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Spotfire Pros and Cons
December 22, 2017

Spotfire Pros and Cons

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Desktop

Overall Satisfaction with Spotfire

Spotfire is being used by the whole Technology business unit. The main problem I have with Spotfire is that I use version 6.5.2 with a flex server and I cannot upgrade to version 7.0 or 7.5 so as not to use my flex Spotfire server. Reporting using a link es one of the best advantages the tool has but version 6.5.2 does not allow you to change the back color of the charts and pivots and using HTML. The look & feel of the pivots and charts is not that good and the creation of calculated columns is hard to develop since it does not use excel logic. E.G. a simple date expression of "Last Month" in excel has to be generated as Month([Date]) = Month(dateadd('mm',-1,DateTime now())) and Year([Date]) = Year(dateadd('mm',-1,DateTime now()))

On the other hand is an excellent tool to manipulate and report when you have more than 200.000 rows since excel collapses and Spotfire is still running

  • Spotfire is excellent to manipulate data sources with more than 200.000 rows of data. Excel collapses with more than 200.000
  • All courses of Spotfire are excellent and easy to follow.
  • Spotfire has an excellent functionality at the "details-on-demand" section where you can click in any number of the pivot and you'll see all details in the already mentioned section
  • The charts and graphics are not as good as the one in excell
  • the "expressions" to create calculated columns are not easy as the ones in excel. E.G. a simple excel expression for "last month" in Spotfire is Month([Date]) = Month(dateadd('mm',-1,DateTimeNow())) and Year([Date]) = Year(dateadd('mm',-1,DateTimeNow()))
  • If you have a mistake creating expressions for calculated collumns the only help Spotfire gives you is the number of character that has the error.
  • the distinct count option is not available
I use Spotfire since it allows me to work with more than 200.000 rows and Excel does not. Also reporting with a simple link to a spot fire server is very professional in the sense that you don't have to go back and forth with heavy attached files like Excel spreadsheets or PPTs.
Spotfire is excellent to manipulate and report based on large-scale data, more than 200.000 rows. It is less appropriate if you need high quality of charts, with different colors and labels, legends, etc. It is difficult to customize charts and pivots (e.g. headers font cannot be changed). All expressions for creating calculated columns are not that easy.

Spotfire Feature Ratings

BI Platform ()
Not Rated
Supported Data Sources ()
Not Rated
7.5
Customizable dashboards
8
Report Formatting Templates
7
4.5
Drill-down analysis
7
Formatting capabilities
3
Integration with R or other statistical packages
6
Report sharing and collaboration
2
4.3
Publish to Web
3
Publish to PDF
6
Report Delivery Scheduling
4
3.7
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
2
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
4
Predictive Analytics
5
4.7
Multi-User Support (named login)
4
Role-Based Security Model
5
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
5
Mobile Capabilities ()
Not Rated
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding ()
Not Rated

Spotfire Training

  • Online training
I did all available trainings for Spotfire. Administrators, users, etc. I did them all and they were very clear. The presenter was excellent explaining the different options and also there were examples and trainings. Also if you have any doubt they answers questions by email. I have to say that it is mandatory to do the trainings since the tool is not that predictive.