Item: Infor Birst
Rating: 5
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Birst

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Used across the business to pull buying and selling prices for the individual clients, all the way to larger agency level. It is currently linked to other products as well, which is how it is updated for reporting each day. It allows for information to be refreshed on a scheduled basis where in which this means the data team does not have to spend their time consistently running basic reports, other teams can pull it off themselves.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Allows individual teams opportunity to create their own individual dashboard, specific to their clients and needs.
Splits our costs easily, with an easy to use filter option, making reporting much faster.

Cons

In order to run Birst on a schedule, a ETL had to be created, this would be much more helpful.
Visually Birst could improve, we use a large amount of visualisations in presentation and have to use a different software to create these
Lack of stability in the product, we often experience issues where in which Birst is delayed or down. This being rectified would be extremely beneficial across the entire business.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Power BI and PostgreSQL

Key evaluation criteria:
- Is how quickly the query runs
- The code and metadata for the database
- How user-friendly the output is
- Ability for the dashboard or output to be shared amongst the business
- The visualization tools
- Stability of the database
Birst is a good data storage system which also allows for us to create different dashboards, therefore is a good choice for holding our past buying and selling information.

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited to provide an easy to use dashboard for non-data analysts. Allows for pulling off figures easily due to the filtering tool and being able to hold multiple different databases on one server. The small visualizations that it does provide are useful as well for our teams. For weekly reporting it is a useful tool, and is easily able to link to other software as well.

For a software which needs to be frequently updated on a schedule it is not always very suitable. There are some instances where in which Birst is down and we are unable to produce reports on time or with the most recent information.

Infor Birst Feature Ratings

Additional Questions on Birst Capabilities

Usability

Birst is a reliable BI platform that has developed through uploads via the cloud, easy tabular views, quick manual uploads and links to SQL databases. It however does not compete with other BI tools with the data manipulation and connections when your data is uploaded in the platform and the visualisation and customisations available. The automation aspect is very useful and is one of the top features, alongside the user hierarchy and permissions. Birst is an easy and useful tool for finicial reporting, however is not currently the best option on the market for providing easy to understand, edit and present visualisations.

Evaluating Birst and Competitors

Evaluation Lessons Learned

Due to the change in the market and the current focus on AI, this would come into play when deciding a BI tool. Other considerations would be the scale that the platform could reach re data volumes. Birst often crashes which is something that we would need to take into account. Links to the cloud and security are a large focus at the moment. One of the main issues is the style, customisation and options for visualisations. The option to import new or design your own visual or infographic is a very useful feature when trying to explain what your data is saying in a new and appealing way.

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Birst Review from Advertising Point of View