WebFocus BI tool review - The best BI tool I have used to date!
Updated August 09, 2017

WebFocus BI tool review - The best BI tool I have used to date!

David Maillie | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Information Builders WebFOCUS

WebFocus is used across the organization. It is used for Sales dashboards and to give various departments reports (ReportCaster) and graphically displayed real time data. It is very convenient in how it can connect to any data and reports can be generated very quickly and are easy to debug. HTML pages make it easier for users to select parameters and run queries faster.

Pros

  • Great technical support - If you have a question or issue they will get back to you very fast and get it resolved. Never had a problem with their support.
  • I can get ANY data I want from practically any source, read it, filter it and display it quickly in a report, graph, etc...
  • I love the way LDAP is used in WebFocus 8 to grant user access. We use this through portals, folders, etc... This way if a user is in a certain LDAP group or groups they have access and can see and run certain reports. If not, they can't see anything.
  • I love the ability to completely customize reports, graphs, dashboards, portals, etc... We can finetune anything to any data and present it in anyway we see fit and do it quickly. Far quicker turn around then SAP Crystal Reports or any other comparable BI platform.
  • Very high reliability and uptime. No other BI product comes close. It's basically set it and forget it. It runs like a tank.

Cons

  • The admin console can be a little confusing for new people, but it doesn't take long to figure out where everything lives and how it works.
No comparison. Both have their strengths, but WebFocus comes out on top as the clear winner because it is so easy to use and understand for power users. Crystal Reports, like most BI tools, requires more extensive training and is not as easy or user friendly. It is more reliable as we rarely ever have any downtime. If we do it is due to a user running a bad, corrupt report repeatedly. This would cause issues with any BI tool. It is an easy fix - delete the aborted process before it brings down other reports and services and you are good. Very easy to maintain and debug.
It is well suited for just about everything that I have seen or run into. There are some cases with data from sources like Essbase (Hyperion) and other sources where you may need an adapter, but IBI has adapters available for just about everything you can think of. I also love the ability to run either straight WebFocus code or SQL code.

ibi WebFOCUS Feature Ratings

BI Platform ()
Not Rated
Supported Data Sources ()
Not Rated
9.3
Pixel Perfect reports
9
Customizable dashboards
10
Report Formatting Templates
9
9.8
Drill-down analysis
10
Formatting capabilities
10
Integration with R or other statistical packages
9
Report sharing and collaboration
10
9.8
Publish to Web
10
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
9
Report Delivery Scheduling
10
Delivery to Remote Servers
10
10.0
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
10
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
10
Predictive Analytics
10
10.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Single Sign-On (SSO)
10
9.0
Responsive Design for Web Access
10
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
8
9.5
REST API
10
Javascript API
10
iFrames
Not Rated
Java API
Not Rated
Themeable User Interface (UI)
9
Customizable Platform (Open Source)
9

WebFOCUS Support

They have extremely knowledgeable techs that I have worked with over the years. Some have actually become really good friends of mine. I see them often at local user groups and when we show them how we are using their tools to save millions of dollars throughout the company.
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 have a maintenance agreement which covers all support. That means we have access to local techs and to their support through IBI. Both are very knowledgeable and very helpful. Regardless of the problem, IBI's staff has worked with us relentlessly to get the problems solved and find a solution.
Yes - Yes it was. Every application will have bugs and issues that will have to be worked out. WebFocus has been one of the least "buggy" applications I have had the chance to work with to date. We had a bug where reports being made in InfoAssist were not able to see more than one table from a reporting object. This was remedied by rebuilding the reporting objects with a slight configuration change. Then everything worked as it should have. WebFocus support was there for us and still is whenever we need them.
I think it is pretty much every time that we deal with them that they do. Mitch, the local tech, is outstanding and usually gets back to me the same day with any emailed question. He will quickly either help me fix it or route me through to someone that has more experience in that area that may be able to help us get it fixed quicker. I have never had bad support from them.

Using WebFOCUS

Best BI tool/product I have used. The others don't compare overall. Some can look fancier, but when you actually use them with large data and data from numerous systems/sources that is where most of the competition falls away. I also don't like downtime. I have basically none for a large user base with WebFocus. Even SAP Crystal Reports went down for 4 days once - 4 days because the admin password got locked out due to a glitch and we had zero reports for 4 days. WebFocus has never had more than a few minutes of downtime. It's like a tank that just keeps rolling. There is no other choice for reliable BI.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Report Caster was simple to learn and setup. We have hundreds of scheduled reports that run through ReportCaster every morning.
  • Creating dashboards with the portals that are tailored by department and loaded with key metrics is super easy and fast. I can build heatmaps, bubble maps and more in a matter of seconds. There is no other BI tool that can access the large data that we have and display it like this in such a quick and easy manner.
  • None really. Upgrades take some time for planning and testing, but this is the same with any application. If you are a large company with a lot of data then there is no such thing as a worrisome free upgrade. If you do the right planning, test appropriately and then do the rollout in stages it all goes fine. The only hiccups we hit was with customizations and porting over old code. Some old reports didn't work or needed to be rebuilt. Minor things like that.
Yes, but I don't use it

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