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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft BI (MSBI)

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft 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

    Ziflow

    Score9.3 out of 10
    N/AZiflow online proofing creates a single source of truth and streamlines the review and approval process for creative content to deliver marketing projects faster for agencies and brands.

    $249

    per month

    Pricing
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Ziflow
    Editions & Modules
    Power BI Pro
    $14
    per month per user
    Power BI Premium
    $24
    per month per user
    Standard
    $249
    per month 15 users
    Pro
    $399
    per month 20 users included
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Ziflow
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details—Educational discounts are available for the Business and Enterprise editions. Up to a 20% discount is available for annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Ziflow
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Ziflow
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.0
    53 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Ziflow
    -
    Ratings
    Pixel Perfect reports8.546 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards9.653 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates8.951 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Ziflow
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    53 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Ziflow
    -
    Ratings
    Drill-down analysis8.548 Ratings00 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities8.253 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages8.342 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration8.953 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Ziflow
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    52 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Ziflow
    -
    Ratings
    Publish to Web9.348 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publish to PDF9.148 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Versioning7.444 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling8.547 Ratings00 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers8.426 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Ziflow
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.7
    52 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Ziflow
    -
    Ratings
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.651 Ratings00 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.748 Ratings00 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics7.745 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining8.76 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Ziflow
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.3
    53 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Ziflow
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-User Support (named login)9.449 Ratings00 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model9.347 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.949 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control9.36 Ratings00 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)9.431 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Ziflow
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.0
    42 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Ziflow
    -
    Ratings
    Responsive Design for Web Access8.239 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Application8.030 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.739 Ratings00 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Ziflow
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    24 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Ziflow
    -
    Ratings
    REST API9.221 Ratings00 Ratings
    Javascript API8.821 Ratings00 Ratings
    iFrames8.820 Ratings00 Ratings
    Java API8.718 Ratings00 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)8.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.319 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Ziflow
    Small Businesses
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Ziflow
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (77 ratings)
    9.6
    (226 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    9.1
    (16 ratings)
    Usability
    8.9
    (19 ratings)
    8.2
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (15 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.6
    (7 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.5
    (42 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Ziflow
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    We work with a lot of cross functional teams, so it is nice to have them review things on their own and provide feedback all in the one place for our team to review. It helps cut back on meetings and emails full of feedback that gets lost. This is especially helpful when we are working on our catalogs. We do reviews on Ziflow all the way from rough layouts to proofreading.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    • Simple and user friendly interface with little if no learning curve.
    • Accurate and specific change requests are especially enhanced when using the markup tools.
    • Nice to be able to assign who the decision maker is and also be able to change project participants easily, like when someone goes on holiday or sick leave.
    • SOCD (sent, opened, comment, decision) progress indicators provide an awesome 'at a glance' view of project participants activity.
    • Email notifications and integration with ASANA is brilliant.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • 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
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    • Comments with instances that span multiple pages force you to zoom out, which can be rough on multi-page proofs. We end up making a comment on each instance for ease of review.
    • Maybe it is in there, but I would love to be able to upload a new version and review/make comments before any of the other reviewers can see it—to double-check for errors. Maybe there is a verification stage first before releasing it to the other reviewers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    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.
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    Ziflow is easy to use, efficient and now is also part of our daily lives. Hence, the teams are already adapted to the tool and willing to work with it. The features are according to all what was expected and we had a great experience until the moment with the tool
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    The tool is easy to use for digital oriented people. For the ones not used to this kind of environment, it could look a bit complicated at the beginning, but following the instructions and tutorials and performing it once makes you get a grip of it in just one use.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    The product has been reliable.
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Microsoft
    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.
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    The ZIflow support team has always been very responsive to my questions, issues and other problems. The good thing is I have never had to use their support team all that much because Ziflow has been for the most part trouble free. If it had been error prone, we would have dropped it long ago.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Microsoft
    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.
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    They were friendly and took the time to go through everything, especially relating to how we would use the system.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    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.
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    It was seemless! Things got instantly better when we started using Ziflow!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    I found Ziflow to be much better than PageProof in several ways. The tools available for making comments and edits are more intuitive and there is a greater variety of tools and the version control features worked much better as well. Also their customer service was far better when it was necessary to interact with the company
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Ziflow
    • Improved efficiency and time saved in making proofs and adding people to proofs with staging and template features.
    • Robust proofreading features for reviewers like comparing previous versions.
    • In my experience, customer service is quick to help with issues or outages (which aren't often).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Ziflow Screenshots

    Screenshot of Ziflow's  markup tools, which enables stakeholders of all abilities to circle, highlight, draw, point, and overall produce feedback that doesn’t leave creatives guessing.Screenshot of Ziflow’s workflow automation and templates, for creative teams that constantly repeats tasks when setting up review workflows.Screenshot of where users can see different versions side-by-side to compare changes to a project over time, and automatically highlight version differences, all the way down to the pixel with the auto-compare capability.Screenshot of frame-accurate commenting on video and motion projects. Feedback can be viewed on a specific video frame to remove any chance of confusion. Ziflow Safe Zones are used to make sure crucial content remains in-frame on every device, and to see likely cut-off points at industry-standard aspect ratios. Users can review projects from a web browser on any device - no app download is required.Screenshot of Ziflow, on mobile devices. Team members can access proofs via proof notification emails on their devices. Comments and decisions can be made via the device's native browser, with Ziflow's HTML5-based Proof Viewer.Screenshot of ZiflowAI: Creative collaboration, powered by artificial intelligence. It is a chatbot designed to drive review and approval processes forward.