Item: Infor Birst
Rating: 8
Author: Brian Flood

Overall Satisfaction with Birst

Pros and Cons

Pros

Implementation was incredibly quick and easy. I did the full implementation in-house with some help from our Birst support team. No internal engineering support needed.
Vast customization capabilities. Due to the nature of the Birst Cloud Data Warehouse, it can handle just about any and all data sources. Scripting in the warehouse is quite robust allowing for better integration across source systems, data quality and consistency.
Support is great. Without any internal support from engineering, I rely heavily on Birst support when things start acting up or I just have some simple how-to questions. They are always very prompt and helpful and have great knowledge of the product.

Cons

They're still using some flash components in the product although I'm told they will be replaced with HTML5 versions soon.
Advanced statistical analysis (i.e. Bayesian) requires separate systems. It would be great to see Birst implement some R functions to allow more flexibility in this regard.

We have been able to overcome any of the drawbacks we've found with Birst easily and it has fulfilled almost all of our analytic needs to date. Having seen their roadmap it would be highly unlikely we would move away from this platform any time soon. You simply can't beat the functionality that Birst provides for the price and the things I see coming out of the company solidify that our decision to choose Birst was the best possible choice. We have never regretted the decision.

Likelihood to Recommend

I would make sure that if they were planning to do more advanced statistical analysis that they knew it required a separate tool such as R or Weka. Make sure you know not only what the current product offering is, but also what is being released in the near future.

Using Birst

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