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Excellent Dashboard Tool
October 26, 2017

Excellent Dashboard Tool

Matthew Bass | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Desktop

Overall Satisfaction with Spotfire

It is being used by multiple departments across Norfolk Southern. We have been developing dashboard type front ends for users using other tools for over a year now. Spotfire has provided us with a tool that will allow us to deploy our dashboards to many users at one time utilizing the web client.
  • Great visualizations
  • Easy to use once data connection/information links are established
  • Scalable to multiple users via web client
  • Difficult to create data connections using custom SQL
  • Limited support of DB2 connections (DB2 on the mainframe)
  • Limited support of network connected documents on a shared drive
I have used several products to create dashboards for users in our department. I have the most experience using MS Access. I am very comfortable writing SQL and VBA, MS Access has been very easy to use. However, it isn't really as scalable as Spotfire. I have also used MS Power BI and Oracle OBIEE/Interactive Reporting.
If the data is stored in Teradata and the user wants to create a dashboard with visualizations, Spotfire is a perfect product. However, if the data is stored in DB2 on the mainframe, connecting to the data is a little more complicated. I would prefer to write custom SQL that points to DB2 on the mainframe, but this doesn't seem to be possible.

Spotfire Feature Ratings

BI Platform ()
Not Rated
Supported Data Sources ()
Not Rated
8.0
Customizable dashboards
8
Report Formatting Templates
Not Rated
8.0
Drill-down analysis
8
Formatting capabilities
8
Integration with R or other statistical packages
Not Rated
Report sharing and collaboration
Not Rated
10.0
Publish to Web
10
Publish to PDF
Not Rated
Report Delivery Scheduling
Not Rated
7.5
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
9
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
Not Rated
Predictive Analytics
6
10.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Not Rated
Responsive Design for Web Access
Not Rated
Mobile Application
Not Rated
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Not Rated
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding ()
Not Rated

Spotfire Training

  • Online training
I think the training went very well. The instructor had a good flow and knew the material very well. I was probably the most experienced user in the room and still came away with a better way of doing things in Spotfire. I believe Spotfire will address a need we have in our department.