Oracle OBIEE Reviews

The capability to implement business and data manipulation logic in the RPD provides a very powerful interface for the developers to work on.

We've had a situation where we had data residing in different databases and we wanted to have a robust reporting solution for one of our verticals. OBIEE helped us in achieving that and we were able to build a solution around it which is now widely used throughout the organization.

The ease of building reports can be improved in the product. In an era where strong visualization tools like Tableau and QlikView are becoming popular, it is very important that Oracle looks into this aspect.

I've been using OBIEE for over four years now. During this time, I've seen the evolution of the product from 10g to 11g.

I would rate the level of customer service to be very high. The support was extensive and timely. I would rate it 8 out of 10.

We were able to get answers to our technical queries fairly quickly. I would rate the level of technical support at 8 out of 10.

The earlier scenario of data reporting was mainly based out of Excel, which was neither robust nor stable. There was no security setup and since everyone had his/her own copy of the Excel sheet, there was no single source of truth.

These issues prompted us to move towards OBIEE as a solution.

The initial setup and configuration of the product was complex as it involved a lot of steps. We also encountered a few errors during installation, but with the help of technical support, we were able to resolve those.

The ability for users to generate analytics without developer involvement is valuable. The best feature of the Virtual C, of course, is data visualization.

The self-service BI and the dashboards for high-level management have brought improvements. We develop and produce insights with these dashboards, and make management take actions according to the knowledge we find there. The dashboards are also the power users, so the analytics build themselves. They create reports about the subject area that is relevant to them.

They could improve the connection with the ASCP base. The integration is not so good. There are a lot of bugs, hangs and freezes. If the ASCP base goes down or hangs, the OBIEE server is down, and we have to restart the VI server for the whole company.

I have used the product for 5 years.

Other than the integration with the ASCP base, there are some issues with exporting big Excel files. Oracle support says we should expect this though, because there is a limitation on the size of export files. Everything else is quite stable.

Response times are good and some of the support staff is good, but not everyone. They ask for a lot of logs that are not related to the issue and it takes time for them to understand the problem. In some cases, we beg to do a WebEx just to show them the problem so they can figure it out and proceed.

It is not that simple and requires a lot of configuration. The 12c version is supposed to be much easier.

It’s a very good application, but it’s not straightforward in the traditional BI. Take Oracle’s advice in best practices and how to implement it. I would rate it an 8 out of 10.

The way we are able to send data out to users and the ability for them to do acquiring themselves are valuable features.

I'd like to see easier paths for upgrades. We also have some technical difficulties that we are trying to work around.

I’ve used the solution for two-and-a-half years.

It has been consistently stable for us, and we have not had any downtime. We haven’t pushed it that much.

We haven’t scaled the product yet. Our size has grown, but we did not have to scale the servers. Since we are managed on the cloud, though, scalability would be pretty straightforward. Oracle manages the product on the back end.

They are knowledgeable. Reaction times can take a while, but once you find the right people, they can solve any issue.

Initial setup was relatively average in terms of difficulty. We had an Oracle consultant come in and help us. It ended up being pretty quick, and the consultant was good. We had it stood up in six months.

Make sure the product meets your needs and that your enterprise is able to use it for a long period of time. You should also look at the evaluation and the support. I would rate OBIEE an 8 or a 9 out of 10, since most other products are not as user friendly. From a user perspective it’s good, but from a maintenance perspective it needs a little work.

We have been using Essbase. We run a lot of smart view reports, which have been valuable to our business.

There should be additional features like planning and budgeting. It is pretty complex without having to run any additional ad hoc reports, so having built in reports like that would be nice.

We have been using the product for more than a year.

We have some stability issues. We periodically refresh the data from the Oracle EBS to OBIEE. Sometimes you can’t see the data and we have to run ad hoc reports to push us through that confusion.

It is going to meet our needs for the future. We are planning to implement EPM as well.

They are good. We go to Oracle support when we have critical issues, otherwise we go to the community.

Initially, we were using all Oracle products and a program called GL1. GL1 is an external plug-in that we used with Excel to run reports with the database. It was not robust like the work we have with OBIEE, which led us to transition.

The initial setup was straightforward. We had an issue with the servers, but other than that it was smooth.

Go with OBIEE with smart view. If you are in planning and budgeting, also get EPM. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We do all of our reporting out of OBIEE, and the analysis is valuable. Moving clients over has been a big step for us. Coming into web, we segregated our web interface data entry as opposed to just reporting to OBIEE Analysis. We also have publishers on great front-end tools for the presentation side of it.

They can always improve on the user interface, and the publisher could get some new features.

We have used it for four years now.

It has consistently been stable.

We foresee it meeting our needs for the future. Financials and advancement to our team was big. It has been able to handle everything so far.

Tech support is knowledgeable. We use the community, which is helpful.

It’s a nice stable tool. All the dashboards, iPad support and other features have been great for us, and we totally rely on it. I would rate it an eight out of ten.

We got OBIEE for its dashboard reporting and for getting mining data out. OBIEE was a good fit with the Hyperion products we already had. We love it.

Dashboard reporting could be more dynamic and easier to drill down into.

We have used it for about three years.

It has been pretty stable.

It has been scalable.

We use partners for Oracle, so when we ask for support, we are forwarded to the partner that works with the solution in question. They are really good. If there is an issue where I can just drill down or look into the online forums, I do that as well.

OBIEE is amazing in its integration with Hyperion and dashboard reporting. I would give it a nine out of ten, because there are still changes happening to the platform.

Self service analytics is an amazing feature with OBIEE. Users are empowered to get at the information they need without the need to ask for new views from IT. Through the development of the application, the data is arranged using business terms that those users can understand. 

We have used OBIEE at several clients and the feedback has been fantastic on the dashboards, scorecards, and reporting that we have created. Clients love that OBIEE is a central location to view data from multiple sources in terms that make sense to the business user.

There is some room for improvement on the development side, older versions use a 32-bit administration studio. Some of the controls in this older studio are a little clunky and it can be easy to get lost as a new developer in the various wizards and windows.

4 years

Clustering and Single-Sign on can be difficult.

The initial setup of OBIEE depends on the data sources and their complexity. There is a great community with tons of blogs and the OTN Forums where professionals are willing to share and help out with any setup questions.

The most valuable feature for us is that it gives us the ability to provide our business users with daily real-time reporting on sales and inventory. This is obviously important for them to keep their finger on the pulse of what's being sold and how much of it.

Having up-to-date, current data for the executives and the managers that make decisions allows them to make more accurate decisions and helps us leverage our business. It's an advantage. It allows our management teams to make the right decisions with the right data. It provides our reporting visually. Some people like to see the bar charts versus the numbers and they like to see a trend. It's easy for them to read and to use.

It seems to be a little bit complex for an everyday user to grasp and get ahold of if they want to build their own reports. I think it takes a little bit more training for the users to get on board. It's not as intuitive as I think they would expect it to be. A lot of users like spreadsheets. I think if you give them a fancy tool, it will give them a little bit to adapt to that.

We've had no issues with deployment.

It's been pretty stable. We've had no issues with stability.

Operationally, it's been great. It doesn't need a lot of hand-holding. We run into a space issue every now and then. ETL to get the data into the data warehouse where it's reporting off of works great, but that's just a normal part of growth, I think. I don't know that I'd even call it an issue.

OBIEE was installed with our partner. We're a hosted environment so we have an important staff there, including DBA's and staff like that, that will do our installing. I don't think we ran into any issues with getting it configured and up and running. Again, it seems to be fairly stable and we've got a pretty good DI staff that can work with it. It's probably in between straightforward and complex.

Look at where you're going for your reporting. Are you getting your reports today? Are they going to grow? Are you going to add into it? What are you looking to achieve with reporting? Those are questions that I would ask, so think about them before choosing a solution.