What are the best BI tools?
1. Sisense.
The best for creating and deploying analysis applications (based on quotes).
Sisense is a business intelligence software and analytics platform that helps you simplify complex data and create analytic applications.
API-based cloud technology also allows you to integrate analytics applications wherever you want.
It offers a self-service analytics platform that uses data from all touchpoints and multiple sources like Adwords, Google Analytics, and Salesforce.
Plus, it allows you to create enterprise-grade analytics applications on-premise or in the cloud with the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO).
Additionally, it uses in-chip technology for parallel processing and an in-memory database to serve multiple servers while working on a single server.
This function allows you to save servers or hardware additional.
Integrating R functions into formulas is also useful for predictive analytics and advanced BI reporting.
Another unique feature is Sisense Pulse. It connects on machine learning (ML) to automatically identify and inform any data anomalies.
To give you an overview, Sisense provides all the features you need to create analytic applications, including:
- Integration - Integrate analytics data where you want, with personalization and labeling.
- Mashup - Merge data models to optimize performance.
- Analyze - Visual and actionable data analysis.
- Impact - Influence business decisions through information and answers to complex questions.
- Deployment - Deploy your analytics applications on-premise, in the cloud or in a hybrid environment.
Features
- Mashup - Merge data from multiple sources using its drag-and-drop feature to access actionable information, even if you're not a technical user.
- Cleanse - Identify and correct data errors without touching their native source. It can help you get reliable and more detailed analyses.
- Interactive dashboard - Keep your data within easy reach in just a few clicks It allows you to explore, filter, and use data mining to help you find answers to complex problems.
Benefits
- Sisense can handle any amount of data.
- It offers hundreds of pre-designed data visualization widgets.
- You can also submit your own open source designs.
- It sends notifications directly to your smartphone, tablet or mobile application. It also allows data to be accessed on any mobile device.
- Combine private clouds, public clouds, and on-premise resources to build a hybrid solution.
Pricing
You can get a quote based on the type of project, the number of users, the volume of data, the project schedule, etc.
2. Table.
The best solution for data discovery and visualization ($12 per user, per month).
Tableau is a BI and analytics software that helps you understand complex data and personalize and integrate data analytics into your products.
It offers a user-friendly, intuitive drag-and-drop user interface to help data scientists access and analyze data, report, and share information across the enterprise.
The drag and drop feature also simplifies complex tasks, including pivoting and assembling.
You can also reorder the steps or change the values to see the results in real time.
In addition, it uses intelligent algorithms to group redundant tasks, such as correcting typos, and group them together with a single click.
In addition, the function Tableau Prep Can help you clean, combine, and prepare data more quickly. It consists of two tools, namely Tableau Prep Builder And Prep Conductor Table.
The Builder helps you build the flow of data, while the conductor helps you plan, evolve, monitor, and manage the flow across the organization.
Features
- Device Designer - It helps you customize, design, and publish dashboards optimized for tablets, desktops, and smartphones.
- Live charts - Explore and understand data in real time with live charts that offer data-rich visual models.
- Maps table - It automatically transforms location data into interactive maps with 16 zoom levels. You can also use custom geocodes to map data as needed.
- Blueprint table - It helps you develop a methodology for creating a data-driven organization. From analysis strategy to deployment, maintenance and support, you can define the entire plan before implementing it.
Benefits
- It supports numerous third party sources like MS Excel, Oracle, MS SQL, Google Analytics, etc.
- Create live stories to develop a compelling story.
- Easily share data and reports securely via Tableau Online or Tableau Server.
- Combine databases and infographics to study large data sets on your laptop.
- It offers interactive visualization to explore hidden opportunities.
- The Ask Data function uses intelligent algorithms to index, profile, and optimize data sources.
Pricing
Tableau offers different pricing plans for different deployment options.
On-premise or in a 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 for $70 per month. Other add-ons include Tableau Data Management ($5.50 per user per month) and server management ($3 per user per month).
3. SAP Business Intelligence.
The best solution for analysis reports and inter-company sharing (based on quotes).
SAP Business Intelligence offers a comprehensive suite of business intelligence to help you visualize and analyze data, and create reports.
It can help you reduce guesswork by monitoring key parameters and giving you access to actionable information.
This cloud-based analytics solution uses technologies, including in-memory computing and machine learning, to help you answer complex problems with just a few clicks.
The business-to-business sharing option helps you share data and reports in real time. Additionally, integration with Office helps you manipulate and filter data and identify different trends.
It also allows you to perform large-scale data analysis and integrate data into Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.
This scalable BI tool also offers self-service access to in-context and personalized information on any device. Additionally, it allows you to create reports in any format by speeding up report design and adding graphics and videos.
Features
- SAP Analytics Cloud - It offers access to all database solutions and brings together several analysis instruments in one place.
- Predictive analysis - It uses machine learning to predict future trends based on your data. It is also equipped with prebuilt algorithms and ML model management tools.
- BusinessObjects BI Suite - It offers real-time data access with multiple functionalities, including report creation, interactive dashboards, ad hoc reports (snapshots), and data visualization.
Benefits
- Available both on-premise and in the cloud.
- It also supports multi-lingual reports.
- It offers augmented analysis to help you easily understand complex data.
- Integrate analytics into business applications.
- Analytical solution based on color for better understanding.
- Centralized location for all analysis and reporting data with customized dashboards.
- Integrating with MS Office
- Free demo and personalized pricing.
Pricing
SAP provides price information upon quotation.
You'll need to fill out a form with information like the number of employees, company name, etc., to get personalized pricing information.
4. Looker.
The best solution for startups and businesses (on request).
Looker is a business intelligence tool that helps you analyze and share analytics data in real time. It combines all the data and provides a broader overview.
Plus, it provides a 360-degree view of your business and customers and helps you to dig deeper and invest more.
Its dashboard allows for more in-depth monitoring of data and reports, while improving existing tools by integrating new data.
It also provides effective collaboration to enable teams to easily make more informed, data-driven decisions.
So, you can identify upsell opportunities, create personalized messages, and understand customer usage patterns to improve business efficiency.
It also allows employees to follow customers across different touchpoints and generate personalized interactions.
Looker also connects you directly to row-level data to help you find more complex details and understand exactly what's going on.
The tool also provides alerts about issues like fraudulent orders, so you can avoid the issue before it becomes a hindrance.
Additionally, integrations with tools such as Slack, Dropbox, Marketo And Segment Allow you to share data and launch workflows.
Features
- Looker blocks - These are pre-built pieces of code that you can use to speed up your analyses. They offer SQL models, custom visualizations, fully built data models, weather and population data, and much more.
- Embedded Analytics - Instantly embed analytical data anywhere while achieving the desired personalization. It also offers ready-to-use solutions.
- Sales analysis - Combine data from multiple systems to gain actionable insights to maximize sales and Reduce the unsubscription rate.
Benefits
- It offers professional workflows that are customizable and adapted to the needs of managers, representatives, and operational teams.
- Over 100 pre-designed LookML modeling models to facilitate development.
- It allows you to choose the cloud and database architecture of your choice.
- Create custom applications based on your needs.
- SQL Runner by Looker Helps you quickly analyze data and send easy to understand reports to non-technical end users
Pricing
Looker offers plans based on quotes, based on your business and the number of employees it has. You get features like internal integration, live chat support, API access, and more.
5. MicroStrategy.
Ideal for large businesses with big budgets.
MicroStrategy is an enterprise BI tool that provides access to and visualization of all corporate data.
Other important features include a simple dashboard, location-based analytics, and more.
All of these features eliminate the need for any IT infrastructure to perform data analysis and reporting.
You don't have to write complicated code either.
You can also take advantage of its various deployment options, that is, you can host it both on the cloud or on-premise.
Additionally, MicroStrategy promises to deploy a cloud platform within 48 hours.
It also allows you to transfer data from any source, including the cloud, relational databases, enterprise applications, Hadoop, and big data.
Features
- Geographic analysis - To put the data into perspective, it places the relevant data in their geographical context in order to make them more relevant.
- Data visualization - It offers interactive, color-rich reports to help you easily understand complex data.
- Dashboard - It helps you track key business metrics, including revenue, profits, sales, and more, from one place.
Benefits
- You can use the drag and drop feature to insert built-in widgets.
- Save models in the middle of work and pick up where you left off.
- Quickly create sales and digital marketing reports using the drag and drop function.
- Offers multiple filters to help you create and visualize specific reports instantly.
- Eliminates the work of Excel in the majority of cases.
- Offers integration with voice search technology like Alexa.
Pricing
The official site does not mention pricing plans. However, FinancesOnline suggests that MicroStrategy offers 4 pricing plans.
- Web package: $600/named user or $300,000/processor core
- Mobile plan: $600/named user or $300,000/CPU core
- Architect package: $5,000 per named user
- Server package: $1,200/named user or $600,000/processor core.
6. Microsoft Power BI.
The best solution 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 information through Dataviz. It also provides built-in artificial intelligence tools, Excel integration, and custom data connectors.
In addition, it allows you to create and share personalized reports with your brand and your KPIs.
The algorithm driven by AI is also capable of responding to queries and works with conversational language.
Power BI also offers data security for dashboards, reports, and data sets.
Its persistent security solutions continue to work even when data is shared outside the system or exported to PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint files.
Additionally, it offers a library of over 120 free connectors to allow access to everyone on board.
You can also connect it directly to hundreds of on-premise and cloud data sources, including Azure SQL Database, Dynamics 365, Excel, Salesforce, Salesforce, SharePoint, and more.
Integration with Azure allows you to analyze even petabytes of data. It also comes with advanced AI features, additional data protection, and the ability to easily share information across your organization.
Features
- Power Pivot - It helps you import and integrate different data sets from multiple sources and create in-memory data models.
- Personalized visualization - Leverage its custom library to design data visualizations that meet your business needs.
- Power Query - It makes it easy to shape and clean data. You can rename the column, merge the data, replace the values, and change other critical aspects of the data.
Benefits
- Its “Power View” function supports maps with zoom and pan capabilities.
- It supports 5 programming languages including DAX, Power Query, SQL, R, and Python.
- Power BI comes with an interactive desktop tool that is free to download.
- It shows a personalized dashboard view for different users based on their needs.
- Data visualization and ad hoc reports.
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 offers features such as cloud and on-premise reporting, advanced administration and deployment controls, and more.
7. Domo.
The best solution for extended connectivity using data connectors (based on quotes).
Domo is a cloud-based BI tool that helps you turn raw data into actionable data and enterprise-wide applications.
It offers customizable business solutions based on different organizational roles such as finance, CEO, marketing, IT, sales, etc.
Additionally, it provides multiple data connectors for Twitter, Google Sheets, Google Sheets, Facebook, Facebook, Zendesk, Excel, Salesforce, and more.
The self-service BI platform can process data from across the organization 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 cloud and on-premise.
Additionally, you can integrate Domo into the company's existing database.
In addition, the ETL tools and built-in data pipelines help you visualize your data flows and processes and load the data into Domo.
Features
- Report planner - Schedule specific reports for teams and professionals at a specific date and time.
- Alert Center - It functions as a notification center for metric data and conversations to help users take immediate action. You can also receive alerts about KPIs.
- Domo Appstore - It provides numerous predefined applications and connection APIs to allow you to create your own custom applications.
Benefits
- Domo allows mobile access to your data anytime and anywhere.
- Its search engine allows you to quickly find answers.
- Create custom data collections and dashboards.
- Take advantage of the “task feature” to manage workflows.
- Its text robots provide answers to questions in natural language.
- Load tons of data with a single click.
- Download large data sets or import them from ODBC, XML, Excel, etc.
Pricing
Domo offers personalized prices. You have to Contact Their Sales Team To get a personalized quote. Plus, there's a free trial at the start.
8. Oracle Analytics.
Ideal for large businesses looking for advanced AI and ML capabilities (on request).
Oracle Analytics is a BI tool that helps with data management, integration, alerts, analysis, reporting, and more.
Additionally, it helps you analyze business intelligence information through increased analytical capabilities.
The Business Intelligence tool uses integrated artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyze data and offer predictions for decision-making.
You also have access to financial information based on data, through predictive modeling and hypothetical scenario analysis.
The Oracle dashboard also allows you to tap into enterprise-wide data, collaborate, and discover insights from around the world.
This business analysis software offers four by-products, including the following:
- Oracle Analytics Cloud - It helps you discover information wherever you are, even using mobile devices. You can also use advanced analytics to combine your organization's data with third-party apps. It also helps you automate tasks such as data preparation, visualization, forecasting, and reporting.
- Oracle Analytics Server - It helps you with an on-premise or customer-managed deployment and allows you to discover unique information from raw data.
- Oracle Fusion Analytics - It provides access to the best key performance indicators and unified business data. Additionally, Oracle Fusion helps you identify the precise value of your data through pre-built integration and data models.
- Oracle Essbase - It allows you to test and model business hypotheses, whether on-premise or in the cloud.
Features
- Advanced analytics - It offers augmented analysis powered by AI for smarter data preparation and the discovery of more accurate results. It also uses natural language processing (NLP) to enable conversational responses and analyses.
- Mobile exploration - It is mobile-friendly and offers all capabilities, including a fully functional dashboard.
- Data connectors - You have numerous data connectors to connect to data sources in the cloud, on-premise, or on your desktop.
Benefits
- Easily share results and reports for seamless collaboration.
- It offers analytical data models that are in compliance with your security rules.
- Integrate analytics into applications to enable customer interactions through a Chatbot.
- Machine learning models are equipped with predictive analytics capabilities.
- Get an overview of all content and reports from a centralized dashboard.
Pricing
The official site does not have pricing information.
You may need to contact their sales department to get a personalized quote. A free trial is available.
9. Qlik.
The best for exploring and visualizing data using visual dashboards ($30 per month).
Qlik is a BI and analytics tool that helps you develop analytics and provides you with multi-cloud data integration dashboards.
It offers a comprehensive BI suite that allows you to deploy, design, and manage data without any coding expertise.
Qlik offers 3 important functions:
- Data integration - It provides data and analytics in real time and carries out streaming, cataloging, data refinement, etc.
- Data analysis - It helps you turn raw data into actionable information - on the Qlik cloud or on your own cloud.
- Formation - The Qlik team guides and helps you read, work, analyze, and communicate with data.
In addition, the by-product QlikView of Qlik allows you to explore data and create visual dashboards to better understand data.
Qlik also offers on-demand webinars to help you work with AI and analytics. On top of that, they also optimize your data pipeline.
Features
- Qlik Replicate - Qlik helps businesses replicate, inject, and deliver data.
- Data warehouse - They automate the process of managing and optimizing the data warehouse, generating the 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 carries out data standardization and cleaning and implements protection measures.
Benefits
- End-to-end API integration and cloud data integration.
- Security and compliance certificate.
- It keeps track of use.
- Create custom analyses or import and integrate analytics into your application.
- Qlik also offers personalized advice, training, and several support programs.
Pricing
- Qlik Sense Business: $30 per user, per month
- Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS: $70 per user, per month
The 2 business plans include features such as augmented analysis, simplified creation, interactive dashboards, and more.
There are separate, quote-based plans for data integration functions such as data replication, warehouse automation, and cataloging.
10. IBM Cognos.
Great for creating and analyzing data reports ($15 per month).
Cognos from IBM, based in Ottawa. It's an AI-driven BI tool that helps you prepare, analyze, and report data.
It allows you to process data discovery and visualize it using visual reports, making it easier to understand and make decisions.
The mobile application allows you to access and monitor all the statistics and your dashboard from anywhere and at any time.
You also receive alert notifications on your mobile phone whenever an urgent event requires your attention.
Additionally, Cognos allows you to control all of your data using interactive graphs, charts, and tables.
It also makes it possible to automate data exploration and to prepare, analyze, and learn in the form of reports.
You can even add a new column, hide columns, reorder columns, perform calculations, split columns, and more.
Features
- Prediction - IBM Cognos uses AI to predict your future statistics and forecast seasonal and temporal trends.
- Reports - It allows you to create multi-page and multi-query reports for multiple databases.
- Information sharing - You can connect your dashboard to Slack or email and share data modules, widgets, and even your entire dashboard.
Benefits
- It helps you create visual reports and animated stories.
- Get real-time updates on your mobile phone.
- Import data from spreadsheets, CSV files, the cloud, and more
- It provides a broad set of questions and answers to help you if you're having issues with features like intelligent data discovery and natural language.
- You benefit from automatic version updates.
- It carries out predictive analysis and seasonal forecasting.
- Cognos also makes it possible to control access based on roles.
Pricing
Initially, you get a 30-day free trial. Then, Cognos offers three pricing plans:
- Standard: $15 per user, per month
- Plus: $35 per user, per month
- Premium: $70 per user, per month
- Business: Plan on quotation
All plans offer standard features like dashboards, animated stories, data sources, which allow you to explore data in plain language, and more.
11. Dundas BI.
The best solution for medium and large businesses for creating custom reports and analyzing data (upon quotation).
Dundas is another business intelligence tool that produces real-time, data-based information and prepares, analyzes, and visualizes data.
You get all the information in the form of dashboards, reports, and visual data analysis.
Therefore, Dundas BI allows you to use data by creating insights that ultimately help you make decisions based on data and facts.
They also offer personalized advice and training to help you through the process.
In addition, the BI tool consolidates and stores data from a variety of sources and also removes unnecessary and duplicate data during the process.
You can import or connect your data from a variety of sources such as relational databases, web data, ODBC/JDBC, file data, OLAP, and more.
Additionally, Dundas BI is built with HTML5 and fully open APIs - allowing you to customize and improve the platform by yourself.
You can customize dashboards, labels, bulletin boards, bulletin boards, designs, and more to meet your specific design needs.
Here are some of its new features:
- New functions for zooming your charts.
- Connect directly to Microsoft Azure Table Storage or Azure Cosmos DB tables.
- Restrict access and allow connection from certain IP addresses only.
- Automatic text size.
- Installing Dundas BI on Linux
Features
- Slideshows - Slideshows allow you to define your own selection of dashboards or other information in sequence.
- Charts - Dundas BI helps you create charts such as columns/bars, pie charts, curved lines, bar charts, and more for data visualization.
- Mobile experience - You can create, visualize, and share dashboards, data reports, and scorecards on your mobile device anytime, anywhere.
Benefits
- You can use sample data and Excel data.
- Integrate with all types of data sources.
- You can visualize the data using heat maps.
- Drag-and-drop tools for easy report customization.
- It also offers a live demo and a free trial.
Pricing
Customized plans through quotes.
Summary.
Here are my picks for the best business intelligence tools to try this year.
The big data analytics market is likely to reach $103 billion by 2023, it's important to start harnessing the power of cloud data and advanced analytics.
The good news is that all of these BI tools offer business intelligence features that are easy to install, including data augmentation, reporting, visualization, and more.
However, each tool has its own selling points.
For example, Domo And Microsoft Power BI are better suited for larger businesses that need complex reporting capabilities. On the other hand, Looker Is a BI tool adapted to track customer actions and improve sales of E-Commerce Businesses.
Overall my top choice is Sisense because of its ease of use, its ability to process virtually any amount of data, and its ability to create and deploy custom analytics applications.
Nonetheless, be sure to consider the main features, pros, and cons before making your final decision.
What BI tool works for your business and why? Let me know in the comments below.
RECOMMENDED READING: Check out this list ofBig Data Tools for better analysis in your business.
FAQs
What are BI (Business Intelligence) tools?
BI software (Business Intelligence) help you analyze business data critically and derive actionable insights from it.
It also helps businesses identify their strengths and weaknesses using forecasted data and existing trends.
Additionally, BI tools help management visualize the relationship between different data sets, make data-based decisions, and deploy resources more optimally.
In addition, powerful BI software gathers data from all relevant touchpoints, processes it, and produces relevant reports and actionable data. It identifies and represents all complex data in a way that is easy to understand.
You can also use BI tools to create specific reports and send them to different stakeholders.
Additionally, advanced business intelligence software uses the capabilities of big data and cloud computing to further simplify the analysis of complex data.
In a world where unstructured data accounts for up to 90% of online information, having organized business data is critical.
In addition, it allows organizations to integrate Business Intelligence practices across teams.
You can deploy and integrate modern BI solutions with existing systems.
How are BI tools different from data analysis tools?
Business Intelligence (BI) is a general term that covers data analysis and other reporting functions. It helps to make decisions using historical data.
Thus, BI tools are equipped with advanced technologies that reduce the complexities of business intelligence and allow data to be prepared, analyzed, reported, and shared with multiple sources.
On the other hand, data analysis focuses more on algorithms to identify the fundamental relationship between multiple data sets.
One of the main differences between BI and analytics tools is that analytics also offers predictive capabilities.
However, BI only helps to make informed decisions based on past data analyses.
What features do you need in BI tools?
Here are some key features you should look for in a BI tool:
- Rankings reports - This feature can help you identify what's working and what's not working for your business. You can also analyze the ranking across multiple dimensions and focus only on specific areas.
- Dashboards - Leverage intuitive dashboards to get a real-time overview of your organization. You can study business-critical data sets using custom charts, summaries, graphs, and other reports.
- Interactive Reports - It will help you to condense and analyze lots of data in an easy to understand format. You can use these reports to identify anomalies, outliers, and trends in historical data.
- Cartography - Geolocation can help you transform your data into a cartographic and graphical representation. Additionally, simplified data arranged on the map will help non-technical people understand it easily.
- Operational reports - They can help track and analyze daily events and make decisions based on data.
- Open integration - Your business intelligence tool should be able to extract data from numerous sources such as emails, websites, social media platforms, etc.
How do I use a BI tool?
While all BI tools vary in characteristics and function, their overall operation is almost similar.
Let's see with Microsoft Power BI How do the basic functionalities of BI software work.
Step 1. Download and install.
Go to the 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 in 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 choose from a variety of options.
Or to connect Power BI to the web data source, go to Get Data > Web.
Now simply paste the URL of the website you want to extract the 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 selecting the transformation data, the Power Query Editor will be launched.
Step 3. Form the data.
If you want to change the data type, select the columns you want to change.
Hold the “Shift” key to select multiple adjacent columns or the “Ctrl” key to select non-adjacent columns. Select the new data type from the dropdown list located right next to Data Type in the Transform group.
For a more detailed approach, you can follow this guide to Getting started with Microsoft Power BI.
We hope that these steps will help you understand the core functionality of a BI tool, namely Microsoft Power BI.
Use of Business Intelligence reporting tools.
Many business users use multiple data sources on the business intelligence platform of their choice to make better decisions.
This data can come from a variety of internal sources such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, customer relationship management (CRM) applications, financial applications, and more.
They can also come from external sources such as market research reports, news articles, and demographics.
The right reporting tools allow data analysts to use online analytics to improve business performance and provide decision makers with actionable insights.
The right data analysis platform should include the right reporting tools as well as the ability to connect to a variety of data sources.
