Chartio (discontinued) vs. SAS Visual Analytics

This product is well suited for end users that don't want to get too in depth with reporting. The interface is simple and the default filter options are sufficient for a general report.
Example: Total Sum of Net Sales for all products sold in X State between dates X and X. If the need is for a more complex query, then there is the Custom Query option. This would be something that an administrator would have to police as having users writing their own queries could get really messy really fast.
I suppose the key questions to ask would be:
Do you need a product that will... display all relevant charts/reports in one consistent place? ... be simple for an end user to navigate? ...be web-based and remotely accessed?

SAS Business Intelligence is more suited to organizations which are already using SAS as the primary software for their analytics needs. Learning curve is relatively shorter for teams already skilled in BASE SAS. For organizations already working with open source software like Julia and Python, it doesn't make much sense to use SAS BI.

Incentivized

• Constantly updating: many of the BI tools we looked at were slow to iterate on their product. This was a main selling point for us.
• Ease of Use: We have many users that are new to BIs tools and database management in general. BI software as a whole has a pretty steep learning curve for most people, but Chartio does a good job of making things easier all around.
• Database Support: It seems as though every department insists on storing their information using different databases. Chartio had support for everyone one we needed which was very helpful.

Incentivized

• SAS BI makes it very easy to create interactive dashboards even for someone who is not from an IT background. For some specific requirements, basic knowledge of SQL is good enough.
• A lot of functions have been predefined which makes it very convenient to create dashboards and reports. One doesn't need to be from an IT or a programming background to understand and create dashboards.
• It supports other programming languages like R and also has a seamless API integration with various data management platforms.

Incentivized

• The sharing is descent but is a bit lacking. You can embed charts but they're not as nice as when displayed on Chartio dashboards.
• The pricing model is very competitive, but just to offer embedding puts you in a very high tier.
• They need a better pricing model for adding users. User licensing is a bit expensive.

Incentivized

• Business Objects should provide a more consistent mobile/desktop interface so operation between the two is seamless
• Business Objects needs to make it easier to query across disparate data sets such as Oracle to SQL to Mongo DB
• Our installation of Business Objects does not natively allow the export of XLSX documents, only XLS

Incentivized

It has become a core part of the business in terms of identifying the health of our network. If we grow and there are certain things that might not fit well with Chartio (e.g. we'd want to store snapshots of every single day's dash instead of seeing realtime data), it might make sense to move some of the data analysis tool in-house if resources are available.

There is no other product that can match SAS. There are some products that can compare to ETL but lack the analytics that SAS has. Others can perform a limited set of analytical procedures but lack the data processing that comes with SAS. Using thin client allows users to access data whenever they have an internet connection.

I really like using Chartio. I use it on a daily basis for pulling data from different sources and combining data (the explore tab was a great idea for this use). I think I would give it 8/10 because there needs to be more documentation or maybe blog posts about things people are doing with it. I only have my own ideas about what to do /how to graph things. I know there are some articles, but it would be awesome to have a section on the neat dashboards people are building or how they show data in different ways. Another complaint is how much time it takes to load. I know our databases aren't set up precisely for Chartio and I have been creating data stores. But the data stores have so many more limitations that adds a whole new layer of frustration. Love the product, keep up the good work and the fast fixes.

SAS BI is good for creating reports and dashboards and then sharing it with the users. It also has ability to manage access to the reports and dashboards but somehow with most of the world moving to open source languages R, Python and Julia, SAS BI feels to be archaic in terms of feature set and integrations it allow[s]. Also, comparing it with other Business Intelligence tools like Tableau and Microsoft BI, the functionality of SAS BI is very limited and doesn't justify the pricing.

Incentivized

When you call tech support, you are immediately routed to a person who can answer your question. Often they can answer on the spot. However, if they cannot, you are given a track number and then followed up with. There have been times when I have had multiple track numbers open and they will actually TRACK YOU DOWN to ensure that your problem has been resolved. Issues do not fall into black holes with SAS. They are also willing to do a WebEx with you to diagnose the problem by seeing your environment, which is always helpful.

I use self learning materials. Pretty helpful. I find myself having to go back to the "drilldown" instructions though, and have a hard time finding hidden variables on a dashboard, so perhaps there is room for intuitive improvements (or maybe I'm just being lazy)

Again, Chartio provides the best multi-user presentation ability for us. Other tools are great for slicing and dicing the data, but at the end, you still have to spend time trying to find a way to present it. Chartio has that built in.

I have chosen SAS Visual Analytics because one of my colleagues suggests using the software for the same for our work. As earlier, we use to take a lot of time in analyzing the data but after using the SAS Visual Analytics software our work has improved and time has decreased. It's very helpful for us.

Incentivized

Chartio has worked well as our datawarehouse has rapidly expanded, and the usability/performance hasn't seemed to have suffered. What we haven't yet realized is additional savings from additional users. We have some dashboard needs for users who truly just view of a few charts, and the licensing structure hasn't yet been structured in a way that would support that type of approach...having 50 "core" licenses, and then potentially several hundred view only licenses for partners that would use the application infrequently.

• SAS Visual Analytics licensing cost should be reduced to enable users to use it in mass scale.
• More statistical and mathematical equations and theories should be converted into SAS functions for reusing.
• Because of enriched ETL and reporting capabilities SAS Visual Analytics is most preferred by business users.

Incentivized