Sisense vs. Tableau Desktop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Sisense
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Sisense is a BI software and analytics platform. With what the vendor calls their In-Chip™ and Single Stack™ technologies, users have access to a comprehensive tool to analyze and visualize large, disparate data sets without IT resources.N/A
Tableau Desktop
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Desktop is a data visualization product from Tableau. It connects to a variety of data sources for combining disparate data sources without coding. It provides tools for discovering patterns and insights, data calculations, forecasts, and statistical summaries and visual storytelling.
$75
per month per user
Pricing
SisenseTableau Desktop
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Tableau
$75
per month per user
Tableau Enterprise
$115
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SisenseTableau Desktop
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.All pricing plans are billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SisenseTableau Desktop
Considered Both Products
Sisense
Chose Sisense
Each tool has strengths, but Sisense stands out for its ease of use, scalability, and robust data integration. We chose Sisense for its balance of robust functionality and ease of use. We are happy that it can handle complex data integrations that aligned perfectly with our …
Chose Sisense
Sisense provides better services than Looker and also its functionalities are more advanced and effective.
Chose Sisense
As someone coming from more of an enterprise tool level Sisense seemed like a step down at first. Compared to other tools in the market or tools that it replaced (Looker), it provides far better data integrations and the ability to build their data cubes meant less reliance on …
Chose Sisense
We evaluated IBM Cognos Analytics and it was vastly more expensive and offered less features than what Sisense offered.
Chose Sisense
Sisense is a differentiator in the marketplace. They help align companies who need a BI solution and a quick and reliable way to get up to speed fast.
Chose Sisense
Sisense was chosen as our BI platform for a few key reasons. Excellent customer support is a key reason why. Additionally, continuing innovation in new product features and the ability to embed reports and do quite a bit in terms of customization.
Chose Sisense
It totally depends on your system requirements, as already shared its features, pros and cons, please select tool accordingly.
Chose Sisense
Sisense truly stacks up against Power BI, Domo or Tableau as one of the most accurate data analysis applications that offers an intuitive approach to data exploration. You can use its web-based interface to tap the expertise of your data analytics team. They can build and share …
Chose Sisense
Sisense worked out of the box, there was a lot of setup with the other 3. Out of the 3 others Board's was the only one that connected to Salesforce without a problem like Sisense. Sisense pricing destroyed the other 3 as well.

Chose Sisense
We chose Sisense due to pricing structures as well as its speed and ability to connect to more robust data sources. Ultimately, the differences were minimal in regards to abilities and functionality; we just felt that Sisense provided the most reliable and consistent results …
Chose Sisense
Sisense does very well against most of the tools in the market. We chose this tool because of its great visualizations and easy to deploy procedures. The reports are very easy to generate and distribute them across departments and organization. It provides a great interface to …
Chose Sisense
I've used a few different analytical engines over the last few years and none have the efficient ability as both a data manager and a dashboarding tool - usually, other platforms excel in one area or another. To expand further, tools that succeed in data management and …
Chose Sisense
Sisense can't compare to any tool for the ease of user, intuitive interface and "time to data". I gave been working with both large enterprise and small SMB's using Sisense, and it is amazing to see how small companies quickly learn how to use it and how practical and efficient …
Chose Sisense
1) Easy to use, really, there is nothing too much to say. The set up is easy and not confusing. You can use it internally or externally.
2) Customer Service, having spoken to various product reps from similar industry. Sisense rep provides you with the best support to get …
Chose Sisense
Before purchasing Sisense and began recommending it as a solution to our clients, we tested four other BI visualization tools. All four of these ranked high on the Gartner Magic Quadrant. We researched Domo, Looker, MS Power BI and Tableau. Looker could be a better solution if …
Chose Sisense
Crystal Reports is much better at building static reports than building dynamic dashboards.

Visual Studio will allow you to build anything that you want to display your information, but the programming effort will be much higher.
Chose Sisense
Sisense's greatest advantage is its ability to import the data into sisense, perform in-server data modelling, and then create dashboard reports from the modelled data. This takes load off of your production database servers, and leverages sisense's technology for handling huge …
Chose Sisense
Sisense - in POC alongside Birst and Qlik, Sisense ran circles around Birst and Qlik and made them look stupid by comparison

Birst - ETL was super slow and complex AND requires you to learn a proprietary scripting language
Chose Sisense
Sisense can crunch loads more data and has consistently better performance than other modern BI tools; It successfully retains the best of the Cube world and also provides the power of modern in-chip visualization engine.
Chose Sisense
Sisense is a step ahead of the field and continues to make major improvements and enhancements to its product with every release.
Chose Sisense
Have more options for datasource connection. Possibility to add personalized widgets or improve the ones they already offer.
Chose Sisense
Sisense offered very reasonable enterprise licensing and was eaiser for end users than most other tools that can interface w/ the iSeries.
Chose Sisense
Sisense allows you to export individual widgets as iframes. It provides cube and row level security and can manage lots of data without interfering with the data sources. Tableau data sources were harder to manage and version. The customer support team with Sisense was head and …
Tableau Desktop
Chose Tableau Desktop
Both power bi and Tableau Desktop has its own pros and cons. Microsoft power bi is best to work with Microsoft products. however for fast connection with diverse range of integration with data sources Tableau Desktop is best. if you are cost sensitive power bi is best option …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau is more flexible than these - I liked Qlikview old version a lot but have not used the Qlik Sense etc new ones. Tableau user logic is harder to understand than Looker Studio. However it's more trust worthy. Connecting internet sources to Tableau Desktop is much harder. …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop is older and just better overall. It has more capabilities and is more useful to have. I don't think you could have Alteryx as a standalone product like you can with Tableau Desktop. You'd want another bi tool.
Chose Tableau Desktop
We used to use products from the Google family in parallel. After migrating to GA4, we use Tableau much more.
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop has a more easy to use drag and drop interface and is easier to learn. It also allows greater customization of charts than Power BI. However, Tableau Desktop costs more than Power BI which is bundled into our Microsoft contract at no additional charge. Power BI …
Chose Tableau Desktop
The visualizations are far and away more powerful and it is more user friendly than Power BI. It would take 3-4 times as long to create the types of reports in Excel that I can create in Tableau Desktop and there are a slew of ways I can present the data in Tableau Desktop that …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Can handle large amounts of data
Chose Tableau Desktop
It has a better user interface compared to Microsoft Power BI. The Tableau integration process is quite simple and clear with the third-party application whereas Power BI is not easily integrated with other tools and requires a complex process to follow for integration. DAX …
Chose Tableau Desktop
When it comes to pricing, Tableau is kinda expensive but worth it as it has more features, not just features but really useful features that make our work easier especially as a project manager I need to pull up data almost every day in our meetings, and I find Tableau useful …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau can create visually attractive customizable dashboards than can quickly by drag-drop while in power bi we can create simple dashboard. Power bi support lesser data source while in Tableau there is a lot of options
When we talk about data handling tableau is a clear …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop is clearly one of the best in the business. It has incredible capabilities, and many features are extremely useful. The intuitiveness of the dashboards and the graphical nature of the visualizations are widely used features and super helpful. One of the other …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop provides some state of the art feature and capabilities that are just awesome. Its support, online blog, and tutorials are better than its competitors. That was the best selling point for me.
Chose Tableau Desktop
With Tableau Desktop, it's easy to create a report in the context quickly. It allows for the seamless management of the data sources, which is convenient for the data users. Because it is simple to use, it is
Chose Tableau Desktop
It does have a lot of potential when using Microsoft other technologies - in integration/Embedded, Visuals and connectivity to data sources. Advanced analytics is also smooth when working on python/r scripts. Automated insights are better in Tableau/Alphaa AI. NLG/NLQ - …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau offers a lot of educational content, and for a limited time, we were able to use paid educational content for free, so we are very satisfied.
Chose Tableau Desktop
For complex data visualization, Tableau Desktop shines. Even though it uses highly granular databases, it has a powerful engine that can process large amounts of data quickly and produce high-quality charts. It has the broadest range of APIs and is extremely simple. The …
Chose Tableau Desktop
We decided to use Tableau Desktop as that's fairly standard in the industry, it is being taught in college, and is widely known. Tableau Desktop is nice, but in my opinion, it is VERY expensive. Unless you are really making money off of decisions, then your ROI is going to be …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Using Tableau Desktop, we have found it the most actionable and user-friendly application ever. It has the broadest range of APIs and is exceptionally user-friendly. It can handle a large amount of data and produce smooth charts quickly. For data geeks, this is the ideal stack.
Chose Tableau Desktop
When compared to Power BI, Tableau has a more flexible deployment. You can install the desktop version without having to install the SQL server. Tableau got you covered end-to-end — from collaboration, analytics, content discovery, data prep & access, down to deployment. …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop is preferred over other BI software because it allows for more data visualization, storytelling, and dashboards. Microsoft Power BI may be a better option if you need to perform data modeling, however. Tableau Desktop is an excellent tool for nearly all other …
Chose Tableau Desktop
We preferred Tableau over Power BI due to its user-friendly interface and interactive GUI. Since we work with large datasets, we observed that Power BI can deal with only a limited amount of data when compared to Tableau which creates complex visualizations in a time-efficient …
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop is the most user-friendly and actionable application we have used in comparison to others. It has the best API connection potential along with easy start-up. They seem to always be updating the platform to solve newer problems which help keep my company up to …
Chose Tableau Desktop
We also use Power BI for small projects and teams that can't afford to pay for Tableau licenses. Tableau has more features and is more robust compared to Power BI. They also provide better and faster support compared to Microsoft. It is the standard visualization tool, but …
Chose Tableau Desktop
For databases or types of data that have high granularity and details, Tableau Desktop is better to plot and help visualize every detailed behavior with a great performance. It's engine can process a massive amount of data and generate a smooth chart without spending too much …
Features
SisenseTableau Desktop
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Sisense
9.7
Ratings
17% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.3
Ratings
2% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports10.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Customizable dashboards10.00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates9.00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Sisense
8.8
Ratings
9% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.7
Ratings
8% above category average
Drill-down analysis10.00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Formatting capabilities9.00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages9.00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration7.30 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Sisense
10.0
Ratings
19% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.1
Ratings
2% below category average
Publish to Web10.00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Publish to PDF10.00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Report Versioning10.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling10.00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Sisense
9.5
Ratings
17% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.4
Ratings
5% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)10.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization9.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Predictive Analytics9.00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining10.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Sisense
10.0
Ratings
16% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.7
Ratings
3% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)10.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model10.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)10.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control10.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Sisense
9.7
Ratings
21% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.0
Ratings
2% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access10.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile Application10.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile10.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Sisense
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
9.0
Ratings
14% above category average
REST API00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
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SisenseTableau Desktop
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
SisenseTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.9
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(0 ratings)
6.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.3
(0 ratings)
9.4
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.1
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SisenseTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
I believe Sisense is perfectly suited for any organization of any size that have access to the proper resources, as the tool is very expensive. The data connectors come in all shapes and sizes out of the box, which allows a great deal of data control within the ElastiCubes. Additionally, while the platform only runs on Windows platforms, the web application can be accessed on any client: mobile, Apple, Windows, etc. This allows a much more flexible user experience, resulting in data and dashboards reaching further than any other tool.
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The best scenario is definitely to collect data from several sources and create dedicated dashboards for specific recipients. However, I miss the possibility of explaining these reports in more detail. Sometimes, we order a report, and after half a year, we don't remember the meaning of some data (I know it's our fault as an organization, but the tool could force better practices).
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Pros
  • The biggest pro I found with Sisense is that you do not need a DBA in order to manage the system. This makes the learning curve really easy, which helps lots when thinking of implementation across a whole organization. This reflects well for the tool, since it is powerful, but easy to use.
  • ALL-IN-ONE! Sisense answered all of my customers and our company's requirements, to include data modelling and complex calculations.
  • Sisense is as accurate as your data, and best of all, it is real time. After using other visualization tools, I learned that when using multiple sources, errors occur. Sisense prevents this risk by allowing all of the resources to be managed at their engine, maintains connections, and as a developer, the EliastiCube allows you to source large volumes of data with an easy click.
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  • The Visualizations graphics are really good and the color options help in designing attractive charts. They help to convey more information and can be made interactive.
  • You can add filters with offer you to plug and play with values and understand different outcomes.
  • You can drag and drop options while creating charts and dashboards. also it is a very fluid layout.
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Cons
  • Some functionality is missing as built-in functionality, and can only be added by using Javascript, which requires technical knowledge of JS from the dashboard designer to implement. So although almost anything is possible to implement, some things which should be basic require high-level skills.
  • Viewers of dashboards have very limited customization options, almost any customization requires the dashboards designer to implement.
  • Particularly, viewers are unable to select conditional formatting, rename fields, change the order of items, etc.
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  • Formatting the data to work correctly in graphical presentations can be time consuming
  • Daily data extracts can run slowly depending on how much data is required and the source of the data
  • The desktop version is required for advanced functionality, editing on [the] Tableau server allows only limited features
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Likelihood to Renew
I think the business and myself as a user has come to rely on SiSense as a dashboarding and quick ad-hoc reporting tool. I am hoping to integrate SiSense dashboards into more parts of the business in the future. We have reduced our report turn-around time for the most part from hours/days to minutes and in some cases almost the speed of thought. Reports are also easier on the eye and more easily distributed. I would also like to say that the support and professionalism from the SiSense team has been excellent.
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Because right now its the best option out there (disclosure: I haven't used Qlikview or some of the other direct competitors of Tableau). The big investment is in Tableau Server not desktop. For the cost of the license of Tableau desktop, its a pretty good deal. You can hook it up to pretty much any data source easily. You can easily share the visualizations with your team/colleagues easily. Tableau Desktop is generally easy to use for business users. But the more advanced stuff is better suited for a analyst or someone with a IT/CS background.
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Usability
There is no doubt it is easy to use solution. It always equips me with authentic reporting, I can have the detailed analysis of the operations. This tool has helped me to collect every bit of the data and it would be just to say that it has influenced my lead generation and helped to build strong customer relations.
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Tableau Desktop has proven to be a lifesaver in many situations. Once we've completed the initial setup, it's simple to use. It has all of the features we need to quickly and efficiently synthesize our data. Tableau Desktop has advanced capabilities to improve our company's data structure and enable self-service for our employees.
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Reliability and Availability
There are very few situations when there is unexpected downtime. Mostly during development, new dashboard implementation and during upgrades. other then that there were very few crashes.
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When used as a stand-alone tool, Tableau Desktop has unlimited uptime, which is always nice. When used in conjunction with Tableau Server, this tool has as much uptime as your server admins are willing to give it. All in all, I've never had an issue with Tableau's availability.
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Performance
SiSense is usually performing better then other solutions even if going for complex reports/dashboards(of course within reasonable frames). I haven't noticed any bad influence on other systems, usually if something happens it stays within SiSense.
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Tableau Desktop's performance is solid. You can really dig into a large dataset in the form of a spreadsheet, and it exhibits similarly good performance when accessing a moderately sized Oracle database. I noticed that with Tableau Desktop 9.3, the performance using a spreadsheet started to slow around 75K rows by about 60 columns. This was easily remedied by creating an extract and pushing it to Tableau Server, where performance went to lightning fast
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Support Rating
SiSense's support ninjas are very knowledgeable and are exceptionally responsive. So far, all of the issues we ran into were resolved within minimum time. My sense of dealing with the support staff at SiSense is that they are very focused on not just answering your immediate question, but also to delve into the cause of the matter.
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The Tableau Desktop's support team has been very helpful and tend to response very quickly. After all you have paid very premium price for the product and it goes to the services. This makes using the tool much easier for these who doesn't have such experience to get help quickly.
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In-Person Training
Easy and free training that allowed us quickly understand basics in SiSense and start using them. More advanced features requires some browsing through SiSense forums, but there is always support to help, and SiSense support is one of the best whith which I worked so far.
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It is admittedly hard to train a group of people with disparate levels of ability coming in, but the software is so easy to use that this is not a huge problem; anyone who can follow simple instructions can catch up pretty quickly.
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Online Training
Many examples, videos and scenarios which you try on your own right away. This combined with in-person training gives you enough to utilize most of SiSense's power.
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I think the training was good overall, but it was maybe stating the obvious things that a tech savvy young engineer would be able to pick up themselves too. However, the example work books were good and Tableau web community has helped me with many problems
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Implementation Rating
Would like to have more information about configuration of dev to production deployments architectures.
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Time needs to be spent ahead of implementation to make sure data sources are set up and ready. Consultants need to understand the data sources and the goals before setting foot on-site. Installation is easy, learning to use it takes time. The training resources available are great.
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Alternatives Considered
Sisense was chosen as our BI platform for a few key reasons. Excellent customer support is a key reason why. Additionally, continuing innovation in new product features and the ability to embed reports and do quite a bit in terms of customization.
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Tableau Desktop is clearly one of the best in the business. It has incredible capabilities, and many features are extremely useful. The intuitiveness of the dashboards and the graphical nature of the visualizations are widely used features and super helpful. One of the other benefits is that both programmers and non-programmers can equally explore and create their own opportunities, and seamless integration is possible.
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Scalability
Product is quite easily scalable. The whole installation can be easily moved to stronger machine if needed.
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Tableau Desktop's scaleability is really limited to the scale of your back-end data systems. If you want to pull down an extract and work quickly in-memory, in my application it scaled to a few tens of millions of rows using the in-memory engine. But it's really only limited by your back-end data store if you have or are willing to invest in an optimized SQL store or purpose-built query engine like Veritca or Netezza or something similar.
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Return on Investment
  • Report development time is reduced from 2~3 days to 2~3 hours.
  • Report querying time is improved from 0.5~10 mins to 2~30 seconds.
  • A 2-staff team delivers 10 times the BI output that we did on the old system.
  • We were able to deliver BI and data analysis for all business functions instead of a very limited group of users
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  • Easy to share and manage viewer access on a different level to help identify fraud.
  • Faster report generation, increased revenue, better decision-making, and data storytelling.
  • One-click access to business health and the ability to build/maintain more effective and efficient reports.
  • It's easy to share and even manage access to viewers on a different level, and reports are done in a more visual and storytelling manner.
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ScreenShots