Oracle OBIEE Reviews

The most valuable feature of Oracle Business Intelligence is the ability to drill down and show business value for your customers with the different subject areas they have implemented.

What's improved the functioning of the business is the single source of truth. Everybody pulls the same information from the same set of dashboards. We eliminated duplicate reporting, and we have a single data warehouse.

Some of the new products they have with the mobile version and Day by Day look extremely good. I would like their mobile version to incorporate HTML5, and also go through some accessibility testing, which would incorporate new web standard features.

The stability of the product has been very good. I've been very impressed with the product itself, considering all the users that we have online and being able to prepare the reports that they need.

We have not had to scale it.

Technical support overall has been as good as can be expected. We've had to open up some TARs or some tickets with them. Overall, they've been fine.

We previously used Excel, Microsoft Access and Discover. Everybody had their own report. They would save the open order report on 52 desktops of Microsoft Access. In 2006, we bought Oracle BI, eliminated all those different reports and were able to create a single source of truth. It changed their lives.

The initial setup of version 10.7 was fine, but when we upgraded from version 10 to 11, it was a whole new technology stack; it took extremely long. The nice thing about going from 11 to 12 is that it is the same technology framework, so it looks straightforward for an upgrade. The first upgrade took 15 months; this should take a week.

We also considered Hyperion and there was also Teradata.

We had Oracle E-Business Suite, so we just stayed with the same product suite. It ended up becoming a good bet because right now everything is BI, and mobile and data analytics. Back then, I didn't expect it to be that, but I picked a good horse.

When I’m looking at a vendor such as Oracle, it is important that they're providing new tools all the time, and that they also are very stable; you know they're going to be around. You also feel like they have an integrated solution, so that OBIEE works with the Oracle database, and then you also have Oracle front ends that are also calling Oracle BI reports. It's an integrated solution.

I've actually had to look at different divisions within my organization and try to sell this product. In some cases, I've actually had to go over and help set it up. It's important to look at form and function. Look at the features that they have today; they're looking for the same thing. The proof is in the pudding, by showing them the reports, showing them the functionalities, setting up new dashboards, setting up ad-hoc reports through Answers, and then scheduling those. I've had to do that, and they don't believe that it's that easy.

I have given this product a perfect rating because they're getting the integrated products within their E-Business suite. They have pre-built analytics. They also have a very developmental-friendly development suite with answers. A lot of it is self-service, where users can subscribe to products. They can also reorganize columns and do everything they need to do to make it friendly for themselves. Now with the new mobile tools, with Day by Day and Sunopsis, they make it even more powerful.

It's a generic BI tool and all of the BI features are good.

We use it as an enterprise BI tool. All of the reports are in one place; that's the main benefit.

In the next release, I would like to them to add or include data visualization and mobile, which right now is a separate product. If it were up to me, I would merge them together.

It has some shortcomings, but overall it's a good, stable product.

We've been using it for 6-7 years.

It is quite stable. We've never had any issues with it; overall, it is very good.

It is scalable. We have lots of users using it and we can easily expand it.

The quality of Oracle tech support depends: if you get a good person, it's very good; otherwise, it's very bad. It's one extreme or the other.

We've been using it for a long time, so it's not like we recently went to it; it's been a long time.

I did not set it up my myself; my guys did it. It was somewhere in between straightforward and complex; it was not that complex, but it was not straightforward either. We had to get an expert Oracle consultant to help us with it, but that went well.

We selected this because we got a good deal on OBI, Hyperion and other products as a package; that was one of the reasons we picked this. Of course, features-wise it checked out equally with other tools that we evaluated. Eventually, cost plays into it.

The features that we were looking for were data visualization; slice and dicing of data; analytics, if you will; mobility; ease of use; scalability, of course; and also, response time.

You can go with OBI if you are an Oracle shop. It's better than SQL Server products. There are other products that are better than OBI, also, but it's one of the top five products.

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

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

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

We have been using it for four years.

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

I would rate the scalability six out of ten.

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

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

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

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

It offers impressive functionality and it is an intuitive and beneficial tool. However, the pricing is quite high. I would rate it eight out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is for public reporting, creating a dashboard for our users so they can create their own reports. If they're using Tableau and other things, we give them a dashboard to use. It provides a structure or enterprise solution or framework, which gives you a free hand to create your own reports. We have some form of partnership with Oracle and I'm an ABB.

The ability for a user to create their own reports is one of the valuable features. The solution also allows you to manage your access roles, like permissions, directly from the port. There is also a separate enterprise manager where groups and other roles can be created and given access. Finally, if we have certain scripts, we can add chipping into that scheduling function as well as a dashboard and the like. In the newer version, there's a visual analyzer which is more Tableau driven and gives you a free hand. From a user perspective, it's an advantage and will provide us with an additional asset if we do upgrade. 

Implementation is a little cumbersome and requires expertise. From the support perspective, it seems that they are a level behind. Another, thing is if you're working in the 12.2.1.3 version, fields don't come with proper venues and proper testing is lacking. For an additional feature, I'd like to see data science and functions added.

I've been using this solution for five years. 

Most of the time the solution is stable but it depends on who is doing the set up configuration. A senior person will know how much memory is required, without that there might be problems. So lots of configuration files need to be optimized according to the usage. There may also be other parameters that need to be set up and if you are aware of this then the system will be stable. 

This is a scalable solution. 

Customer service is sometimes very good. At other times it's very, very dense and they ask for irrelevant information. It could definitely be improved. 

The initial setup was quite complex and I didn't do it in one go because when we deployed something, there were some problems that needed sorting out and that took around five to six hours. Deployment probably took close to six hours. The deployment was carried out internally. In my department we have over 300 users and the solution is used on a daily basis. 

This is an expensive solution and I think people tend to stop using this product as a result. Cost is a major factor in companies choosing other solutions. 

It's important to have an understanding of your requirements because if people are looking for visualization and realization, this is a very good solution that can work with thousands of users generally and can work on billions and billions of records. 

I rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

We implemented this solution for reporting purposes primarily. We got it for the client a few months back. This whole system is an EBS system. We used the solution to pull the data from the EDA source system and convert it. Once a data valid solution is developed, we model the data model using RCB, and then we create reports for the service contract module.

The solution helps businesses to make a very quick analysis and can help them make business decisions quickly.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the fact that hierarchies are centralized. 

The solution offers a condition-based analysis. For example, if the user wants to see two reports on the dashboard based on different categories or different attributes, but they want to see one report at a time, using the condition-based development, they can do so. 

From version 11G to 12C the solution has made a lot of improvements.

The solution is easy to use and very flexible.

In the 11G model, there are restricted visualizations, whereas in Oracle Analytics Cloud we have multiple different variations of visualization. If there was a way of presenting the data in a pictorial way, it would be very helpful. Right now, the solution, at least in that deployment model, is lacking a number of visualizations.

The solution needs to be easier to scale.

I've been using the solution for almost seven years at this point. The company itself may have used it for about 15 to 20 years now.

I haven't had much chance to really test the stability, however, I don't recall any instances of trouble.

Scalability is not that easy. We need to apply a batch. It would definitely take time to execute and to check all the reports or development work once the batch applied.

We've used technical support in the past and have been quite satisfied with their level of service. Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten. Occasionally, we would have issues that remained unanswered, however, it's rare.

The initial setup is not straightforward. It is complex. Oracle introduced another product called Oracle Analytics Cloud, and in that case, the installation of the product is very easy. Comparatively, this product's installation is difficult. It takes time and needs mission instants.

We set up the solution in-house. We didn't need to hire an integrator or consultant.

I'm not sure what the solution costs. I'm not involved with aspects of billing or contract negotiations. I don't know if we pay on a monthly or yearly basis.

I don't recall evaluating other options.

I'm not the latest version of the solution, however, I do have information on the latest one as well. I'm using the 11G version. The latest one is 12C. I worked on it two years ago.

Our company loves the benefits of this solution and has used it for a long time. Even with new products on the market, they continue to use the product.

I'd advise companies considering using the solution to make sure they explore the product quite a bit before fully implementing it.

Overall, I'd rate the solution at eight out of ten. Each version continues to get better and better. I would definitely give 10 out of 10 for OASC, for example, which was recently launched, due to the fact that it is fully on the cloud.

We mainly use it for reporting purposes, i.e., generating reports especially for the business. We use it for the business data analysis and metrics purposes as well. For this, we have been using OBIEE for quite a long time.

It is beneficial for us because most of our reports are on OBIEE. It's not only for data analysis. We use it for corporate year-end financial purposes as well. We use it for the backlog management, for example, to check how much is the backlog or how much is the shipment amount and for similar kind of data. We are using OBIEE for such purposes.

We are into the Oracle Supply Chain which involves the process from auto-booking to shipment. They bring the data from Oracle apps to Oracle Arch Work. There is a middle layer which is called ODS. From ODS, they put the data in the OBIEE product. From there, the IT teams create all the attributes, we bag them there and in this way, we can generate our own reports. That is how we have been using this product.

It is useful for us especially for the quarter-end data analysis or to improve any metrics; in this way, we use OBIEE for data analysis purpose.

Some of the additional features required are that it should be more user-friendly. Sometimes, when we use the drag-and-drop feature it does not drag the object and needs to be user-friendly. It's not available today.

If it would be more flexible, that would be helpful.

It's stable. The data is 100% accurate. In regards to stability, it's good. Only sometimes, maintenance is an issue, otherwise the performance is OK.

The scalability is good because it depends on how you upgrade your OBIEE.

We have a lot of companies such as Windows and we chose the best IT teams. They have good architecture and we will do the screening and get the best to resolve the issues.

We were previously using some other software from a different company but we weren't able to find all the data. We were looking for PL/SQL data and this product was able to be get us a lot of data. We need a lot of data for hypnotics purpose, for this reason we chose the Oracle product.

The most important criteria while choosing a vendor would be that they should improve the performance and the product should be user-friendly. Most of the times, we want to use less data and the data should be improved.

The setup was OK and it was not that complex. It was quite straightforward.

We are always looking for the best features that are available. Already, Oracle has advanced technology, which is the reason that we have chosen OBIEE compared to other products.

You should shop around but for me this is the best solution. As per the cost factor as well, it is a cost-effective product.

The attributes should be more user-friendly, other than that the other features of this product such as performance, reporting structure and architecture are good.

Just as any business intelligence tool, the top five core expectations of any BI tool is to be able to:

1. Build adhoc reports (drag & drop) - for data discovery/exploration as well as to drive insight
2. Schedule set cadence reports - to avoid manual running of the report as well as including a broader audience to share with to further avoid any manual bottleneck processes, if this feature were not available
3. Visualization and Dashboards - basic & advanced (OBIEE offers both) - adhoc reports/data is great when one has enough time at hand to build great charts. What if the effort can be done just once and used many times? OBIEE out-of-the-box has a great selection of visualization choices, and others can be greatly customized with the right technical expertise
4. Offline data availability - OBIEE Briefing Book offers the data to be available even offline, and when connection is available can easily update to get the latest information; as suppose to the alternative of downloading PDF before going offline, and re-downloading when data refreshes
5. Customization - I simply cannot think of anything in OBIEE that cannot be customized, not to mention that APIs can also be built on-top for easy data communication with other tools

Taking top five features in mind:

1. Build adhoc reports (drag & drop) - our team and stakeholders build analysis everyday to find different ways to slice and dice the data to better analyze the business and produce actionable insight
2. Schedule set cadence reports - very heavily used feature across organization
3. Visualization and Dashboards (basic & advanced OBIEE offers both) - even executive dashboards are built using OBIEE given the flexibility of the tool
4. Offline data availability - used while traveling with peace of mind without having to worry about internet connection to stay connected with the data
5. Customization - we customized the tool to standardize to the corporate color pallet and to stay consistent.

Overall OBIEE is a great tool; however, the architecture of implementation for IT folks, and ease of use for a not-too-technical audience has room for improvement.

I have used OBIEE for the past five years.

Stability of OBIEE is very dependent on, and varies on, the hardware and Operating Systems of every organization. From experience, I have noticed OBIEE running on Linux has very few stability issues when compared to Windows.

The issue comes down to the learning curve of the product, and knowing exactly what to do as suppose to trial and error. Overall, OBIEE can scale with no issues.

It's great.

Overall, it's good as it can be improved.

My organization has been using OBIEE for the duration I have been employed.

The overall architecture of getting OBIEE up and running is complex and the sequence must be followed very attentively.

It was implemented in house.

I am sure the team has evaluated other products; and as a matter of fact, I am re-evaluating BI products as we speak, and OBIEE is one of the options on the table.

Be sure to know exactly what to do before doing anything, to save cycle time. And/or seek expertise in the field who have done it before and know the ins and outs of the product.