Microsoft BI is a business intelligence product used for data analysis and generating reports on server-based data. It features unlimited data analysis capacity with its reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services alongside ETL, master data management, and data cleansing.
$14
per month per user
SAP Crystal
Score7.1 out of 10
N/A
SAP Crystal is an analytics and reporting software solution for SMBs. SAP Crystal comprises Crystal Reports for pixel-perfect reporting, and SAP Crystal Server for automated distribution and self-service access to reports, dashboards and data exploration.
$295
per single user license
Visier People
Score8.2 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Visier aims to give organizations a "Workforce AI Edge:" A set of AI-powered capabilities that help leaders understand the relationship between people and work, elevate employee productivity, and win by adapting to change faster. The company offers people analytics, workforce planning, and compensation allocation. All Visier technology is underpinned by its Real-time People Data Platform, which uses AI to unlock the business-transforming potential of people data, work data, and the fusion…
N/A
Pricing
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
SAP Crystal
Visier People
Editions & Modules
Power BI Pro
$14
per month per user
Power BI Premium
$24
per month per user
Upgrade Version to SAP Crystal Reports 2020
$295
per single user license
SAP Crystal Reports 2020 64-Bit
$495
per single user license
SAP Crystal Reports 2016 32-Bit
$495
per single user license
SAP Crystal Server 2020 1 NUL
$869
per user license + first year maintenance to be added
SAP Crystal Server 2020 5 CAL
$8,744
5 concurrent users + first year maintenance to be added
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
SAP Crystal
Visier People
Free Trial
No
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
* SAP Crystal Reports 2020 Viewer allows you to view static data within a SAP Crystal Reports file.
* SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - Full version allows you to create powerful, richly formatted, and dynamic reports from virtually any data source, delivered in dozens of formats, in up to 28 languages. If you already have an older version of Crystal Reports, buy a license for SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - Upgrade at a discounted, upgrade price.
* SAP Crystal Server 2020, 1 NUL includes 1 license of: SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - SAP Crystal Server 2020.
* As an add-on to SAP Crystal Server 2020 1 NUL, SAP Crystal Server 2020 5 CAL allows you to support a wider, intermittent audience of end users, up to five logged on at the same time.
Software Engineer in Information Technology at Prime Tech Solutions Ltd. (Information Technology & Services, 51-200 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Better integration with Microsoft products is one of the advantages of using Business Intelligence (BI). It's simple to understand, and plenty of resources are available to outsource it. Many of our existing clients have Microsoft licensing agreements. It's an obvious path when …
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
IT Specialist in Research & Development at Lamda I-TECH (Information Technology & Services, 11-50 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
MSBI is great for data collection and reporting, but it lacks the visual appeal and features of Power BI. Even though it's still useful, it falls short of Power BI in terms of features. There's no reason to doubt MSBI's findings. MSBI has a proactive customer service team that …
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 Microsoft BI (MSBI)
A lot of our existing client base has licensing agreements in place with Microsoft, couple that with decision-makers wanting to achieve the outcome with the least amount of additional licensing costs added, and it becomes an obvious path, however, it is very crucial to first …
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. 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
Business Intelligence Specialist in Information Technology at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 501-1000 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-Tableau is clearly more cutting edge when it comes to data visualization and connecting to multiple data sources (support for MongoDB, Hadoop, etc). -Assuming your data is not that sophisticated, Microsoft BI is a great product. I would say its a good "all around" BI tool. It …
Business Intelligence Architect in Finance and Accounting at BAASS Business Solutions (Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 5001-10,000 employees)
Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Microstrategy - I went with Microsoft BI because of features, usability, integration capabilities, performance, availability of talent, cost, and end-user (self-service) capabilities.
SAP
Verified User
Chose SAP Crystal
We actually have all 3 in place and all 3 are used in different situations. Some are bundled with certain products so we continue to use them. Others such as BI from Microsoft are stand alone and allow for easier data visualizations than SAP Crystal does. We chose SAP Crystal …
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Product Manager in Product Management at ANS Commerce - E-commerce Solutions for India (Internet, 11-50 employees)
Chose SAP Crystal
Due to its bigger brand and excellent user support, it is better than many competitors. If you have huge organization support, then operating it will make your reporting system much better. Otherwise, you might need better employee support for operating it. Otherwise, the whole …
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
AP Specialist & Payroll Practitioner in Finance and Accounting at William Kelly & Sons Group of Companies (Construction, 51-200 employees)
Chose SAP Crystal
We are very happy with SAP Crystal Server and we chose to go with SAP Crystal Server because it was the best fit for all the different departments that use it. With the other programs that we evaluated, we could not come to a consensus because certain critical features were …
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Verified User
Chose SAP Crystal
SAP Crystal Server was chosen because of the scheduled reports capabilities that it had and because we were happier with the end look of the reports. We found the reports that are obtained with SAP Crystal Server easier to interpret than some what some of the other BI programs …
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Verified User
Chose SAP Crystal
When we evaluated several options, we found SAP Crystal Server to be more reliable than some of its competitors. We wanted something that we could customise to use in several departments and for all different types of situations where reports would be useful. We also use other …
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Verified User
Chose SAP Crystal
My department actually had a preference for another more powerful product but in the end I think SAP Crystal Server was chosen because it met our needs and it was within the budget we were looking to allocate to this type of software.
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. 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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Clinical Informatics Consultant in Corporate at Symphony Post-Acute Network (Hospital & Health Care, 1001-5000 employees)
Chose SAP Crystal
Crystal Reports fits a niche for us in standard reporting. We don't use it for creating dashboards or interactive data analysis. That's where Tableau excels. For on-demand reports, we prefer Microsoft Reporting Service and Analysis Services. Crystal Report is very good when it …
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
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.
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
Generation of templated reports is the strong suit of SAP Crystal. Allows users to change formats in templates bases on requirement with minimal effort. Automated report delivery requires the user to be aware of sql which cannot be expected from all users. Should support more document export formats and improve the UI for SAP B1 Users
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
Visier People is well-suited for organizations that require the ability to record thorough information on analytics of the company, and to have the change of measuring training's productivity impact. The software isn't well-suited for those who tend to feature a lot of models into the software as the platform doesn't record/support most models, so some data isn't able to be recorded.
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
Crystal Reports allows us to create a consistent template for all of our reports.
Crystal Reports and Server allows us to house a repository for all of our reports to make them easy to find and update when necessary.
Crystal Reports can connect to a wide variety of data sources.
Crystal Reports can be a little daunting when first implementing. There are a lot of nuances in learning how to truly master this software and it can be frustrating at times.
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
The database is very complete and detailed, thus being able to enhance a deep analysis of each user.
The Visier dashboard is extremely attractive and friendly, helping staff understand every detail of the analyzes conducted on the company's workforce.
Despite not being a great and complete solution to work with HR within this platform, however, data can be shared to exchange information between the head of each department of the company and HR staff and to speed up the analysis process and determine what to do with a low-performing employee.
It excellently determines the productivity of each employee and also determines risk by monitoring patterns and behavior.
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Visier is a people analytics tool, so all data points are tied to employees. It can be difficult to analyze data points that aren't tied to employees (e.g., certain job data) since the data is driven by people metrics.
Visier releases updates quarterly. While this cadence does provide room for updates and enhances to be implemented in the tool throughout the year, other software providers operate on a more continuous update schedule.
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
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.
We have been using this product for so many years and it has truly become a cornerstone to our business processes when it comes to developing and distributing information via reports. We currently have over 500 reports developed to date over about 30 systems and that will continue to grow as user needs change.
It is a software with great resources, it increases the possibility that the entire workforce is productive, it gives us quick answers, it is the most powerful workforce analysis software that exists so far.
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
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.
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
Crystal is very robust, but not always easy to use. It create wonderful looking reports, and so deserves a high rating. However, I have to take a couple of points off for the simple fact that I cannot hand it to a user and expect them to be able to do development with it.
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Visier People makes it very easy for all end users to go in and see, pull, or dig in to their data where previously my team would have to pull or schedule a report of the data to each user. It is also very fast in updating charts/analyses when changing or adding filters, which makes the ease of use better. Last, the charts and analyses are very visually appeasing, making users want to use the platform more.
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
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.
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
The support community can be difficult to navigate. I've also run into issues with my login. The SAP system has a bizarre mechanism for validating users that requires users to have what is called an S-ID. A basic ID may not give you access to all the features in the portal. The limitation may include not being able to perform a simple task like downloading patches and updates. This isn't a big deal for single user license but for teams it can be a pain.
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. 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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
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.
Just like any other implementation: When designing the differing reports, get end users' input, make sure to design the reports so that they display the information that the company requires, in the best and clearest way possible.
Test, test, test, revise when needed, and, particularly, do sufficient training so users are comfortable using Crystal Reports!
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Visier can move as quickly or as slowly as the client needs. The topic-by-topic approach separates the project in clear phases and allows for focus on specific data. Depending on the size of the implementation team, implementation could move more rapidly if the subject matter experts are responsible for the individual topic data sets.
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 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.
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
Crystal reports is useful in case we want to import data from data base . We can write queries in it but Google Charts require to be implemented in our application using code so crystal reports is better than Google Charts.
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
Visier People has a user-friendly interface and easy-to-use virtualization as compared to other similar tools available in the market. It also provides multiple prebuild templates for HR and workforce analytics which reduces the time and effort required for manual implementation. It can seamlessly be integrated with other ranges of HR and business systems to make it easier for organizations to centralize the workforce and HR data for analysis.
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.
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
It is a decent buy for specific departments in terms of reporting capabilities but updates and cost (frequent) demands are higher with the benefits offered.
So long as the requirements are not ever changing, with scheduling functionality, it's a handsome tool.
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. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
In one case, we were able to realize a 25% reduction in turnover in a key job group by leveraging the insights we derived from Visier workforce analytics.
In one case, we were able to identify key turnover trends that would place a business' strategy at risk (due to the fact that turnover was in revenue-generating roles).
In both businesses I've used Visier, we were able to significantly reduce manual reporting (by more than 80%), enabling our data analysts to do more consultative work (vs. query generating work) with HR business partners.
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
