GoodData vs. Microsoft BI (MSBI)

If you have consistently formatted data, that you want regular reports on, plus flexibility to let end users build their own reports, GoodData is perfect. Especially if your end users are less technical. If you want to be able to embed your reporting into your app, GoodData excels, though the start up process can be involved. If your data structure varies, it could be more challenging to integrate. It may also not be worth the integration if you have people who can already run their own SQL queries.

Incentivized

The Microsoft BI suite of tools, which comprises tools from the SQL Server suite, provides end-to-end features and functionality for businesses of any size. Users who need dashboards and reports fast will benefit from this tool. It’s simple to connect to databases, cloud storage systems, and CSV files of any type. This makes the dashboards suitable for a more rapid presentation workflow because we can easily incorporate them into PowerPoint presentations. Enterprise and standard editions are both available for some tools.

Incentivized

• GoodData helps in simplifying complex data into easy-to-understand visuals. We can create personalized dashboards & tailor them as per requirements. This data can be used from an executive level employee to a team lead employee in the business
• GoodData is a very user friendly platform. The collaborative features simplify sharing and discussing reports among team members which promotes a culture of data-driven decision-making.
• GoodData connects with various data sources and consolidate information from multiple platforms. This flexibility proves invaluable for businesses dealing with data spread across different systems as they can access large amount of data on a single platform.

Incentivized

• The layout of Power BI is very intuitive. Someone that is familiar with Excel and working with Charts and Graphs in that environment will find the learning curve a rather short one to start using Power BI.
• I like the way Power BI fits an assortment of users and how the functionality that you engage is replicated in Excel, that being Power Query and Power Pivot. So what you learn in one tool can be readily applied towards the other which allows you to more effectively apply your training.
• I appreciate how Microsoft is working to develop tools that go a long ways to empowering the end user. Prior to Power BI I would have had to consult with a "BI" professional to develop a dashboard. With Power BI I don't have to consult with anyone, I can work to put together the dash board I want and using a tool set that is really robust and allows me to engage an enormous amount of data. It's provides a great deal of flexibility and the types of data I can connect to.
• Updates...Microsoft is working diligently to keep Power BI current with monthly updates. They do a really good job of listening to the end user, if there is functionality not currently present just give them a month or so.
• Just to be clear, even though it's easy to get going right out of the gate with Power BI it provides plenty of opportunities to create some really sophisticated reporting solutions. With DAX in Power Pivot and M language in Power Query, you are provided with plenty of head room to do some really amazing things in Power BI.
• Training...there are resources across the web for learning and growing your skills and Power BI. And what's even better is the majority of those resources are free.
• Data engagement, when presenting the data to the end user Power BI goes a long way to allowing that end user to engage the data and begin to identify root cause by simply interacting with the graph/chart/data set. It allows for really fluid engagement. Prior to Power BI so many times during the presentation of data we often times ended the engagement with that data with more questions than what were answered. With Power BI, more often than not, the end user is able to get answers to the questions by simply clicking on the data in the graph/chart/dataset to see the details. This tool really does have the capacity to make you look like a rock star.

Incentivized

• would be nice to be able to add the same filter to a multi-tab dashboard once instead of having to do it for each tab; tedious and time consuming
• Variable use is kind of clunky and would like to be able to hide/show easier
• The newer insight based dashboard method does not have the flexibility classic does

Incentivized

• The race to perfect gathering of Non-Traditional datasets is on-going; with Microsoft arguably not the leader of the pack in this category.
• Licensing options for PowerBI visualizations may be a factor. I.e. if you need to implement B2C PowerBI visualizations, the cost is considerably high especially for startups.
• Some clients are still resistant putting their data on the cloud, which restricts lots of functionality to Power BI.

Incentivized

Each client I have worked with and spoken too has renewed their GoodData subscription. I know of not one to date that has cancelled. The GoodData platform has a very high rate of renewal from the discussions I have had with their internal teams as well

Microsoft BI is fundamental to our suite of BI applications. That being said, Northcraft Analytics is focused on delighting our customers, so if the underlying factors of our decision change, we would choose to re-write our BI applications on a different stack. Luckily, mathematics are the fundamental IP of our technology... and is portable across all BI platforms for the foreseeable future.

GoodData provided us with strong overall usability and provided us a platform for various business analytics. Its user-friendly and insightful reports and also the dashboards. Me and my team really appreciate the platform's ability to streamline decision-making processes. However, there is a learning curve during initial setup as I mentioned before. Continuous improvements in the onboarding could further enhance GoodData's usability as well.

Incentivized

Usability is great. This product will make most feel right at home. I feel like this question should be asked from two points of view: 1. Creator of reports, Data Models, Views etc: Most Advanced users will still rate the usability as very high. Its capabilities are still robust. However when compared to other Enterprise Class products it will not do many of the advanced application queries. 2. End user, Consumer: All end users will feel right at home. Many will be able to create connections to already created data models and other external publicly available sources like twitter, Facebook, World Health order etc... These connections are then in turn very very easily available to publish to SharePoint and Power BI. It took me a while to understand what I think is Microsoft's strategy. This will handle all but the most of robust needs. Much like many American made cars and my favorite Corvette, Microsoft is fast, has it own break downs from time to time but all of these are really to tolerate when the price is considered and the next one up that can out perform it is three to four times as much money makes this an easy one to still recommend

We are approximately one month since go-live. There has been one short outage.

Reports are stable and always avaiable when needed.

Performance on refreshing metrics works well.

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) can drag at times. We created two report servers and placed them under an F5 load balancer. This configuration has worked well. We have seen sluggish performance at times due to the Windows Firewall.

The fast and comprehensive responses we got from GoodData regarding the doubts we had experienced while starting to use the products and metrics were of great help in ensuring the metrics we were obtaining were accurate to what we wanted to know about our customers' experience and our product areas of opportunity.

Incentivized

While support from Microsoft isn't necessarily always best of breed, you're also not paying the price for premium support that you would on other platforms. The strength of the stack is in the ecosystem that surrounds it. In contrast to other products, there are hundreds, even thousands of bloggers that post daily as well as vibrant user communities that surround the tool. I've had much better luck finding help with SQL Server related issues than I have with any other product, but that help doesn't always come directly from Microsoft.

Petr was a rock star - patient, knowledgeable, clear and easy to work with.

This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.

GoodData implementation team was professional and courteous

I have used on-line training from Microsoft and from Pragmatic Works. I would recommend Pragmatic Works as the best way to get up to speed quickly, and then use the Microsoft on-line training to deep dive into specific features that you need to get depth with.

Thorough, professional and on time.

We are a consulting firm and as such our best resources are always billing on client projects. Our internal implementation has weaknesses, but that's true for any company like ours. My rating is based on the product's ease of implementation.

GoodData comparing to other platform is very easy to use, customer support and on-boarding support. Set of features, speed of integration in our platform. Also great benefit for us was very competetive pricing.

Incentivized

MSBI for my company is a like using a car that has a good balance of features, is easy to use, has good support, and works well with other things or requirement you may have. We specifically chose it because it is one of the promising platform whose support team will never let us down. Plus all the features of MSBI are A1 and productive according to my team's analysis.

• I personally pushed our management to get GoodData implemented, and there on we have been making much more profits than we ever did!
• Last month we made a decision using the platform and withing a short span of time our ROI gets 7X.
• We also made a marketing spend of $100,000 every quater using the insights and metrics, and we are really happy with the returs.

Incentivized

• As it came "in the box" with necessary SQL Server RDBMS purchases, the ROI for the BI components are high as there was no incremental cost.
• Has provided standard reporting for most of the organization available via highly formatted PDF or Excel versions.
• Has provided ad-hoc analytics using SSAS in conjunction with Excel.

Incentivized