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Entrinsik Informer is a versatile reporting tool that has transformed the way data is accessed and analyzed on campus. Users find Informer …
Overview
What is Entrinsik Informer?
Entrinsik Informer is a web-based reporting and business intelligence application popular in the higher education vertical market. It helps organizations transform real-time data into actionable information by delivering ad-hoc reporting, data analysis, and interactive dashboards.
Recent Reviews
Popular Features
- Multi-User Support (named login) (11)9.090%
- Report sharing and collaboration (10)9.090%
- Drill-down analysis (9)9.090%
- Formatting capabilities (10)8.181%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Director, Systems Management & MIS Operations
College of the Desert (Higher Education, 501-1000 employees)
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N/A
Unavailable
What is Entrinsik Informer?
Entrinsik Informer is a web-based reporting and business intelligence application popular in the higher education vertical market. It helps organizations transform real-time data into actionable information by delivering ad-hoc reporting, data analysis, and interactive dashboards.
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What is Entrinsik Informer?
Informer 5 from Entrinsik is a data discovery and analytics tool that aims to simplify the process of accessing, cleansing, blending, and analyzing data from multiple sources. According to the vendor, with Informer, companies can aggregate all their disparate data into a single platform using an intuitive, 100% web-based interface that replaces outdated query tools and complicated reporting systems.
The tool aims to eliminate the need for data warehouses and cubes, and eliminate complicated “views” and limited functionality. With extensible architecture, collaborative environment, and enterprise-level performance, Informer aims to deliver actionable insights and better, data-driven decisions for its customers.
Entrinsik Informer Features
BI Platform Features
- Supported: Administration via Web Interface
- Supported: Live Connection to External Data
- Supported: Snapshot of External Data
- Supported: In-memory data model
- Supported: Multi-Data Source Reporting (Blending)
Supported Data Sources Features
- Supported: MS Excel Workbooks
- Supported: Text Files (CSV, etc)
- Supported: Oracle
- Supported: MS SQL Server
- Supported: IBM DB2
- Supported: Postgres
- Supported: MySQL
- Supported: ODBC
- Supported: Cloudera Hadoop
- Supported: Hortonworks Hadoop
- Supported: SAP Hana
BI Standard Reporting Features
- Supported: Customizable dashboards
- Supported: Report Formatting Templates
Ad-hoc Reporting Features
- Supported: Drill-down analysis
- Supported: Formatting capabilities
- Supported: Report sharing and collaboration
Report Output and Scheduling Features
- Supported: Publish to Web
- Supported: Publish to PDF
- Supported: Report Versioning
- Supported: Report Delivery Scheduling
- Supported: Delivery to Remote Servers
Data Discovery and Visualization Features
- Supported: Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
- Supported: Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
Access Control and Security Features
- Supported: Multi-User Support (named login)
- Supported: Role-Based Security Model
- Supported: Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
- Supported: Report-Level Access Control
- Supported: Table-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
- Supported: Field-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
Mobile Capabilities Features
- Supported: Responsive Design for Web Access
- Supported: Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding Features
- Supported: REST API
Entrinsik Informer Screenshots
Entrinsik Informer Videos
Customers Talk About Informer
Introduction to Informer 5 BI & Data Analytics
Entrinsik Informer Competitors
Entrinsik Informer Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Entrinsik Informer is a web-based reporting and business intelligence application popular in the higher education vertical market. It helps organizations transform real-time data into actionable information by delivering ad-hoc reporting, data analysis, and interactive dashboards.
Reviewers rate Publish to Web and Report Versioning and Role-Based Security Model highest, with a score of 9.1.
The most common users of Entrinsik Informer are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Reviews and Ratings
(86)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
- Recommendations
Entrinsik Informer is a versatile reporting tool that has transformed the way data is accessed and analyzed on campus. Users find Informer easy to grasp and use, making training a breeze. With its seamless integration with multiple systems, Informer allows users to create and manipulate data as needed, eliminating the need for manual gathering of report data and saving hours of time. The software empowers end users to govern their own data and find the information they need with minimal support. IT departments have control over access, limiting what each user sees based on their access level. Additionally, the scheduling feature in Informer has been a game changer for users by allowing reports to run automatically and be delivered via email, streamlining workflows and processes. Informer's ability to provide accurate and timely reports from multiple databases has increased usage campus-wide, with different groups of users running created reports. It serves as a single point for querying multiple systems and databases, allowing users to create their own reports and reducing the burden on IT programmers. Overall, Informer has solved a multitude of problems for colleges and universities by addressing quick and complex reporting needs across various departments and empowering users to make informed decisions based on up-to-date information.
Users have made several recommendations for Entrinsik Informer based on their experiences. Many users find Informer to be a useful tool for reporting that is easy to use for end users. Furthermore, users highly recommend Informer for its ability to create various data gathering options and its outstanding customer service. Additionally, users have found that Informer is a tremendous time saver as it decreases report development time and enables users to create their own reports. Users also suggest using Informer when a database or CRM lacks a strong built-in reporting feature and recommend using external software like Excel for any necessary alterations.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(51-75 of 77)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
April 16, 2014
User Friendly
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Informer is used across out whole District of 7 Locations with many campuses at each location. We use Informer to pull reports and gather data on over 90,000 students each semester. Informer address many problems but what it does do is speed up the report pulling process and moves many of our reporting to pull at off peak times.
- LIVE Excel is a life saver. It moves the power of pulling the report to the person that needs the information. It becomes an as needed report instead of waiting on reports
- Informer scheduling takes the heavy reports and runs them at night or off peak times.
- Informer Linking files lets us talk between files in Colleague and pull data from both.
- Informer well let us talk to Colleague and to SQL at the same time.
- Because we are so large we have a problem with people over running reports or large reports. Request have been put in for ways this problem can be solved.
- Canceling a single report instead of shutting down Informer completely would be nice.
- Toggle Display on all areas, When linking or mapping this option is not always available.
- More pre-made administrator queries.
- Last Executed, Could there be a way to make it to where it could toggle. Last executed by me or last executed by anyone.
- Dashboards, more freedom with colors and sizing of the charts.
April 16, 2014
Higher Education Benefits from Entrinsik Informer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
It is used as a reporting tool to pull information from Colleague. It is used by all departments across the campus. Informer expands the reporting functionality of our software - Ellucian.
- Pulls and organizes data from our database in a useful manner
- Allows us to pull data even when our dedicated Ellucian server is down
- Allows more flexibility in our reporting
- New users experienced in Query can learn how to use the product fairly easily
- The product times out to quickly and this evidently can not be controlled by our IT staff
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
At Elgin Community College we use Entrinsik Informer for almost all reporting needs. Its heaviest use is in HR but we in IT use it everyday. We also have users in Financial Aid, Student Accounts, Curriculum, Institutional Research, Registration and Records. The problem we had before purchasing Informer was we were writing queries and reports in the native database tool. This was OK for IT but very cumbersome and too difficult for most other departments and end users. Therefore the burden of writing reports mainly fell on IT programmers. Informer was a way to turn this back over into the end users hands.
- The main thing that Entrinsik Informer does well is keeping it simple for end users to use. Very little training time was needed for not only for IT people supporting the product but for end users as well. Most of the setup work is in mapping the data and linking the tables. After this is done by IT staff, it is quite easy for the users to write reports that gather data from many files and even different sources.
- Another strength of Entrinsik Informer is its ability to hook it up to numerous datasources. We have used it for unidata databases as well as several SQL Server databases and even one Access database for a special project.
- One last strength is Entrinsik support of the product. It seems like every few months a new released comes out. Small point releases take less than 30 minutes to install counting the time I start kicking people out until they can get back in and use the product. Every time I find a bug or something I think should work differently, it seems like the next release address it. When I suggest a new feature to Entrinsik, they actually listen and more than not it seems to be incorporated in a future release.
- One weakness of Entrinsik Informer is that is can act quite differently depending on what browser you are using with it. At one time I was told that Google Chrome was the preferred browser but then we starting seeing some strange issues using Chrome and was then told Mozilla Firefox was now a preferred browser.
- Lately when opening up a support call, the call is open and I am waiting to hear back from Entrinsik and I get an email stating, 'We have not received a response from you in 5 business days for a support request you submitted. We will automatically be closing the ticket.' This is a little irritating when I am wait for a response, not the other way around.
April 16, 2014
Short Learning Curve in Report Writing
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Informer is being used by many of my clients to handle their standard reports and daily ad-hoc requests. Many of the clients have been use to Unidata's UniQuery and Informer has given them that comfort level to write their own reports. It has given them an easy to use point and click tool for quick access to their data. Many are looking towards continued use as they migrate from UniData to SQL.
- Quick report creation through the use of the report wizards and the point and click web version
- Ability to access various databases: Unidata, SQL
- Continued development of the dashboard functionality. Executives want the quick access to their numbers.
April 16, 2014
Excellent product
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are using Informer across multiple departments. It has empowered the users and saved them time.
- Easy to learn.
- Quick and accurate answers.
- Easy to manage.
- The calculated fields need better documentation.
April 16, 2014
A little time goes a long way ...
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Entrinsik Informer is used by power users, service staff and information technology. It allows us to easily capture real time data that we then use to feed into other systems. This allows us to expand services beyond our central database. It is also a quick way for users to pull simple lists of data for daily processing saving time and allowing users to focus on more critical tasks.
- Real time data reporting
- Simple drag and drop interface
- Easy to maintain
- Data cannot be qualified inline to exclude rows of data or sections/returns based on matching fields
- A standardization guide to map fields to common names for non-technical users (this is probably something that can be done)
April 16, 2014
Reports in MINUTES!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Used by the whole organization for reporting and dashboards. It addresses quick as well as complex reporting for many departments.
- Writing quick reports, allows answers to users within minutes
- Tabulating/totaling, allows grouping by set parameters
- Allows exporting to Excel for detailed manipulation
- Automatic advancement to a fill in box without having to place the mouse in the box
- Report lookup feature lost in the last update and that is extremely frustrating, have to re-enter report lookup in box each time after closing a report
April 16, 2014
Best Reporting Solution for Higher Education
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Entrinsik Informer in every department of the college and it has revolutionized data reporting and analysis. We have used it to automate and streamline workflows and processes which has saved the college thousands of dollars in labor. Thanks to the simplicity and customization of pulling dating from various data sources, we have been able to generate reports from sources that were not previously possible. We are now able to provide consistent, accurate, and up to date information for all of our students, faculty, and staff. Entrinsik Informer has not only transformed our environment, but has created a mindset that causes all of us to find ways of improving our workflows.
- Report Scheduling - Provides options to email reports on a routine basis as well as export to other locations to meet any additional scripting needs.
- Javascript - Allows for custom fields and additional filtering.
- Multiple Data Sources - We have been able to pull data from SQL as well as Unidata databases.
- Would like to see more detailed documentation on how to use certain features.
- Would like to have more control over certain operations that take place at runtime so that certain calculations could take place as the report was run.
- Would like to have the capability of conditional formatting so that a value may be highlighted if it matches a certain condition.
April 16, 2014
Entrinsik Informer on the College Campus
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
all admin across campus use the product to run reports and query database
- Ad hoc query/reporting
- Creates Live Excel documents
- Available logic is too limited for more complex queries
- Cannot see your database's file structure and data items through Informer
April 16, 2014
Informer on UniData Yes on SQL No
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We used Informer when we were on UniData 3 years ago. It was a great product at that time, but since then we have switched to SSRS because we moved to SQL.
- Easy for end users to use
- Difficult to maintain meta data
- Great Support
- Meta data maintenance needs improvement
- More external use other than Iframes
April 16, 2014
Entrinsik Reporting and Proofing
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Entrink Informer is used through-out the whole college as a reporting tool.
- Provides excellent reporting tool for state auditing purposes
- Helps proof our data; ie what was submitted as to what was entered
- Helps track student enrollment
- I love how the new version has become more user friendly by providing pop up responses while typing
- Still need more training on the awesome functionality of the Dashboards.
April 16, 2014
Happy with Entrinsik Informer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Originally, we purchased Enrinsik Informer because we needed a reporting utility that would work with Unidata. As we migrated to SQL we found Entrinsik handles both environments. We love the ability to connect Informer to multiple databases. The company is easy to work with, they listen and deliver to meet our needs. We love the enhancements they created for us and the fast turn around when we have needed assistance. They are always happy on the phone.
- Connects to multiple database.
- Allows us to create calculated fields on the fly within reports.
- Allows our users to create custom views of reports written by IT.
- Tagging reports for easy searching.
- We were able to install and have Informer up and running within a day but took more time to tweak and determine the best security module for us.
- The best feature. I really did learn to use the base functionality of Informer without the need for instructions. More advanced features took a bit more time but were not that complicated.
- At Ellucian Live I spoke with my rep about added the ability to create a link from a column header to a website or data cookbook. The idea is to allow our endusers to click on the column header and read the definition of the term ensuring they fully understand what the report is telling them. Prevent second guessing or wondering if the report is correct.
- One area where we stuggle is that we can't use a computed column in the selection criteria. This would be really nice.
- I can't think of a third item.
April 16, 2014
Informer Review
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Entrinsik Informer has allowed us to access our UniData database so that we can provide more flexible reporting options to our end-users. It currently is being used only by myself and only when we need to access LIVE data.
- Informer allows the user an easy point and click option for extracting data.
- Right now I have no suggestions on how to improve Informer.
April 16, 2014
Programmer review
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
The product is the basic reporting tool for the enterprise. It addresses questions on course information, enrollment information, and business information for support departments of the institution. The range of reporting is from the most basic levels to the more complex. Users are beginning to tap some of the potentials that are inherent in the product.
- Ease of developing ad-hoc reporting.
- The recent implementation of sub-tagging has regained functionality in previous versions that was lost in the first versions of 4.
- Flexibility in reporting from multiple DB's across the enterprise to help merge information from separate systems
- This might be site specific, but we are noticing that the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer are laboring to run scripts and slows the use of the product.
- When working on a report and leaving to go back to the report listing, it refreshes back to the Main Home listing of reports instead of the last tag you are in.
April 16, 2014
Entrinsik Informer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I use Informer for creating reports for student information on our campus. It is used both for ad-hoc reports as well as Live Excel reports which can be setup and then run by end-users whenever they need an updated version of the spreadsheet.
- Very intuitive.
- Relatively short learning curve.
- Graphical interface is slightly slower than the command prompt reporting I used to do.
April 16, 2014
Informer - A Good Fit for Paciolan Hosted Product
We package Informer in our hosted software solution for our clients. We started with Informer to address web-based reporting needs for our back office Universe database. Specifically, Informer Universe reporting addressed client needs for scheduling and distribution of reporting content. The evolution of Informer to include SQL databases has expanded our scope of reporting content to other Paciolan products/databases. The SQL database access and Dashboard features of Informer also will help us address content delivery from a data warehouse database.
- Usability of the product for self-service reporting.
- Scheduling and distribution of reporting content. This includes the ability to provide links to reporting content.
- Extensibility of the Informer development platform. Open SDKs.
- Recoverability of site when memory issues are encountered (usually due to large reports).
- Cache management - our production sites frequently experience corrupt cache symptoms that result in unusable UI and java exceptions.
- Processing utilization and time it takes to render large result sets.
April 15, 2014
Entrinsik Informer Review
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Great tool that was deployed across our University Campus. Every department uses it different and has fit the different users needs quite well. Used from everything from enrollment to hr reporting to payroll information.
- Quick and easy installation and setup
- Reports are easy to create. The gui is really responsive and easy for users to access
- Entrinsik support is fantastic. Quick to respond and extremely helpful. Updates are quick to come out and easy to deploy.
- Certain options such as session timeouts are not included in administration options so the code needs to be manipulated every update that is installed to get the correct settings implemented
- Security can get out of hand rather easily since there are so many options for allowing and disabling access.
- Hard to clean up reports at times and if tags aren't utilized it is hard to locate reorts
April 15, 2014
Entrinsic Informer - a fantastic and scalable tool
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Entrinsik allows our employees to easily create custom reports queried directly from our main databases without needing to wait on MIS. It has a fairly intuitive interface that has drag and drop functionality, allowing them to either a) get the information they need in a timely manner, or b) get enough information down to allow MIS to intervene and turn their thought process and request into a functional report. It's ability to read SQL written reports has allowed us to created custom reports driven by SQL stored procedures, integrate SQL-written functions that reside solely for use within Informer, and link tables via functions.
Overall, the product offers excellent results and is a fantastic value for the price.
Overall, the product offers excellent results and is a fantastic value for the price.
- Simple select queries from a SQL database
- Process SQL stored procedures and report the results in an automated (scheduled) and useful output
- Dashboarding capabilities for reports existing in your Informer system
- Dashboarding functionality and visualizations options need improvement
- Ability to stop a query from continuing to process on the database server
April 15, 2014
An Informative approach to reporting
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Informer is utilized by the entire organization for creating reports that provide a history of the business. Informer is a vehicle that supports enrollment reporting, course scheduling, facilities scheduling, retention management and faculty load management.
- Informer allows to report across files bringing in data from linked files. Linked files allows for fields from each file to be represented in the report without having to run two reports and have to compare common fields.
- Reports can be created by competent users that can be shared and run by users who cannot grasp the concept of data querying.
- Reports can be shared and/or kept private for security.
- Reports can be created that prompt for input allowing one report to serve many purposes.
- Exporting to Excel sometimes does not keep formatting correctly. Numbers with dashes sometimes are prefaced with an E+. If I open in Excel it appears to work correctly.
April 15, 2014
The IT Crowds review
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I'm not real sure how we ever managed data before Informer. Every department uses it now. I am so happy to see people use it. I want to bring it all the way down to the instructors level so that can use it in the classroom to pull data on students. It's a slow process but we are getting there. I use it in my department to manage my budget. We love it.
- It allows me to custom build integration with our Google Domain and OpenLDAP.
- It allows other departments to customize reports for their specific duties. Extremely flexible.
- Customizing the reports is easy.
- With the Entrinsik java training we expanded our use of Informer to calculated tables and created a whole new way of looking at our data.
- Needs updated documentation.
- Needs updated java documents
April 15, 2014
Informer is a Great Reporting Tool
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Our organization uses Informer to help with reporting needs. It is very user-friendly, and makes it much easier for end users to access data. We can set up file structures in Informer that are more simplified than our actual database setup, and people can report from there without detailed knowledge of the original data structure. Additionally, we can have a specialized report writer, and then end users can run the reports that were created. We love the option of scheduling reports to run automatically, which are then delivered to the inboxes of the interested parties.
- Distributed report running, with proper security controls.
- Can use less "techie" language for files and fields.
- Reports can be modified by users without changing the original structure of the report.
- Sometimes it can be difficult to write a complex select statement, particularly if you need to jump between files.
April 15, 2014
Entrinsik Informer - What you need to get to your Data!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Entrinsik Informer across our entire organization. From Business office to Student services to Faculty. Informer allows us to get insight into our data and helps us understand the data.
- Informer is very user friendly
- Informer works with multiple databases
- Informer has great technical support
- For the most part Informer does everything you need, I would like to see a little more dashboard features within the product
April 15, 2014
Let's Get it Done!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Informer is being used for data retrieval and as a reporting tool.
It is being used across the organization. It has been more user friendly than datatel to pull and use data.
- I can pull schedules to see how many people are registered for a particular group of classes.
- Use for retrieval of student GPA's in order to submit for scholarships.
- I am not sure at this time
April 15, 2014
Informer or Query Builder on Steroids!!!!!!
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I was a supporter of the use of the Informer product even prior to purchase. I convinced my Executive Director that now since Informer will work against SQL databases, we purchased the product about 3 years ago. When we rolled it out the users were very impressed with the ease of use and ease of learning, has been dubbed 'Query Builder on Steroids'. Many of our prior QUERY reports are now processed thru Informer. We have had initial on-site training and also 2 follow-up on-site training for our users on a yearly basis. It has taken some of the burden off the ITR group for report creation, however we still lend a hand if the user does get stuck. Time saving and ease of reporting has been two of the highest ROI items for the product. We will be looking into the Dashboard functionality as we did a 30 day trail just recently. We will be getting more involved with the Dashboards this summer.
- Ease of use
- Ease or learning for users
- File linkage and suite processing
- At this time not sure where since we will be utilizing the Dashboard functionality
April 15, 2014
Stephen J. Link (Johnston Community College)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use this to report data from Ellucian Colleague. It is available across the organization although there are two departments that are the main users. It addresses many data access concerns that could not be accomplished without Informer or some other reporting tool. The satisfaction with the product was 100% until the latest version which has a bug that slows things down somewhat. I understand that a bug fix is in the works and due out very soon. Maybe we can get back to the feeling of 100% satisfaction after that patch is installed.
- Between data mappings and javascript, we are able to access data and views truly well.
- The system security is excellent because we can assign specific file rights to individual groups. Sometimes it is a pain because file security is so tight.
- Ability to normalize data is quite helpful. Normalizing all data (apparently due to specific file mappings) would be greatly helpful. I have data now that needs to be run through Excel macros to complete the normalization.
- Normalization
- Easier security managament
- Integrated javascript help