Likelihood to Recommend I was in a meeting with the client and there I have to show them some analytic data to them. But I was confused about how I will manage to show big data to clients with accuracy. But then the SAS Visual Analytics software helps me in presenting accurate data at the moment and it was very presentable and through that, I got the deal for that business.
Read full review Appropriate for general querying and some DBA work. It's the universal least-offensive solution for most environments - not best of breed, but not subject to unusual/extensive requirements. It just works. On the other hand, some functionality (e.g. data import/export, snippets) are perfunctory and minimal and seem to be either difficult or impossible to automate. If you need to streamline those operations, you'll be forced to rely on third-party solutions that mostly work on top of (instead of with) TOAD.
Read full review Pros Provides the flexibility to the end user to slice and dice the data. Anyone can make predictive models with the help of in-built algorithms without the need to write a single line of code or knowledge of what's under the hood of algorithms. The feature to simply ask a question related to data and getting a response in form of text, chart or graph is amazing. Read full review Export data into excel. Export data into excel using a pivot table functionality. Navigation between windows is intuitive and easy to understand. Good for SQL novices and experts alike. Read full review Cons SAS is relatively expensive when compared to other BI tools and requires a large amount of upfront fee which becomes an issue for smaller organizations. UI for the dashboards looks a little date in comparison to competitors like Tableau and Microstrategy. Integration with other open source software like Python needs to be built in. Read full review The workflow is a relatively new feature. Quest is adding additional functionality and the workflows are useful now. Would be nice if the 'Automate' feature was a bit easier to use. Would be nice if some of the SQL Editor features in the traditional interface worked better in the new workflow interface (although, these are being fixed with each release). Would be nice if there were fewer releases. Read full review Likelihood to Renew SAS really is the cutting edge in Business Intelligence. That is all they do! They are constantly coming out with new products, product upgrades, and their tech support is second to none. In addition, their support of Education has made our ability to acquire their product possible.
Read full review Usability SAS BI is good for creating reports and dashboards and then sharing it with the users. It also has ability to manage access to the reports and dashboards but somehow with most of the world moving to open source languages R, Python and Julia, SAS BI feels to be archaic in terms of feature set and integrations it allow[s]. Also, comparing it with other Business Intelligence tools like Tableau and Microsoft BI, the functionality of SAS BI is very limited and doesn't justify the pricing.
Read full review I find Toad Data Point easy to use for both the novice and the experienced business analyst. If all you desire is to access data and create spreadsheets...this is a snap. Toad Data Point actually has cool data analysis features built into it. The newer workflow interface makes automating steps a snap
Read full review Support Rating When you call tech support, you are immediately routed to a person who can answer your question. Often they can answer on the spot. However, if they cannot, you are given a track number and then followed up with. There have been times when I have had multiple track numbers open and they will actually TRACK YOU DOWN to ensure that your problem has been resolved. Issues do not fall into black holes with SAS. They are also willing to do a WebEx with you to diagnose the problem by seeing your environment, which is always helpful.
Read full review Alternatives Considered SAS Business Intelligence is not the cream of the crop for business intelligence applications, but it is not far behind. The software is generally easier to apply than most other business intelligence software. Additionally, SAS Business Intelligence runs smoothly in the background when making real-time updates. With that said, the software is not as efficient of many of the other business intelligence software applications that have been on the market for longer than this one.
Read full review Although Toad and
UltraEdit are both great products, from an SQL standpoint Toad is a much better editor and troubleshooter.
Read full review Return on Investment SAS Visual Analytics licensing cost should be reduced to enable users to use it in mass scale. More statistical and mathematical equations and theories should be converted into SAS functions for reusing. Because of enriched ETL and reporting capabilities SAS Visual Analytics is most preferred by business users. Read full review It is the least common denominator - not particularly optimized for our environment or workflows. Hangs or slowdowns add anywhere from 5% - 7% for projects utilizing large/complicated data setts. (This could be due to other IT-imposed constraints and not entirely due to TOAD.) Trying to perform some operations requires reading documentation and experimenting in order to figure out the TOAD-specific approaches and commands. It just works (when we understand it). Updates don't break things and things don't suddenly start behaving differently. Best of all, we don't mysteriously lose functionality. Read full review ScreenShots SAS Visual Analytics Screenshots