My Review of Entrinsik Informer
April 16, 2014
My Review of Entrinsik Informer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
v 4.4.1
Overall Satisfaction
We use Entrinsik Informer across all departments at our University. It is our primary reporting application and is used across multiple data sources, including Colleague and ODS. It empowers our users to analyze and report on the data available to them, in order to make better business decisions.
- 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.
- We have definitely improved customer service due to better reporting using Informer. All departments are better empowered to help our students in a more timely and accurate manner.
- Using Informer has given us the ability to eliminate functionality within our ERP system and offload reporting to a data store instead of the transactional system. This has resulted in successfully upgrading our core systems and improved response times.
- SAP Business Objects,Microsoft Access,Crystal Reports
Informer is more cost effective and easier to teach end users to write their own reports, but it still provides just as much functionality as the other products I've used. Informer is easy to manage and administer with a small number of IT employees per number of end users.