With the help of Business Intelligence applications, data integrated from different systems can be modified and combined in different ways, filtered, segmented, visualized and analyzed in a versatile way, as well as shared in a controlled manner. Below is a brief overview of the most popular BI tools and a list of things to consider when choosing the best tool for your company’s reporting and analytics needs.
Introducing the most common BI tools
Looker Studio
Looker Studio (Data Studio) is an easy-to-use tool for visualizing and analyzing data. It is part of the Google Marketing Platform and can be used via a web browser.
Power BI
Power BI is a business intelligence application offered by Microsoft as a cloud service. It is a powerful tool for collecting, analyzing and reporting business data.
Tableau
Tableau, one of the fastest growing BI systems in the world, offers solutions of different sizes and budgets for a wide range of companies, from start-ups to large corporations.
Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense, from one of the world’s largest BI software companies, is an efficient and flexible tool for collecting, processing, analyzing and sharing business data.
Few things to consider when choosing a BI tool
BI tools help convert the mass of data into comprehensible information and form an overall picture of the combined information. Their task is to help see what happened, why, and how it would be best to act based on this information in the future. How comprehensively and smoothly this is achieved depends on many factors.
The basis of everything is the integration of data sources into the BI system. The more comprehensively the data from the company’s important systems can be brought into the scope of analytics, the more insight and understanding it provides of the state of the business and the right measures. QuickBI combines BI tools and source systems, so you can easily choose the BI application that best serves your needs.
Of the BI candidates under consideration, it is worth finding out which operating systems and server platforms they support, at least if you want to use the existing IT infrastructure. In general, it is necessary that dashboards can be used on different devices and browsers, including mobile. Versatile functionalities in combining, filtering, segmenting and modeling data are an essential selection criterion.
The visual features of a BI tool are also surprisingly important. Even the most advanced analyzes have no value if the data is not easy to understand. Different presentation methods, modifiability and interactivity help in the assimilation of information. Creating reports and dashboards should be intuitive and fast. BI tools also differ in terms of user collaboration possibilities.
Automation saves time and effort and reduces human errors. Data updating can be scheduled in most BI applications, as can the automatic export and sharing of reports by e-mail, for example. An alarm about a critically changed KPI could save the company a pretty penny.
The most popular BI tools have paid special attention to data security (identification and user rights, logs, data encryption, security policies, etc.) and it should be an important criterion when choosing a BI system. In addition, the choice is naturally influenced by the price and the available support services.
Get the most out of your BI tool with QuickBI
Whatever BI or data tool your company uses, QuickBI helps you get the most out of it. Our platform allows you to make your data available from any of your source systems. The included maintained data warehouse makes it easy to access your data with any tool, and your reports will remain effective even as your data volumes grow.
We can also help you if you’re stuck choosing a BI tool, your staff needs training on how to use BI tools, or you need someone to build meaningful reports for your business.