PeerSpot user
Business Analyst - Canada at a marketing services firm with 51-200 employees
Vendor
It allows you to clean your data and prepare a frame for less experimented users to work with through the web interface.

What is most valuable?

Of course, all the visualization tools of the web interface are one of the things Sisense does best.

But also, the custom tables from the backend of Sisense is one of the most powerful feature of the software. It allows you to clean your data and prepare a frame for less experimented users to work with through the web interface.

How has it helped my organization?

Better tracking of the targets for our representatives, quick overview of the market by product categories , supplier, customers, states, etc. Ultra fast drill down capabilities that allows us to find answers to Ad Hoc business questions in a few second during business meetings.

Sisense also allowed us to achieve some less conventional projects like abstracting the effect of the price increases on our sales. As some of you might know the Canadian dollars had a lot of fluctuations during the last years. By attaching our multiple price increase list by items (300 000 skus) with a date stamp, to our real sales from our ERP, Sisense allowed us to develop a value that represent our sales without the effect of the prices increases of the last 3 years. With this we can look at the real growth of our market.

What needs improvement?

When your data cubes become to complex (many layers of custom tables), the performance of the tool might be slightly affected. Less speed, updates that are not triggered on your web interface without restarting the server. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Director, Business Operations at a university with 51-200 employees
Vendor
For the price point, this tool is on par with many other BI tools out there.

What is most valuable?

Sisense's documentation and video tutorials were thorough and helpful in starting off with the basic usage of the product. Connecting data sources and creating a dashboard with a couple reports was a breeze.

Given the limited company resources, we were looking for a Business Intelligence Tool that would be fast to set up and use by everyone in the company, from Product to Sales. For the price point, this tool is on par with many other BI tools out there. I also appreciate the fact that Sisense is constantly improving on the product, adding new features and providing detailed documentation on the changes and updates.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployment of the product on our AWS instance was fairly straightforward.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I did encounter an issue with the Dashboard load time to be slow considering that we had a basic dashboard with five reports and no more than 300 rows was disconcerting. But it appears the load time has improved somewhat, likely due to data caching.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven't needed to scale.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is very responsive and helpful in providing links to various solutions to problems and questions that arose from using Sisense.

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

Yes, I have personally used several different solutions that were robust in features but also required continual engagement from our engineers.

How was the initial setup?

Setup was simple from a business perspective. It would be wise to have someone who has a background in DevOps to handle the schema and data connecting to start.

What about the implementation team?

Implementation was in-house.

What was our ROI?

N/A, as ROI remains to be seen. We are in the early stages of launching our product and using Sisense to its full potential so it will be at least another six months time to have a better understanding of whether the product will be helpful to the company or not.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, we evaluated several other options but I'd rather not say which ones.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
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November 2023
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PeerSpot user
PROJECT MANAGER - Fleet production optimization & monitoring. Quarry/Mining/Construction at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Has allowed me switch to visual programming as I have access to all advanced database functionalities and features but don't need to code.

Valuable Features:

It's really user friendly and fast. I can use the product during customer meetings, not only to show dashboards, but to create and process data analytics in real-time. It's perfect for consultant workshops where you can't work with static dashboards. Also, because it has an HTML5 interface, it now looks very good when compared to BI solutions that haven't evolved since Windows XP.

Improvements to My Organization:

I can finally switch to visual programming as I have access to all advanced database functionalities and features in Sisense without having to code almost anything.

Room for Improvement:

I'd like to see branding features and more layout possibilities.

Use of Solution:

We've been using Sisense for two years now.

Deployment Issues:

We've had no issues deploying it.

Stability Issues:

The product is very stable.

Scalability Issues:

The scalability for my utilization is good.

Initial Setup:

Deployment is ultra-easy. I’ve installed the product, connected to mySQL database, and created my first dashboard in a day. ElastiCube manager may require some very basic IT skills, though.

Implementation Team:

I did it myself.

Other Solutions Considered:

When I started looking, I had two main prerequisites for my BI solution. I needed to create on-the-fly dashboards for customers so I needed a fast and intuitive solution to make graphical request and look good in front of customer when we wanted to check a particular aspect of their activity. Also, I wanted a product that looks sexy for its time and not outdated, as opposed to Business Objects. I checked a few products such as SAP, BOARD, Yellowfin, Klipfolio among others. We also looked at internal development using a Javascript library such as D3.js, metricsgraphics.js, and highchart.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Product Owner of Business Intelligence at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Easy to Deploy, Easy to Manage, Easy for End-Users; Sisense represents what a BI company should be: Intuitive and scaleable for large sets of data.

What is most valuable?

Time to deployment was one of our most critical factors in choosing a BI vendor, and I am not sure you can get to deployment faster than Sisense. On day one, I was able to download it, connect two disparate data sources with multiple tables, and build meaningful dashboards.

Other features that I found very valuable:

Query Speed: Querying a data source with more than 180 million records took on average less than 5 seconds after initial load.

Speed of Development: It took less than a month to configure single- sign on, be fully embedded within our web product, and to build a comprehensive data cube that covered all of our metrics.

Ease of use for end-users: Building meaningful dashboards is no longer an IT task. Sisense has done a great job at not over complicating dashboard building

How has it helped my organization?

We are no longer in the business of report changes and making a slight change to a report for a specific customer. Sisense is already reducing our development workload since customers are building their own reports instead of waiting on us.

What needs improvement?

Users with viewer access have less capabilities than similar users in Tableau. For example, data discovery would be difficult with only a viewer license.

Sisense limits the cube building to a very visual display that can get hard to analyze when you bring in many data sources. It would be nice to have either an "advanced" view or alternate view that helps with many tables.

They do not currently have support for R, but I hear that is coming in 6.0.

For how long have I used the solution?

About 6 months.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

None.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

None so far.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Not yet, but we did just start rolling this out

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Excellent. I am confident I will receive a response within the same day and usually much sooner than that.

Technical Support:

Technical support has been superb. We had a fairly complicated security implementation, and they helped guide our developers through all the nuances.

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

We previously were on Pentaho, and we switched because we needed an easier platform to develop on. Building complex dashboards required a great deal of training and Pentaho experience.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup could not have been any easier.

What about the implementation team?

In-house

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Qlik and Tableau

What other advice do I have?

The sales process was excellent. We opted to do a proof of concept, and we were able to test all of our requested functionality prior to buying the product. They also guided us through the proof of concept, and offered a great deal of support. The sales process was one of the best sales experiences we went through.

Our customers love the product. When we demonstrate Sisense's capability against their data, they wonder how they existed without Sisense.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Data Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
It's more efficient than running queries in MySQL to get data and generate reports, but it lacks connections to statistical packages like R and SAS.

Valuable Features:

It has a very easy-to-use interface and we are able to create custom tables and fields that allow us do advanced analytics.

Improvements to My Organization:

We have MySQL, and we used to run queries to get data and generate reports in Excel and Google Doc. Sisense can do both in a much much faster way, which drives our reporting efficiency into another level.

Room for Improvement:

Sisense doesn't have connections with statistical packages like R, SAS, etc.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user108030 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user108030Sales with 201-500 employees
Vendor

As of today - Im happy to say we support R integration as well as a wide variety of built in statistical functions in our solution

See all 2 comments
PeerSpot user
Business Analyst at a media company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
We're able to do ad-hoc analysis and develop dashboards instead of working with Excel, but I would like an option to plug in any data from any source.

Valuable Features

Sisense is excellent to get done your analysis quickly. It's an easy-to-use BI tool and doesn’t require extensive IT knowledge, except when it comes to specific design requirements of widgets.

The ability to handle large datasets is impressive and fulfills all our expectations.

Also, I am very happy with the user management system that allows to set up rights and access to data on a very detailed level.

Improvements to My Organization

We are now able to do quick ad-hoc analysis and develop stylish dashboards instead of working with excel. This does not only save a lot of time but also reveals useful insights in the area of Marketing, Finance, Sales and Consumer Insights that are new to us.

Room for Improvement

The only thing I am missing is the option to plug in any data from any source easily since Sisense only offers a limited amount of supported data providers.

Customer Service and Technical Support

I’d like to highlight the good and quick support, which always tries to find a custom solution for any issues either by mail or even screen sharing session. Important requests are handled with high priority and are usually fixed quickly.

Other Advice

Overall I think, it is a fantastic value-for-money analysis tool and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who looks for a up-to-date BI solution that can be customized to your specific needs. We are happy with the choice and look forward to all the planned future developments.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user186843 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user186843Editor/Writer with 201-500 employees
Vendor

@Piero - Sisense actually comes with a built-in data integration and modeling environment (the Elasticube Manager) which in most cases would remove the need to use additional tools such as the ones you have mentioned. To see how it works, visit http://www.sisense.com/business-intelligence-technology/

See all 2 comments
PeerSpot user
Director of Information Systems at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Dashboards are quick and combine multiple data sources.

Valuable Features

Set-up was very simple and Sisense on-boarding made sure we were successful in meeting our business goals. The dashboards are extremely quick and can combine multiple data sources with ease.

Improvements to My Organization

Customer reporting was a manual, laborious process that now is automated. Internal KPIs are now also seen through intuitive dashboards.

Deployment Issues

Deployment started with the pre-sales team. To guarantee success, engineers were made available to connect actual data to build dashboards so our executive team could see end results to justify the buying decision.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

Excellent customer service both pre-sales and post.

Technical Support:

Technical support has been very responsive. If they can't answer immediately, we receive prompt email responses with the result / code to solve the problem.

Initial Setup

The initial set-up was very straightforward since Sisense sales team spent so much time with us to ensure our success.

Implementation Team

Our internal IT staff handled deployment, including an onsite server.

ROI

ROI was realized immediately by reducing manual report labor. We can also meet the needs of clients that require dashboard reporting to retain business. Our sales team have brought bigger / better prospects by offering Sisense dashboards.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

Choose the onsite solution and only license for existing business, buying additional licenses as clients demand.

Other Advice

Excellent customer service and staff dedicated to their customer's success. You get what you pay for with Sisense (in a good way).

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
VP of Technology with 51-200 employees
Vendor
It has an easy-to-use API and the ability to handle very large datasets.

We chose Sisense for a rip-and-replace of Tableau 9.0. After our initial implementation of Tableau, and as our data set grow, we quickly ran into major performance, stability, and usability issues.

We went with Sisense because of its ease-of-use, visualizations built for the web, easy-to-use API, and, most importantly, its performance and ability to handle very large datasets.

Other key features are how Sisense manages multi tenancy and its visualization plugin support. This give sus the ability to support our use case and build our own custom visuals as needed.

We have been very pleased with our experience with Sisense to date. Our sales team is very excited about the slick dashboards we can put together with very quick turnaround times.

Although its plugin support mitigates this, Sisense could use additional out-of-the-box visualizations. Additionally, the maps feature could also be improved.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user108030 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user108030Sales with 201-500 employees
Vendor

Sisense Offer The Live connection - starting Version 6.6 (Q1 2017).

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Buyer's Guide
Download our free BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Report and find out what your peers are saying about Sisense, Tableau, Microsoft, and more!
Updated: November 2023
Buyer's Guide
Download our free BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Report and find out what your peers are saying about Sisense, Tableau, Microsoft, and more!