column, Line, Area, and Scatter Charts which can all be configured and displayed in 2D or 3D.Screenshot of TREEMAPS
summary information can be displayed within a TreeMap next to the detail. Users will be able to see trends, and how the business is performing  using the TreeMap view of data.Screenshot of CHARTS AND GAUGES
The Data Viewer is used to represent data in multiple ways using Gauges, TreeMaps, Multiple Series Charts, and Pie Charts.