Knowage Reviews

• Reporting
• Email delivery
• Dashboard

It is mainly for reporting a variety of telecom traffic and revenue-related metrics to executives. It is also used to generate invoices (billing).

The product runs against a datamart for a telecom international gateway, delivering daily, weekly, and monthly traffic; usage; revenue expenses and profitability reports for the business, with scheduled delivery to specified executives. They also perform online queries for the same metrics as and when required.

I faced difficulties when using the email feature and documentation was scant. Each recipient had to be added separately in the schedule. Turning the document into PDF, passing parameters (daily, weekly, monthly), etc. The issues could be sorted out mainly but required consulting a variety of resources and reading the logs.

Another issue was connection pooling, which I know is not specifically Spago’s domain. The system ran out of database connections after a few weeks, after our staff used it to generate 50 or so invoices one by one, delivered blank reports and needed a restart to release connections.

I have used it for two years.

I did not avail myself of any technical support; I just used Google for support on various issues.

I did not previously use a different solution.

Initial setup was a learning curve because our executives collated multiple reports into a single report and needed email delivery.

Before choosing this product, we evaluated Microsoft SSRS.

As such, the product is available for free download and, based on open-source products, has the capability to be enhanced. However, it is not fair to expect to realise its potential merely utilizing in-house skills.

I would highly recommend organizations desiring to implement the product to invest in consultancy and training and support.

I am satisfied with the product in general given what the company invested in it, which was just our time.

Building reports and user cockpits/dashboards from data and a MySQL database. Later, it will implement the ad hoc reporting tools to improve the user experience.

It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost.

The concept of engines is quite powerful allowing the user to work with report authoring/provisioning tools of their choice.

Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there.

• Our customers really appreciate the self-service BI functionalities. For us, this is the most valuable feature. It allows them to work more autonomously without the need to engage us.
• For example, loading a spreadsheet and being able to make analysis inputs along with the data stored in a DWH without any external support in an easy and guided way.

SpagoBI helped us to move a lot of analysis activities from our company to the customer side. Moreover, we avoided extending other products we used in order to add BI functionalities.

Because it is an open source product, we were also able to adopt it in our project from the early stages for very simple tasks.

Speaking of a very complete suite, I think there is no area that can be considered fully mature. I think there is chance to improve the product in every direction.

• We are not happy with the poor graphic user interface. It looks a bit old and sometimes it is not properly user friendly. I think a global re-styling is a must.
• Speaking of a BI suite, I think this is an important point. The SpagoBI Studio, which is used by developers to create traditional reports and dashboards, is not fully mature. It is still missing a lot of functionalities.
• For example, the UI for building charts is not complete and does not allow you to do everything that you need to edit configuration files with a text editor.

I have been using SpagoBI suite since Version 3.6. Right now, I'm using Version 5.1.

I never had stability issues. The product has been designed using quite consolidated technologies.

I never had the chance to use it in very challenging contexts from a performance point of view. But I know it is designed to scale quite well in very demanding scenarios.

SpagoBI Labs, who provide consulting services and actively work to improve the product, can support customers in almost every kind of project.

People working there are very skilled and professional, so I would give the technical support a rating of 8/10.

We didn't use a previous solution. Since SpagoBI was originally created by my company, and we still support it, the choice was easy.

The initial setup can be quite straightforward, especially in a complex context where stability aspects are the key factors.

To start using SpagoBI in a productive way, I suggest that you ask for support.

SpagoBI suite is free/open source software and can't be identified with a specific vendor.

We created it and we actively support it. At the beginning of this year, we presented its successor http://www.knowage-suite.com.

The main advantages of adopting SpagoBI are:

• The possibility to have lots of features in one product
• A chance to save money using an open source solution.

The most valuable features to us are application implementation, development, and analysis.

It provides implementation of reports for SpagoBI dynamic and static applications.

Allows development according to client needs. We can implement admin/user-level auto-refresh for reports by pulling data from a database according to a specific format. We can also add code for end-to-end SpagoBI applications.

We can perform database analysis at the client level.

We can get live application status. E.g., machine status on/off at the front end. Also, quarter/half/yearly status of company marketing campaigns. E.g., forecasting and earlier income remedies.

SpagoBI could benefit from some improvements in development and analysis.
At the analysis level, we provide forecasting for clients/customers to compare with what was previously seen at the reporting level.

In development, we could do the same as analysis in coding level.

We had stability issues.

We had scalability issues related to team work.

I rate the level of technical support 10/10.

Initial setup was more complex due to team complexity.

I had input in the selection of this solution as I’m in a team leading position.

Should be usable in licensing because helps genuine output.

Before choosing, we did not evaluate other options. However, after choosing this product, I have seen other similar applications.

It is great. The application can provide more flexibility.

The Mobile Edition, which now they have stopped in the Community Edition.

It improves sales and products, which motivates employees.

Bring back the Mobile Edition in new releases.

Three years using SpagoBI v4.2, v5, v5.2 and Knowage.

Yes, using Mobile and Desktop Editions, we would sometimes need to restart the service.

Yes, using Mobile and Desktop Editions, we would sometimes need to restart the service.

• Being able to schedule necessary jobs needed for production jobs and programming run times

It was a free alternative at the time, but it could not handle the demands of our organization.

At the time the organization I worked for scheduled over a thousand jobs at any given time, and some were very complex. The demands of some jobs (IT special formatted) would slow Spago and lock the site, preventing any other job from processing. On the backend, one of the technicians would have to go in and kill the job that stopped, to resume functioning. There was no active visibility into processing as the dashboard was often behind, and confirmation emails would overlap, or wouldn’t generate.

I used it for 2.5 years.

There was an issue with the capacity at which it could process our jobs, and volume. We had a saying that, “Spago was down for the count,” or “Who broke Spago?”

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

Technical support was handled internally.

We changed systems altogether due to the volume and ease of the new product.

Integrated Data Visualization, GIS and Big Data Integration.

Since it was an full open source business model, it was easy to customized on general features

Many things need to be improved, most of all..robustness. the idea to combines many features in single point of view still became a stronger point. Keep improve in solution robustness and this solution could be one of the leaders

Six months

Yes, and most problematic when we deploy on manual deployment in Jboss or even Tomcat. Less documentation when more information needed.

Yes, when you deal with template creation in SpagoBI Studio, but it happened only when documentation was less and forum support was not so quick in response.

Yes, in terms of deployment in "real" application server when documentation was not so complete

Not so good, but since it was an open source and have no supporting deals, then it was a normal business case.

Not so good when relying much on forumsbut we have no supporting contract so, this is normal.

Yes I did, to try new and improved version of SpagoBI.

Yes in all-in-one deployment but tricky in application server for production

Individually implemented and self supported

In terms of ROI, much better than any other solution when it offer full fledged features in open source, planned to have direct contact with SpagoBI for better support.

Still have no firm opinion for now but will be shared after real contact and dealt with SpagoBI

Yes, I did

It is a good solution we plan to develop more, could be better if more features improved for robustness and stability.