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A Sweet Spot between Overwhelming and Underwhelming
October 19, 2018

A Sweet Spot between Overwhelming and Underwhelming

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

Overall Satisfaction with TIBCO Data Science (including Team Studio and Statistica)

We use it to manage data collected during field work for environmental and geophysical purposes. We collect a lot of data with many aspects to it that is easy to mismanage. Spotfire Data Science has been incredibly helpful in organization, analysis, and management of collected data, as well as collaborating with coworkers on the data management and presentation for clients.
  • It has a great user interface, easy to navigate and learn on the fly.
  • There are lots of great options for data organization and analysis! Makes it a handy tool for presentations as well.
  • A collaborative ability is highly valued for my company where we often work from home or on site. Being able to share the data with those in the office so multiple people can look at it is a great tool!
  • The visualization aspect of the program can be a little tricky to figure out. It's great to have options but it will take a bit of practice before your figures start looking the way you want (or that's how it was for me).
  • While younger employees like myself may quickly grasp on to the program, the modern interface is difficult for older employees to navigate and get comfortable with. This isn't a problem until you are trying to collaborate with them and things go awry. Perhaps they just need in-depth tutorials to help expedite their learning process.
  • It can be difficult to connect to other databases to import existing data. It's just not an obvious pathway and required some researching before I got the hang of it.
  • There has been a great increase of productivity because of the saved time and streamlined communication about the projects. For a small company, putting our hours to better use is critical while we are still building the business.
  • Once you get the hang of the interface, it saves time. But it can be a time-sucker if there are technically challenged employees trying to figure it out. Cloud-based applications are often trickier to understand if you're unfamiliar with internet applications to begin with, so in some cases the time spent trying to teach or learn the application is too extensive for there to be a real benefit.
Microsoft Office is a classic. Older employees are much more familiar and comfortable with Office than new cloud-based applications. The drawback to Microsoft Office is it isn't cloud-based, and we end up with countless versions of documents and data all over the place. It becomes difficult to find the latest version of something or find the data organized in one easy to find document. Google Drive is a good bridge from Microsoft Office to the cloud-based (and free) programs. It is less powerful than Office, in most cases, but has been a good transition from hard-drive to cloud based data management. Spotfire was a great tool but very powerful with lots and lots of options for data management. It's a great tool, but easy to get lost with. Spotfire Data Science is a slightly more specified version with what is needed to data science management. It is great because it's cloud-based, can do much more than Google Drive or Microsoft Office, but is not quite as overwhelming as Spotfire. That's why we chose Data Science.
It's well suited for companies who are working long-distance and who have lots of data to organize and present. My company does extensive field work collecting thousands of data points at a time, in many cases, so this is an excellent way to share data collected in the field with those still in the office so that reports can begin before our travels are really finished. It makes the office much more productive! Spotfire Data Science is less suited for companies with older employees or companies that are generally in one office and not doing distance work. It can be a little tricky for older people to grasp the interface and really utilize the program to its full potential so of course spending more time learning the software than using it effectively isn't a great use of time or money.