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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

    Tableau Cloud

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/ATableau Cloud (formerly Tableau Online) is a self-service analytics platform that is fully hosted in the cloud. Tableau Cloud enables users to publish dashboards and invite colleagues to explore hidden opportunities with interactive visualizations and accurate data, from any browser or mobile device.

    $15

    per month per user

    Pricing
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerTableau Cloud
    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
    Tableau Viewer
    $15
    per month billed annually per user
    Enterprise Viewer
    $35
    per month billed annually per user
    Tableau Explorer
    $42
    per month billed annually per user
    Enterprise Explorer
    $70
    per month billed annually per user
    Tableau Creator
    $75
    per month billed annually per user
    Enterprise Creator
    $115
    per month billed annually per user
    Tableau+
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerTableau Cloud
    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
    Community Pulse
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerTableau Cloud
    Considered Both Products
    Lightning Tools
    No answer on this topic
    Tableau
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Would buy again
    27 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Delivers good value for the price
    22 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Happy with the feature set
    25 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    14 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    Features
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerTableau Cloud
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Tableau Cloud
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Tableau Cloud
    7.6
    74 Ratings
    7% below category average
    Customizable dashboards9.11 Ratings8.774 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates9.11 Ratings6.663 Ratings
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings7.656 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Tableau Cloud
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    8.2
    1 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Tableau Cloud
    7.6
    74 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Drill-down analysis6.41 Ratings8.574 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities9.11 Ratings7.371 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration9.11 Ratings8.672 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings6.147 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Tableau Cloud
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    3.6
    1 Ratings
    73% below category average
    Tableau Cloud
    7.9
    70 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)3.61 Ratings8.267 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.366 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings7.857 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.26 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Tableau Cloud
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Cloud
    7.8
    72 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings8.668 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings7.567 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings7.655 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.559 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings6.738 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Tableau Cloud
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Cloud
    8.4
    69 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.363 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings7.756 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.659 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.87 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.754 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Tableau Cloud
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Cloud
    7.5
    59 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings7.457 Ratings
    Mobile Application00 Ratings7.744 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.851 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Lightning Tools Data Viewer and Tableau Cloud
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Data Viewer
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Cloud
    7.0
    41 Ratings
    10% below category average
    REST API00 Ratings8.136 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings7.534 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings6.833 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings5.729 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings6.735 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.232 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerTableau Cloud
    Small Businesses
    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 ViewerTableau Cloud
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    8.9
    (76 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (29 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (20 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (49 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (49 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Lightning Tools Data ViewerTableau Cloud
    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
    Tableau
    If you're using Tableau as the primary BI tool, then Tableau Cloud is well suited to publish and share the results with a wide(r) audience. It is well suited for various degrees of self-service proficiency, from pure consumers of analytical work to more advanced users who can use web editing for smaller or larger adjustments, and even for desktop power users who will publish their work to Tableau Cloud. It has many good ways to organize the content and make it easily accessible via search, favorites, folders, collections ("playlists for your data"), or history ("recents"). It might not be ideally suited if there are many on-prem sources to be used (even though there are options to connect them) or if you have very special requirements regarding custom server setup, which is limited in a shared cloud environment like Tableau Cloud.
    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
    Tableau
    • Tableau Online is completely cloud based and that's why the reports and dashboards are accessible even on the go. One doesn't always need to access the office laptop to access the reports.
    • The visualizations are interactive and one can quickly change the level at which they want to view the information. For example, one person might be more interested in looking at the country level performances rather than client level. This is intuitive and one doesn't need to create multiple reports for the same.
    • The feature to ask questions in plain vanilla English language is great and helpful. For quick adhoc fact checks one can simply type what they are looking for and the Natural Language Programming algorithms under the hood parse the query, interpret it and then fetch the results accordingly in a visual form.
    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
    Tableau
    • Can be a steep learning curve for new users
    • Modeling and building algorithms aren't always intuitive and take some testing/retesting to ensure it's working as it should
    • Inability to integrate easily with our HRIS platform. Reports are pulled from HRIS at various intervals and uploaded into Tableau
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    Based on comments from our clients, I awarded it this grade. Non-technical customers frequently compliment us on the ease with which they can utilize Tableau Online. Usability is rarely a source of contention amongst our customers. Few complaints have come from me as a user of our internal products.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    I have not had any issues that require customer support from Tableau at this time, which speaks well to Tableau. I have taken an online course with Tableau and it was very professional and well done, so based on that I would assume a similar level of quality for their customer service.
    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
    Tableau
    In determining whether to go with Tableau Online versus Alteryx, two important factors stood out in determining our go-to solution. First, while Alteryx is an impressive tool for data cleansing, it did not stack up in terms of data visualization capabilities. Tableau, on the other hand, provided us everything we needed in terms of visualizing our data and analytics. The second factor is cost. Well neither solution would be considered cheap, Tableau was the more cost effective solution for our needs.
    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
    Tableau
    • When we release new products, we are now able to quickly see data and toggle between current periods and previous to see performance
    • Generating new reports requires less IT time to build
    • Data can be shared across many different device types
    • We now have integration where our customers can extract data from our software more easily-this was a big ask from our customers
    Incentivized
    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.