A little time goes a long way ...
April 16, 2014

A little time goes a long way ...

Donald Beck | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

4.3

Overall Satisfaction

Entrinsik Informer is used by power users, service staff and information technology. It allows us to easily capture real time data that we then use to feed into other systems. This allows us to expand services beyond our central database. It is also a quick way for users to pull simple lists of data for daily processing saving time and allowing users to focus on more critical tasks.

Pros

  • Real time data reporting
  • Simple drag and drop interface
  • Easy to maintain

Cons

  • Data cannot be qualified inline to exclude rows of data or sections/returns based on matching fields
  • A standardization guide to map fields to common names for non-technical users (this is probably something that can be done)
  • Easily transitioned users from UniQuery to Informer
  • Efficiency gained through simplicity
Crystal Reports with UniDATA ODBC. This works quite well but is cumbersome to set up and maintain. This required several steps outside the UniDATA database as well as setting up security views and a variety of processes that have to be monitored more closely. No other systems were evaluated to replace the old query interface.
Factors that affect the renewal decision include cost effectiveness, feature requests/advancements, simplicity of maintaining and strong support community. Entrinsik support is great and very responsive. The support forums are also a good place for information and their documentation is quite good. Providing support for both Linux and Windows server installations allows for options as well.
Well suited to real time data extraction and data feeds. Great for inline data reporting with some dashboard capability. Several output formats to chose from with "branding" templates to add some design to the output. I have not used it specifically for analyzing data but pretty sure it can but with various outputs if it needed to be fed into Excel or SAS it can be.

Product Usage

Information Technology, Human Resources, Business Office, Student Services, Curriculum Management, Distance Education. Every user group on campus uses this product for some function or in conjunction with other reporting tools. It extends our student information system to allow users to identify data in real time and address issues that may otherwise create service issues.
2 - To support Entrinsik Informer a user should have good working knowledge of data retrieval, no matter the system. They should know some or be able to pick up on Java script to extend the functionality further and beyond the general user interface. It is pretty easy to pick up on once you know the data elements and structure.
  • On the fly data lists
  • Save list creation
  • Extraction to send to other systems
  • Generated a formatted employee directory
  • Email status reports
  • Dashboards

Evaluation and Selection

Yes - Entrinsik Informer replaced both UniQuery as well as UniDATA ODBC and Excel. It has not completely replaced but is on the road map to replace an aging Crystal Reports Server. All those systems work fine but we need to consolidate systems and processes and having Informer will allow us to do that.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
The only thing I would have changed is probably getting it sooner. However at the time we already had three forms of reporting data and adding a fourth was not an option. Once we were able to consolidate some systems we purchased Informer and rolled it out to campus quickly and efficiently.

Implementation

Implementation was great. The person implementing was able to take care of the technical as well as training so it was nice to have one person cover all the needs at one time.
  • Vendor implemented
  • Implemented in-house
Yes - We had an administrator implementation then end user implementation. The administrator implementation included installation and best practices with administrator training. The end user training was broken into a few groups to accommodate schedules and service needs.
  • Mapping files and field names

Support

I would have given 10 but no one and no system is perfect. The only issue with support is not the staff nor the response but the support Wiki and support pages in general run very slow at times. I believe this has been addressed by the company but the technical speed of the pages have been an issue.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
Yes! We needed a script to generate a single line of multi-value fields and support was able to give us code within an hour I believe. This saved us from having to modify our student information system database tables which would have been more cumbersome and something more costly and more complex to maintain.

Usability

From the perspective of the new user and a seasoned user I would say eight would represent both parties. It presents a 'familiar' interface and easy to navigate display. Tagging is quite nice and allows for organization of reports based on those tags. These have to be monitored like anything else to keep them consistent but provides a better than average means of organizing reports.
ProsCons
Like to use
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Drag and drop
  • Report output options
  • Scheduling reports
  • Joins
  • Formatting output
  • Delimiting data rows

Comments

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