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.
Entrinsik Informer - start your auto-magic experience today!
TOTAL GAME CHANGER!
Informer, people are using and loving it without realizing they are using it.
Entrinsik Informer: Higher Ed Institution
Great Product and Awesome Support!
Informer Entrinsik from a front-end user's perspective
As an independent consultant, I use Entrinsik Informer (EI) at any client site that has it implemented. At this point, I've used it only …
Put information into the right hands with Informer
We use Informer across campus. It changed the way we access information. In the past, power users ran reports for the rest of campus. Now, …
Powerfull cheap till with minor drowbacks
Entrinsik's Informer - a valuable reporting tool
Drowning in Ad-Hoc Reports? Get Entrinsik Informer!
A must-have for Ellucian Colleague users
Business Intelligence and ROI come naturally with Entrinsik Informer.
Hands down, Informer is the icing on the cake!
Entrinsik's Informer is a solid, versatile, and powerful reporting tool.
Entrinsik Informer Easy Reporting/Visualizations of Data
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
Pricing
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.
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Features
BI Standard Reporting
Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.
- 5.5Pixel Perfect reports(1) Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports are highly-formatted reports with graphics and ability to preview the report before printing.
- 9Customizable dashboards(7) Ratings
Customizable dashboards are dashboards providing the builder some degree of control over the look and feel and display options.
- 8.4Report Formatting Templates(7) Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.
- 9Drill-down analysis(9) Ratings
Drill down analysis is the ability to get to a further level of detail by going deeper into the hierarchy.
- 8.1Formatting capabilities(10) Ratings
Ability to format output e.g. conditional formatting, lines, headers, footers.
- 8.2Integration with R or other statistical packages(1) Ratings
Integration with the open-source R predictive modeling environment.
- 9Report sharing and collaboration(10) Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration is the ability to easily share reports with others.
Report Output and Scheduling
Ability to schedule and manager report output.
- 9.1Publish to Web(4) Ratings
- 9Publish to PDF(9) Ratings
- 9.1Report Versioning(3) Ratings
Report versioning is the assignment of version numbers to each version of a report to help in tracking.
- 9Report Delivery Scheduling(7) Ratings
Report Delivery Schedule is the ability to have reports delivered to a destination at a specific data and time.
- 9.1Delivery to Remote Servers(1) Ratings
Ability to deliver reports to remote servers
Data Discovery and Visualization
Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.
- 7.3Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)(1) Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats are canned visualization types that can be selected to visualize different kinds of data.
- 7.3Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization(1) Ratings
Location analytics is the visualization of geographical or spatial data.
Access Control and Security
Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.
- 9Multi-User Support (named login)(11) Ratings
Named model access means that users have access based on name and password.
- 9.1Role-Based Security Model(9) Ratings
Role-based access means that access to data is determined by job or position in the corporation.
- 9.1Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)(8) Ratings
Multiple access permission levels means that different levels of users have different rights.
- 9.1Report-Level Access Control(1) Ratings
Report-level access control means that the type of report determines who has access to it.
Mobile Capabilities
Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
- 9.1Responsive Design for Web Access(1) Ratings
Web design aimed at producing easy-to-read sites across a range of different devices.
- 9.1Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile(1) Ratings
In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
APIs are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for used for embedding one application in another
- 8.2REST API(1) Ratings
REST is an architecture style for designing networked applications
Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
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
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
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(86)Community Insights
- 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
- 8.7Likelihood to Renew67 ratings
- 9.1Availability3 ratings
- 8.3Performance2 ratings
- 9.1Usability14 ratings
- 10Support Rating11 ratings
- 7.3Online Training2 ratings
- 9Implementation Rating5 ratings
- 7.1Product Scalability2 ratings
- 7.3Data Visualization7 ratings
- 8Data Sources12 ratings
- 8Data Sharing and Collaboration12 ratings
Reviews
(26-50 of 77)Reporting made easy through Entrinsik Informer
- Entrinsik Informer provides a way to pull information from several files within our database into a single report. This is far superior to having to query the database directly where you can only pull information from a single file at a time. It enables the end user to access information easily without having to involve technical staff.
- It's possible to train power users to create their own reports in Entrinsik Informer, giving the users more flexibility in writing reports that are most appropriate to their work processes and without taking up technical staff time. We have done that here, and it works well. This only requires the occasional assist from technical staff, freeing our time to devote more time and support to users who are only interested in accessing reports written for them.
- Some direct training on the advanced features of Entrinsik Informer would be helpful, e.g., more specific instructions on how to create computed columns within Informer reports.
- Some more detailed instruction on how to use Analytics and Charting would be beneficial as well, with examples geared more to a college setting than to the business world. Often in the sessions at the Entrinsik conferences, for instance, the examples given don't translate well for me to our college experience. It's more along the lines of sales and things of that nature, that don't fit into our experience at all. So, sometimes it's hard for me to figure out how to apply the principles.
Informer provides great value to our customer base.
- Informer allows our customer base to access their data and create their own reports.
- Informer's interface is very simple to use. Our customers learn how to build reports in a very short amount of time.
- Everyone wants to get the data out and Informer allows them to schedule reports via email or extract the data to a variety of different formats very easily.
- We have had a few scalability issues as we have grown the number of customers using the tool quite rapidly, but Entrinsik has been a great partner with us working to overcome the challenges we have encountered along the way.
Entrinsik Informer ROCKS!
- Ease of use
- Ability to export analytics
- Ability to join files with a common key, making reporting applicable to specific data questions
- I'd like to see Entrinsik expand its menu of scripts that are provided for use.
- I'd also appreciate an expanded how-to manual as a pdf on calculated columns and dashboarding.
The Little Engine That Could
- The Live Excel function allows you to create spreadsheets and send them to others. The recipient can add their own columns but refresh the original data at will which saves time and effort.
- Client office staff can be trained to create their own reports, but if they don't have the time or interest it's easy to create reports for them. We can deliver the reports in a variety of ways and many people love the option of having reports sent to them by email at a scheduled time.
- The ability to report from both SQL and Unidata on the same report is amazing! We use this feature all the time and it has greatly simplified our lives.
- The software is slow to respond when you filter the list of reports on a tag or favorites. It's also slow when you try to add a report to your list of favorites.
Get Consistent real-time Unidata Reporting with Informer.
- Informer easily can link tables from a variety of data sources. Reports can easily be created using both fields and JavaScript formulas using feature rich drag and drop column placement
- Immediately Informer’s LIVE Excel feature is a time saver. Users no longer have to wait for someone else to provide them with real-time data.
- Informer’s ability to link related Colleague tables together is what allows more data to be collected together on a single report.
- Entrinsik should provide at least some usage reports, including a report on reports, report usage statistics including most used and least used.
Make Life Easier with Entrinsik Informer
- Easy to create reports based on specific selection criteria
- Reports can be delivered in a variety of ways- Excel, Live Excel, PDF, CSV, Saved Lists, etc.
- Easy to schedule reports to have delivered via email to different people around our College at various times.
- As technology advances, there is always room for improvements, but I think Informer does a very good job of staying up-to-date with the latest cutting edge technologies. One improvement I would like to see is an area specifically for report schedules that can be easily edited.
- Another improvement would be speed. You can never have enough speed in processing reports.
So, easy to use a hamster could do it
- Run complicated and simple queries
- Schedule daily, weekly reports
- Use as a department tool to communicate with colleagues
- The steps to build the report is a bit cumbersome
Informer as a User Friendly Solution
- The Informer reporting tool is easy to use for users of all levels of technical expertise.
- The Informer reporting tool does not require IT support to create reports. Users can create, run and modify reports without requiring IT resources.
- The flexibility of security administration allows us to grant users access to only the data sources, files, fields, and reports related to their specific jobs.
- The Informer dashboards allow immediate access to statistics and key performance indicators. Charts and graphs can be designed in minutes to reflect various report results in graphic form.
- Informer allows us the flexibility of reporting out of multiple databases.
- Entrinsik is working to remedy issues related to server memory usage. They are very open to user feedback and consider the relationship with their clients to be priority.
Client converting to SQL
- Mappings are easily created, but need to be careful on who you allow to added metadata to the mappings.
- Reports are easily created and maintained.
- Installation is relatively easy.
- Security can be very cumbersome.
- Like the file mapping suites in UNIDATA. Has saved us a lot of time not having to rebuild reports every year. The mapping suites don't work well at all in the SQL environment and feel that this needs to be resolved very quickly .
Great low-cost Reporting Tool with Superb Support Staff
- I love the mapping capabilities. Practically no more computed columns needed in Colleague.
- Calculated columns help to get the desired result you need.
- It is easy to use. Security set up is also straight forward
- Functions are great, but knowing what fields you need in your report to populate the function with is difficult. I need to know what they are before I add the function. I actually listed the fields needed in the description of the function.
Entrinsik Informer Review
- Entrinsik makes Informer easy to use.
- Informer Dashboards are easy to set up also.
- Maintenance is easy
- When creating reports, there is the ability to drag and drop
- At this moment, I can't think of anything that can be improved. There are minor glitches that need to be fixed, but nothing major.
- I truly enjoying working with this product.
Why Chapman depends on Informer
- We can always depend on Informer to provide both on-demand and daily scheduled reports when needed.
- Our users pretty much write their own reports: Informer makes it easy to create both simple and more complex reports.
- One thing that some users miss (from Informer 3 functionality) is the ability of reports to provide two levels of subtotaling.
- One area that I would like to see improvement would be in better Javascript support and instruction, when creating calculated columns and functions.
Entrinsik Informer reduces support and training while improving reporting and access to data
- Very user-friendly for quick, one-off reports
- Very manageable and granular permission for granting access to only the data required
- Very easy to share reports and queries
- Minimal training and support required for quick user adpotation
- Copying of permissions from group to group, when creating new groups at a low level is cumbersome for the admins
- The sharing and permissioning areas are the only difficult area to train users in, but it is complex
Easy reporting with Informer
- Easy to use
- Excellent support by vendor
- Allows for multiple data sources
- The migration from Unidata backend to SQL is messy, but tools are great and support is there.
Informed about Informer!
- Scheduling reports. We are able to easily schedule emails using many different recurring schedules. We are also able to email outside of our domain, so we can email to our volunteers who don't have an email from our institution.
- Export choices. We use Excel and PDF predominantly, but have been experimenting with XML.
- Drag and drop of columns. We are now able to move columns and rearrange easier than in previous versions.
- User level permissions. Our OIT department controls our permissions, but we are able to have two levels-one for my staff who are the report writers and another for the staff who are the end users of the reports.
- Performance-I don't know if it is a problem with Informer or the database, but sometimes it can take up to 45 minutes to run a report and I have to schedule it.
- Search for email addresses- there is no way to search for a particular email in the scheduling section. So, when staff leave, I can't easily go find all the reports they were receiving.
- Data analytics-they have a tab called "analytics", but I don't really think that is a fair term to use. It produces really basic pie and bar charts. It can be a little misleading.
Entrinsik Informer usability review.
- Setting up a report is quite easy for end users to manage
- For the logging in process it interacts with our identity management system
- It's very easy to download data into a PDF or spreadsheet/csv file.
- Lack of customising a finished looking report
- Doesn't work the same was as Crystal or Access reports ... the interface is different.
- Customising a computed column is a little tricky.
Entrinsik Informer
- Our users like that reports can include prompts. This allows different departments on campus to use the same report with their own specific criteria.
- Informer is fairly easy to use. It has allowed some of our end users to create reports on their own. With some training and understanding of the data and design of the database, they have been able to get what they need out of our student information system.
- Personally, I like the fact that I can write a t-sql query and just copy it to Informer. This is much easier for me as a DBA than having to use the user interface.
- We have routinely had issues with Java on our Informer box which require us to reboot the server. Support has been helpful when this occurs but it would be nice if it was easier to troubleshoot the problems on our own.
Informed
- Makes creating reports straight forward
- Emailed reporting capability
- Making the work day easier
- Since my experience with Informer was more than 12 months ago I can not comment about its current format
New to Entrinsik Informer but very happy.
- Non-technical users are able to get the data they need easily.
- Set-up was easy.
- We are still new users but those with a higher level of technical knowledge can create advanced reports/dashboards easily.
- More detailed documentation, specifically about calculated columns and JavaScript examples would be nice.
- Makes the reporting logic transparent to other report managers
- Facilitates easy, ad hoc reporting
- Enables users to export the data in a variety of formats so they can use it however they prefer
- Not sure how to do it, but more prompts built into the tool to help keep the tool clean. When reports appear to be ad hoc, prompt the author to delete it when they are done for example.
Versatile reporting tool from a company who listens
- It's extremely easy to quickly put together a report to retrieve data you need. Filters and columns can be easily created, and code can be written in JavaScript to create additional columns. Custom JavaScript functions can be created and then easily used in the code.
- Links between tables/files are easy to create, and can even be made to link together separate databases. The more advanced users can set up these links, and more basic users can then utilize them easily without understanding any background.
- Reports can now be exported to share between institutions very easily. When importing a report, it will automatically add any mappings and links you don't have that are needed. Using this feature, you can even copy your entire database mapping to your test database, so all your mappings and links don't have to be manually created in your test database.
- Filtering could be greatly improved. You cannot filter on columns linked from a secondary datasource, the calculated fields written in JavaScript, and computed columns from Colleague can also be tricky to filter on.
- Loading of the report lists can be slow and glitchy (though I have been told this will be fixed soon)
- When reporting on SQL databases, you cannot link a table with an outer join unless you write the entire report yourself in SQL code - a severe limitation that I hope will be fixed soon.
- Defaults for report prompts would be great
- When adding mappings and properties, it would be great if you could retrieve a sample of data from the DB to quickly see what the data looks like - helpful for knowing what you want to add.
- Linking on composite keys in Unidata still seems to be impossible. And the ability to link to a non @ID field in Unidata would be great.
Resellers point of view review
- The system is rather intuitive. Most clients are able to pick up the application at an excelled pace.
- Ease of implementation; with self-contained installer deploying multiple instances is easily done.
- It is rather easy to “break” the system with what I call runaway reports. The way the system requests data is rather poor in that it’s an all or nothing deal.
- Screen constancy is a little off. The option to drag or double click should be a valid input on any screen, but there is a mix of this feature working fully and partially.
- There is no granular system administration; the application it is either on or off. At times it would be helpful to stop/kill individual user database requests from the system, rather than turning off the application for the entire company to resolve issues.
Informer works for us
- Informer is an intuitive tool for end users. It is very easy to train all levels of a user population.
- In addition to being a simple tool to use, Informer has very sophisticated capabilities for creating complicated reports as needed by our Power Users.
- Informer provides reporting on itself, so as a service manager and administrator of Informer, I can easily gather metrics on how often and how our end users are using the tool.
- Reporting on Informer itself can be very challenging. There is no dictionary resource on the tables provided about Informer, so a lot of report writing is trial and error on my part. And I can find myself making assumptions about what a data field means.
Great Reporting Tool
- Report building in a convenient format.
- Wonderful support. They are always helpful and solve the issue quickly.
- Would like another option besides just Excel for report.
My Review of Entrinsik Informer
- Entrinsik Informer has an easy to learn user interface. With limited knowledge of relational database concepts, our end users are able to develop their own reports with little training.
- Entrinsik Informer also has the ability to create complex reporting using javascript and Native SQL statements. Although IT assistance is generally needed to write the more complex reports, I have found any reporting requirement can be met using these advanced tools.
- With recent enhancements in version 4.4.1, I have a better appreciation of the security features within Entrinsik Informer. The security audit reporting is very helpful from an administrative perspective. From a users perspective, they can now better categorize reports for more effective sharing and scheduling across departments.
- The most recent version 4.4.1 has some performance issues and functions much slower than prior versions. This is frustrating to the end users. I do know Entrinsik is aware of and working on fixing this issue.
- It would be nice for Entrinsik to publish the schema of Informer's internal database. We have access to it and do report from it, but it takes longer to get the reporting correct than it would with a published schema to guide the way.
- End users can write reports which pull enormous amounts of data "by accident". It would be nice to have built in functionality to stop these queries from running off and bringing the entire application down for all users. I have recently attended training which included writing a plug-in to do this but it would be better if it were built into the product.