Rational BI vs. SAS Visual Analytics

Rational BI allows managing data analysis coming from different projects in order to create useful reports and dashboards. I usually set up automatically scheduled reports. All the stakeholders can easily share a rational view with the possibility to filter between the interesting arguments. Sometimes different user profiles could be needed, optimize the view.

Incentivized

SAS Business Intelligence is more suited to organizations which are already using SAS as the primary software for their analytics needs. Learning curve is relatively shorter for teams already skilled in BASE SAS. For organizations already working with open source software like Julia and Python, it doesn't make much sense to use SAS BI.

Incentivized

• Provides high performance embedded analytics
• Seamless integration to import and export data
• Rich features for data visualization

Incentivized

• SAS BI makes it very easy to create interactive dashboards even for someone who is not from an IT background. For some specific requirements, basic knowledge of SQL is good enough.
• A lot of functions have been predefined which makes it very convenient to create dashboards and reports. One doesn't need to be from an IT or a programming background to understand and create dashboards.
• It supports other programming languages like R and also has a seamless API integration with various data management platforms.

Incentivized

• Documentation for new users could be better. Sometimes it's hard for my users that are not that skilled in IS/IT to set up data connectors are understand the dynamics of data sources.
• I have used several other BI solutions as well, and their GUI is okay, but surely there is also room for improvement here. Not all things are made entirely logically.
• Understanding their price structure. Generally, their website looks nice, but it's not very informative when it comes to pricing, and support options. I really miss some kind of transparency and overview.

Incentivized

• Business Objects should provide a more consistent mobile/desktop interface so operation between the two is seamless
• Business Objects needs to make it easier to query across disparate data sets such as Oracle to SQL to Mongo DB
• Our installation of Business Objects does not natively allow the export of XLSX documents, only XLS

Incentivized

There is no other product that can match SAS. There are some products that can compare to ETL but lack the analytics that SAS has. Others can perform a limited set of analytical procedures but lack the data processing that comes with SAS. Using thin client allows users to access data whenever they have an internet connection.

Rational BI allows managing data analysis coming from different projects. The outputs are one or more reports, that can be delivered automatically to the stakeholders or other communication media inside the organization. Nice dashboards help to describe and analyze data. Sometimes different user profiles could be needed, optimize the view.

Incentivized

SAS BI is good for creating reports and dashboards and then sharing it with the users. It also has ability to manage access to the reports and dashboards but somehow with most of the world moving to open source languages R, Python and Julia, SAS BI feels to be archaic in terms of feature set and integrations it allow[s]. Also, comparing it with other Business Intelligence tools like Tableau and Microsoft BI, the functionality of SAS BI is very limited and doesn't justify the pricing.

Incentivized

I haven't had to use support to date for this product.

Incentivized

When you call tech support, you are immediately routed to a person who can answer your question. Often they can answer on the spot. However, if they cannot, you are given a track number and then followed up with. There have been times when I have had multiple track numbers open and they will actually TRACK YOU DOWN to ensure that your problem has been resolved. Issues do not fall into black holes with SAS. They are also willing to do a WebEx with you to diagnose the problem by seeing your environment, which is always helpful.

Today there are many companies providing BI solutions, and generally, I think Microsoft Power BI is the easiest go-to solution as it is part of the Office365 software. However all software solutions have their limitations, advantages, and disadvantages, but sometimes you don't need the perfect solution. You just need a solution that delivers 80-90 percent of the full potential to reach your goal and in this scope, we were really happy with Rational BI.

Incentivized

I have chosen SAS Visual Analytics because one of my colleagues suggests using the software for the same for our work. As earlier, we use to take a lot of time in analyzing the data but after using the SAS Visual Analytics software our work has improved and time has decreased. It's very helpful for us.

Incentivized

• Allows folks to work on other items as reporting is done in the background.
• Scheduling and delivery of reports with one click.
• Single pane of management.
• Ease of use.

Incentivized

• SAS Visual Analytics licensing cost should be reduced to enable users to use it in mass scale.
• More statistical and mathematical equations and theories should be converted into SAS functions for reusing.
• Because of enriched ETL and reporting capabilities SAS Visual Analytics is most preferred by business users.

Incentivized