Microsoft BI (MSBI) vs. Mode Analytics vs. Zendesk Explore

Microsoft BI has a lot of features and is a very powerful tool, especially if you have folks on your team that know how to utilize all of its capabilities. To truly unlock all that it can do, it does require people to have a deep understanding of its capabilities. That's where the software really shines. If you are looking for a simpler, more basic reporting tool, there are other programs available that do not require such a steep learning curve.

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Mode is a clear category winner for how it easy it is to go from interactive analysis to professional quality reporting. You can easily do all your SQL and quite a bit of R/Python. If you want to quickly go from your database to simple charts, this is your pick. If you need to do heavier data modeling, scheduling jobs, or ML, you'll need something else, like Databricks. In my opinion, the quality of visualizations and some developer/analyst features make Databricks an unacceptable substitute.

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Zendesk Explore is well suited for tracking ticket flow, agent performance, and customer satisfaction providing valuable insights into response and resolution time, workload and support quality. Particularly useful for monitoring ticket handling for different teams. Helps ensure accountability by tracking how long tickets remain assigned before being reassigned to another group. Drill down capability helps identify support bottlenecks. However, it is less appropriate for real time monitoring as it lacks real time data updates making it unsuitable for instant decision making.

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• Comparatively easy to use compared to other data analytics solutions, collaborating with other colleagues on data work is simple.
• Using Visual Studio for database, ETL, reporting, and analytics development save time and money.
• Transfer of data from one application to another via Excel and comparison of data attributes between applications
• Dashboard functionality, as well as Python support, are available, allowing you to add additional charts and graphs.

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• It allows me to undertake data visualization tasks by creating really insightful charts and dashboards
• It allows for easy sharing and work collaboration on data analysis tasks
• Mode has an easier to use SQL editor as well
• I love how it organizes all our SQL data tables into easy-to-view data we can draw insights on

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• Zendesk Explore is easy to use.
• Zendesk Explore allows users to create custom metrics.
• Zendesk Explore allows users to create custom attributes.
• Zendesk Explore is easy to learn.
• Compared to other analytics function of other Ticket Management System, Zendesk Explore is probably the best as of now.

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• MSBI designs can work on increasing data processing capabilities enough to handle the huge datasets etc.
• It would be a lot better if it is a little low on cost.
• it needs to create opportunities little more than they do regarding customization of some very unique visualization effects

• Date ranges aren't always the most intuitive to set, strangely
• Faster refresh rates would be ideal
• Would love more dynamic mobile device integration (alerts, etc)

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• Some aspects of Zendesk, in general, are not super intuitive. The same goes for Zendesk Explore. And, while you can google answers and hope you find something helpful, there isn't a great way to learn to get the full potential out of the product unless you want to pay for someone from your team to take a class (which costs several hundred dollars).
• To piggyback off the last point, if you would prefer to get help from a Zendesk expert, you'll find that there is almost no customer support available to you. For a company that aims to help other companies help their customers, this has always struck me as odd. Again, Google is your friend and beyond that, you're mostly out of luck.

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Microsoft BI is fundamental to our suite of BI applications. That being said, Northcraft Analytics is focused on delighting our customers, so if the underlying factors of our decision change, we would choose to re-write our BI applications on a different stack. Luckily, mathematics are the fundamental IP of our technology... and is portable across all BI platforms for the foreseeable future.

The Microsoft BI tools have great usability for both developers and end users alike. For developers familiar with Visual Studio, there is little learning curve. For those not, the single Visual Studio IDE means not having to learn separate tools for each component. For end-users, the web interface for SSRS is simple to navigate with intuitive controls. For ad-hoc analysis, Excel can connect directly to SSAS and provide a pivot table like experience which is familiar to many users. For database development, there is beginning to be some confusion, as there are now three tool choices (VS, SSMS, Azure Data Studio) for developers. I would like to see Azure Data Studio become the superset of SSMS and eventually supplant it.

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For the advanced user already familiar with Python. It is just the same tool, already managed and connected to the data.

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I rate Zendesk Explore 8 out of 10 for it's overall usability because it offers powerful reporting and analytics with an easy to navigate interface and intuitive dashboards. It helps improve customer satisfaction by providing valuable insights into ticket handling, agent performance and customer satisfaction. Though the complex query builder can be challenging for non technical users.

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The product has been reliable.

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) can drag at times. We created two report servers and placed them under an F5 load balancer. This configuration has worked well. We have seen sluggish performance at times due to the Windows Firewall.

MSBI natively has a site that allows you to vote on user enhancements and bug fixes. This allows the largest nagging issues to float to the top and the development team can prioritize accordingly. As mentioned earlier, the large community base of MSBI developers assist technical resources in handling technical questions.

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Mode has dedicated agents who are online in a chatroom, ready to take on any questions and provide helpful feedback.

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Support for all of Zendesk has exceeding my expectations. This company will always get a 10 out of 10 in my book. Any question you have they make sure you have the answer plus a step-by-step guide on how to do each step so you are set up for success!

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This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.

I have used on-line training from Microsoft and from Pragmatic Works. I would recommend Pragmatic Works as the best way to get up to speed quickly, and then use the Microsoft on-line training to deep dive into specific features that you need to get depth with.

We are a consulting firm and as such our best resources are always billing on client projects. Our internal implementation has weaknesses, but that's true for any company like ours. My rating is based on the product's ease of implementation.

We have used the built in ConnectWise Manager reports and custom reports. The reports provide static data. PowerBI shows us live data we can drill down into and easily adjust parameters. It's much more useful than a static PDF report.

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We used both Qlik and Mode at our organization. The mode was used a quick analysis SQL tool while Qlik was our enterprise BI solution.

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I selected Zendesk Explore only to provide an easy and quick access for my managers and supervisors regading metrics and volume trends. Is not the most flexible nor complete data visualization tool, but works well for day-to-day follow ups. You need to use another tool if you want to see long-term patterns (e.g. month over month volume trends) and you need another platform if you want your interaction metrics to interact with other important factors of the business

• As a SaaS provider we see being able to provide self-service BI to our client users as a competitive advantage. In fact the MSSQL enabled BI is a contributing factor to many winning RFPs we have done for prospective client organisations.
• However MSSQL BI requires extensive knowledge and skills to design and develop data warehouses & data models as a foundation to support business analysts and users to interrogate data effectively and efficiently. Often times we find having strong in-house MSSQL expertise is a bless.

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• Extremely positive. It's a key feature in our application.
• Were it not for the account management bit, Mode would be hands-down our recommendation for anyone looking for cloud BI.

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• Money saved due to proper staffing.
• Happier Staff- proper staffing ensures no one is overworked.
• Ability to quickly pinpoint where issues are and why.

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