Oracle OBIEE Reviews

The reporting capabilities are good. The other valuable features are the dashboard capability and the ease of report creation.

The main feature is the dashboard functionality. As I work for HR, we have several dashboards for the VPs and HR business users, so they are able to see all the integration and higher data; it's like a one-click option.

Data integration itself needs to be improved. We use ODI along with OBIEE for data integration. We find it very hard to go through this whole process. Once the data is there, it's very easy to report it on the OBIEE front end. However, just getting the data into data warehousing is difficult.

The other thing we have experienced is if the data load takes a long time, Oracle doesn't give any out-of-the-box solution to have the reports run out of a snapshot. Thus, if any data is being run/aggregated, then the report goes down. If it takes a very long time then your report goes down for even longer.

It is not fully scalable and there are performance issues that we see. It's not that bad. I would give it a 3/5 rating.

The support is not great. It keeps going back and forth. It would definitely help to improve the support provided.

We didn't look at other data warehousing solutions as such, but we were looking at various other reporting solutions. As a data warehouse, we use a lot of Oracle products and are on Oracle VBScript. We also possess high level of Oracle expertise in our organization. Thus, we decided it was best to go with this product.

It's a long implementation process; it took us a while to implement it. However, once you do implement this product and get the hang of it, it's easy. It has its issues just like a lot of other software products have issues.

It is flexible, which is important. It has a previewing script, so it's easy for us to convert from Oracle Financial to OBIEE.

I know the financial users are very happy with the analytical reporting results.

I think that the system catalog. The system catalog is metadata not only for the OBIEE; it can also be communicated with other incoming sources. It doesn't matter what the source is that it's coming from, maybe from EBS, maybe from PeopleSoft. Then you can interface with the other source’s system metadata to complete the integration.

I think that in the data warehouse, you need to have an ETL layer for imported data, ODS layer, warehouse layer, an information layer. I would prefer that you could extract it complete from the source into the database, and stage it there.

Since we only just implemented it about 1.5 years ago, we still haven't gone live yet. We still have a lot of security issues that need to be resolved, so we don't know.

Since we are a very small organization of only about 2,000 employees, scale is not a big issue for us.

We were using MicroStrategy. Before that we were using Oracle Discoverer. We moved from Oracle Discoverer to MicroStrategy, and we eventually came to OBIEE. I think that we probably switched because of the vendor, and that it is more scalable because Oracle supports this product. So the long-term investment is better than going with MicroStrategy.

What I like about OBIEE is the kind of interface we have at OBIEE gives us all the financial reporting, all the operational reporting, as well as the delivery reporting. All of these reporting modules are quite good at OBIEE, and they actually help us.

It's quite faster, the way it is integrated with the whole Oracle ecosystem. Speed is one of the key issues. You don't like clicking on something and just waiting for even a few minutes. It becomes a pain; so performance is the key when it comes to using OBIEE.

I just saw somewhere, OBIEE on cloud: that could be the good thing. Right now, what we have is OBIEE on premise. Certainly, I cannot currently check the reports on my mobile. But that could be one advantage OBIEE would have on cloud, once they move.

Certainly the look and feel of the user interface is something should be improved further.

I have been using it for three years.

I've been using it for the last three years, and we never faced any such issues.

It is certainly scalable. Obviously, I can't predict how it will respond to millions of users working, but certainly a few thousand. We have added, subtracted, and soon, and it works perfectly.

We get quite good support if we enter a service request, and so forth. It's good.

Obviously, I can't answer that because, as an end user, setup is more a matter of configuring parameters, like, if I need to generate certain reports on basis of certain dimensions, for different quarters, and so forth. Apart from that, as an end user, I don't customize or configure the application.

Obviously, I would prefer a product which was integrated with the whole Oracle ecosystem. If you are already using an Oracle ecosystem without some database, an ERP solution ,or integrations and so forth, OBIEE is a natural choice in that case. Obviously, there some advantages with the ecosystem, and it works perfectly fine for us.

The best features are the dashboard and the analytics. The report generation is very fast.

At the organizational level, it's pretty secure. The security is the best part. We use OBIEE with QlikView as a composition of that, so that both of these applications support each other.

I think for ease of use, right now, OBIEE is a nice tool. Business users can use the reports nicely, but with a lot of the new reports, some IT guys are still required. If they could make that easier, because the business users don't understand the SQLs. If that could be some kind of GUI drag and drop for those fields, it would be quite awesome.

We haven’t had any issues with downtime. It’s quite good.

It's quite a heavy tool, and can be scaled to any level.

Support is good.

Actually, we have all sorts of Oracle applications in our stack. We use SQL.

Use OBIEE if you have large data to process for heavy duty applications. If you are using it for a small to mid-sized company, OBIEE doesn't make much sense. It is for large enterprises.

The most valuable feature of Oracle Business Intelligence is the ability to drill down and show business value for your customers with the different subject areas they have implemented.

What's improved the functioning of the business is the single source of truth. Everybody pulls the same information from the same set of dashboards. We eliminated duplicate reporting, and we have a single data warehouse.

Some of the new products they have with the mobile version and Day by Day look extremely good. I would like their mobile version to incorporate HTML5, and also go through some accessibility testing, which would incorporate new web standard features.

The stability of the product has been very good. I've been very impressed with the product itself, considering all the users that we have online and being able to prepare the reports that they need.

We have not had to scale it.

Technical support overall has been as good as can be expected. We've had to open up some TARs or some tickets with them. Overall, they've been fine.

We previously used Excel, Microsoft Access and Discover. Everybody had their own report. They would save the open order report on 52 desktops of Microsoft Access. In 2006, we bought Oracle BI, eliminated all those different reports and were able to create a single source of truth. It changed their lives.

The initial setup of version 10.7 was fine, but when we upgraded from version 10 to 11, it was a whole new technology stack; it took extremely long. The nice thing about going from 11 to 12 is that it is the same technology framework, so it looks straightforward for an upgrade. The first upgrade took 15 months; this should take a week.

We also considered Hyperion and there was also Teradata.

We had Oracle E-Business Suite, so we just stayed with the same product suite. It ended up becoming a good bet because right now everything is BI, and mobile and data analytics. Back then, I didn't expect it to be that, but I picked a good horse.

When I’m looking at a vendor such as Oracle, it is important that they're providing new tools all the time, and that they also are very stable; you know they're going to be around. You also feel like they have an integrated solution, so that OBIEE works with the Oracle database, and then you also have Oracle front ends that are also calling Oracle BI reports. It's an integrated solution.

I've actually had to look at different divisions within my organization and try to sell this product. In some cases, I've actually had to go over and help set it up. It's important to look at form and function. Look at the features that they have today; they're looking for the same thing. The proof is in the pudding, by showing them the reports, showing them the functionalities, setting up new dashboards, setting up ad-hoc reports through Answers, and then scheduling those. I've had to do that, and they don't believe that it's that easy.

I have given this product a perfect rating because they're getting the integrated products within their E-Business suite. They have pre-built analytics. They also have a very developmental-friendly development suite with answers. A lot of it is self-service, where users can subscribe to products. They can also reorganize columns and do everything they need to do to make it friendly for themselves. Now with the new mobile tools, with Day by Day and Sunopsis, they make it even more powerful.

The scheduling function is the most valuable feature. We can schedule at specific times to generate specific reports and email them to the mailbox of the end users.

The user interface is rather clumsy, so to speak, compared to other reporting tools on the market where you have drag and drop, drilldown and all these nice user interface features. This product is more textual based.

I used it for six years.

We have had several downtimes. I'm not in IT, so I don't know the infrastructure behind it, but we have quite a lot of downtime. That means we only realize it when the report doesn't appear in the inbox at a certain time.

It has met my company’s scalability needs but I don’t think it will moving forward. I don’t think it is flexible enough for our future requirements.

I have no idea about Oracle technical support because we have our own internal IT support for report writing. We just ask them and they solve it.

My company has been using it as long as I have been with the company. I think we chose it because it was part of the Oracle implementation we did.

Initial setup was straightforward; I don't know if it was simple. They sent people to us and we also had an in-house team.

We have trained OBIEE users writing their own reports, and we have our internal IT department for more complex reports, and for scheduling.

This product does not provide value for money. We have since replaced it; not in the entire company, but in my area. We created our own data mine, and do our own reporting based on that.

When I’m selecting a vendor such as Oracle or IBM to work with I look at functionality, first of all, and then I look at cost. That's also a big one.

Oracle OBIEE came out very early, compared to the other BI products, the other competitors’ products. It was pretty much the first in the market. It grabbed a good portion of the market. That's one important feature: They have been there forever.

We do have ad-hoc reporting. A few thousand users run ad-hoc reports. They run SQLs for data, extract the data and use the data. Some users use the dashboards.

Stability-wise, they still have a lot to improve, especially when you have a lot of data coming out of SQL. For example, if I have to see a million requests, most of the time it crashes.

Scalability is fine. I don't see any issues. Scalability-wise, most of the time, they depend on the underlying WebLogic server. The WebLogic server scales fine.

We always have problems with Oracle support. When they cannot solve an issue, they always go around and around with it. Time passes and users get frustrated - the customer gets frustrated – getting the ticket closed.

If there is an easy solution or they have come across the issue already, that’s when they are responsive. However, if they don’t know the answer right away, or if you don’t quickly hear back from Oracle, or if you don’t like the answer you get from Oracle, that’s when you can go through this; you might never get the solution. It’s better to just close the ticket and not waste that time.

I did not previously use a different solution. We kind of started this project from scratch. We use all Oracle products and Oracle support. We thought, OK, why use a different product if we can get a good product from Oracle?

Setup is good; easy and simple.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

If someone asked me for advice, I would throw out a few options and let them pick which one is better. I’d provide whatever I know about this product and also other products, not just those from Oracle.

I don't know if Oracle wants to hear this, but there are other products in the analytical field that are pretty good. For example, Tableau.

For example, dashboard-wise, other products are way better than OBIEE. Oracle still has to improve some of these issues, especially when there is a huge amount of data.

When I’m choosing a vendor such as Oracle, the most important criteria are that they are big; everything is integrated. For example, if I have to use Oracle Identity Management, it is integrated with OBIEE, including single sign-on. Everything is integrated.

The most valuable feature is its stability to connect with other data sources, other than Oracle.

We basically are able to do better analytics, be able to make better decisions.

I would probably just like to see more integration with big data sources.

Stability is very good. We've had good success using the product.

Scalability has been good for us, because we have a large enterprise; it's state-wide. We scale it up to our state-wide enterprise system.

Technical support is excellent, very good.

We just needed to upgrade our current environment.

I guess we decided to go with this solution because we already had experience with the product. We felt pretty comfortable using it.

When choosing a vendor such as Oracle, support and good service are my most important criteria.

It worked out very well for our environment.

Initial setup was pretty complex, but we had help from the vendor, so that helped.

Really work with the vendor.