Better and faster analytics on your finger tips.
We heavily rely on Spotfire in our organization for business intelligence requirements. It has been verified that this is an incredibly …
Starting at $0.99 Per Hour (Starting)
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What is Spotfire?
Spotfire® is a data visualization platform that utilizes predictive analytics. In addition to data viz, it includes data wrangling capabilities, predictive analytics, location analytics, and real-time streaming analytics. Spotfire® is a business unit of Cloud Software Group, formerly known…
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Popular Features
- Customizable dashboards (294)9.191%
- Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.) (306)8.686%
- Drill-down analysis (289)8.383%
- Formatting capabilities (302)7.878%
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Video Reviews
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TIBCO Spotfire Review: Translates Data To Be Visualized For More Effective Understanding
02:38
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Spotfire for Amazon Web Services
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Spotfire Cloud - Consumer
$250/yr
Cloud
per seat
Spotfire Cloud - Business Author
$650/yr
Cloud
per seat
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- No setup fee
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What is Spotfire?
Spotfire® is a data visualization platform that aims to speed individual time to insight and spur analytics adoption across the organization. According to the vendor, Spotfire helps users quickly and easily generate insights with three new ways to support their analytical preferences: NLQ powered search, AI-driven recommendations, and direct manipulation. Users can add context with native streaming for integrated analyses of real-time and historical data, best-in-class geoanalytics, and one-click predictive analytics to go beyond basic visualizations and understand the factors driving trends and what will happen next.
The vendor states Spotfire's differentiating hybrid in-memory/in-database analytics architecture supports the most demanding enterprise needs, scaling to thousands of users and limitless rows of data.
Spotfire is deployed in companies in financial services, energy, manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, government, travel & logistics, helathcare, and life sciences.
Spotfire® is a business unit of Cloud Software Group, formerly known as TIBCO Spotfire.
The vendor states Spotfire's differentiating hybrid in-memory/in-database analytics architecture supports the most demanding enterprise needs, scaling to thousands of users and limitless rows of data.
Spotfire is deployed in companies in financial services, energy, manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, government, travel & logistics, helathcare, and life sciences.
Spotfire® is a business unit of Cloud Software Group, formerly known as TIBCO Spotfire.
Spotfire Features
BI Platform Features
- Supported: Administration via Windows App
- Supported: Administration via MacOS App
- Supported: Administration via Web Interface
- Supported: Live Connection to External Data
- Supported: Snapshot of External Data
- Supported: In-memory data model
- Supported: OLAP (Pre-processed cube representation)
- Supported: Multi-Data Source Reporting (Blending)
- Supported: Data warehouse / dictionary layer
- Supported: ETL Capability
- Supported: ETL Scheduler
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: EMC Greenplum
- Supported: IBM Netezza
- Supported: HP Vertica
- Supported: SAP Hana
- Supported: Teradata
- Supported: Salesforce
- Supported: SAP
- Supported: Google Analytics
BI Standard Reporting Features
- Supported: Customizable dashboards
- Supported: Report Formatting Templates
Ad-hoc Reporting Features
- Supported: Drill-down analysis
- Supported: Formatting capabilities
- Supported: Predictive modeling
- Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages
- Supported: Report sharing and collaboration
Report Output and Scheduling Features
- Supported: Publish to Web
- Supported: Publish to PDF
- Supported: Output Raw Supporting Data
- Supported: Report Delivery Scheduling
Data Discovery and Visualization Features
- Supported: Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
- Supported: Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
- Supported: Predictive Analytics
- Supported: Support for Machine Learning models
- Supported: Pattern Recognition and Data Mining
- Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages
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: Mobile Application
- Supported: Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding Features
- Supported: REST API
- Supported: Javascript API
- Supported: iFrames
- Supported: Java API
- Supported: Themeable User Interface (UI)
- Supported: Customizable Platform (Open Source)
Spotfire Screenshots
Spotfire Videos
Intro to Visualizations in Spotfire
Creating a Dashboard in 5 Minutes
Spotfire Application Walkthrough
Advanced Analytics Scripting with Python and R
Spotfire Integrations
Spotfire Competitors
Spotfire Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Mobile Web |
| Supported Countries | Available in all regions |
| Supported Languages | English, Spanish, French, German, Portugese, Chinese, Italian |
Spotfire Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
Spotfire® is a data visualization platform that utilizes predictive analytics. In addition to data viz, it includes data wrangling capabilities, predictive analytics, location analytics, and real-time streaming analytics. Spotfire® is a business unit of Cloud Software Group, formerly known as TIBCO Spotfire.
Reviewers rate Customizable dashboards highest, with a score of 9.1.
The most common users of Spotfire are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(810)Attribute Ratings
- 8.3Likelihood to Renew
- 9Availability
- 7.1Performance
- 8Usability
- 8.7Support Rating
- 8.8Online Training
- 7.3In-Person Training
- 8Implementation Rating
- 7.1Configurability
- 7Product Scalability
- 7Ease of integration
- 5Vendor pre-sale
- 5Vendor post-sale
- 8Data Visualization
- 9.3Data Sources
- 8.2Data Sharing and Collaboration
- 4Tibco Spotfire Smart Recommendations
- 8Tibco Spotfire Data Wrangling
- 6Tibco Spotfire R Engine
- 8.1Tibco Spotfire Mapping
Reviews
(276-300 of 335)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
December 22, 2016
Spotfire Self review
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Security : Here we can design the row level security based on the user who logs into the system. even row level security can be build for huge data set(millions of records), By keeping actual data-table in cache we can bring live data for security table and applying restriction on already cached data(no waiting time)
- Using HTML & J-Script
- Using of Python script: All the property can be controlled thru Python scripting. with single click event we can in-work python scripts which execute dynamically.
- Doesn't support cube/Hyperion data source directly.
- In-DB connection are not flexible, wont support embedding or adding calculated columns.
December 21, 2016
Spotfire well worth the investment
We use Spotfire to quickly analyze large data sets. We start by combining the data from multiple public and private sources. The majority of the current business use has been for oil and gas M&A evaluations for clients. In the past, I have used it for oil and gas production engineering and well surveillance activities.
- Connects to a wide variety of data sources quickly and easily for non- IT personnel.
- Simple but powerful data transformation and cleanup tools.
- Quick and easy visualization setup.
- Built in tools to customize visualizations, process automation, and perform complex analytics.
- No manual for new users converting from other platforms like Microsoft Excel. However, Tibco has over the last year significantly improved the availability of how tos through the Spotfire Community forum, Blog, and Tips & Tricks web page.
- Not able to correct or change data in the Spotfire environment. You must go to the data source to make corrections.
- Tools and features offerings vary from Spotfire platforms (Desktop, Cloud, Enterprise, Web Client). So if you are working with different clients or departments that are on a differing platform, they may not be able to see or perform certain functions in an analysis.
December 19, 2016
Great online training for basics
Spotfire is used for data analysis within my organisation. Mostly my department is using Spotfire. During the engineering phase, it is used to analyse the behaviour of a chip, e.g. at different temperatures or for corner lots. In the mass production phase, it is used in case of problems. In [our] daily work, we use Spotfire to provide weekly and monthly product data.
- It can deal with a huge amount of data.
- Different graphic charts can be chosen related to the data you want to show.
- Spotfire provides a good filtering system in order to show specific data.
- Sometimes I cannot tell if the data shown is right. The possibility of tracking data would be good.
- Some tables cannot be exported to MS Power Point.
- When importing data from clipboard the automatic matching is wrong sometimes and if you do not realise this you have empty tables later.
December 17, 2016
Robust visualization and analytics available for a small budget
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Spotfire provides advanced visualization that can be further customized with custom expressions, which is a very powerful and versatile functionality. Coupled with property controls that allow users make various selections and changes to variables, this functionality allows creating pretty robust 'what if' scenarios. Such has multiple applications ranging from price analysis and price development to budgeting to cash flow to engineering.
- Spotfire is very good at data transformations and enrichment. This allows aligning multiple otherwise disparate data sources and analyzing data from those data sources side by side and on the same view. That in turn provides deeper insight into data.
- Spotfire offers a wide range of formula types including statistical formulas that allow for high degree of customization and flexibility in building visualizations and/or logic. This in turn again allows getting more insight into/from data.
- Combination chart does not allow stacked bars along with a line. So, if the user does stacked bars i.e., based on one column but broken down with the column's individual values by color, then the line is not possible to do.
- The statistical table of the box plot visualization, though very useful and customizable, cannot be formatted and the default formats aren't based on the columns' formats either.
- Data transformations, though extremely useful and critical for data alignment for multiple data sources, cannot be changed once implemented for a data table. If changes are due, the entire data table must be re-done.
- There are multiple bugs that either unexpectedly shut down a Spotfire session or otherwise interfere. For example, if a data table has data transformations and columns inserted from external tables and if such a data table is embedded then it may become un-refreshable. Sometimes, that can be corrected by selecting "Linked to Source", saving the file and re-opening. But sometimes, it becomes un-refreshable for good, meaning that the data table must be re-done from scratch.
- If a column that is being used in any expression or as a matched column is deleted, the entire data table becomes embedded and will have to be re-done from scratch.
- There's limited functionality to personalize visualizations with colors, shapes, fonts, etc.
December 16, 2016
Big data made easy
We are using it to manage big data to analyze our assets.
- Makes it very easy to manage large amounts of data.
- Interactive dash boarding for effective visualization.
- Allows linkage to database information for quick timely data access.
- I would like to see the ability for more robust formatting for visualizations with the ability to format using right click rather than having to pull up properties every time.
- I think more robust graphical interfaces to representing data and the associated labelling for those graphs. For example an easier way to provide cluster graphs.
- On the visualization it would be nice to have the ability to hide the headers for the respective choice particularly the 'colour by' options.
December 16, 2016
Using Spotfire to create analysis on the spot
I am currently using Spotfire to analyze incident data within my organization. It helps to bring data analysis to management in a clear visual way that tells a story of how the organization is performing by being able to merge data from multiple sources into one file using common fields to form the relationship.
- Spotfire is great at letting you see the changes within the visualizations as you make them giving you the opportunity to be sure you are creating exactly what you want to see.
- Having the ability to allow users to view your visualizations over an internet connection and still modify their view without actually making changes to the file is a great option.
- The ability to use links to bring multiple data sources together helps to provide data that is useful to the end user.
- There is a function limitation that does not allow you to create table visualizations/details on demand if your data is in a cube format.
- Property controls are a great feature but creating a control that will limit the data is not always intuitive so you have to be very familiar with how to create the property controls and assign them.
- It would be nice to have a little more control over how table/cross-table/summary tables are created, such as being able to create a table that has the same look and feel as if it were created in say Excel with the functionality of Spotfire.
December 16, 2016
Great platform for everyday/live analytics.
It is being used in all departments of the company. I have gathered all our back end data through SQL in a central facility with Spotfire. We have everything from our accounting, land, operations, production, geology, asset, & reservoir [data in the system].
- Automation of live data is very quick.
- Easy to get used to.
- Many ways to manipulate the data.
- Some limitations on several visualizations that cannot be done with Spotfire.
- Can create charts in Excel that cannot be replicated in Spotfire at this time.
- Speed and efficiency with large data-sets is somewhat lacking.
December 15, 2016
A Day in Spotfire
- R engine for Predictive modeling is Fantastic.
- Ability to use HTML and Java Script to make dashboard like a true webpage.
- Ability to use Java scrip to build custom visualization like Speedometer.
- Over functions to Slice and Dice Data are very Efficient, Calculations columns are easy to understand and use.
- Ability to have Text area, [for example] floating text area within visualizations.
- A GUI for creating joins between tables would be good add on.
- Ability to change joins on the fly.
December 12, 2016
I want this thing to hum
We use Spotfire for dashboarding, data visualization and scripting for statistical and predictive modeling. Most of our departments use it from operations, production, safety, to finance and corporate. We find a lot of value in the customization and development options of Spotfire and the TERR engine. The business problems being addressed via Spotfire range from the improvement in speed and accuracy in production forecast models to the variance reconciliation of realized and recognized cost models.
- Data assimilation and aggregation
- Data Visualization Style Offerings
- Continuous version improvements
- Unreasonably high priced TERR scripts; Need more templates with TERR scripts (forecasting, statistical scipts, etc.) and IronPython styling examples templates that are more reasonablly priced.
- Would like the ability to map and save colors to particular data values across all visualizations.
- Would like chronological movie play functionality to view chronological flows on map charts.
- Would like more customized oilfield chart offerings like for example, 3D surfacing, geological logs, lithological facies clustering charts, tree diagrams, cross sectioning functionality, etc.
December 10, 2016
A Spotfire (not Spitfire) Review
We use Spotfire for our internal analytics and are just about to roll out the access to our clients so they can see real time data. This tool is currently being used by 2 departments and within the next year will be rolled out across the firm to all divisions. We use it to make sure that our data is accurate and complete and to keep track of trends and staffing and financials. I personally did testing among several applications and Spotfire fits us the best. I highly recommend it and already have to friends that work for other companies who perform the same business function I do at companies where they work.
- Drill Downs, the visualizations within Spotfire are fantastic. Our management and staff absolutely love the power it provides to really drill down into data to get more details on the information they are looking at.
- We pull in data from several different tools on different platforms into one visualization. This was a must have for us.
- User friendly - with simple training our users were able to be up and running to view and navigate any visualizations that were created for them. Creating the visualizations took more training. However the online training was really fantastic. Very well done and that is a huge plus with any new tool.
- Pie chart labels, it would be great to get more options for sizing and placement.
- It would be great to have some pre-defined themes. Right now you can have a white background or black for the visualizations which is really nice, but it would be great to have a few more options.
- On the bar chart labels, it would be great to be able to maneuver or change those as well as the pie chart labels. I am duplicating this one as its not so easy to come up with Spotfire complaints, I really like this tool and am thrilled that we have it.
December 09, 2016
Very good visualization tool
We use Spotfire to rapidly visualize data and build interactive dashboards in connection of other data science tools such as R. It is useful in many use cases in analytics.
- Visualization is very quick and interactive
- Connection to modeling tools such as R and SAS is very important. We need functionality to run R code out of Spotfire dashboards and read a wide range of native format files
- Server client and cloud options are very important for easy sharing of end products
- I would like better data management capabilities, e.g. ability to do joints, selection, variable transformations in a more streamlined way. Some functionality exists, but it is still somewhat limited and cumbersome.
December 09, 2016
Spotfire is an excellent data visualization and data analytics tool
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Handles large data sets very well (ie. thousands to millions of rows of data)
- Gives users flexibility on creating the types of visualizations they can create based on what questions they ask.
- Can easily integrate with data sources, for example, connecting directly to databases.
- Makes it easy for a user to spot trends or outlying data and identify it.
- Empowers user with the ability see the data in a different way and make decisions.
- Out-of-the-box, Spotfire does not do actual data analysis well, meaning it is really not meant to be used for complex calculations of data.
- Requires a 3-tiered architecture (Oracle Database, Application Server, and thick client) for setting up.
- It does not have a strong curve-fitting engine.
December 09, 2016
Spotfire product review
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Drill down capability; consistent design, filtering options.
- Design customizability.
- Limited tabular views.
- Doesn't scale particularly well (screen size).
December 09, 2016
Oil and Gas Engineer Using Data to Answer Tough Questions
We acquired a small number of licenses across our company within the past year. We have trained those employees on the software, and the software is being used on an individual basis for data analytics and visualization. We have also partnered with Blue River Analytics, an oil and gas consulting firm. They are assisting us in implementing business intelligence solutions to help us communicate internal and external data within the company. Internal data includes production volumes, expenses, revenues, and capital expenditures. External data is largely based around IHS data.
- A new user can pick up this software, and quickly link it to an Excel workbook. From that point the software is very intuitive, and visualizations are quickly generated.
- The software can easily be taken to the next level, and allow users to create dashboards for business intelligence.
- Ultimately the software can address complex problems through the use of R scripting.
- Adding infographic functionality to allow users to create aesthetically pleasing visuals.
- Allow users to use multiple windows from the same visualization so that two computer screens can be used.
December 09, 2016
Spotfire
We used Spotfire for our analytics department. It is a very helpful tool for visualizing data. It helps the organizations to understand their data patterns and take corrective actions to improve their outcomes.
- Easy to use
- Fast data retrieval
- Very stable
- Easy to colloborate with other users
- Does not understand complex SQL queries
- Can not write stored procedures
- No email bursting option in desktop version
December 09, 2016
Spotfire in a K4 - 12, bilingual, international school in Colombia
The Spotfire Platform is being used by Colegio Nueva Granada to provide access to data from a variety of sources to teachers, administrators and other school staff. A variety of dashboards are available to teachers to monitor student performance in the classroom and on standardized tests. Dashboards for tracking trends in school metrics are available to administrators to track trends and monitor progress towards school improvement objectives. The problem that Spotfire solves is decreasing the burden in gathering actionable data so educational staff are able to make data-informed decisions about their teaching strategies in the classroom. Furthermore, accreditation standards are very data focused, and Spotfire helps us achieve those standardized at higher levels.
- Merge data from a variety sources into a single data table
- Easy user interface for the author and the end-users
- Customer technical support
- Innovation with new releases
- Filter elements added into text boxes do not have the name of the filter above them as they do in the filter menu.
- Calculated columns in the receiving table are not available as columns on which one can match during a merging process unless they were calculated using a data table transformation.
- The legend icon for graphics is hidden until you scroll over it. Inexperienced users don't know it is there.
December 06, 2016
Spotfire - software for data analysts
- Spotfire is very simple to learn and to understand.
- Spotfire is great to use as a tool to share patterns and trends and allow others less familiar with Spotfire to be able to simply search the data.
- Data can be imported from external sources such as an ERP like SAP, Excel, or Access.
- The simplicity of the software sometimes causes limitations to users not familiar with coding.
- Online resources for learning and problem solving are sometimes few and far between.
November 29, 2016
Spotfire is a top performer
- Importing Excel files was fantastically easy compared to other BI tools. Other tools required selecting the range of data in Excel and creating a table out of that prior to import. Others had multi-step processes. Accessing an Excel file in Spotfire was the easiest.
- The recommended visualizations are fantastic for users who aren't as comfortable exploring data that they have possession of. This feature automatically suggests ways to visualize data enabling users to start exploring much sooner rather than figuring out how they could possibly 'see' their data.
- Filtering schemes are one of my personal favorites. I often walk groups of people through several scenarios as we explore data together. To prepare for these sessions I like to have filtering schemes set up so that I can quickly choose a scheme that includes several filters that get instantly applied to a page. This is fantastic because it saves time and often provides a dramatic change to the visualization depending on the scheme I select. It's a really cool feature.
- I feel that the overall look and feel of Spotfire can be improved. When put up against some close competitors, Spotfire beats them all in function but it's a bit lacking in polish. This isn't important to a user like myself but when projected on a huge display it doesn't look as modern as some competitors.
November 18, 2016
Spotfire Review
Spotfire is used by my department. SW is addressing experiment data analysis and spec setting. We also use SW to create auto reports and publish for managers and engineering review. Major problems that we address are: problem with our product components, problems with the whole product, alignment between simulation and experiment, meeting quality and performance requirements.
- Spotfire enables us to build holistic analysis platform: connection to data, basic analysis, advanced analysis, publishing of the results.
- Analysis is interactive and data is interconnected across tables.
- Easy programming of basic analysis functions.
- I would like to keep visualization parameters unchanged when I switch source table in visualization to new table and new table has the same columns.
- Information link is static. I would like to have an option to choose columns in info link interactively.
- Heavy analysis may take a lot of resources on my desktop. I would like to have an alert when too much resources are consumed in order to reduce my template to match available computing resources.
October 23, 2016
Better than PowerPoint
I like the sum tables and the bar charts. I use it to input shapefiles and Excel files. It allows me to review large data and look for key elements. I use this in oil and gas. This program saves me time. I recommend it to ever customer I work with and help show them some demos online.
- The Sum Tables. It allows great data review.
- The bar charts help show totals and easy compare by date ranges
- The map helps see the location of the data. I work with lease and mineral data.
- User manual in pdf form.
- Sometimes the program is a little advanced and I don't understand it.
- I would like to see more teaching videos linked to each type of chart styles to help explain.
If you consider the most recent version, then I have used a trial version of 7.5 to compare with a Tableau implementation. The earlier Spotfire version used on a detailed project level was 6.5. Version 7.5 in the cloud is easy to handle and provides an impressive quick dashboard that I like in terms of quick development and clarity in the design of a dashboard. This tool is good for corporate people in particular for KPI reports and dashboards. This is used to provide business solutions e.g., certain KPIs that are heavily dependent on data and insights generated out of data. We used it in a metric design for various pharma business milestones: trends, volume, speed, etc.
- Easy to build dashboard instead of creating a metalayer unlike a universe design in Business Objects.
- This tool can be handled by various types of users (not only by developers of Spotfire), to design a few quick analytic reports.
- Analytics can be good with visualizations.
- If you know SQL you can create any db query and put it into an information link then design the dashboard upfront in Spotfire desktop.
- The server supports different databases and big data I guess.
- What I could not find here is any specific dimension or measure being defined in a Spotfire layer.
- Not sure yet - Does do the dimensional model internally or just consider the numeric as a measure and the non numeric as a dimension?
- It would be nice if this tool could generate a design of a data model after the developer has created or defined the data points in the report.
October 07, 2016
Spotfire - 2016
In my function, we use Spotfire for data analytics and real-time monitoring of operational, financial, and market data. We have a team of 5-6 that are strong users of the tools and have integrated the functionality across our systems that we utilize for our master databases, whereby integrating our analysis and not just looking at it functionally.
- Ease of integration (open source)
- Variety of 'out of the box' analytic techniques and setups
- In application training/help is limited
October 07, 2016
Spotfire - Oil and Gas
We use it to evaluate oil and gas developments across the country. It is used by a few different departments in the same fashion. We use it to look at trends and results from different drilling, completion and production.
- We like being able to look at large data sets to analyze the data we already have.
- The mapping tool is helpful.
- Multiple tables with maps on a single visualization are very helpful.
- Map labels are very limiting when looking at a large data set. Threshold on labels should be limitless.
- Markers on maps shapes should have more options.
- Zooming in on maps should be more smooth.
September 27, 2016
Spotfire Cloud Review
We use Spotfire to analyze and present data related to production operations, as well as to forecast future business. The primary driver is resource optimization--we use Spotfire to track work in progress and resource allocation (specifically people/time), to ensure that staff are optimally deployed. We also use Spotfire to calculate and present performance metrics for individuals, products, and programs. Finally we use Spotfire to plan future resource needs by analyzing past performance. Spotfire is used by one department at the company, we have 2-3 authors who publish to the cloud for viewing by the larger team (50). Spotfire solves two key problems that Excel can't--it's easy to connect to data sources for live refresh, and it's easy to put things on the web so that many people can explore them at once.
- Connects to every data source imaginable and does it quickly and efficiently, and is repeatable.
- Presents an excellent blend of out-of-the-box visualizations and complete customization. I suspect most companies (including mine) are barely scratching the surface of what's possible with scripting, property controls, etc.
- The coding for custom expressions is easy to learn for anyone comfortable writing formulas in Excel.
- Help (F1) content seems somewhat outdated at times, and the company has yet to create an effective and useful space for the community to interact (the old pre-TIBCO forums were awesome!).
- I wish there was a little more UI support and handholding for establishing & managing relationships between data tables, and for blending data sources in visualization.
- It would be nice if it were possible to edit a data table after it was created (e.g. go back change what options were selected on import).
- The colors still aren't amazing (but they get better with each release). Still a little too much focus on primary colors for default schemes.
- Visualization export still needs work. As much as I wish everyone would go to the webplayer, sometimes you need something for a static report. The canned exports are not pretty.
September 03, 2016
Spotfire - the best kept secret in Business Intelligence & Analytics!
The depth and extensibility of the Spotfire platform is being used to provide instant access and insight across multi-million row data sets with hundreds of data elements per row instantly to a complex organisation of multi foci users. We are able to provide a beautiful, intuitive and rich user experience through the deep technology layers of IronPython and out of the box functionality that we have not seen in Tableau, SAS or even Qlik. Underpinned by the T.E.R.R statistical engine for calculations and analytical modelling, we are helping to identify efficiencies and opportunities to improve the clinical service delivery, efficiency and cost across more than 90 hospitals.
- Outstanding statistical underbelly based upon R without a bolt-on addition.
- Beautiful interface and visual design out of the box with a lot of flexibility in embedding HTML and javascript.
- Great and simple management of data and calculated/binned data columns.
- Really simple security integration and configuration with in-house ICT infrastructure.
- Very cost-effective in our experience, again much more so under the TOA for procurement compared to other platforms.
- Tooltips require significant work in their flexibility of use compared to Tableau and Qlik e.g. Cannot easily customise value formats, cannot add any custom tooltips on text area elements, cannot interact with tooltip e.g. insert a checkbox in a tooltip that you can click.
- Cannot individual style charting objects/visualisations i.e. if you dont want a line chart to have axis lines - then when setting the global themes... all axes have to be enabled/disabled - so theming is very limited and individual visualisation formatting is limited - but look and feel thankfully good out of the box so can get by on good looks... for a while.
- Printing from the web player is almost unuseable - it fails completely with a dark themed analysis.
- Inadequate session sharing - Qlik does this very well
- Hierarchies are not drill through and you must show all values at each level AND this in the levels above which makes the axes labels unreadable when all expanded. SAS VA does the drill through the best of all the BI platforms on chart viaualisations in my opinion.
- Tables are very poorly thought through. Cross tables have no deill down - all levels of the crosstable are always expanded which is hopeless for alot of data. All tables look and feel is poorly implemented - no width as a percentage, no proper dynamic auto width, no column min-width, issues with conditional formatting. But Spotfire isnt alone in poorly implemented tables. And different styling features and options on each table - very inconsistent.