What is our primary use case?
I was put in charge of creating a lot of the dashboards, so it was very much that there weren't people at the company that knew how to use the solution. I was just handed the solution when I transferred bosses, so it was just learning from scratch, with a little bit of assistance from asking the people who ran the company. The solution was quite easy to use once you got the hang of it.
I made a lot of dashboards, and since my old position was at a cannabis financing company, I did a lot of macro and micro evaluations with the dashboards. Those measure how the house was doing as a whole or how individual stores were doing. I used a lot of the parameterization feature for the individual stores, which, at first, was a nuisance because I thought you had to type in the information. But once I realized you could transfer the parameter to a drop-down menu, it became super easy to just add the same parameter to every SQL query used to create all the graphs. And then, when I changed one thing, the entire dashboard changed from top to bottom. For especially large ones, it might take a good ten seconds, but instantaneous is a goal not necessarily achievable by every product.
How has it helped my organization?
Mode Analytics made it easy for people who didn't understand the data to completely understand the data by just being given to them in graph form. They didn't need to know how SQL works to see the graphs, make the changes themselves, and get the information they needed about how the industry was doing.
What is most valuable?
The solution is simple for people from a viewing perspective, not a coding perspective. It's very easy to use for people who don't understand the technology. You need to know what you're doing with Power BI and Tableau. Mode Analytics would show up as a URL, so it's just there when you open it up. You don't need to understand any technology, so it doesn't matter what the guy at the company's top knows technologically. You can just send him a link, and he'll be able to understand everything. I found that very good.
And obviously, the parameterization abilities were quite fun to work with and broadened what I could do with it. However, I don't think Mode is the only one that does that, so I don't think that separates them. The solution was just very intuitive to use.
What needs improvement?
The solution could run faster. You just sit there, waiting during the load times, especially for the large ones. And if you're doing a presentation, no one likes awkwardly waiting for it to load.
Likewise, the solution could be cheaper, especially with free-of-charge Power BI.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for eight months to a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rank the solution's stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There were only three people I was working with on the solution.
How was the initial setup?
It is straightforward to deploy the solution once you understand SQL because you'd have to get the queries out of SQL. But then, once you've written the query and have the data appearing, grading graphs is very easy. Bringing them onto the dashboard itself is also very easy. All those steps were intuitive. Other bits got a little more complicated as I went deeper, but that's universal.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
What other advice do I have?
The solution was worked on through its website. You did need to have specific emails linked to the same account. It was all saved on the cloud because it was on their website.
Mode didn't have an account for everyone at the company to go in and do it, so sometimes, certain higher-ups would have to do it through another person's computer to see it. I assume it wasn't an extra $10-a-person kind of deal.
One thing I remember being very frustrating was that when you were running the SQL query with the parameter written into it, no data would show up because the parameter was, by default, blank. I would always have to put an answer in just to ensure the data appeared properly. I did occasionally forget to change the parameter, which is an easy error to make, forgetting to change back the parameter once you see the data is right. That's the only advice I have for working with the solution. I rate Mode Analytics a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
