Obiee HR Technologies Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Reliable, but rigidity and speed could be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "It doesn't have many frills and is definitely older technology, but it is undeniably a workhorse."
  • "Expanding beyond pure data reporting and into analytics, or expanding data science, would be areas for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

Oracle OBIEE is the company's primary workhorse for financial and HR reporting. It is used globally for the company. Everyone uses it for those purposes. The cloud version is also used for account acquisition.

What is most valuable?

It serves its purpose. It doesn't have many frills and is definitely older technology, but it is undeniably a workhorse.

What needs improvement?

Rigidity and speed are areas that could be improved. Everything has to move quickly in today's world, especially in the data world. Everyone wants it right now.

Having a system is great, and when you code it correctly, it can get the job done. However, a modern solution takes a long time; it moves much slower than some other things. You have products such as Tableau, and there are other data science tools out there churning through just as much data. Obviously, that element is not intended to be a data science tool in and of itself. It's more of a reporting tool than anything else. Expanding beyond pure data reporting and into analytics, or expanding data science, would be areas for improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Oracle OBIEE for seven years.

We keep it fairly up to date. We would be using the most recent version or perhaps one back.

We have an on-premises system as well as a cloud system in our environment.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

If it's coded correctly, it can be very reliable.

Oracle OBIEE is very stable, it is very dependable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle OBIEE is scalable, we are using it on a global level.

Given the size and scope of how we use it, every change requires significant effort, some of which is internal. It is managed by our IT department. To make large-scale changes and integrate new systems, I believe a small army is required. The heavy lifting is done once they're all set up, and once they're in there and running, the actual maintenance and minor tweaks are fairly simple. This requires a much smaller skeleton crew.

How was the initial setup?

I was not a part of the initial setup.

What other advice do I have?

I believe it will be about how well the tool they choose fits their company, their company culture, and how scalable it is.  Oracle OBIEE is fantastic, but it is intended to be used in the enterprise. It is meant to be a large-scale workhorse. As a result, make sure it's the right tool for your business.

In comparison to other things we have out there in the grand scheme of things, I would say six or seven. I would rate Oracle OBIEE a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
HirutAsfaw - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Database Administrator at a insurance company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Useful training material, helpful support, and good graphical interface
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of Oracle OBIEE are ease of use, the graphical user interface is simple to understand, and the reports can be done without problems. There are many tutorials and training materials available if needed."
  • "There are times we have slowness when processing the reports with Oracle OBIEE. Improving the performance would be beneficial."

What is our primary use case?

Oracle OBIEE is used for developing reports.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of Oracle OBIEE are ease of use, the graphical user interface is simple to understand, and the reports can be done without problems. There are many tutorials and training materials available if needed.

What needs improvement?

There are times we have slowness when processing the reports with Oracle OBIEE. Improving the performance would be beneficial.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle OBIEE for approximately one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

When doing a report the solutions are limited to these rows. There is a limitation of approximately 1,000 for the rows. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the scalability of Oracle OBIEE an eight out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

When using the support from Oracle OBIEE they provide us with video tutorials that are helpful.

If we do not pay for the support then we have to use Google to search for a solution for our issues.

How was the initial setup?

I rate the initial setup of Oracle OBIEE an eight out of ten.

What about the implementation team?

We used the vendor to help us with the deployment of the solution. We used two to three people for the deployment.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Oracle OBIEE an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Oracle OBIEE
March 2024
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767,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Technical Lead at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Helpful support, highly stable, and beneficial data visualization
Pros and Cons
  • "Oracle OBIEE is good for data visualization and analytical reporting."
  • "There are a lot of aspects of Oracle OBIEE that are exceptionally complicated, make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone who uses it. In terms of the integrations, Oracle needs to improve a little more, but I believe that they have tried to capture all those issues. The issues we are facing in the Oracle OBIEE 12C versions, in the Oracle Analytical Server Center or Analytical Cloud versions, Oracle has managed to overcome the challenges."

What is our primary use case?

We use Oracle OBIEE for data visualization and analytical reporting.

What is most valuable?

Oracle OBIEE is good for data visualization and analytical reporting.

What needs improvement?

There are a lot of aspects of Oracle OBIEE that are exceptionally complicated, make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone who uses it. In terms of the integrations, Oracle needs to improve a little more, but I believe that they have tried to capture all those issues. The issues we are facing in the Oracle OBIEE 12C versions, in the Oracle Analytical Server Center or Analytical Cloud versions, Oracle has managed to overcome the challenges.

Oracle OBIEE could improve its marketing. There is no additional training, trials, or something else needed. Oracle has  Business partners, such as TCS and Cognizant. All the business partners for Oracle, I never saw that they ever tried to market the Oracle tools for visualization.  We can do visualization of data with it, large analytical data, and analytical analysis. They never try to market it in that way. All I understood as it is a tool for extracting large amounts of data. They need to improve on their outreach.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used Oracle OBIEE within the last 12 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle OBIEE is a scalable solution.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support was good, I am satisfied.

How was the initial setup?

The implementation of Oracle OBIEE was very complicated in the older versions, but now it has become much easier.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I was able to evaluate many other options before choosing Oracle OBIEE. When I was working for one of my clients in Africa, they wanted us to implement Microsoft BI in their environment for data visualizations. I felt bad about the Oracle OBIEE because Oracle never tried to market that product as a visualization tool, they always try to market it as an analytical tool, and people do not understand what Oracle OBIEE can do. In visualization, it can give the other contenders in the market a good fight, but Oracle never tried to market it in that way.

This is one of the biggest problems with Oracle. If Oracle would have marketed better then they would have had more customers. There are a lot of other clients people prefer, such as Tableau, ClickView, Qlik Sense, or Microsoft BI, because they want to see things in a graph, in a colorful way. The same can be achieved in Oracle OBIEE, but it was never marketed properly.

What other advice do I have?

Oracle OBIEE has been tested and is a proven product and I would highly recommend Oracle OBIEE over any other solution.

I rate Oracle Database an eight out of ten.

I rated the Oracle OBIEE and eight because I haven't tried the newer versions of OBIEE which are in the market. Whatever I have been working in Oracle OBIEE  currently I rate it an eight. Additionally, Oracle might have added many other features that are not in the 12C version. The market is saturated with other visualization tools, such as Tableau, or Microsoft BI. People prefer Tableau and other solutions because they are much more user-friendly and very easy to work on.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Kevin Wanyonyi - PeerSpot reviewer
POS expert at JAVA HOUSE
Real User
Top 10
Intuitive and stable analytics that facilitate the decision-making process
Pros and Cons
  • "It provides excellent stability."
  • "The functionality to customize and modify reports has been removed, and it would be beneficial to reinstall it, as it allows greater customization and flexibility in creating reports."

What is our primary use case?

We are in a restaurant business and our primary use case is for analytics, specifically for areas such as sales forecasting, sales reporting, and measuring key performance indicators.

What is most valuable?

I am highly satisfied with Oracle OBIEE as it delivers the desired results for our business. We found it to be effective for our needs.

What needs improvement?

The installation process and the ability to resume customer reports could be improved. The functionality to customize and modify reports has been removed, and it would be beneficial to reinstall it, as it allows greater customization and flexibility in creating reports.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using it for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It provides excellent stability. I would rate it nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability six out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. We haven't had any issues.

What about the implementation team?

The installation process was quick. The deployment was handled by the vendor.

What was our ROI?

It helps to remove inefficiencies and improve the decision-making process, so it does deliver a return on investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is an expensive solution. We have an annual license with Oracle.

What other advice do I have?

It offers impressive functionality and it is an intuitive and beneficial tool. However, the pricing is quite high. I would rate it eight 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.
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Principal Business Intelligence Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The centralized metadata model component is valuable, but it is very biased towards Oracle infrastructure
Pros and Cons
  • "The centralized metadata model component is most valuable."
  • "It is very biased towards Oracle infrastructure. One of the major red flags we have at the moment against Oracle is that it doesn't support deployment on other cloud providers. We're quite heavily vested in AWS as our infrastructure, and Oracle is yet to formally support deploying on those virtual infrastructure instances. That's quite disappointing, and it also cuts them out of over 70% of the market."

What is most valuable?

The centralized metadata model component is most valuable. 

What needs improvement?

We do like Oracle Visual Analyzer, but we do feel that it's quite immature in comparison to its competitors. There is still quite a lot of catch-up to be done, but it does still have some unique value add.

It is not very stable, and it is not consistently improved. There are a lot of gaps when it comes to design. The documentation and support from Oracle on the vision have been pretty bad over the last six years.

It is very biased towards Oracle infrastructure. One of the major red flags we have at the moment against Oracle is that it doesn't support deployment on other cloud providers. We're quite heavily vested in AWS as our infrastructure, and Oracle is yet to formally support deploying on those virtual infrastructure instances. That's quite disappointing, and it also cuts them out of over 70% of the market.

Its deployment is complicated in comparison to other solutions.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have probably been using it since 2005. 

We're using Oracle Analytics Server, which is the latest version of the solution on site. We have a trial OAC which is the cloud version, but we're primarily on 12.2.1.4 which is the previous release on site.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The platform could definitely be more stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable, but it is very biased towards Oracle infrastructure. The biggest pain point is the alternative cloud support. They're very Oracle cloud-centric. If I need to do anything on our infrastructure that is AWS-centric or Azure-centric, there are loads of issues.

There are thousands of users, but right now, it's suffering from losing its users to Tableau and Power BI because of its various shortcomings.

How are customer service and support?

The documentation from Oracle and the support have been pretty bad over the last six years. We also use Power BI and Tableau. Oracle is very poor in comparison to Power BI and Tableau with regard to user engagement, documentation, and roadmap.

They've got a lot of gaps in the community, support, and documentation. If I try and look up how to do something complicated in Oracle Analytics, I'd surely find it hard to find the information, whereas if I look up the equivalent in Tableau or Power BI, I'll find solutions pretty quickly.

I find their support model very outdated. In order to get support, I have to raise a ticket, and then I have to talk to someone who may or may not very quickly understand the problem, whereas quite often with the other products, the solution is in the community. That's where Oracle is falling behind. Their community is very poor when it comes to finding solutions, and their support is quite traditional. It's very old-fashioned.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment can be done in a day. Once you understand it, the deployment isn't too bad, but the deployment complexity is still very high in comparison to other solutions. 

What about the implementation team?

We did it ourselves. For its deployment and maintenance, we need a whole team of people. We probably have about three or four managers, and we've probably got 15 to 20 technical personnel or developers because many different business units are using it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its licensing is yearly.

What other advice do I have?

I can recommend it under certain circumstances. It depends on your deployment, and whether you are starting from scratch. It is heavily dependent on what infrastructure you have and what your current people have. I would recommend it if you're a fully Oracle house. If you're not a fully Oracle house and you're heavily based on Azure or AWS, then I'd be hesitant. I'd need to do an architectural review.

As an end-user, I would rate it a seven out of 10. For an Oracle house, it would be a seven out of 10, and for a non-Oracle house, it would be a five out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Process System Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
User-friendly with great new additional features; lacks a good security management system
Pros and Cons
  • "There are some great new features in the latest version."
  • "It needs a better security management system."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution for pulling data analytics from our source systems through the enterprise data warehouse provided by Oracle. We also use it to provide dashboard solutions for analytics and operations for the businesses from various departments; operational, finance, marketing, sales, legal, everyone. We are partners with Oracle.

What is most valuable?

This solution is very easy for people who are building ad-hoc things. It's an enterprise solution so it can be deployed for a lot of users. There are some great new features that come with the 12c like data visualization, desktop BI Publisher, automation and interactive dashboards. The product has good features. 

What needs improvement?

This solution needs a better security management system and I think there is room for improvement in terms of giving access to people in a more effective way. I'd like to see additional features and performance can be improved too. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There are no issues with day-to-day activities so it's pretty stable. The new versions have improved and even with a lot of people logging in, it's solid. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is made for enterprise companies and is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

When we have issues that need Oracle support we reach out to them. The response is sometimes very slow but better at other times. It's a mixed bag even though we have dedicated support. We recently did an upgrade and that went smoothly. 

What other advice do I have?

OBIEE is definitely for enterprise customers. If you have a big user base of say 500,000, then this is the kind of solution you'd want to have. I would definitely advise people to go for the latest version rather than install an old version and then try to do an out-of-the-place upgrade. 

There's room for improvement so I rate OBIEE seven out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Poor performance and difficult installation, but the price is reasonable
Pros and Cons
  • "They were reasonable in terms of price."
  • "The performance and the complex setup are the main reason for switching to Qlik Sense."

What needs improvement?

We were disappointed with Oracle OBIEE, because of the performance.

In terms of an analytical tool, it is quite outdated. End-users want to receive results quickly and to be able to view millions of rows of data in a matter of seconds. OBIEE was unable of doing so because of the way it was modeled and developed. It requires it to go to the database, run the SQL, and then fetch the result for each query. That procedure took a long time to complete.

There are a variety of different in-memory tools available; the data is loaded into the server's RAM or memory, and all requests, including data requests, are served from the RAM, making it extremely fast.

If you look at Qlik Sense or Tableau, or perhaps some other products on the market, such as Power BI, you'll notice that they have all of the data in RAM.

The performance and the complex setup are the main reason for switching to Qlik Sense. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We had been using Oracle OBIEE for around eight years when we decided to stop using it six months ago. We switched to Qlik Sense.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Performance was the primary reason for switching from OBIEE to Qlik Sense.

How are customer service and support?

We have never had any contact with technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Oracle has a number of products that we use. We are a large supporter of Oracle.

How was the initial setup?

OBIEE's overall setup is really complex because it relies on Oracle Forms, the Oracle Fusion technology, which requires a middleware.

We require both the front-end and the back-end. It was really difficult to manage the entire setup. Dealing with OBIEE was tough in some circumstances when we had to make infrastructure-related modifications.

The entire setup is extremely complex, and troubleshooting any errors is incredibly difficult due to the large number of logs generated by the WebLogic Server.

Setup is really difficult, which is an area where they are lacking. 

If you only consider Tableau, Qlik Sense, or Power BI, where you will simply download the software, all you have to do is apply it if you have an enterprise license. It's incredibly simple to install and configure these products. It's very easy compared to OBIEE.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

They were reasonable in terms of price. I wouldn't say they were expensive. Pricing was adequate. It's comparable to the current technology we're using, Qlik Sense.

We never had any issues with the pricing of Oracle OBIEE.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Oracle OBIEE a five out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
IT manager at Farmatrejd
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
An easy-to-use solution valuable for data solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is user-friendly."
  • "Oracle OBIEEE's performance and licensing costs could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Oracle OBIEE is useful for data solutions.

What is most valuable?

The solution is user-friendly.

What needs improvement?

Oracle OBIEEE's performance and licensing costs could be improved.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. I rate it an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. Currently, we have ten users. We plan to increase the usage by next year. Overall, I rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

I implemented the solution in-house.

What was our ROI?

There is a Return on Investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing cost for Oracle OBIEE is expensive. We pay an annual licensing fee, and there are no additional costs beyond the standard fees.

What other advice do I have?

Oracle is a globally recognized company, and its products are considered satisfactory. You can't go wrong with Oracle products. I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle OBIEE Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle OBIEE Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.