BI TOOLS - COMPARISON MATRIX

Evaluation Criteria
Data Access

Criteria Explanation

Data Sources

How versatile is the product in terms of capability to connect to wide array of relational data sources like SQL Server, Oracle, MS-Access, DB2 on z/OS? How is the support for connecting to unstructured data sources like flat files? The ability to source data from multiple data sources from a single web document.

Business Encapsulation

The creation of business or schematic layer which will encapsulate the Business users from understanding the technical naming and SQL knowledge.

Metadata Layer

Does the tool support a common metadata layer? Does the tool has capability to retrieve information about the usage of reports (who is using, When it is being used and how often)?

Report Development

Authoring Tool

How versatile is the report authoring tool? Does the vendor provide both Desktop based and Web based authoring environment?

SQL Query generation

Can the auto-generated SQLs be modified?

Report Metadata

Does the tool support addition of report metadata inside the report? One scenario can be showing tool-tips for every column inside the report to make it more intuitive.

Dashboard Designer

How feature rich is the tool's dashboard designer?

Excel Features

Does the tool provide features to embed Excel formulae, charts, groups in the report? Does the tool support creating multi-tab Excel worksheets?

Design Complexity

How good is the report designer's support for developing complex reports like reports having conditional sections, reports showing tabular and chart data in a single page and pixel-perfect reporting?

Code Reusability

Ease of creation of templatized reports and style sheets. Creation of reusable components that can be utilized in multiple reports.

SDK

How extensive is the tool's SDK?

Ad-Hoc Reports

Custom Query

How good is the tool's support for runtime modification of SQL?

Ease of Adhoc Reporting

Ease at which the reports can be created on an Adhoc basis. How good is the tool's support for runtime selection of columns,grouping, ordering for a report?

Integration

Open APIs

How is the support for APIs which can be used by J2EE or .NET applications? Can the reports be embedded inside the enterprise applications without the need to access a common BI Portal?

Portal Integration

Does the vendor provide Web services/APIs for easy portal integration?

Alerting

Does the vendor support alerting to 3rd party Ticketing systems?

Security

Role based Security

Will the tool support role based security of the users? The users of the tool should have access to the data they are authorized to view.

Security Integration

How well does the tool integrate with existing security framework such as LDAP/Active Directory? Does the vendor provide custom security framework?

Single Sign on (SSO)

How easy is it to setup SSO with existing applications?

Report Dissemination How good is the vendor's support multiple report distribution formats such as DHTML,Word,Excel,PDF,Email,CSV,TSV?

Report Distribution formats

Report Scheduling

Does the tool support report scheduling features such as auto notification, auto print to server?

Report Bursting

How is the tool's support for report bursting? With report bursting a single report template can generate multiple physical reports.

OLAP

Cube Designer

How good is the tool's cube designer in terms of sophistication?

Dynamic Analysis

How is the support for dynamic analysis of cubes?

Performance Management

How does the tool support the tracking of performance management matrices and KPI

Offline Analysis Administration

How good is the tool's support for offline analysis of cubes?

Centralized Repository

How is the support for storing various report objects in a centralized repository?

Monitoring

Does the tool support monitoring? This includes job monitoring and disk quota monitoring

Fileserver Storage

Does the tool support storing report objects at a location other than its repository?

Clustering

How extensive is the tool's server clustering capability? Does the tool support failover mechanisms?

DR

Does the tool support hot/online backup of various report objects?

Mobility

Will the tool support mobile access for reports, dashboards / analysis on Android & iOS Devices?

Are any add on solutios available to extend reports, dashboards / analysis to Android & iOS Devices?

Can existing code be resued/ redevelopment of reports and dashboards is required?

Jaspersoft PROS CONS PROS

Business Objects

Jaspersoft can connect to most of Data Sources including relational databases, XML, Flat files, It also supports sourcing of data from more than one data source at the same time.

Business Objects can connect most of Data Sources including relational databases, ERP products, XML, Flat files, It also supports sourcing of data from more than one data source at the same time.

Jaspersoft's Domain encapsulates the technical aspects of Databases from the report users.

Business Objects Universe encapsulates the technical aspects of Databases from the report users. BO is integrated set of tools, not a unified architecture. XI Release 3 consists of multiple overlapping tools (with different interfaces and user paradigms); multiple different code bases, multiple separate metadatas and repositories. This multiplicity results in redundant setup and administration tasks.

Jaspersoft's provides the metadata Layer for Adhoc reportimg in the form of Domain

Jaspersoft provides iReport Designer as a desktop tool for standard report development and has capabilities like charts, crosstabs,pagination, grouping, etc.

Business Objects provides versatile tools in terms of standard report development capabilities like charts, crosstabs,pagination, grouping, etc.

Custom SQLs/Stored Procedures can be used to directly query the database

BO has the capability to run custom SQL queries.

Jaspersoft does not support this feature

Jaspersoft provides Web-based DashBoard Designer for creating Dashboard.

BusinessObjects XI provides general DashBoard manager and Crystal Xcelsius for Dashboards and Scorecard capabilities.

Jaspersoft has capability to export reports to Excel spreadsheets

BO has capability to export reports to Excel spreadsheets

Jaspersoft provides iReport Designer for standard report designing.However Complex reporting can be achived through java API's

BO XI supports complex design of reports, including sourcing data from more than one database or applications. The BO reports can combine text with graphics and images.

Jaspersoft doesn't provide library for reusing components,but provides with template creation.

BO supports the creation of report templates (Style Sheets) which can be reused in other reports.

Jaspersoft provides extensive APIs for Java environment.

Business Objects provides extensive APIs for .Net and Java environment.

Jaspersoft doesnt provide support for run time modification of SQL.How ever it provides runtime modification for MDX queries for Jasper Analysis

BO supports this functionality

Jaspersoft provides excellent support for these features.

Business Objects provides excellent support for these features.

Jaspersoft supports this feature to some extent

BusinessObjects XI provides a Web services API (Web services consumer and producer and provides samples for XBRL and RDL) and supports XML report Web services.

No, Jasper doesn't provide any webserives however with JAVA integration it's possible

BusinessObjects XI includes an out-ofthe-box portal (Info View) that lets users manage content and offers integrated searching, discussion threads, and personalization capabilities within a single user interface. Info View is available for both Java and .NET platforms, and the solution provides portal integration kits for Java (including BEA, IBM, Oracle, and SAP) and .NET (Share Point). The portal integration kits are based on the Java portal standards JSR-168 and Microsoft Share Point Web

No

Jaspersoft supports user and role based security

Role based security can be easily set up using Business objects, the securities can be set up at object level and folder level. At the Universe level the data level security can be set up to restrict access to unauthorized data BO tightly integrates with securoty frameworks of AD, LDAP, NT. It also has its own enterprise security model which can set up as peer requirements

No, Jasper does not have such facility

With JAVA integration it's very easy to set up SSO

Single Sign On is a pretty simple proceudre to be set up with Business Objects

Jaspersoft supports these formats.

Business Objects supports these formats.

Jaspersoft supports report scheduling and notification feature.

BusinessObjects XI supports report scheduling based on date/time and events.

No, report busting not supported

BO supports this functionality. Additionally, BusinessObjects Enterprise XI ships with portfolio an out-of-thebox solution for mobile users. Business Objects allows delivery of new or existing report components to wireless devices, including WML phones and RIM Blackberry and Compaq iPAQ devices.

For Desiging Analysis Cubes jasper provides schema workbench

BusinessObjects XI components can access DB2 OLAP Server, Hyperion Essbase, Microsoft Analysis Services, and SAP BW using the native connectivity and query language ODBO via MDX. BusinessObjects XI can also access Oracle's multidimensional cubes (Analytic Workspaces) via SQL.

Japer provides Jasper Analysis for data analysis

Business Objects predictive analysis module embeds a data mining engine from KXEN (Knowledge Extraction Engines), which allows developers to define and schedule statistical calculations based on models, discover/profile influencers of key outcome metrics, compare influencer profiles for multiple goals, and integrate with data mining tools through PMML. BO has a Performance Management Module.

Jasper doesnt provides this feature

Cube can be exported to excel format for analysis

Using Business Objects Voyager this feature can be achieved

jaspersoft provides reporting repository on the jasper server for storing jasper reports

BusinessObjects XI contains a reporting repository called the central management store, which is accessible from within Crystal Reports XI.

Jasper provides job monitroing but doesnt provide disk quota monitoring

Business Objects Schedule Manager and other tools can be used to moniotr the report jobs

The report objects such as .wid, .unv, .rpt files can be stored at any locations Jaspersoft does not support this feature provided later the objects are stored pinting to the same metadata

BusinessObjects XI supports load balancing, pooling, clustering, and Jaspersoft does not support this feature caching of data with benchmark results that reflect near linear scalability

rious report objects?

Jaspersoft does not support this feature

Jasper Supports mobile access for devices with help of iJasperMovile software which is specially designed for jasper mobility

Mobile portability feature is available

No, only iJasperMobile software needs to be installed

None

yes we can use

The existing code can be used to develop the reports / dashboards for mobile no redevelopment is required

Business Objects CONS PROS

Cognos CONS

Cognos can connect to the industry standard relational data sources as well as XML files

Cognos supports this with the help of Framework Manager

Cognos stores metadata information in a relational database.

Metrics Studio has its own metadata layer and modeling tool

Cognos provides Report Studio for report development. It is a web based tool. It is versatile in terms of standard report development capabilities like charts, crosstabs,pagination, grouping, etc.

Custom SQL queries can be used in Cognos instead of the Auto-generated SQL

BO doesn't support this feature

Cognos does not support annotations

Reports can be embedded inside a Cognos Connection page to provide a dashboard-like environment, supporting drill down features. Dashboards can be designed through the Analysis Studio.

This functionality is provided with Go! Office option

This is a paid option.Macros cannot be embedded inside the report design. However the macros can be added in the final XLS output

Cognos support designing fairly complex Report Studio being web based tool, it is reports with Report Studio difficult to create pixel-perfect reports

Cognos supports report Templates which can be reused in other reports.

Cognos does not provide a Cognos provides extensive APIs for .Net programming environment inside the and Java environment. reports for having fine control over the report design

Cognos provides excellent support for these features

Cognos provides excellent support for these features

Cognos supports WSDL. It provides APIs for handling SOAP messages which the .Net and J2EE applications can use to embed reports

Cognos provides extensive support for Web Services

BO has very limited capability involving the integration of 3rd party Ticketing systems.

Cognos does not support this feature

Cognos supports user and role based security

Cognos supports LDAP integration.

Cognos has SSO combatability

Cognos supports these formats

Excel files that are generated are huge.

Cognos supports these features

Cognos supports these features

Cognos supports complex cube hierarchies with its Analysis Studio

Analysis studio can be used for analytical purposes

Cognos separates analytics and reporting tasks.

Cognos has a Budgeting and Planning Module

Need to be Purchased Seperatly.

Cognos has good support for offline/disconnected analysis

Cognos provides content store for storing various report objects. The content store can be located in standard RDBMS

Cognos Connection provides some of this functionality. Cognos comes with built in audit reports

This can be done with configuration changes on Cognos Server or with the help of SDK

Actuate supports clustering and failover

BO does not support this feature

Report objects are stored inside standard RDBMS. Most modern RDBMses support hot backup

Micosoft PROS All components can connect to wide array of RDBMS data sources, including IBM, Oracle, SAP, Teradata. SSIS can pull data from non relational sources like flat files etc. SSRS can use XML Web services as data source. Apart from these, Microsoft SharePoint List, Microsoft SQL Azure, and Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, PowerPivot workbook, BI Semantic Model have also been added. Microsoft Analysis & Reporting Services have a schematic layer which encapsulates technical aspects of the data sources. CONS PROS

MicroStrategy

Microstrategy supports majority of databases, datawarehouse appliances on the market and even non-structured data sources viz. Big Data,Hadoop etc. It also has connectivity to social media web viz. Facebook. MicroStrategy can connect to MS Excel as a data source, however flat files support is not present

Analysis Services creates a metadata layer on top of data sources.

No common metadata layer

The objects visible to the users can be named in more user-friendly and simple language. These naming conventions are independent of the SQL generated by MicroStrategy. So what is displayed on All Report components (objects), reports and Dashboards within a project are stored in a common Metadata repository.Apart from this, user configuration,database configurations,project configurations,database login details etc are stored within the metadata. The Metadata is highly encrypted and it is difficult to de-crypt.

Microsoft's business intelligence suite provides multiple report authoring tools like Report Designer for canned reports (SSRS), Report Builder using Semantic model layer which provides adhoc report development and anaysis capabilities to users, new tool named PowerView has been introduced in SQL Server 2012 which is a browser-based Silverlight application, works with BI Semantic model (Tabular models) and provides adhoc reporting with various data visualizations. Apart from these users can use Microsoft office tools like Excel, Excel Services, Powerpivot for Excel.

MicroStrategy provides both Web-based and Desktop based report authoring tools. Web-Authoring tool requires Webprofessional license while desktop authoring requires desktop developer license

Microsoft fully supports this functionality. Can generate query from Query Builder.

Auto-generated SQLs can be modified using VLDB settings and/or adjusting relationships between attributes and Fact tables. Free-form SQL reports allow developers to user user generated SQL into their reports MicroStrategy Dashboards and reports supports tool tip on the selected column. So a mouse-over a particular field or graph displays a tool-tip MicroStrategy Dynamic dashboards is one of the leading product in the dashboard Market.With the use of variety of dashboard widgets, the dashboards can be made more interactive and user friendly. Availability of driving from one graph to another adds to better user experience. MicroStrategy Office allows users to write their own formulaes within blank cell/columns of an excell sheet, so when the report is populated when refreshed, these formulaes are automatically applied.MicroStrategy Office can be integrated with MS Excel, MS Word, MS Outlook and MS PowerPoint. MicroStrategy Does support multi-tab Excel WorkSheets Complex reports can be implemented in MicroStrategy with ease. In order to display large amount of data on a single screen, MicroStrategy provides Panel Stacks and selectors to see data in different perspective. All objects in MicroStrategy once created can be re-used in other reports/dashboards in MicroStrategy. Attributes, Facts, Metrics, Filters, Prompts, reports and report templates, dashboard and dashboard templates can be reused in any number of reports and dashboards

Microsoft will not support tool tips

Microsoft provides Performance Point as the Dashboard Reporting tool and it is now integrated with Sharepoint to take advantage of sharepoint hosting and security capabilities. Performance Point supports extensive dashboarding capabilities with various types of charts.

PowerPivot empowers users of all levels to access and mashup data from virtually any source. Users can create their own compelling reports and analytical applications, easily share insights, and collaborate through Microsoft Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Microsoft BI offers general support as Reporting Services uses a WYSIWYG metaphor for report design. Text, graphics, and data can be laid out in any fashion, and graphics can be placed within groups.

SSRS supports templates and creation of reusable components like shared datasets, report parts can be published and be used by other reports.

All MSBI development is integrated with Visual Studio which is a robust development environment with capabilities for source control, defect logging, build automation etc.

MicroStrategy provides SDK for 1. to change the look and feel of the product within Web browser This option is available in both JAVA and .NET environment. There are a set of APIs available to intergrate with third party portals viz. Sharepoint etc. 2. to add user defined calculations/functions within intelligence server This feature allows users to write thier own custom defined functions in C++, and generate the object code. This object code can be imported into Intelligence server and used for user consumption.

Microsoft support the runtime modification of SQL queries.

Microstrategy provides support for these features using objects like filters,prompts particularly at runtime. View filter allows user to filter the data generated in a report on the fly.

PowerView has been introduced in SQL Server 2012 which is a browser-based Silverlight application, works with BI Semantic model (Tabular models) and provides adhoc reporting with various data visualizations. Apart from these users can use Microsoft office tools like Excel, Excel Services, Powerpivot for Excel for adhoc reporting. Powerpivot for excel supports connecting to almost any data source, pull data from the data source and provides adhoc analysis capabilities. The same functionality is now available in Powerview with enhances visualization capabilities.

Report builder reports and self service reporting in microstrategy allows users to generate their own reports without dependancy on IT developers. This is a prowerful tool available on Web as well as through desktop

Reporting Services provides a web service based web methods for creating, modifying, deleting and rendering SSRS reports from Report Server. The reports can be rendered in any application using the web methods and SSRS Report viewer control.

Microstrategy supports WSDL. It provides rich set of APIs for which the .Net and J2EE applications can use to embed reports

Microsoft BI solutions are supported through SharePoint for portal integration. SSRS does provies web services which can be used to render reports.

MicroStrategy Web-Services can be integrated into portals using the Portal Integration Kit, which provides generic portlets that can be used with commercial portals like Oracle, IBM WebSphere Portal, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, and mySAP Enterprise Portals.

Reporting Services can also integrate Difficult to trigger third party with SQL Server Notification Services for applications delivery of data alerts.

MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server is the alerting and batch report delivery service for scheduling. Schedules can be alert- or event-driven. Information can be sent to email, mobile devices, fax, print, and file servers Security filters restrict data to a selected group of users. Users can also be refrained from accessing certains folders and objects(attributes,facts,metrics,reports, dashboards etc) within microstrategy MicroStrategy provide LDAP integration. Users and their groups can be imported into MicroStrategy and appropriate security privileges can be applied at group level If microstrategy is integrated with external LDAP server, than the transition from other servers to MicroStrategy is seamless. This allows users to login once and access any portal available within the organization.SSO is supported by MicroStrategy Microstrategy supports all these formats. It also supports Flash (.mht) format export, delivery to mobile devices viz IPAD,Iphone,BlackBerry and Andriod smartphones

Microsoft BI strongly supports the Role based Security Model. It controls access to reports, folders, and other items that are managed by Microsoft BI. SSAS Cubes also support role based security. Microsoft BI have its own security framework which supports LDAP/Active directory. SSRS also supports security extensions where custom security mechanisms can be integrated with SSRS.

Its support SSO very well.

Microsoft Reporting Services supports most of the report distribution formats like HTML, DHTML, OWC, Excel, PDF, TIF, CSV, XML, and GIF. It now supports Doc files too

Reporting Services supports on-demand (pull) delivery and scheduled or eventbased (push) delivery. Report subscribers can receive reports automatically through multiple delivery channels, including email or stored on a file share when a report's data is refreshed or on a specified schedule.

MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server is the alerting and batch report delivery service for scheduling. Schedules can be alert- or event-driven. Information can be sent to email, mobile devices, fax, print, and file servers. With MicroStrategy 9i onwards, Distribution services can perform almost all tasks performed by narrowcast server, so there is no need for additional NarrowCast Server license A MicroStrategy report is run once and automatically sliced or personalized to the view of an end user based on security profile and preferences Personalized reporting in narrowcast also allows part of the report to be sent to a user group while another to a different user group

Microsoft Reporting Services supports data-driven subscriptions, the ability to drive a parameterized report to multiple delivery targets.

SQL Server provides strong OLAP services via its native OLAP engine in SQL Server Analysis Services, which enables customers to model their data based on a dimensional model ( either MOLAP or ROLAP structures). With SQL Server 2012, Analysis Services also supports creation of cubes with 3NF relational data (Tabular models). It uses the xVelocity (formerly named Vertipaq) engine to create these models.

Cube designing in MicroStrategy is like designing a grid report without any prompts. Once the design is completed and tested, the grid can be published as a cube for user consumption. This is very simple and sophosticated

Microsoft provides multiple tools for adhoc analysis of data like PowerView, Powerpivot for Excel, Excel where users can create their own reports and also publish them to share with others.

MicroStrategy technology lets users perform "speed-of-thought" report analysis and manipulate reports on-thefly

Analysis Services has capabilities to define KPIs in cubes which can be shown in dashboards for Performance management

This featurs is supported in microstrategy

Microsoft supports offline analysis of cubes

MicroStrategy dashboards can be exported as Flash files and excell for users to perform analysis offline.

SSRS Report Server provides capability for hosting reports and related objects. The Report Server used a SQL Server database to store the reports, related objects and security details. Apart from these it also stores enterprise reporting repository is included within SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services where all the reporting objects can be stored

MicroStrategy metadata is centralized repository of all microstrategy objects. This is loaded and unloaded from system RAM whenever the I-server startup or shuts down.

SQL Server Business Intelligence is managed through a single, integrated console called SQL Server Management Studio. Full monitoring of SQL Server is enabled through Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM).

MicroStrategy Administrator provides a set of tools to monitor, manage, and automate the BI Infrastructure, including Enterprise Manager to monitor system usage, Object Manager to manage disparate and distributed environments for change management, versioning, and internationalization, and Command Manager to automate administration functions. MicroStrategy Intelligence Server also supports proprietary clustering algorithms, load balancing and hot failover, automatic self-tuning, parallel pipeline query execution, archiving, and scheduling.

Microsoft reporting objects can be stored in a secured place other than the native repository

Output of a report can be delivered to another file location using distribution services. MicroStrategy support powerfull clustering mechanism between 2 or more I-servers using same Metadata repository. Failover mechanism is seamless. So in case of a failure runing jobs are automatically transferred to active servers within a cluster Repository is stored in the database. So if that database supports hot/online backup, than it is supported by MicroStrategy

Microsoft Support cluster failover through Microsoft cluster services (MSCS)

The Visual Studio Design/Development platform for all BI applications can support both online/offline back up

Browser-based mobile access to your corporate BI content is provided through Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Users can navigate existing reports, dashboards, scorecards, and analytical applications across iOS, Android, and Windows devices. Microsoft will be delivering touch-based data exploration and visualization capabilities in a browser on iOS, Android and Microsoft platforms in the second half of 2012. Not at this moment. But Microsoft will be delivering touch-based data exploration and visualization capabilities in a browser on iOS, Android and Microsoft platforms in the second half of 2012. Existing reports can be used. No redevelopment is required.

MicroStrategy support mobile access of reports,dashboards,documents over Apple iOS devices viz IPAD,Iphone, RIM BlackBerry devices and almost all Andriod smart phones

MicroStrategy SDK can be deployed for changing the look and feel of reports/dashboards on mobile devices. No Re-development of report is required to port them to any of the mobile devices. The dashboard that is visible in web is also visible in the mobile device

MicroStrategy CONS

N/A

MicroStrategy does not support alerting to 3rd party applications

Complete offline analysis, wherein user modifies the data offline and loads it back to database is not available in microstrategy

Report objects cannot be stored anywhere outside microstrategy. They can be migrated to other server using object manager,project move wizard,project duplication and metadata copy

Jaspersoft - EVALUATION MATRIX

Explanation

Evaluation Criteria
Overall Score Data Access

Criteria Explanation

Pros

Cons

Data Sources

How versatile is the product in terms of capability to connect to wide array of relational data sources like SQL Server, Oracle, MS-Access, DB2 on z/OS? How is the support for connecting to unstructured data sources like flat files? The ability to source

Jaspersoft can connect to most of Data Sources including relational databases, XML, Flat files, It also supports sourcing of data from more than one data source at the same time.

Business Encapsulation

The creation of business or schematic layer which will encapsulate the Business users from understanding the technical naming or SQL knowledge.

Jaspersoft's Domain encapsulates the technical aspects of Databases from the report users.

Metadata Layer Report Development

Does the tool support a common metadata layer?

Jaspersoft's provides the metadata Layer for Adhoc reportimg in the form of Domain

Authoring Tool

How versatile is the report authoring tool? Does the vendor provide both Desktop based and Web based authoring environment? Can the auto-generated SQLs be modified? Does the tool support addition of report metadata inside the report? One scenario can be showing tool-tips for every column inside the report to make it more intuitive. How feature rich is the tool's dashboard designer? Does the tool provide features to embed Excel formulae, charts, groups in the report? Does the tool support creating multi-tab Excel worksheets? How good is the report designer's support for developing complex reports like reports having conditional sections, reports showing tabular and chart data in a single page and pixel-perfect reporting? Ease of creation of templatized reports and style sheets. Creation of reuseable components that can be utilized in multiple reports. How extensive is the tool's SDK?

Jaspersoft provides iReport Designer as a desktop tool for standard report development and has capabilities like charts, crosstabs,pagination, grouping, etc. Custom SQLs/Stored Procedures can be used to directly query the database Jaspersoft does not support this feature

SQL Query generation

Report Metadata

Dashboard Designer

Jaspersoft provides Web-based DashBoard Designer for creating Dashboard. Jaspersoft has capability to export reports to Excel spreadsheets Jaspersoft provides iReport Designer for standard report designing.However Complex reporting can be achived through java API's Jaspersoft doesn't provide library for reusing components,but provides with template creation. Jaspersoft provides extensive APIs for Java environment. Jaspersoft doesnt provide support for run time modification of SQL.How ever it provides runtime modification for MDX queries for Jasper Analysis Jaspersoft provides excellent support for these features.

Excel Features

Design Complexity

Code Reuseability SDK Ad-Hoc Reports Custom Query

How good is the tool's support for runtime modification of SQL? Ease at which the reports can be created on an Adhoc basis. How good is the tool's support for runtime selection of columns,grouping, ordering for a report? How is the support for APIs which can be used by J2EE or .NET applications? Can the reports be embedded inside the enterprise applications without the need to access a common BI Portal? Does the vendor provide Web services/APIs for easy portal integration? Does the vendor support alerting to 3rd party Ticketing systems? Will the tool support role based security of the users? The users of the tool should have access to the data they are authorized to view. How well does the tool integrate with existing security framework such as LDAP/Active Directory? Does the vendor provide custom security framework? How easy is it to setup SSO with existing applications? How good is the vendor's support multiple report distribution formats such as DHTML,Word,Excel,PDF,Email,CSV,TSV? Does the tool support report scheduling features such as auto notification, auto print to server? How is the tool's support for report bursting? With report bursting a single report template can generate multiple physical reports. How good is the tool's cube designer in terms of sophistication? How is the support for dynamic analysis of a report output? How does the tool support the tracking of performance management matrices and KPIs How good is the tool's support for offline analysis of cubes?

Ease of Adhoc Reporting Integration Open APIs

Jaspersoft supports this feature to some extent No, Jasper doesn't provide any webserives however with JAVA integration it's possible No

Portal Integration Alerting Security Role based Security

Jaspersoft supports user and role based security No, Jasper does not have such facility With JAVA integration it's very easy to set up SSO

Security Integration Single Sign on (SSO) Report Dissemination Report Distribution formats Report Scheduling Report Bursting OLAP Cube Designer Dynamic Analysis Performance Management Offline Analysis Administration Centralized Repository Monitoring Fileserver Storage Clustering & Scalability DR Mobility

Jaspersoft supports these formats. Jaspersoft supports report scheduling and notification feature. No, report busting not supported

For Desiging Analysis Cubes jasper provides schema workbench Japer provides Jasper Analysis for data analysis Jasper doesnt provides this feature Cube can be exported to excel format for analysis jaspersoft provides reporting repository on the jasper server for storing jasper reports Jasper provides job monitroing but doesnt provide disk quota monitoring Jaspersoft does not support this feature Jaspersoft does not support this feature Jaspersoft does not support this feature

How is the support for storing various report objects in a centralized repository? Does the tool support monitoring? This includes job monitoring and disk quota monitoring Does the tool support storing report objects at a location other than its repository? How extesnsive is the tool's server clustering capability? Does the tool support failover mechanisms? Does the tool support hot/online backup of various report objects?

Will the tool support mobile access for reports, dashboards / analysis on Android & iOS Devices? Are any add on solutios available to extend reports, dashboards / analysis to Android & iOS Devices? Can existing code be resued/ redevelopment of reports and dashboards is required?

Jasper Supports mobile access for devices with help of iJasperMovile software which is specially designed for jasper mobility No, only iJasperMobile software needs to be installed yes we can use

Cognos (10) - EVALUATION MATRIX

Explanation

Evaluation Criteria
Overall Score Data Access

Criteria Explanation

Pros

Cons

Data Sources

How versatile is the product in terms of capability to connect to wide array of relational data sources like SQL Server, Oracle, MS-Access, DB2 on z/OS? How is the support for connecting to unstructured data sources like flat files? The creation of business or schematic layer which will encapsulate the Business users from understanding the technical naming or SQL knowledge. Does the tool support a common metadata layer?

Cognos can connect to the industry standard relational data sources as well as XML files Cognos supports this with the help of Framework Manager Cognos stores metadata information in a relational database. Cognos provides Report Studio for report development. It is a web based tool. It is versatile in terms of standard report development capabilities like charts, crosstabs,pagination, grouping, etc. Custom SQL queries can be used in Cognos instead of the Auto-generated SQL Cognos does not support annotations Reports can be embedded inside a Cognos Connection page to provide a dashboard-like environment, supporting drill down features. Dashboards can be designed through the Analysis Studio. This functionality is provided with Go! Office option Metrics Studio has its own metadata layer and modeling tool

Business Encapsulation

Metadata Layer Report Development

Authoring Tool

How versatile is the report authoring tool? Does the vendor provide both Desktop based and Web based authoring environment?

SQL Query generation

Can the auto-generated SQLs be modified?

Report Metadata

Does the tool support addition of report metadata inside the report? One scenario can be showing tool-tips for every column inside the report to make it more intuitive.

Dashboard Designer

How feature rich is the tool's dashboard designer?

Excel Features

Does the tool provide features to embed Excel formulae, charts, groups in the report? Does the tool support creating multi-tab Excel worksheets? How good is the report designer's support for developing complex reports like reports having conditional sections, reports showing tabular and chart data in a single page and pixel-perfect reporting? Ease of creation of templatized reports and style sheets. Creation of reusable components that can be utilized in multiple reports.

This is a paid option.Macros cannot be embedded inside the report design. However the macros can be added in the final XLS output

Design Complexity

Cognos support designing Report Studio being web based fairly complex reports with tool, it is difficult to create pixelReport Studio perfect reports Cognos supports report Templates which can be reused in other reports. Cognos provides extensive APIs for .Net and Java environment. Cognos does not provide a programming environment inside the reports for having fine control over the report design

Code Reusability

SDK

How extensive is the tool's SDK?

Ad-Hoc Reports Custom Query How good is the tool's support for runtime modification of SQL? Ease at which the reports can be created on an Adhoc basis. How good is the tool's support for runtime selection of columns,grouping, ordering for a report? Cognos provides excellent support for these features Cognos provides excellent support for these features

Ease of Adhoc Reporting Integration

Open APIs

How is the support for APIs which can be used by J2EE or .NET applications? Can the reports be embedded inside the enterprise applications without the need to access a common BI Portal? Does the vendor provide Web services/APIs for easy portal integration? Does the vendor support alerting to 3rd party Ticketing systems? Will the tool support role based security of the users? The users of the tool should have access to the data they are authorized to view. How well does the tool integrate with existing security framework such as LDAP/Active Directory? Does the vendor provide custom security framework? How easy is it to setup SSO with existing applications? How good is the vendor's support multiple report distribution formats such as DHTML,Word,Excel,PDF,Email,CSV,TSV? Does the tool support report scheduling features such as auto notification, auto print to server? How is the tool's support for report bursting? With report bursting a single report template can generate multiple physical reports.

Cognos supports WSDL. It provides APIs for handling SOAP messages which the .Net and J2EE applications can use to embed reports Cognos provides extensive support for Web Services Cognos does not support this feature Cognos supports user and role based security Cognos supports LDAP integration. Cognos has SSO combatability Cognos supports these formats Cognos supports these features Cognos supports these features Excel files that are generated are huge.

Portal Integration Alerting Security Role based Security

Security Integration

Single Sign on (SSO) Report Dissemination Report Distribution formats Report Scheduling Report Bursting OLAP Cube Designer

How good is the tool's cube designer in terms of sophistication? How is the support for dynamic analysis of a report output? How does the tool support the tracking of performance management matrices and KPIs How good is the tool's support for offline analysis of cubes?

Cognos supports complex cube hierarchies with its Analysis Studio Analysis studio can be used Cognos separates analytics and for analytical purposes reporting tasks. Cognos has a Budgeting and Planning Module Cognos has good support for offline/disconnected analysis Cognos provides content store for storing various report objects. The content store can be located in standard RDBMS Cognos Connection provides some of this functionality. Cognos comes with built in audit reports This can be done with configuration changes on Cognos Server or with the help of SDK Actuate supports clustering and failover Report objects are stored inside standard RDBMS. Most modern RDBMses support hot backup Need to be Purchased Seperatly.

Dynamic Analysis Performance Management

Offline Analysis Administration

Centralized Repository

How is the support for storing various report objects in a centralized repository?

Monitoring

Does the tool support monitoring? This includes job monitoring and disk quota monitoring

Fileserver Storage

Does the tool support storing report objects at a location other than its repository? How extensive is the tool's server clustering capability? Does the tool support failover mechanisms?

Clustering & Scalability

DR

Does the tool support hot/online backup of various report objects?

Mobility Will the tool support mobile access for reports, dashboards / analysis on Android & iOS Devices? Are any add on solutios available to extend reports, dashboards / analysis to Android & iOS Devices? Can existing code be resued/ redevelopment of reports and dashboards is required?

Microsoft (2012) - EVALUATION MATRIX Evaluation Criteria

Overall Score Data Access

Explanation

Criteria Explanation

Pros

Cons

Data Sources

How versatile is the product in terms of capability to connect to wide array of relational data sources like SQL Server, Oracle, MS-Access, DB2 on z/OS? How is the support for connecting to unstructured data sources like flat files? The ability to source data from multiple data sources from a single web document.

All components can connect to wide array of RDBMS data sources, including IBM, Oracle, SAP, Teradata. SSIS can pull data from non relational sources like flat files etc. SSRS can use XML Web services as data source. Apart from these, Microsoft SharePoint List, Microsoft SQL Azure, and Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, PowerPivot workbook, BI Semantic Model have also been added. Microsoft Analysis & Reporting Services have a schematic layer which encapsulates technical aspects of the data sources. Analysis Services creates a metadata layer on top of data sources. Microsoft's business intelligence suite provides multiple report authoring tools like Report Designer for canned reports (SSRS), Report Builder using Semantic model layer which provides adhoc report development and anaysis capabilities to users, new tool named PowerView has been introduced in SQL Server 2012 which is a browser-based Silverlight application, works with BI Semantic model (Tabular models) and provides adhoc reporting with various data visualizations. Apart from these users can use Microsoft office tools like Excel, Excel Services, Powerpivot for Excel. Microsoft fully supports this functionality. Can generate query from Query Builder. Microsoft will not support tool tips Microsoft provides Performance Point as the Dashboard Reporting tool and it is now integrated with Sharepoint to take advantage of sharepoint hosting and security capabilities. Performance Point supports extensive dashboarding capabilities with various types of charts. PowerPivot empowers users of all levels to access and mashup data from virtually any source. Users can create their own compelling reports and analytical applications, easily share insights, and collaborate through Microsoft Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Microsoft BI offers general support as Reporting Services uses a WYSIWYG metaphor for report design. Text, graphics, and data can be laid out in any fashion, and graphics can be placed within groups. SSRS supports templates and creation of reusable components like shared datasets, report parts can be All MSBI development is integrated with Visual Studio which is a robust development environment with capabilities for source control, defect logging, build automation etc. Microsoft support the runtime modification of SQL queries. PowerView has been introduced in SQL Server 2012 which is a browserbased Silverlight application, works with BI Semantic model (Tabular models) and provides adhoc reporting with various data visualizations. Apart from these users can use Microsoft office tools like Excel, Excel Services, Powerpivot for Excel for adhoc reporting. Powerpivot for excel supports connecting to almost any data source, pull data from the data source and Reporting Services provides a web service based web methods for creating, modifying, deleting and rendering SSRS reports from Report Server. The reports can be rendered in any application using the web methods and SSRS Report viewer control. Microsoft BI solutions are supported through SharePoint for portal integration. SSRS does provies web services which can be used to render reports. Reporting Services can also integrate with SQL Server Notification Services for delivery of data alerts. Microsoft BI strongly supports the Role based Security Model. It controls access to reports, folders, and other items that are managed by Microsoft BI. SSAS Cubes also support role based security. Microsoft BI have its own security framework which supports LDAP/Active directory. SSRS also supports security extensions where custom security mechanisms can be integrated with SSRS. Its support SSO very well. No common metadata layer

Business Encapsulation

The creation of business or schematic layer which will encapsulate the Business users from understanding the technical naming or SQL knowledge.

Metadata Layer Report Development

Does the tool support a common metadata layer?

Authoring Tool

How versatile is the report authoring tool? Does the vendor provide both Desktop based and Web based authoring environment?

SQL Query generation

Can the auto-generated SQLs be modified?

Report Metadata

Does the tool support addition of report metadata inside the report? One scenario can be showing tool-tips for every column inside the report to make it more intuitive.

Dashboard Designer

How feature rich is the tool's dashboard designer?

Excel Features

Does the tool provide features to embed Excel formulae, charts, groups in the report? Does the tool support creating multi-tab Excel worksheets?

Design Complexity

How good is the report designer's support for developing complex reports like reports having conditional sections, reports showing tabular and chart data in a single page and pixel-perfect reporting?

Code Reusability

Ease of creation of templatized reports and style sheets. Creation of reusable components that can be utilized in multiple reports.

SDK

How extensive is the tool's SDK?

Ad-Hoc Reports Custom Query How good is the tool's support for runtime modification of SQL?

Ease of Adhoc Reporting

Ease at which the reports can be created on an Adhoc basis. How good is the tool's support for runtime selection of columns,grouping, ordering for a report?

Integration

Open APIs

How is the support for APIs which can be used by J2EE or .NET applications? Can the reports be embedded inside the enterprise applications without the need to access a common BI Portal?

Portal Integration

Does the vendor provide Web services/APIs for easy portal integration?

Alerting

Does the vendor support alerting to 3rd party Ticketing systems?

Difficult to trigger third party applications

Security

Role based Security

Will the tool support role based security of the users? The users of the tool should have access to the data they are authorized to view.

Security Integration

How well does the tool integrate with existing security framework such as LDAP/Active Directory? Does the vendor provide custom security framework?

Single Sign on (SSO) Report Dissemination

How easy is it to setup SSO with existing applications?

Report Distribution formats

How good is the vendor's support multiple report distribution formats such as DHTML,Word,Excel,PDF,Email,CSV,TSV?

Microsoft Reporting Services supports most of the report distribution formats like HTML, DHTML, OWC, Excel, PDF, TIF, CSV, XML, and GIF. It now supports Doc files too Reporting Services supports on-demand (pull) delivery and scheduled or eventbased (push) delivery. Report subscribers can receive reports automatically through multiple delivery channels, including email or stored on a file share when a report's data is refreshed or on a specified schedule. Microsoft Reporting Services supports datadriven subscriptions, the ability to drive a parameterized report to multiple delivery targets. SQL Server provides strong OLAP services via its native OLAP engine in SQL Server Analysis Services, which enables customers to model their data based on a dimensional model ( either MOLAP or ROLAP structures). With SQL Server 2012, Analysis Services also supports creation of cubes with 3NF relational data (Tabular models). It uses the xVelocity (formerly named Vertipaq) engine to create these models. Microsoft provides multiple tools for adhoc analysis of data like PowerView, Powerpivot for Excel, Excel where users can create their own reports and also publish them to share with others. Analysis Services has capabilities to define KPIs in cubes which can be shown in dashboards for Performance management Microsoft supports offline analysis of cubes SSRS Report Server provides capability for hosting reports and related objects. The Report Server used a SQL Server database to store the reports, related objects and security details. Apart from these it also stores enterprise reporting repository is included within SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services where all the reporting objects can be stored SQL Server Business Intelligence is managed through a single, integrated console called SQL Server Management Studio. Full monitoring of SQL Server is enabled through Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM). Microsoft reporting objects can be stored in a secured place other than the native repository Microsoft Support cluster failover through Microsoft cluster services (MSCS) The Visual Studio Design/Development platform for all BI applications can support both online/offline back up

Report Scheduling

Does the tool support report scheduling features such as auto notification, auto print to server?

Report Bursting

How is the tool's support for report bursting? With report bursting a single report template can generate multiple physical reports.

OLAP

Cube Designer

How good is the tool's cube designer in terms of sophistication?

Dynamic Analysis

How is the support for dynamic analysis of a report output?

Performance Management

How does the tool support the tracking of performance management matrices and KPIs

Offline Analysis Administration

How good is the tool's support for offline analysis of cubes?

Centralized Repository

How is the support for storing various report objects in a centralized repository?

Monitoring

Does the tool support monitoring? This includes job monitoring and disk quota monitoring

Fileserver Storage

Does the tool support storing report objects at a location other than its repository?

Clustering & Scalability

How extensive is the tool's server clustering capability? Does the tool support failover mechanisms?

DR

Does the tool support hot/online backup of various report objects?

Mobility Browser-based mobile access to your corporate BI content is provided through Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Users can navigate existing reports, dashboards, scorecards, and analytical applications across iOS, Android, and Windows devices. Microsoft will be delivering touchbased data exploration and visualization capabilities in a browser on iOS, Android and Microsoft platforms in the second half of 2012. Not at this moment. But Microsoft will be delivering touch-based data exploration and visualization capabilities in a browser on iOS, Android and Microsoft platforms in the second half of 2012. Existing reports can be used. No redevelopment is required.

Will the tool support mobile access for reports, dashboards / analysis on Android & iOS Devices?

Are any add on solutios available to extend reports, dashboards / analysis to Android & iOS Devices?

Can existing code be resued/ redevelopment of reports and dashboards is required?

Business Objects(4.0) - EVALUATION MATRIX Evaluation Criteria

Overall Score Data Access How versatile is the product in terms of capability to connect to wide array of relational data sources like SQL Server, Oracle, MS-Access, DB2 on z/OS? How is the support for connecting to unstructured data sources like flat files? The ability to source data from multiple data sources from a single web document. Business Objects can connect most of Data Sources including relational databases, ERP products, XML, Flat files, It also supports sourcing of data from more than one data source at the same time.

Explanation Pros Cons

Criteria Explanation

Data Sources

Business Encapsulation

The creation of business or schematic layer which will encapsulate the Business users from understanding the technical naming or SQL knowledge.

Business Objects Universe encapsulates the technical aspects of Databases from the report users.

Metadata Layer

Does the tool support a common metadata layer?

Report Development

BO is integrated set of tools, not a unified architecture. XI Release 3 consists of multiple overlapping tools (with different interfaces and user paradigms); multiple different code bases, multiple separate metadatas and repositories. This multiplicity results in redundant setup and administration tasks. Business Objects provides versatile tools in terms of standard report development capabilities like charts, crosstabs,pagination, grouping, etc. BO has the capability to run custom SQL queries. BO doesn't support this feature BusinessObjects XI provides general DashBoard manager and Crystal Xcelsius for Dashboards and Scorecard capabilities. BO has capability to export reports to Excel spreadsheets BO XI supports complex design of reports, including sourcing data from more than one database or applications. The BO reports can combine text with graphics and images. BO supports the creation of report templates (Style Sheets) which can be reused in other reports. Business Objects provides extensive APIs for .Net and Java environment. BO supports this functionality Business Objects provides excellent support for these features. BusinessObjects XI provides a Web services API (Web services consumer and producer and provides samples for XBRL and RDL) and supports XML report Web services. BusinessObjects XI includes an out-of-the-box portal (Info View) that lets users manage content and offers integrated searching, discussion threads, and personalization capabilities within a single user interface. Info View is available for both Java and .NET platforms, and the solution provides portal integration kits for Java (including BEA, IBM, Oracle, and SAP) and .NET (Share Point). The portal integration kits are based on the Java portal standards JSR-168 and Microsoft Share Point Web

Authoring Tool

How versatile is the report authoring tool? Does the vendor provide both Desktop based and Web based authoring environment?

SQL Query generation

Can the auto-generated SQLs be modified? Does the tool support addition of report metadata inside the report? One scenario can be showing tooltips for every column inside the report to make it more intuitive.

Report Metadata

Dashboard Designer

How feature rich is the tool's dashboard designer?

Excel Features

Does the tool provide features to embed Excel formulae, charts, groups in the report? Does the tool support creating multi-tab Excel worksheets? How good is the report designer's support for developing complex reports like reports having conditional sections, reports showing tabular and chart data in a single page and pixel-perfect reporting? Ease of creation of templatized reports and style sheets. Creation of reuseable components that can be utilized in multiple reports. How extensive is the tool's SDK?

Design Complexity

Code Reuseability

SDK Ad-Hoc Reports Custom Query

How good is the tool's support for runtime modification of SQL? Ease at which the reports can be created on an Adhoc basis. How good is the tool's support for runtime selection of columns,grouping, ordering for a report?

Ease of Adhoc Reporting Integration

Open APIs

How is the support for APIs which can be used by J2EE or .NET applications? Can the reports be embedded inside the enterprise applications without the need to access a common BI Portal?

Portal Integration

Does the vendor provide Web services/APIs for easy portal integration?

Alerting Security

Does the vendor support alerting to 3rd party Ticketing systems? Role based security can be easily set up using Business objects, the securities can be set up at object level and folder level. At the Universe level the data level security can be set up to restrict access to unauthorized data BO tightly integrates with securoty frameworks of AD, LDAP, NT. It also has its own enterprise security model which can set up as peer requirements Single Sign On is a pretty simple proceudre to be set up with Business Objects Business Objects supports these formats. BusinessObjects XI supports report scheduling based on date/time and events. BO supports this functionality. Additionally, BusinessObjects Enterprise XI ships with portfolio an out-of-thebox solution for mobile users. Business Objects allows delivery of new or existing report components to wireless devices, including WML phones and RIM Blackberry and Compaq iPAQ devices. BusinessObjects XI components can access DB2 OLAP Server, Hyperion Essbase, Microsoft Analysis Services, and SAP BW using the native connectivity and query language ODBO via MDX. BusinessObjects XI can also access Oracle's multidimensional cubes (Analytic Workspaces) via SQL. Business Objects predictive analysis module embeds a data mining engine from KXEN (Knowledge Extraction Engines), which allows developers to define and schedule statistical calculations based on models, discover/profile influencers of key outcome metrics, compare influencer profiles for multiple goals, and integrate with data mining tools through PMML. BO has a Performance Management Module.

BO has very limited capability involving the integration of 3rd party Ticketing systems.

Role based Security

Will the tool support role based security of the users? The users of the tool should have access to the data they are authorized to view.

Security Integration

How well does the tool integrate with existing security framework such as LDAP/Active Directory? Does the vendor provide custom security framework?

Single Sign on (SSO) Report Dissemination Report Distribution formats

How easy is it to setup SSO with existing applications? How good is the vendor's support multiple report distribution formats such as DHTML,Word,Excel,PDF,Email,CSV,TSV? Does the tool support report scheduling features such as auto notification, auto print to server?

Report Scheduling

Report Bursting

How is the tool's support for report bursting? With report bursting a single report template can generate multiple physical reports.

OLAP

Cube Designer

How good is the tool's cube designer in terms of sophistication?

Dynamic Analysis

How is the support for dynamic analysis of a report output?

Performance Management Offline Analysis Administration

How does the tool support the tracking of performance management matrices and KPIs How good is the tool's support for offline analysis of cubes?

Using Business Objects Voyager this feature can be achieved

Centralized Repository

How is the support for storing various report objects in a centralized repository?

BusinessObjects XI contains a reporting repository called the central management store, which is accessible from within Crystal Reports XI. Business Objects Schedule Manager and other tools can be used to moniotr the report jobs The report objects such as .wid, .unv, .rpt files can be stored at any locations provided later the objects are stored pinting to the same metadata BusinessObjects XI supports load balancing, pooling, clustering, and caching of data with benchmark results that reflect near linear scalability BO does not support this feature

Monitoring

Does the tool support monitoring? This includes job monitoring and disk quota monitoring

Fileserver Storage

Does the tool support storing report objects at a location other than its repository?

Clustering & Scalability

How extesnsive is the tool's server clustering capability? Does the tool support failover mechanisms?

DR Mobility

Does the tool support hot/online backup of various report objects? Will the tool support mobile access for reports, dashboards / analysis on Android & iOS Devices? Are any add on solutios available to extend reports, dashboards / analysis to Android & iOS Devices? Can existing code be resued/ redevelopment of reports and dashboards is required?

Mobile portability feature is available None The existing code can be used to develop the reports / dashboards for mobile no redevelopment is required

MicroStrategy(9) - EVALUATION MATRIX Evaluation Criteria

Overall Score Data Access Microstrategy supports majority of databases, datawarehouse appliances on the market and even nonstructured data sources viz. Big Data,Hadoop etc. It also has connectivity to social media web viz. Facebook. MicroStrategy can connect to MS Excel as a data source, however flat files support is not present The objects visible to the users can be named in more user-friendly and simple language. These naming conventions are independent of the SQL generated by MicroStrategy. So what is displayed on the front end may be completely different from technical jargon below it. All Report components (objects), reports and Dashboards within a project are stored in a common Metadata repository.Apart from this, user configuration,database configurations,project configurations,database login details etc are stored within the metadata. The Metadata is highly encrypted and it is difficult to de-crypt.

Explanation

Criteria Explanation

Pros

Cons

Data Sources

How versatile is the product in terms of capability to connect to wide array of relational data sources like SQL Server, Oracle, MS-Access, DB2 on z/OS? How is the support for connecting to unstructured data sources like flat files? The ability to source data from multiple data sources from a single web document.

Business Encapsulation

The creation of business or schematic layer which will encapsulate the Business users from understanding the technical naming or SQL knowledge.

N/A

Metadata Layer

Does the tool support a common metadata layer?

Report Development MicroStrategy provides both Web-based and Desktop based report authoring tools. Web-Authoring tool requires Web-professional license while desktop authoring requires desktop developer license Auto-generated SQLs can be modified using VLDB settings and/or adjusting relationships between attributes and Fact tables. Free-form SQL reports allow developers to user user generated SQL into their reports MicroStrategy Dashboards and reports supports tool tip on the selected column. So a mouse-over a particular field or graph displays a tool-tip MicroStrategy Dynamic dashboards is one of the leading product in the dashboard Market.With the use of variety of dashboard widgets, the dashboards can be made more interactive and user friendly. Availability of driving from one graph to another adds to better user experience. MicroStrategy Office allows users to write their own formulaes within blank cell/columns of an excell sheet, so when the report is populated when refreshed, these formulaes are automatically applied.MicroStrategy Office can be integrated with MS Excel, MS Word, MS Outlook and MS PowerPoint. MicroStrategy Does support multi-tab Excel WorkSheets Complex reports can be implemented in MicroStrategy with ease. In order to display large amount of data on a single screen, MicroStrategy provides Panel Stacks and selectors to see data in different perspective. All objects in MicroStrategy once created can be re-used in other reports/dashboards in MicroStrategy. Attributes, Facts, Metrics, Filters, Prompts, reports and report templates, dashboard and dashboard templates can be reused in any number of reports and dashboards MicroStrategy provides SDK for 1. to change the look and feel of the product within Web browser This option is available in both JAVA and .NET environment. There are a set of APIs available to intergrate with third party portals viz. Sharepoint etc. 2. to add user defined calculations/functions within intelligence server This feature allows users to write thier own custom defined functions in C++, and generate the object code. This object code can be imported into Intelligence server and used for user consumption.

Authoring Tool

How versatile is the report authoring tool? Does the vendor provide both Desktop based and Web based authoring environment?

SQL Query generation

Can the auto-generated SQLs be modified?

Report Metadata

Does the tool support addition of report metadata inside the report? One scenario can be showing tool-tips for every column inside the report to make it more intuitive.

Dashboard Designer

How feature rich is the tool's dashboard designer?

Excel Features

Does the tool provide features to embed Excel formulae, charts, groups in the report? Does the tool support creating multi-tab Excel worksheets?

Design Complexity

How good is the report designer's support for developing complex reports like reports having conditional sections, reports showing tabular and chart data in a single page and pixel-perfect reporting?

Code Reusability

Ease of creation of templatized reports and style sheets. Creation of reusable components that can be utilized in multiple reports.

SDK

How extensive is the tool's SDK?

Ad-Hoc Reports Microstrategy provides support for these features using objects like filters,prompts particularly at runtime. View filter allows user to filter the data generated in a report on the fly. Report builder reports and self service reporting in microstrategy allows users to generate their own reports without dependancy on IT developers. This is a prowerful tool available on Microstrategy supports WSDL. It provides rich set of APIs for which the .Net and J2EE applications can use to embed reports MicroStrategy Web-Services can be integrated into portals using the Portal Integration Kit, which provides generic portlets that can be used with commercial portals like Oracle, IBM WebSphere Portal, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, and mySAP Enterprise Portals. MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server is the alerting and batch report delivery service for scheduling. Schedules can be alert- or event-driven. Information can be sent to email, mobile devices, fax, print, and file servers

Custom Query

How good is the tool's support for runtime modification of SQL?

Ease of Adhoc Reporting

Ease at which the reports can be created on an Adhoc basis. How good is the tool's support for runtime selection of columns,grouping, ordering for a report?

Integration How is the support for APIs which can be used by J2EE or .NET applications? Can the reports be embedded inside the enterprise applications without the need to access a common BI Portal?

Open APIs

Portal Integration

Does the vendor provide Web services/APIs for easy portal integration?

Alerting

Does the vendor support alerting to 3rd party Ticketing systems?

MicroStrategy does not support alerting to 3rd party applications

Security Security filters restrict data to a selected group of users. Users can also be refrained from accessing certains folders and objects(attributes,facts,metri cs,reports, dashboards etc) within microstrategy MicroStrategy provide LDAP integration. Users and their groups can be imported into MicroStrategy and appropriate security privileges can be applied at group level If microstrategy is integrated with external LDAP server, than the transition from other servers to MicroStrategy is seamless. This allows users to login once and access any portal available within the organization.SSO is supported by MicroStrategy Microstrategy supports all these formats. It also supports Flash (.mht) format export, delivery to mobile devices viz IPAD,Iphone,BlackBerry and Andriod smartphones MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server is the alerting and batch report delivery service for scheduling. Schedules can be alert- or event-driven. Information can be sent to email, mobile devices, fax, print, and file servers. With MicroStrategy 9i onwards, Distribution services can perform almost all tasks performed by narrowcast server, so there is no need for additional NarrowCast Server license A MicroStrategy report is run once and automatically sliced or personalized to the view of an end user based on security profile and preferences Personalized reporting in narrowcast also allows part of the report to be sent to a user group while another to a different user group

Role based Security

Will the tool support role based security of the users? The users of the tool should have access to the data they are authorized to view.

Security Integration

How well does the tool integrate with existing security framework such as LDAP/Active Directory? Does the vendor provide custom security framework?

Single Sign on (SSO)

How easy is it to setup SSO with existing applications?

Report Dissemination

Report Distribution formats

How good is the vendor's support multiple report distribution formats such as DHTML,Word,Excel,PDF,Email,CSV,TSV?

Report Scheduling

Does the tool support report scheduling features such as auto notification, auto print to server?

Report Bursting

How is the tool's support for report bursting? With report bursting a single report template can generate multiple physical reports.

OLAP Cube designing in MicroStrategy is like designing a grid report without any prompts. Once the design is completed and tested, the grid can be published as a cube for user consumption. This is very simple and sophosticated MicroStrategy technology lets users perform "speed-ofthought" report analysis and manipulate reports on-the-fly This featurs is supported in microstrategy MicroStrategy dashboards can be exported as Flash files and excell for users to perform analysis offline. MicroStrategy metadata is centralized repository of all microstrategy objects. This is loaded and unloaded from system RAM whenever the Iserver startup or shuts down. MicroStrategy Administrator provides a set of tools to monitor, manage, and automate the BI Infrastructure, including Enterprise Manager to monitor system usage, Object Manager to manage disparate and distributed environments for change management, versioning, and internationalization, and Command Manager to automate administration functions. MicroStrategy Intelligence Server also supports proprietary clustering algorithms, load balancing and hot failover, automatic self-tuning, parallel pipeline query execution, archiving, and scheduling. Output of a report can be delivered to another file location using distribution services. MicroStrategy support powerfull clustering mechanism between 2 or more I-servers using same Metadata repository. Failover mechanism is seamless. So in case of a failure runing jobs are automatically transferred to active servers within a cluster Repository is stored in the database. So if that database supports hot/online backup, than it is supported by MicroStrategy Complete offline analysis, wherein user modifies the data offline and loads it back to database is not available in microstrategy

Cube Designer

How good is the tool's cube designer in terms of sophistication?

Dynamic Analysis

How is the support for dynamic analysis of a report output?

Performance Management

How does the tool support the tracking of performance management matrices and KPIs

Offline Analysis

How good is the tool's support for offline analysis of cubes?

Administration

Centralized Repository

How is the support for storing various report objects in a centralized repository?

Monitoring

Does the tool support monitoring? This includes job monitoring and disk quota monitoring

Fileserver Storage

Does the tool support storing report objects at a location other than its repository?

Report objects cannot be stored anywhere outside microstrategy. They can be migrated to other server using object manager,project move wizard,project duplication and metadata copy

Clustering & Scalability

How extensive is the tool's server clustering capability? Does the tool support failover mechanisms?

DR

Does the tool support hot/online backup of various report objects?

Mobility MicroStrategy support mobile access of reports,dashboards,documen ts over Apple iOS devices viz IPAD,Iphone, RIM BlackBerry devices and almost all Andriod smart phones MicroStrategy SDK can be deployed for changing the look and feel of reports/dashboards on mobile devices. No Re-development of report is required to port them to any of the mobile devices. The dashboard that is visible in web is also visible in the mobile device

Will the tool support mobile access for reports, dashboards / analysis on Android & iOS Devices?

Are any add on solutios available to extend reports, dashboards / analysis to Android & iOS Devices?

Can existing code be resued/ redevelopment of reports and dashboards is required?