Item: TARGIT
Rating: 9
Author: Sue Feneck

Overall Satisfaction

Pros and Cons

Pros

With a user community that knows how to make steel but does not necessarily know the ins and outs of software applications and data Targit has been an invaluable tool to get our users quickly analyzing their data. Its easy drag and drop capability as well as its toggle buttons allow users to easily visualize their data from cross tabulations to graphs and charts with the click of a button without having to know complicated query strings or data relationships.
With the 2k11 release of Targit they have included rich dynamic date functionality that allows users to easily create views using fiscal date comparisons.
With the use of the Documents tab in the Smart Pad of Targit users are easily able to collaborate by viewing other people's reports and changing criteria to make it their own without "reinventing the wheel".

Cons

Probably one of our biggest complaints from the user community is the inability for the user to see the details behind the data. I know with the tool you can write reporting services reports that would allow users to see the detail by right clicking on a measure and selecting Actions, but for a very lean IT shop there simply has not been time to build these Actions for every possible scenario a user might want to see detailed reporting on.
Another complaint I've heard is the inability for the user to know exactly what the data represents from the source. If Targit had maybe some type of capability to hover over a measure or dimension and see a pop up of a more detailed description this might help resolve that issue.
The most difficult concepts to teach our users is how and when to use comparisons and the syntax for calculations. Creating comparisons has become much simpler with the 2k11 release but it is still difficult for my users.

Return on Investment

Our sales department has created dashboards and scorecards and has displayed them on monitors in their department so they are able to see up to the minute statuses of their KPIs and have set goals for themselves that they can view and take immediate action to reach and exceed their goals.
Our production departments are using Sharepoint to monitor KPIs to improve their yield on the shop floor and are able to advertise the correlation of their yield and how it affects their bonuses. This inspires them to make immediate decisions to increase production.

The use of Targit is widespread throughout our organization. Our users are becoming comfortable with the tool and Targit has allowed our company to truly grasp the concept of Business Intelligence and making better business decisions through the analysis of our data. Our users are not waiting for IT to create reports for them, they have full rich self-service BI with Targit and are able to turn a great analytical idea or ad-hoc query hypothesis into concrete answers with actionable responses within minutes.

Likelihood to Recommend

If your user base is technically saavy they may find Targit limited due to the fact that the data that is available in Targit is generally from a data warehouse that is created by IT and the ability to analyze other data that does not already exist is limited (although I think Targit is working on that). Also Targit does not have strong customer service and support. They originated in Europe and I believe they may have a US customer service department but it is not easy to find Targit help if needed with their limited customer base. With all that said, I would highly recommend Targit for a company who's needs are to have an easy to use BI tool for users and for companies with a lean IT staff.

Comments

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If you're looking for a BI tool that your users will find easy to learn and use, Targit is the answer.

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