BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TOOLS
Business intelligence tools are types of application software that can gather and analyze a large amount of unorganized data into useful information. These tools can organize data in the form of key performance indicators, collaborative reports, interactive dashboards, and more. Also, organizations can deduce actionable insights, set achievable goals, and identify new growth opportunities with the help of data visualization and analytics available on these tools.
There’s a broad spectrum of business intelligence (BI) tools out there, from highly technical and powerful platforms to user-friendly and lightweight dashboard builders. Choosing the right one depends on where your business is today, where you want it to end up, who needs access to the data, your tech stack, and so on.
Business intelligence tools offer two main features- data analysis and data visualization.
Data visualization tools present data in the form of pie graphs, flow charts, highlight tables, stack columns, and choropleth maps among others. Similarly, data analysis tools integrate seamlessly into existing databases to extract and process relevant data.
These tools help to connect different data. Major business intelligence approach is to look at the business operations and tie all the information together. These tools also produce customizable bar charts, pie charts, and more.
What Are BI (Business Intelligence) Tools?
Business Intelligence Tools To Visualize And Analyze Your Data
Best Business Intelligence Tools (Ultimate Guide)
Business Intelligence Tools For Data Visualization And Analysis
WHAT ARE BI (BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE) TOOLS?
BI (Business Intelligence) Software helps you analyze business data critically and churn out actionable insights.
It also helps businesses identify their strengths and weaknesses using data forecasting and existing trends.
Additionally, BI tools help the management visualize the relation among different data sets, make data-driven decisions, and deploy resources more optimally.
Besides, a capable BI software collates data from all the relevant touch points, processes it, and churns out relevant reports and actionable data. It identifies and represents all the complex data in an easy to understand manner.
You can also leverage BI tools to create specific reports and send them to different stakeholders.
On top of that, advanced BI software uses big data and cloud-computing capabilities to simplify complex data analysis further.
In a world where unstructured data makes up as much as 90% of information online, having organized business data is key.
Additionally, it enables organizations to integrate business intelligence practices across teams.
You can deploy and integrate modern BI solutions with legacy systems.
How Are BI Tools Different From Data Analytics Tools?
Business Intelligence (BI) is a broad term that covers data analytics and other reporting features. It helps in making decisions using historical data.
Thus, BI tools come equipped with cutting-edge technologies that reduce the complexities related to business intelligence and prepare, analyze, report and share data with multiple sources.
On the other hand, Data Analytics focuses more on algorithms to identify the core relationship between multiple data sets.
One of the significant differences between BI and Analytics tools is that analytics also offers predictive capabilities.
However, BI just helps in making informed decisions based on past data analytics.
Which Features Do You Need in BI Tools?
- Ranking Reports – This feature can help you identify what is working and what is not working for your business. You can also analyze the ranking through various dimensions and focus only on specific areas.
- Executive Dashboards – Leverage intuitive dashboards to gain a real-time overview of your organization. You can study business-critical data sets through charts, summaries, graphs, and other customized reports.
- Interactive Reports – It will help you condense and analyze heaps of data in an easy to understand format. You can use these reports to identify anomalies, outliers, and trends in the historical data.
- Geospatial Mapping – Location intelligence can help in transforming your data into a cartographical and graphical representation. Plus, simplified data laid out on the map will help non-technical people understand it easily.
- Operational Reports – It can help track and analyze daily events and make data-driven decisions.
- Open Integration – Your BI tool should be able to fetch data from numerous sources like emails, websites, social media platforms, and more.
How Do You Use a BI Tool?
While all the BI tools have varied features and functioning, the overall working is nearly similar.
Using Microsoft Power BI to demonstrate how the basic functionalities of a BI software works.
Step #1. Download and Install.
Go to Power BI service to download Power BI Desktop. Click on the Download icon and click on the ‘Power BI Desktop’ option.
On the welcome screen, you’ll see three main options:
- Get Data
- Recent sources
- Open other reports
You’ll also see options for three different Power BI desktop views on the left side of the desktop – namely, Report, Data, and Relationships.
The ‘Report view’ option is the default view of Power BI.
Note that its Power Query Editor opens in a separate window.
Step #2. Connect the Data.
To connect Power BI to different data sources, go to Get Data > More to select from various options.
Or to connect Power BI to the web data source, go to Get Data > Web.
Now just paste the URL of the website you want to extract data from and click on the ‘OK’ option.
You can now load the data Tables or make changes to the table before loading it.
After you select Transform data, Power Query Editor will get launched.
Step #3. Shape Data.
If you want to change the data type, select columns that you want to change.
Now hold the ‘Shift Key’ to select multiple adjacent columns or ‘Ctrl’ to select non-adjacent columns. Select the new data type through the drop-down list located right next to Data Type in the Transform group.
get started with Microsoft Power BI.
Making Use Of Business Intelligence Reporting Tools.
Many business users use multiple data sources on their business intelligence platform of choice to make better decisions.
This data may come from a variety of internal sources such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, customer relationship management (CRM) applications, financial applications, and others.
It may also come from external sources such as market research reports, news articles, and demographic data.
The right reporting tools allow data analysts to use online analytical processing to improve business performance and provide actionable business insights to decision-makers.
The right data analytics platform should feature the right reporting tools as well as the ability to connect to various data sources.
Adam Enfroy Business-intelligence-bi-tools
The types of data visualization software
- On-premise data visualization software: this type of software is located and installed on the user’s computer. It provides access to a resource within the computer. This type of software is user friendly and can easily be customized according to user preferences.
- Cloud-based data visualization software: this software is mostly hosted by a third party and is accessed through the internet. Unlike premise-based software, cloud-based does not use or have access to the user’s computer resources or data. They work based on subscription.
Some Visualization Tools worth considering for your business
Google Charts
Google Charts operates on HTML5 and SVG and aims for iOS and Android, and complete cross-browser compatibility. This includes older versions of your Internet Explorer. Also, each of the Google charts that you create can be interactive visualizations.
What’s more, you can even zoom in on a few of them. The website offers you a comprehensive gallery where you’ll find different interactions and types of visualizations to choose from. Also, there’s no charge when using Google Charts.
Chartblocks
This is an easy-to-use tool for building and publishing charts. It lets you create charts from data derived from databases and spreadsheets. Charts are built in HTML5 using JavaScript library D3.js.
Also, your data visualizations will be compatible and responsive with any device and screen size. This visualizations solution even allows you to embed the charts on a web page or even share it on social media like Facebook and Twitter.
For the personal plan, Chartblocks is free and its professional plans start at $20/month.
Ember Charts
The Ember Charts include pie, bar, time series, and scatter charts that you can easily modify and extend. It’s based on Ember.js frameworks and utilizes D3.js. There’s no pricing information on Ember Charts.
How to choose the best BI tool for your business
Generally, most of the tools have free trials and you can easily try them to figure out which one works best for your company.
1. Why do you need a BI tool?
In every business, there are different needs to meet and problems to solve. Before choosing your preferred BI tool, it’s best to first outline the problems you’d like to solve in your business. For instance, data visualizations charts can be used to identify and resolve points of delay in the supply chain.
Do not choose based on the latest and cool visualizations features; first, seek to understand the point in your enterprise that needs analytics and data visualization.
2. What are your data sources?
Most Data Visualization Tools can access data from various sources. However, it is good to remember that not every tool can access data from any or all sources, with that in mind, first check the sources in which your data lives, is it premise or cloud-based?
If you choose to work with a data warehouse tool, then you will end up using historical data. With individual data sources, then you have real-time analysis but first, ensure your data visualizations tool is integrated with this source.
3. What is your employee’s skill level?
When choosing a tool, it is best to ensure that your employee can easily handle the technicalities required to manage it. With a robust tool, you may need to train your employees for effective use. Also, choose a tool that is easy to use and will not present a hard time for you and your team.
4. What’s your budget?
The payment for most tools works on a per-user, per-month basis, and others use the storage source, data size, and cloud-based computing to determine the pay. Either way, you might want to consider your budget. Ensure you work within it and you do not over or underspend.
The tool you choose should answer your business questions. Ensure you do not choose a tool with numerous features that you may not use and do not choose a tool that limits you in terms of its features. You might also choose to work with an open-source tool such as Metabase.
Which is the Best Data Visualization Tools For Your Business?
BI tools allow businesses to easily find answers to their questions. The ease of access to data makes sharing, analyzing, and representation of the data easy.
Start by analyzing the features they offer such as language support and cross-browser testing. Regardless of whichever tool you pick from Domo, Board, Dundas BI, Microsoft Power BI, D3 js, and MicroStrategy, you should also ensure that the tool meets their business needs.
For Open-source data visualization tools, Metabase, Birt, Tableau Public, Google charts, and Google Cloud Base are good sources.
But before using any of these data visualization tools, you must understand each tool you’ll be using. Therefore, be sure to start by learning more about the popular visualization tools as well as how you can use them.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TOOLS TO VISUALIZE AND ANALYZE YOUR DATA
1. Power BI
Microsoft’s Power BI is a business intelligence tool whose main differentiator is the fact that it sits within the larger Microsoft ecosystem, integrating with Excel, Azure, Access, and more. While these integrations are a plus for many, Power BI has proven to be difficult for some to learn—and it has some unique quirks.
Who Is Power BI for?
Power BI is great for larger companies full of spreadsheet junkies that are already heavily invested in Microsoft’s ecosystem.
It’s not the easiest business intelligence tool to set up and maintain, so teams with little capacity to spare may want to look elsewhere. Once set up, it has a reputation for being more malleable than other massive business intelligence tools. One user on Quora used this comparison: Tableau is like iOS, while Power BI is like Android. The result is good modeling functionality that, again, requires some expertise to set up and utilize.
Unique Features
- Seamless integration with other Microsoft products.
- DAX (Data Analysis Expressions), Power BI’s proprietary language for modeling data. It’s powerful but takes some getting used to.
Strengths
- If you’re fully fluent in Excel, you won’t have to work too hard to understand Power BI. As Alainia Conrad of SelectHub says, “Users with experience in [Excel] will be able to adapt to [Power BI].”
- Users of Power BI tend to praise its ability to handle the flow of data as well as its modeling capabilities. In their comparison between Power BI and Tableau, user Grovbolle on Reddit says, “Power BI is very strong on the data modeling and infrastructure, a bit less on visualization.”
Weaknesses
- Power BI has a steep learning curve, and it requires expert knowledge to set up. “You need to work with an IT person to interface Power BI with existing systems,” says Shreshthi Mehta in her TrustRadius review. On G2, Xinito L. says, “This is not an application for amateurs.”
-
It also has
some quirks that’ll cost you time, as the good people of
Reddit are quick to point out in
r/PowerBI. Here is the
top-rated post of all time in that community:
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2. Chartio
Chartio (Hey there! 👋) is a business intelligence tool focused on making data accessible to anyone. What sets it apart from the pack is how affordable it is and how easy it is to set up and use, even for people with no coding experience.
Who is Chartio for?
Chartio is for any company that needs an affordable yet powerful business intelligence tool that anyone can use.
The biggest, most complex companies, like New York Shipping Exchange (NYSHEX), find it “super easy to deploy” and assert that “the users get immediate value out of it.” At the same time, the scrappiest of startups, like a student-run content curation startup, can afford it and use it to improve their product.
Unique Features
- Visual SQL, a proprietary language that allows anyone to query data without knowing how to code in SQL.
- The visual form of querying allows for an intuitive drag-and-drop user interface used to build queries.
- Dynamic dashboards that can automatically update based on your queries.
- In-dashboard commenting for collaboration and presentations.
- Top-level security and HIPPA compliance for the most sensitive data.
Strengths
- There’s no need for SQL knowledge to dive into data, thanks to Visual SQL. The end business user with no coding knowledge can get the answers they need without going through the development, data, or IT teams.
- Chartio has a reputation of having** simple, fast deployment**. While he was SVP of engineering at Chartio, Arjun Anand led the charge for setting up Chartio. About his experience, he says, “With Chartio, it only took a day to get everything going, and then a week to get the initial dashboards to show what we could accomplish.”
- Because it’s so easy for end business users to set up and use, Chartiofrees up data and development teams to do the work they should be doing. In his G2 review, Dan D. says, “Chartio’s SQL GUI (graphical user interface) enables end users to help themselves, freeing up huge amounts of resources that can be redirected onto other projects.”
Weaknesses
- Chartioprioritizes end usability above most other things. This means that there are a few features it needs to develop in order to satisfy the most hardcore of data analysts.
- Jason Harris at Panoply explains it this way: “While [Chartio] may not have all the functionality that your data analysts are looking for, it’s well suited to business users.” On G2, one executive in financial services says, “[Chartio] has relatively fewer features than the other primary tools out there, like Tableau. I think in part, that’s what enables it to be user-friendly, so it’s a trade-off rather than a downside.”
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3. Looker
Looker is a powerful tool for modeling data using its proprietary language, LookerML, that has limited visualization capabilities and data inputs. Google Cloud Platform acquired it in 2019, moving it into the Google walled garden, which means it may get combined with Google Data Studio in the near future,as explained in-depth here.
Who is Looker for?
Looker is built for data teams that need powerful modeling capabilities above all else.
These teams also need the patience to learn Looker’s propriety language, LookerML. That said, Looker has a robust library of analytics code called Looker Blocks, which can speed up repetitive workflows once up and running.
Unique Features
- Looker Blocks®, pre-built analytics code that provides a jumping-off point for your own data modeling.
- LookML, Looker’s proprietary data modeling language.
Strengths
- LookML provides a powerful modeling layer that some veterans enjoy. On Reddit,user rlaxx1 says, “The modeling layer allows you to basically turn SQL into object-oriented code.”
- Presets like Looker Blocks® that can help your team get off the ground quicker if they know SQL inside and out.
Weaknesses
- What Looker gains in modeling capabilities, it loses in its ability to manipulate and visualize data. On Quora, Bill Ulammandakh says, “Expect to be able to do maybe 1% of what you can do in Excel in terms of data manipulation.”
- Also, despite its strengths in modeling, some find it time-consuming to prepare data for Looker. “You do need a preparation software before you use it, which means you’re not able to cleanse and prepare your data before connecting to a data source,” says Amrita C. on G2.
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4. Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is a data visualization tool from Google with easy integrations to the entire Google ecosystem, from Google Analytics to Google Sheets to BigQuery. The amount of integration and the fact that it’s free make it easier for more people to get into, but its visualizations and formatting are often lacking.
Also, Google’s acquisition of Looker makes some people wonder about the future of Google Data Studio.
Who is Google Data Studio for?
Google Data Studio is good for people who have bought in to the Google ecosystem and want to visualize data quickly.
Google Data Studio has perhaps the lowest bar of entry for the business intelligence tools listed here. But it lacks deeper data functionality, relying on other Google services like BigQuery to fill in the gaps.
Unique Features
- Seamless connection to Google products makes it easy to connect data across Google’s ecosystem.
- A large library of reporting templates suited for many use cases.
Strengths
- If you have a Google account, you can start right away.
- Because it’s easy to get Google Data Studio up and running, it has a large number of users, from students to hobbyists to companies alike. This user base provides great community support.
Weaknesses
- Google Data Studio is part of the Google walled garden, so third-party integrations will always be an issue because Google wants you to only use Google products with Google Data Studio.
- Also, even with its low bar of entry, Google Data Studio can make it difficult to format reports. Matthew O. on G2 says, “I’d like to be able to use a highlight tool to mark important KPIs in my tables, but I’m not able to do that. Or… when I want to have bold text in certain places, there’s no way to do it.”
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5. Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop is the standalone data visualization tool from Tableau, a legacy giant among other business intelligence tools. Tableau was one of the first BI tools to lower the bar for entry into data visualization but still remains out of reach for the average business user due to its older feature set designed for large, expert data teams.
Who is Tableau Desktop for?
Data scientists and analysts who need the power to create custom, dynamic charts and complex visualizations.
Tableau’s older feature set makes it robust, but not very agile. It’s often used as a base-level data tool that only a few people in the company know how to use well.
Unique Features
- Tableau allows teams to join data from multiple databases.
- Its depth of features make it useful to data scientists, analysts, and developers alike, but not the average business user.
Strengths
- Tableau has a vast user base that provides a lot of community support.
- It’s very flexible in how you manipulate and use data, making it a powerful data visualization tool. One Capterra reviewer says, “The quality and variety of graphics that can be created with Tableau is vast, and that’s the best part of it.”
Weaknesses
- Tableau is very difficult to pick up for most business users, which leads to situations as described by user adventuringraw on Reddit: “The Tableau guy in my squad is in HIGH demand, there’s multiple teams fighting over him. God help him if he ever wants to do something other than Tableau, haha.”
- While Tableau has some very good legacy BI features, like visualization, it lacks some important features other business intelligence tools have innovated that have become fairly commonplace. Tristan Handy, CEO & founder of Fishtown Analytics, puts it this way: “Tableau, for all its impressive visualization capabilities, can’t really deal with production data: its drag-and-drop capabilities just don’t allow users to express the complicated business logic that is required in real-world BI.”
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6. Sisense for Cloud Data Teams (Previously Periscope Data)
The recently renamedSisense for Cloud Data Teams is a business intelligence tool designed with SQL experts in mind. It can help your team move more efficiently—provided you have a deep knowledge of your data and SQL.
Who is Sisense for Cloud Data Teams for?
SQL veterans looking to speed up their data analysis workflow.
Sisense for Cloud Data Teams is an enterprise tool for companies with sophisticated data teams. It’s useful for teams that use SQL, Python, and R regularly to make sense of business data.
Unique Features
- Ad-hoc analysis, where you can create reports and visualizations on the fly.
- You can use SQL, Python, and R on the platform.
Strengths
- It has macros that make exploring your company’s data with SQL a little easier. BalaParthasarathy, CEO and Co-founder of MoneyTap, says, “You can write regular SQL, of course, but these macros make it easier to turn marketing guys and product people into basic SQL programmers.”
- Also, if you know SQL very well, it can speed up your workflow. “I like the speed and streamlined SQL language it enables. SQL knowledge is required, so this is not meant for the casual business user,” says one reviewer on Capterra.
Weaknesses
- If you don’t know SQL, Sisense for Cloud Data Teams is very limited. A reviewer on G2 says, “If you have a lot of people who do not know SQL but want to explore the tabular data themselves, this is probably not the tool for you because the ‘Data Discovery’ tool is very basic.”
- It’s not well suited to companies just starting to get a handle on their data. “If your volume of reporting and metrics is not at [10,000 clients with an average of a couple hundred data points per client] yet, it may not be as useful (or, rather, may overload you with information that distracts from your specifics),” says a reviewer on TrustRadius.
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7. Domo
Domo is a business intelligence tool that made waves early on in its life when it was awarded unicorn status. As it grew into a BI industry giant, it attracted its fair share of fans and detractors.
Who is Domo For?
Enterprise businesses looking to get a handle on what’s happening with their data day-to-day.
In particular, Domo targets the busy executive with its mobile-first philosophy and its segmentation tools by team. It’s good for large companies looking for data distribution over data analysis that can afford the sticker price and the time spent to get Domo’s system fully up and running.
Unique Features
- Domo’s mobile-first philosophy connects all BI data to your phone, providing alerts based on what’s most important to you.
- Features are split out into modules for each team into what Domo calls the “Business Cloud.”
Strengths
- Domo’s integration game is strong as one G2 reviewer says, “It has a huge range of plugins that we can connect quickly.”
- Its module system allows many different teams to access the data. “It is a very flexible platform where we can see everything that happens in [each department],” says project analyst Isabella on Trustradius.
Weaknesses
- As of late, Domo’s customer service has not received good reviews. User GeneralDouglasMac on Reddit says, “I would NOT suggest DOMO.** It has fallen by the wayside in support, feature matching, and costs** compared to every other tool out there.”
- Domo has also gained a reputation for leaving new users high and dry once they’re on board. One Capterra reviewer says, “As soon as you sign that contract they wash their hands of you … so unless you have a team of SQL coders to build everything by hand, or are prepared to pay Domo’s extortionate professional services fees (which you’ll need to book weeks in advance), you should avoid this product.”
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8. Mode Analytics
Mode Analytics is a data science platform with some business intelligence capabilities designed for large enterprise companies. Its main target users are data scientists and analysts with a lesser emphasis on the end business user.
Who is Mode For?
Data scientists looking to make their analysis and models more accessible to the larger organization.
And by larger, we do mean larger. Mode is not a small BI tool, and according to some clients we’ve talked to, it’s really gunning for the Fortune 500 crowd.
Unique Features
- Notebooks, which allow you to use R and Python to do data science.
- Helix data engine, which allows you to use SQL, R, Python, HTML, and CSS to develop reports.
Strengths
- If you have SQL knowledge, Mode can provide access to deep data science capabilities.
- Thanks to its Python capabilities, data scientists tend to find it very versatile. On the r/datasciencesubreddit, user JoyousTourist says, “I really enjoy using Mode Analytics because I can query data directly from multiple MySQL databases and then merge them into a Python notebook and display visualizations in a report.”
Weaknesses
- Mode is for data scientists and high-level data analysts first (to the detriment of the end business user) and even some lower-level analysts. On Capterra, Ifabiyi A. says, “For someone less technical,** it isn’t the easiest to build dashboards** with inputs and make my queries more user-friendly for my teammates.”
- Data visualization is limited if you don’t want to custom code each report. “You cannot easily change legend color without either rewriting your SQL code or using HTML. You cannot change the x / y axis of the data without advanced manipulations,” says Steven M. on G2.
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9. Klipfolio
Klipfolio is a business intelligence tool best suited for dashboard data visualization. It focuses solely on making dashboards easy to create and maintain (to the point where some people don’t consider it a full business intelligence tool).
Who is Klipfolio For?
End business users looking to quickly build dashboard reports.
Its laser focus on dashboard tools makes it a lifesaver for some, but a major pain for those looking todive deep into data. For companies with a solid data infrastructure already in place, it may be a good fit to help business users visualize data, but it’s not for those who need a tool dedicated to data.
Unique Features
- A library of pre-built Klips, Klipfolio’s proprietary XML files, which allow you to quickly assemble dashboards.
- It has a mobile app, so you can check your dashboards on the go.
Strengths
- Klipfolio is good for displaying live data. A reviewer on TrustRadius says, “Klipfolio is an excellent tool for basic to intermediate data visualization / dashboarding. It is best used for live display of data from various sources in a consistent interface.”
- Its library of Klips makes it flexible enough to fit most companies’ specific goals. “There are many different charts, tables, and other views to show your KPIs, and it is a great tool to share with your team and keep them motivated to achieve the objectives,” says Erika A. on G2.
Weaknesses
- Klipfolio is a dashboarding tool, first and foremost. It’s not a robust, fully-featured BI tool.
- Despite its user-friendly look, it’s not easy to set up. ReddituserMephiXanadu complains that “It looks like it could theoretically be useful, but it’s IMPOSSIBLE to set up if you don’t have an extensive background in coding/Excel.”
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10. Metabase
Metabase is a free, open source BI tool focused on analytics and answering day-to-day business questions. It’s bare-bones, and even though it’s fairly intuitive once up and running, it can still leave SQL veterans behind.
Who is Metabase For?
Companies that need an affordable tool their data analysts can use to answer common business questions.
Metabase is best suited for teams that know exactly what they want and how to get it. Because it’s open source, Metabase has little-to-no customer support, so it’s up to you to get it right.
Unique Features
- Metabase is free, offering many powerful capabilities for, well, free.
- It’s open source, and you can host it yourself, meaning it’s fully under your control.
Strengths
- If you really know what you’re doing, you can make Metabase just about as powerful as any of the business intelligence tools on this list.
- Its open source and self-hosted nature makes it very secure, highly customizable, and completely under your control.
Weaknesses
- Metabase’s bare-bones quality makes it difficult for non-technical users to get up and running. Even technical users can have trouble.
- It can also leave behind power users, as Peter Weinberg of Panoply says: “Advanced SQL users may find it tricky to learn the SQL-but-not-quite style data interface, but it’s not designed for them.”
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Sheridan Gaenger Business-intelligence-tools-to-visualize-and-analyze-your-data/
BEST BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TOOLS (ULTIMATE GUIDE)
Zoho
Zoho transforms data into insights that help businesses make informed decisions and optimize their operations.
Sisense
Sisense is a Business Intelligence Software & Analytics platform that helps you simplify complex data and create analytic apps.
Tableau
Tableau is a BI and Analytics software that helps you understand complex data while embedding data analytics with your products.
SAP Business Intelligence
SAP Business Intelligence offers a full business intelligence suite to help you with data visualization, data analysis, and reporting.
Looker
Looker is a BI tool that helps you analyze and share real-time analytics. It also combines all the data and provides an overview.
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Today’s data-first companies need strong alignment between marketing, sales, and BI teams to push business results forward.
When it comes to data, there has to be a single source of truth.
According to Forbes, 54% of enterprises say cloud business intelligence (BI) is either critical or very important to their current and future strategies.
Business intelligence (BI) tools help businesses collect, monitor, analyze, and predict future business conditions by understanding all of the company’s complex big data in one place.
From useful data visualizations and real-time metrics to automated reports, database software and systems, and more, a company is only as strong as its BI team – and the software behind it.
Let’s get started.
What Are the Best BI Tools?
1. Zoho.
Best Overall Business Intelligence Tool.
Zoho provides a self-service BI and analytics platform that is easy to use. It provides users with various essential features (along with more advanced ones) related to business intelligence. From creating visualizations that can be easily shared with others, to uncovering hidden insights with the help of predictive analytics, Zoho provides everything one needs in a business intelligence tool.
9.3out of 10
Best For
Overall
Zoho connects to multiple sources that organizations use, including spreadsheets, SQL databases, cloud applications, and social media platforms.
This allows users to get a complete picture of their business by analyzing data from all these different sources in one place.
While the platform is easy to use, it still provides users with powerful features such as predictive analytics and the ability to create custom dashboards.
With a self-service data preparation and management module, Zoho makes it easy for users to clean and prepare data for analysis.
This is a crucial step in the business intelligence process as it ensures that data is high quality and ready for use.
Key Features:
- Catalog data to make it easy to find and use when needed
- Enrich data with external data sources to get a complete picture of your business
- Auto model to automatically build models based on your data
- Smart-Cleanse to clean and prepare data for analysis
- Data preparation & management to ensure that data is of high quality and ready for use
Pros:
- Unified business analytics allow users to connect to multiple data sources and get a complete picture of their business.
- Flexible deployment options allow the platform to be deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid.
- Their extensible platform can handle large-scale data analysis
- Low TCO as the platform is easy to use and does not require a lot of training
- Security and governance ensures that data is secure and compliant
Pricing
Zoho Analytics has 4 pricing plans, which are billed as follows:
- Basic: $24 /month billed yearly
- Standard: $48 /month billed yearly
- Premium: $115 /month billed yearly
- Enterprise: $455 /month billed yearly
Get started with Zoho.
2. Sisense.
Best for building and deploying analytics apps (Quote-based).
Sisense is a great business intelligence tool that simplifies complex data. It also integrates with several popular data sources, making it a good choice for businesses that want to get started in this industry – all without investing in new infrastructure.
8.8out of 10
Best For
Simplifying Data
Price
Quote Based
Annual Discount
Annual Discount:
Promotion
Sisense is a Business Intelligence Software & Analytics platform that helps you simplify complex data and create analytic apps.
The API-first cloud technology also lets you embed the analytics apps anywhere you want.
It offers a self-service analytics platform that uses data from all touchpoints and numerous sources like Adwords, Google Analytics, and Salesforce.
Plus, it enables you to create enterprise-grade analytics apps on-premises or on the cloud with the lowest TCO (total cost of ownership).
Additionally, it uses in-chip technology for parallel processing and an in-memory columnar database to serve multiple servers while working on a single server.
This function helps you save on additional servers or hardware.
Integration with R functions in formulas also comes in handy for predictive analytics and advanced BI reporting.
Sisense Pulse is another unique feature. It leverages machine learning (ML) to identify and inform any data anomalies automatically.
To give you an overview, Sisense provides all features to build analytic apps, including:
- Embed – to embed analytics anywhere you want with customizations and white labeling.
- Mashup – merge data models to optimize performance.
- Analyze – view and analyze visual and actionable data.
- Impact – Influence business decisions with business insights and answers to complex questions.
- Deploy – Deploy your analytic apps on-premises, on the cloud, or on the hybrid.
Key Features:
- Mashup – Merge data from multiple sources using its drag-and-drop feature to access actionable insights, even if you are a non-technical user.
- Cleanse – Identify and rectify data blunders without impacting its native source. It can help you secure dependable analytics with greater details.
- Interactive Dashboard – Keep your data ready with a few simple clicks. It enables you to explore, filter, and use data mining to help you find answers to complex problems.
Pros:
- Sisense can handle any amount of data.
- It offers hundreds of predesigned data visualization widgets.
- You can also submit your own open-source designs.
- It sends notifications directly to your smartphone, tablet, or a white label mobile app. It also provides access to the data on any mobile device.
- Combine private clouds, public clouds, and on-premises resources to develop a hybrid solution.
You can get a price quote based on your project type, number of users, data volume, project timeline, etc.
3. Tableau.
Best for data discovery and data visualization ($12 per user, per month).
Tableau needs no introduction. It is one of the most popular business intelligence tools available today. Organizations of all sizes use Tableau to make informed decisions and improve their overall performance.
8.8out of 10
Best For
Data Discovery
Price
$12/mo-$70/mo
Annual Discount
No
Promotion
Tableau is a BI and Analytics software that helps you understand complex data and customize and embed data analytics with your products.
It offers a user-friendly, intuitive drag-and-drop user interface to help data scientists access and analyze data, make reports, and share insights across the organization.
The drag-and-drop feature also simplifies complex tasks, including pivoting and joining.
You can also re-order steps or edit values to watch results in real-time.
Besides, it leverages smart algorithms to collate redundant tasks like typo correction and brings them under a single click operation.
Plus, the Tableau Prep feature can help you clean, combine, and prepare data at a faster pace. It comprises of two tools – namely Tableau Prep Builder and Tableau Prep Conductor.
The Builder helps you build the data flow – while the Conductor helps with scheduling, scalability, monitoring, and managing the flow across the organization.
Key Features:
- Device Designer – It helps you customize, design, and publish optimized dashboards for tablet, desktop, and smartphone.
- Live Charts – Explore and understand data in real-time through live charts that offer data-rich visual patterns.
- Tableau Maps – It automatically turns the location data into interactive maps with 16 levels of zoom. You can also use custom geocodes to map the data as required.
- Tableau Blueprint – It helps you create a methodology to create a data-driven organization. From analytics strategy to deployment and maintenance & support, you can set the entire plan before implementing it.
Pros:
- It supports numerous third-party sources like MS Excel, Oracle, MS SQL, Google Analytics, etc.
- Create live stories to develop a compelling narrative.
- Easily share data and reports securely through Tableau Online or Tableau Server.
- Combine database and computer graphics to study large datasets on your laptop.
- It offers interactive visualization to explore hidden opportunities.
- The Ask Data feature leverages smart algorithms to index, profile, and optimize data sources.
Pricing:
Tableau offers different pricing plans for different deployment options.
On-premises or Public cloud:
- Tableau Creator: $70 per user, per month
- Tableau Explorer: $35 per user, per month
- Tableau Viewer: $12 per user, per month
Fully hosted by Tableau:
- Tableau Creator: $70 per user, per month
- Tableau Explorer: $42 per user, per month
- Tableau Viewer: $15 per user, per month
If you’re an individual, you can buy Tableau at $70 per month. Other add-ons include Tableau Data Management ($5.50 per user, per month) and Server Management ($3 per user, per month).
4. SAP Business Intelligence.
Best for analytics reporting and cross-enterprise sharing (Quote-based).
SAP Business Intelligence is another great tool that I advise you to check out if you are looking for a great business intelligence solution. With various data analysis and reporting features, this tool will surely help you make better business decisions.
8.6out of 10
Best For
Reporting
SAP Business Intelligence offers a full business intelligence suite to help you with data visualization, data analysis, and reporting.
It can help you reduce guesswork by monitoring key metrics and providing access to actionable information.
The cloud-based analytics solution uses technologies, including in-memory computing and machine learning, to help you answer complex problems in just a few clicks.
The cross-enterprise sharing option helps you share data and reports in real-time. What’s more, integration with Office helps you manipulate and filter data and identify different trends.
It also lets you carry out large-scale data analytics and embed data into Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.
The scalable BI tool also offers self-service access to in-context and personalized insights on any device. Plus, it lets you create reports in any format by fast-tracking report design and adding graphics and videos.
Key Features:
- SAP Analytics Cloud – It offers access to all the database solutions and joins multiple analytical instruments at a single place.
- Predictive Analytics – It leverages machine learning to predict future trends based on your data. It also comes equipped with pre-built algorithms and ML model management tools.
- BusinessObjects BI Suite – It offers real-time data access with multiple capabilities, including reporting, interactive dashboards, ad hoc (instant) reports, and data visualization.
Pros:
- Available both on-premise and in the cloud.
- It also supports multilingual reports.
- It offers augmented analytics to help you understand complex data easily.
- Embed analytics with business applications.
- Color-based analytics solution for better understanding.
- Centralized location for all insights and reporting data with custom dashboards.
- Integration with MS Office.
- Free demo and customized pricing.
Pricing:
SAP provides quote-based pricing information.
You’d have to fill a form with details like the number of employees, company name, etc., to extract personalized pricing details.
5. Looker.
Best for startups and mid-sized businesses (Quote-based).
Looker is excellent for those businesses that need real-time analytics and also want to be able to share their data with clients or other companies. With various features that help make the right decisions, businesses can be confident in the intelligence provided.
8.2out of 10
Best For
Startups
Looker is a Business Intelligence tool that helps you analyze and share real-time analytics. It combines all the data and provides a broader overview.
Plus, it gives a 360-degree view of your business and customers and helps you drill down and invest appropriately.
Its dashboard tracks data and reports more deeply, at the same time, enhancing the existing tools by incorporating new data.
It also offers efficient collaboration to equip teams with more informed and data-driven decisions easily.
This way, you can identify up-sell opportunities, create tailored messages, and understand successful customers’ usage patterns successful customers to enhance business efficiency.
It also enables employees to track customers across various touchpoints and drive personalized interactions.
Looker also connects you directly to row-level data to help you find more intricate details and understand what’s happening precisely.
The tool also provides alerts regarding issues like fraudulent orders, so you can avert the problem before it becomes a roadblock.
Additionally, integrations with tools like Slack, Dropbox, Marketo, and Segment help you share data and initiate workflows.
Key Features:
- Looker Blocks – These are pre-built pieces of code that you can use to fast-track your analytics. It offers SQL patterns, custom visualizations, fully built-out data models, weather and demographic data, and more.
- Embedded Analytics – Embed analytics anywhere instantly while achieving the desired customization. It also offers plug-and-play solutions.
- Sales Analytics – Combine data from multiple systems to gain actionable insights to maximize sales and reduce churn.
Pros:
- It offers customizable and purpose-built business workflows for managers, representatives, and operational teams.
- Over 100 pre-built LookML modeling patterns to facilitate development.
- It allows you to choose the cloud and database architecture of your choice.
- Create custom-built applications based on your requirement.
- Looker’s SQL Runner helps you analyze data quickly and send easy-to-understand reports to non-technical end users.
Pricing:
Looker provides quote-based plans based on your company and the number of employees it has. You get features like internal embedding, live chat support, API access, and more.
6. MicroStrategy.
Best for large enterprises with big budgets.
MicroStrategy is great at data visualization and supports various data sources. Different assets provide users with a 360-degree view of their business, allowing them to make better decisions.
7.8out of 10
Best For
Large Enterprises
MicroStrategy is an enterprise-level BI tool that provides access to all enterprise data assets and performs data visualization.
Other prominent features include a self-service dashboard, location-based analytics, etc.
All these functions eliminate the need for any IT infrastructure to conduct data analyses and reporting.
You don’t have to write any complicated code, either.
You can also leverage its different deployment options – that is, you can either host it both on the cloud or on-site.
Plus, MicroStrategy promises to deploy a cloud platform within 48 hours.
It also lets you transfer the data from any source, including cloud, relational database, enterprise applications, Hadoop, and big data.
Key Features:
- Location-Based Analytics – To put the data into perspective, it puts relevant data into their geographies to make it more relatable.
- Data Visualization – It offers color-rich interactive reports to help you understand complex data easily.
- Self-Service Dashboard – It helps you track key metrics of the business, including revenue, profit, sales, and more, from one location.
Pros:
- You can use the drag-and-drop function to insert built-in widgets.
- Save templates in the middle of the work and resume from where you left.
- Create sales and digital marketing reports quickly through the drag-and-drop feature.
- It offers multiple filters to help you create and view specific reports instantly.
- Eliminates the Excel work in the majority of the cases.
- It provides integration with voice search technology like Alexa.
Pricing:
There’s no mention of pricing plans on the official site. However, FinancesOnline suggests that MicroStrategy offers four pricing plans.
- Web Package: $600/named user or $300K/ CPU core
- Mobile Package: $600/named user or $ 300K/ CPU core
- Architect Package: $5,000/ named user
- Server Package: $1,200/named user or $ 600K/CPU core
7. Microsoft Power BI.
Best for collaborating with other Microsoft platforms like Office 365, Dynamics 365, Azure ($9.99 per month).
Power BI is a web-based BI tool that helps you find and share actionable insights using data visualization. It also provides built-in AI tools, Excel integration, and custom data connectors.
Plus, it lets you create and share reports personalized with your branding and KPIs.
The AI-powered algorithm is also capable of answering queries and works with the conversational language.
Power BI also offers data security across dashboards, reports, and data sets.
Its persistent security solutions continue to work even when the data gets shared outside the system or exported to PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint files.
Additionally, it offers a library of over 120 free connectors to provide access to everyone onboard.
You can also connect it directly to hundreds of on-premise and cloud data sources, including Azure SQL Database, Dynamics 365, Excel, Salesforce, SharePoint, etc.
Integration with Azure lets you analyze even petabytes of data. It also comes with advanced AI functions, additional data protection, and the ability to share insights across your organization easily.
If you want to learn more about Power BI and how it stacks up against one of its direct competitors, check out this review article on Power BI vs. Tableau.
Key Features:
- Power Pivot – It helps you import and integrate different datasets from multiple sources and create in-memory data models.
- Customized Visualization – Leverage its custom library to design data visualizations that meet your business requirements.
- Power Query – It enables data shaping and cleansing easily. You can rename the column, merge data, replace values, and modify other business-critical aspects of the data.
Pros:
- Its Power view feature supports maps with zoom and pan functionalities.
- It provides support for five programming languages, including DAX, Power Query, SQL, R, and Python.
- Power BI comes with an interactive Power BI desktop tool that is free to download.
- It displays a personalized view of the dashboard for different users based on their requirements.
- Ad-hoc data visualization and reporting.
Pricing:
Microsoft Power BI offers two pricing plans:
- Power BI Pro: $9.99 per month
- Power BI Premium: $4995 per month
The Premium plan is suitable for large organizations and provides features like cloud and on-premises reporting, advanced administration and deployment controls, etc.
8. Domo.
Best for extensive connectivity using data connectors (Quote-based).
Domo is a cloud-based BI tool that helps you turn raw data into actionable data and business-wide apps.
It offers customizable business solutions based on different organizational roles like finance, CEO, marketing, IT, sales, etc.
Besides, it provides multiple data connectors for Twitter, Google Sheets, Facebook, Zendesk, Excel, Salesforce, and more.
The self-service BI platform can handle the organization-wide data and provides a drag-and-drop interface to help non-technical users.
You can also connect to any data source – in the cloud, on-premise, or a hybrid between on-premise and cloud.
Plus, you can integrate Domo into the existing database of the business.
Additionally, built-in ETL tools and data pipelines help you visualize your data flows and process and load data into Domo.
Key Features:
- Report Scheduler – Schedule specific reports to teams and professionals at a particular time and date.
- Alert Center with – It works as a hub for notifications to metrics data and conversations to helps users take immediate action. You can also get alerts regarding KPIs.
- Domo Appstore – It provides numerous pre-built apps and connector APIs to let you build your own custom apps.
Pros:
- Domo provides mobile access to your data anytime, anywhere.
- Its query engine enables you to find answers quickly.
- Create customized data collections and dashboards.
- Leverage the ‘Task feature’ to manage workflows.
- Its text bots provide answers to questions in natural languages.
- Load heaps of data through a single click.
- Upload large data sets or import from ODBC, XML, Excel, and more.
Pricing:
Domo provides custom-based pricing. You have to contact their Sales team for a personalized quote. Besides, there’s a free trial initially.
9. Oracle Analytics.
Best for large enterprises looking for advanced AI and ML capabilities (Quote-based).
Oracle Analytics is a BI tool that helps with data management, integration, alerting, analyzing, reporting, and more.
Plus, it helps you analyze business intelligence insights through augmented analytics capabilities.
The Business Intelligence tool leverages embedded artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyze data and offer predictions for decision making.
You also get access to data-driven financial insights using predictive modeling and what-if scenario analysis.
Oracle’s self-service dashboard also lets you leverage organization-wide data, collaborate, and discover insights from all over the world.
The business analytics software offers four sub-products, including:
- Oracle Analytics Cloud – It helps you discover insights from anywhere you want, even using mobile devices. You can also use augmented analytics to combine data in your organization with third-party apps. This further helps you automate tasks like data preparation, visualization, forecasting, and reporting.
- Oracle Analytics Server – It helps you with on-premises or customer-managed deployment and discover more unique insights from raw data.
- Oracle Fusion Analytics – It provides access to best packaged KPIs and unified company data. Plus, Oracle Fusion helps you identify the precise value of your data with prebuilt integration and data models.
- Oracle Essbase – It lets you test and model business assumptions – whether on-premises or in the cloud.
Key Features:
- Augmented Analytics – It delivers AI-powered augmented analytics for smarter data preparation and discovering more accurate results. It also leverages natural language processing (NLP) to enable conversational-style answers and analytics.
- Mobile Exploration – It’s mobile-enabled and offers all the capabilities, including a fully functional dashboard.
- Data Connectors – You get numerous data connectors to connect to data sources in the cloud, on-premises, or on your desktop.
Pros:
- Easily share results and reports for seamless collaboration.
- It offers pre-built analytic data models in compliance with your security rules.
- Embed analysis within applications to enable interactions with customers through a chatbot.
- The ML models come with predictive analytics capabilities.
- Get an aggregated view of all the content and reports from a centralized dashboard.
Pricing:
The official site doesn’t have any pricing information.
You might have to contact the vendor for a custom pricing quote. A free trial is available.
10. Qlik.
Best for data exploration and visualization using visual dashboards ($30 per month).
Qlik is a BI and analytics tool that helps you develop analytics and provides you with dashboards multi-cloud data integration.
It offers a full BI suite that lets you deploy, design, and manage data without any coding know-how.
Qlik offers three significant functions:
- Data Integration – It provides data and analytics in real-time and performs data streaming, cataloging, refinement, etc.
- Data Analytics – It helps you turn raw data into actionable insights – on Qlik’s cloud or your own cloud.
- Data Literacy –Qlik’s team guides you and assists you in reading, working with, analyzing, and communicating with data.
Besides, Qlik’s sub-product QlikView provides data exploration and visually highlighted dashboards to understand data better.
Qlik also provides on-demand webinars to help you work with AI and analytics data. Not only this, but they also optimize your data pipeline.
Key Features:
- Qlik Replicate – Qlik helps organizations with data replication, injection, and data streaming.
- Data Warehouse – They automate the process of managing and optimizing data warehouse, generating ETL code, applying updates, etc.
- Qlik Catalog – It puts all your data into a simplified view and helps you find data whenever you want. It also performs data standardization, cleansing, and implements protection measures.
Pros:
- API integration and end-to-end cloud data integration.
- Security and compliance certificate.
- It performs usage monitoring.
- Create custom analytics or import and embed analytics into your application.
- Qlik also provides personal consulting, training, and several support programs.
Pricing:
- Qlik Sense Business: $30 per user, per month
- Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS: $70 per user, per month
Both the business plans include features like Augmented analytics, self-service creation, interactive dashboards, etc.
There are separate quote-based plans for data integration functions like data replication, warehouse automation, and cataloging.
11. IBM Cognos.
Best for creating and analyzing data reports ($15 per month).
IBM’s Cognos is an Ottawa-based AI-infused BI tool that helps you with data preparation, analysis, and reporting.
It enables you to process data discovery and view it using visual reports, facilitating better understanding and decision making.
The mobile app lets you access and monitors all stats and your dashboard anywhere at any time.
You also get alert notifications on your mobile phone every time something urgent comes up that needs your attention.
Plus, Cognos lets you monitor all your data with interactive graphs, charts, and tables.
It also automates data exploration and prepares, analyzes, and derives insights in the form of reports.
You can even add a new column, hide columns, reorder, perform calculations, split, and more.
Key Features:
- Predict the Future – IBM Cognos leverages AI to predict your future stats and forecast seasonal and time-based trends.
- Create Reports – It lets you create multi-page and multi-query reports for multiple databases.
- Share Insights – You can connect your dashboard to Slack or email and share data modules, widgets, and even your entire dashboard.
Pros:
- It helps you create visual reports and animated stories.
- Get real-time updates on your mobile phone.
- Import data from spreadsheets, CSV files, cloud, and more.
- It provides an extensive Q&A set to help you out if you face any problems with features like smart data discovery and natural language.
- You get automated version updates.
- It performs predictive analysis and seasonal forecasting.
- Cognos also provides control access based on roles.
Pricing:
Initially, you get a 30-days free trial. After that, Cognos offers three pricing plans:
- Standard: $15 per user, per month
- Plus: $35 per user, per month
- Premium: $70 per user, per month
- Enterprise: Quote-based plan
All the plans provide standard features like dashboards, animated stories, data sources, let you explore data in plain language, etc.
12. Dundas BI.
Best for mid-to-large enterprises for personalized reporting and data analysis (Quote-based).
Dundas is another BI tool that produces real-time, data-driven insights and prepares, analyzes, and visualizes data.
You get all the insights in the form of dashboards, reports, and visual data analytics.
Basically, Dundas BI lets you utilize data by creating insights that eventually help you make data-driven and fact-based decisions.
They also provide personal consulting and training to assist you throughout the process.
Besides, the BI tool consolidates and store data from various sources and removes useless and repeated data in the process.
You can import or connect your data from numerous sources like relational databases, web-based data, ODBC/JDBC, file-based data, OLAP, etc.
Plus, Dundas BI is built with HTML5 and fully open APIs – which helps you customize and enhance the platform on your own.
You can customize dashboards, labels, scoreboards, designs, etc., to meet your precise design requirements.
Some of its new features include:
- New functions to zoom your charts.
- Connect directly to Microsoft Azure Table storage or Azure Cosmos DB tables.
- Restrict access and allow login from only specific IP addresses.
- Automatically size text.
- Install Dundas BI on Linux.
Key Features:
- Slideshows – Slideshows allow you to define your own selection of dashboards or other news in sequence.
- Charts –Dundas BI helps you create charts such as column/bar, pie chart, curved line, bar chart, etc., for data visualization.
- Mobile Experience – You can build, view, and share dashboards, data reports, and scorecards on your mobile device anywhere and at any time.
Pros:
- You can use sample data and Excel data.
- Integrate with all types of data sources.
- You can visualize data through heatmaps.
- Drag-and-drop tools for easy customization of reports.
- It also provides a live demo and a free trial.
Adam Enfroy•Aug 30, 2022
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TOOLS FOR DATA VISUALIZATION AND ANALYSIS
-
Tableau
Tableau is one of the most widely used business intelligence tools. A technical background is not necessary to create customized reports and dashboards using Tableau. Additionally, this tool offers a wide variety of aesthetic graphical representations.
Tableau primarily performs two tasks: data collection and data analysis. It collects information from various sources, including cloud applications and spreadsheets. Popular institutions and companies that use Tableau include The World Bank, Coca-Cola, The New York Times, and Citigroup.
Features of Tableau
Predictive analysis
Automatic data updates
Easy to deploy on local and cloud servers
Multipurpose dashboard
Huge collection of visualization functions
Community support
Connectivity with diverse data sources -
Sisense
Sisense is another popular BI and data visualization tool that helps collect, analyze and visualize datasets. Data is centralized in Sisense; this feature reduces the data processing time. The tool also allows you to combine data from multiple sources for better analysis.
With Sisense, you can access several dashboard widgets to filter complex data from different data sources without writing SQL queries. Popular institutions and companies that use Sisense include Nasa, Sony, Skullcandy Philips, and Samsung.
Features of Sisense
Unlimited dashboards
Export data to Excel, CSV, PDF, etc.
Single sign-on authentication
Set alerts
Seamless data integration
Connects to SQL and NoSQL databases
Related Post: PostgreSQLvs MySQL: Which Is the Right Open Source Database for Your Business -
PowerBI
PowerBI is a business intelligence tool that utilizes connectors with software to extract easy-to-understand insights from raw data. PowerBI fully integrates with the entire Microsoft ecosystem including Azure, Office 365, Dynamic 365, purpose-built apps, and more. Also, for Windows users, PowerBI is free to use for up to two GB.
PowerBI is known for the smooth handling of data and excellent modeling capabilities. Also, you can create collaborative workspaces to share reports. Popular companies using PowerBI include EY, KPMG, PWC, Nestle, and Nokia.
Features of PowerBI
Wide range of data visualization features
Customizable dashboards
Dataset filtration
Natural language Q&A box
Online analytical processing
Trend indicators
Navigation pane
Feedback buttons
Power BI is a business intelligence tool that helps you analyze and visualize data.
-
QlikSense
QlikSense earlier known as QlikView is unlike other traditional business intelligence tools. QlikSense offers seamless integration of the analytical back-end with a user-friendly front-end.
Businesses can convert processed data to visual models using QlikSense. Also, this tool allows you to create interactive data visualizations, conduct detailed data analyses, build dashboards and prepare informative reports.
Features of QlikSense
Drag and drop data visualization feature
Associative analytics engine
Geospatial analysis
Mobile analytics
Timely alerts
Secure enterprise-scale catalog -
Yellowfin BI
Yellowfin BI is a business intelligence software that helps businesses obtain augmented analytics. One of the unique features of Yellowfin BI is the data storytelling tool that presents data in the form of an engaging story.
Yellowfin BI offers AI-powered dashboards that help you make smarter and faster collective actions. Also, the Yellowfin BI dashboard is easily accessible from anywhere including mobile and the company intranet.
Features of Yellowfin BI
Data filtering
Integration APIs
Data modelling
Stunning graphs and charts
Designer reports
Data querying -
Domo
Domo is an important business intelligence tool that offers complete data and visualization solutions. By seamlessly integrating Domo with different data sources, businesses can track and create reports for different segments.
Domo offers pre-built visualization formats like heatmaps, column charts, scatter plots, and others. Also, extensive documentation and training are available for developers who want to use this business intelligence software.
Features of Domo
ETL scheduler
Data blending
Customizable dashboards
Report templates
Drill down analysis
Delivery scheduling
Multi-user support
Responsive design -
Datapine
Among secure business intelligence tools, Datapine stands tall. Datapine offers a wide range of data connectors that help you connect with several data sources. This tool helps in gathering and preparing different datasets quickly.
Interactive dashboards offered by Datapine help businesses track the real-time performance of different market segments and make informed decisions. Other notable features of the Datapine dashboard include cross-device accessibility, animation options, data alerts, and multiple sharing options.
Features of Datapine
Trend problem indicators
Scorecards
Third-party integration
Predictive analysis
Mobile dashboards
Related Post: Ten Best Low Code Platforms to Use in 2022 -
Visual.ly
Visual.ly is one of the best data visualization tools renowned for high-quality graphics. Visual.ly offers a dedicated team of professionals that can create stunning projects for your organizations.
Businesses can check the progress of any project at each stage and give real-time feedback. Also, they can submit gathered data and insights through forms on this data visualization platform.
Features of Visual.ly
Rich videos
Detailed infographics
Comprehensive presentations
Meticulous reports
Motion Graphics
A suite of business intelligence features
Visual.ly offers a wide range of data visualization features.
FAQs
-
What
arebusiness intelligence tools?
Business intelligence tools are a type of application software that can collect and process a large amount of unstructured data for actionable insights that businesses can leverage. For example- Datapine, Yellowfin BI, and Qliksense among others. -
What are data
visualization tools?
Data visualization tools are software applications that present data in the form of visually engaging formats like pie graphs, charts, tables, heatmaps, etc. -
Does QlikSense
use SQL?
Yes, QlikSense uses all valid SQL queries.
AshwinDua ● July 15, 2022 ● Business-intelligence-tools-for-data-visualization-and-analysis/
TOP 10 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE & DATA VISUALIZATION TOOLS
1. Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool that helps modern businesses collect data. Businesses can collect data from Sales and Marketing, Human Resources, and Profitability Aspects.
This software allows any business user to get real insights. Hence, making the right predictions for improved business performance. Thus, BI software embedded with the interactive visualizations helps to represent complex statistics more efficiently.
Features of Power BI
- SaaS software to manage the reports easily.
- Provides real-time updates on the dashboard.
- Consequently offer a secure and reliable connection to data sources in the cloud.
- Offers an easy-to-use hybrid configuration.
- Also offers dashboard visualization for regular updates.
- Downloadable software to run the analytics over the server.
- Sixty days free trial along with hundreds of data sources.
2. Tableau
Tableau is used to connect databases to create more understandable visuals. Also enables sharing of visuals. It has a slick drag and drops feature. Consequently providing amazing representation making the visuals lively.
Tableau has a wide range of data blending options that supports several data sources. For example, MS-Excel and Google Analytics. It also helps to offer a bigger selection of charts. Hence, overall it’s a mobile-friendly data visualization tool.
Features of Tableau
- Has moderate speed with optimization solutions.
- Provides secure data without scripting.
- As a result, helpful in resolving big data issues.
- More lively data visualization.
3. Dundas BI
Dundas BI is a business-ready platform. You can use it as a central data science portal. It is one of the easiest BI tools. And one of the most experienced Business Intelligence and Data Analytics tools.
It is a browser-based tool. Hence, one can perform data visualization with control over “almost all the visuals design elements” in this single tool. It also has an easy-to-use interface that provides easy to analyze and visualize data.
Features of Dundas BI
- HTML 5 interface makes it more device-friendly.
- Uses data visualization to convert business data into easy-to-understand reports.
- Also Provides several layout options.
- Customized and interactive charts and maps.
- Incorporates data with a drag-and-drop facility.
- Also use statistical formulas for better results.
- API for enhancing design requirements.
4. Sisense
The BI and data analytics tools are used by Fortune 500 companies. SiSense simplifies the complexities of data analysis. It uses IoT, machine learning, and AI all in a single platform. Hence, provides the best results.
It also claims to move from “data to dashboard in just 90 minutes.” Its clientele, like Airbus, and Fujitsu, signifies that it is a top-tier product. The most important feature of it is to embed white label business analytics with customizations.
Features of Sisense
- Performs Ad-hoc analysis of high-volume data.
- Handling of data on a single commodity server.
- Supports data export to PDF, images, and other formats.
- Analyses data across the entire landscape.
- Mashup lives or cached data.
5. Zoho Analytics
A tool with a visually attractive dashboard. It is easier to use if one’s has ample experience in web-based tools. Zoho Reports can also integrate data from a variety of sources like Microsoft Office documents and databases.
Zoho can also collect data from various outside sources like Dropbox, and Google Drive. Here we can also integrate data with mathematical and statistical formulas. Hence, this tool helps to create a visually attractive and informative report.
Features of Zoho
- Provides an online interface with a drag and drop feature.
- Also setup links to 3rd party software which are easy to access.
- More interactive user interface.
- Highly customized dashboard and reports.
- Fast Query resolution consequently offers easier decision making.
- Exchanges data daily with MYSQL.
6. Amazon Quicksight
Amazon QuickSight is a serverless, machine learning-powered tool. QuickSight lets you create interactive dashboards. Businesses can also access this business intelligence tool from any device.
It is the first of its kind to offer pay-per-session pricing. Therefore, making it cost-effective for large-scale deployments. Also, it’s very quick to respond to your queries.
Features of Quicksight
- Interactive dashboards for readers.
- For this, the pay-per-session prices range from $0.30 for 30 minutes or $5 per month.
- Active directory integration for more security.
- Also offers CloudTrail auditing for data discovery and compliance.
7. Qlik
Qlik is a data visualization software that converts raw data into useful information. It acts like a human brain and works on the principle of association. Hence, provides a more interactive approach towards visualization.
It searches in every direction to reach the correct solutions to your problems. Click works on data integration, data analytics, and data literacy. It also serves some of the top companies. For example, Samsung and PayPal.
Features of Qlik
- Supports various types of data presentation.
- Transparent reporting with data integration.
- Automatically maintains data association.
- Also offers fast integration of data.
- Use innovative ways of data visualization.
8. Google Charts
Google Charts is an interactive cloud service. It helps to create graphical charts from the given information. You can either create a simple line chart or even a complex one.
It is also one of the most commonly used tools. Because of the ease of its usage, anyone can use it easily. Also, we can connect these charts to other Google services.
Features of Google Charts
- A rich collection of interactive charts.
- Also supports different web browsers.
- Interactive dashboard for the convenience of the user.
- Real-time access to your data.
- Compatible with both Android and iOS platforms.
9. Domo
Domo is a cloud-based tool that helps to integrate data sources like spreadsheets. It can also add social media to the existing cloud-based software solutions. Hence, it can be operated on both Windows and Mac platforms.
Also, we can use it on mobile devices. Domo provides deep analysis. It helps to forecast revenue, marketing return on investment, and more. It also offers real-time dashboards.
Features of DOMO
- AutoML makes machine learning easily accessible.
- Availability of dynamic data integration.
- Also coordinate data from any source.
- Possess real-time and predictive analytics.
- Easy to create customized apps consequently providing the automation of the workflows.
10. Thinklytics
Thinklytics is a web-based visualization product with built-in machine learning algorithms to efficiently analyze and provide analytics for IIOT 4.0 and general analytics.
One can connect to a variety of RDBMS, NoSQL, and excels. This is a horizontal product and can be customized for any Industry vertical, also specializes in embedded visualizations.
Thinklytics also creates business-centric customized dashboards. It has improvised the quality of data visualization. It is based on the Machine Learning concept. Hence, providing complete automation of work.
Features of Thinklytics
- Data caching on the server-side to increase performance.
- Real-time dashboards for current data.
- Cross filtering techniques to analyze dependencies of one chart to another.
- Also offers historical data analysis.
- Use minimal browser memory.
- Easily extendable library of charts.
- Also have automated email alerts for your KPIs.
- Export dashboards to PDF.
- You can also utilize data from multiple data sources.
- Data can be synchronized on a single platform for better decision-making.
- Dig out data at different strata to get meaningful insights.
- Get Tailored Solutions for your Data Dashboards.
Services Provided
- e-Commerce Solutions – Create a customized Sales Analytics Dashboard, and generate complex queries with Thinklytics Meta.
- Hospitality Solutions – Create Revenue Analytics Dashboard and make complex calculations easier.
- Manufacturing Solutions – Create Inventory Analysis Dashboard, find colors and patterns for your dashboards.
- Insurance Solutions – Create Insurance Policies and Claim vs. Profit Insurance Dashboards.
thinklytics Business-intelligence-data-visualization-tools/
Executive Summary.
The good news is that all of these BI tools offer easy-to-install business intelligence capabilities, including data augmentation, reporting, visualization, and more.
However, each tool comes with its own unique selling points.
For instance, Domo and Microsoft Power BI are best for large enterprises requiring intricate reporting capabilities. On the other hand, Looker is a suitable BI tool to track customer actions and enhance sales for ecommerce businesses.
Overall, my top pick is Sisense because of its ease of use, ability to handle almost any amount of data, and its ability to build and deploy tailored analytics apps.
Nevertheless, make sure to go through key features, pros, and cons to make your final decision.
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