Item: ibi WebFOCUS
Rating: 7
Author: Rupesh More

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

IBI WebFOCUS was used for generating reports, dashboard. It's Report Caster was used to generate scheduled reports tied to the releases as well for independent time triggered reports. WebFOCUS was used to generate Custom reports for displaying the reports in HTML,Excel or PDF format. The backend was Oracle wherein the code to fetch the data was at the backend. In Webfocus there was a call to these Oracle packages/procedures to get the data from backend to display it on the reports. WebFocus was used only in my project and other departments as well. Being a reporting tool itself webfocus addresses the issues of generating/handling reports, generating dashboards very efficiently. It allows business users to perform predictive analytics with the new version 8, it allows you to generate scheduled reports by writing code in WebFOCUS fex files.

Pros and Cons

In Predictive Analytics. Allowing users to do predictive analytics after analyzing the fund data.
Allows users to create a dashboard.
Help users in integration with different technologies like Java, Oracle,SQL Server etc.
Its ReportCaster allows users to generate independent reports

They can penetrate more into handling unstructured data by using Big Data as far as i know they only handle relational databases like Oracle etc.
The Interface is not that attractive, so they can work on making a good interface. The interface i used was very old fashioned. They should really work on adding different themes so that users can create their own attractive dashboards.
I found out difficult to get the material on the net. So please work on making the product user friendly.

Alternatives Considered

Oracle forms and reports,tableau,sql server reports

I found WebFOCUS a great tool for reporting purposes as I have used it for a long time. They should compare themselves with new reporting tools like Tableau and Splunk. Tableau's interface is mind blowing. IBI should learn from Tableau and how they have penetrated the big data market - I especially like the interface and its drag drop facilities. As I said WebFOCUS is a great tool but they need to work on it more to make it the best.

Likelihood to Renew

I have seen demos of WebFOCUS version 8 but haven't used it more. It looks more promising than the previous versions like 6 and 7.

Likelihood to Recommend

Being a reporting tool it will find place in most of the organizations as reports are generated everywhere. All banking, finance, IT, telecom, internet, services, government organizations etc, every department requires reports on a daily basis. I think that they should expand their business in the market as i am sure many organizations do not know this product. Also I believe this product will find a great scope in market if advertized properly. More people if they use it, more people can give more inputs which will help them to improve the product.

Users and Roles

900 - Many different projects use Webfocus for reporting purposes. They represent teams who work on financial data. Its analysis, analyzing the returns, analyzing the portfolios, anlayizng the share holder data. Creating dashboards, creating scheduled reports tied to releases. creating custom reports in different formats. Using reports in Prod and DR environments.

Support Headcount Required

14 - Atleast 14 people in a team on 100 knows webfocus. I mean the development part of it. There are equal number of business users for testing.

Business Processes Supported

Creating reports
Custom reports
Report Caster
Integration with different technologies
Security, Adminitrative privileges

Innovative Uses

Creating different dashboards for Fund data
Creating scheduled reports tied to MM, CSCP, ICF releases

Future Planned Uses

For Predictive analysis of Mutual funds returns

Analysis of WebFOCUS reporting tool

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Information Builders WebFOCUS