MS SharePoint / SQL vs. Zendesk Explore

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
MS SharePoint / SQL
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
MS SharePoint / SQL refers to Microsoft Sharepoint, a web-based collaborative platform, being used in tandem with Microsoft SQL Server to provide business intelligence analytics and reporting. They can provide BI content such as data connections, reports, scorecards, dashboards, and more.N/A
Zendesk Explore
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk offers Explore, a business intelligence and customer analytics tool which integrates with the Zendesk suite featuring ticket analytics, custom fields, dashboards, and other features. Zendesk is migrating customers of the BIME analytics product, which is approaching end of support, to Zendesk Explore in 2019.N/A
Pricing
MS SharePoint / SQLZendesk Explore
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MS SharePoint / SQLZendesk Explore
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
MS SharePoint / SQLZendesk Explore
Features
MS SharePoint / SQLZendesk Explore
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
MS SharePoint / SQL
7.7
Ratings
6% below category average
Zendesk Explore
9.0
Ratings
10% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.70 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Customizable dashboards7.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.30 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.2
Ratings
2% above category average
Zendesk Explore
8.3
Ratings
3% above category average
Drill-down analysis7.80 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.00 Ratings4.80 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.60 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.9
Ratings
7% above category average
Zendesk Explore
8.4
Ratings
1% above category average
Publish to Web8.70 Ratings6.90 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers9.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.6
Ratings
8% above category average
Zendesk Explore
7.1
Ratings
12% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.70 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Predictive Analytics9.30 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining8.40 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.2
Ratings
3% below category average
Zendesk Explore
9.1
Ratings
7% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)7.90 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.10 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.20 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.80 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.4
Ratings
18% above category average
Zendesk Explore
7.8
Ratings
1% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access9.40 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Mobile Application9.40 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.8
Ratings
12% above category average
Zendesk Explore
5.9
Ratings
28% below category average
REST API9.30 Ratings5.40 Ratings
Javascript API9.30 Ratings5.90 Ratings
iFrames9.00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Java API9.00 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)8.00 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
MS SharePoint / SQLZendesk Explore
Small Businesses
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQLZendesk Explore
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
MS SharePoint / SQLZendesk Explore
Likelihood to Recommend
As I mentioned in my previous answers, MS SharePoint is very useful as a shared drive for the organization and is very easy to manage. It also helps us import data from SharePoint directly into PowerBI for creating reports. According to my understanding, only share link features should be improved.
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Compared to other analytics functions of other Ticket Management System, Zendesk Explore is the easiest to learn. Moreover, the learning curve is high. Once you pick up the fundamentals, you will be able to create all types of analytic reports. In addition, if you know basic coding or SQL, you can create your own metrics and attributes to capture extremely specific elements such as the tickets that contain a certain word or etc.
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Pros
  • Flexible - able to make any changes we would like vs traditional service desk system.
  • ROI - We were already using SharePoint for internal intranet, so we are simply getting more use out of licensing we had already committed to.
  • Easy to use for end users.
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  • As with most "suite" products, if you already use other Zendesk features (Chat, Talk, etc), then Zendesk Explore adds an extra facet to the customer experience. The more we know about our clientele, the better we can understand/anticipate their needs.
  • I like that we can get as in-depth as we feel is necessary. For example, is just one customer having an issue? Or are many experiencing a similar problem? We can better rack this type of trend using Explore.
  • Our team can dive deep into the data based on exactly what we're looking for. If the marketing team wants a certain kind of segment, we can give them that info. If we want to sort by date or another set of parameters, we can do that as well.
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Cons
  • It is hard to setup and nightmare
  • It requires a of infrastructure, thus it could be costly because of requirement and licensing required for everything to run smoothly
  • If it is not setup and organized properly from the beginning it could be maintenance nightmare
  • It is hard to have "test" environment to do patches or similar
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  • More detailed pieces of training on where to find datasets/queries.
  • Have demo reports to do live trainings; instead of watching videos.
  • Have a key as to what all of the datasets mean.
  • Have a pop-up that analyzes the data "looks like your csat dropped this week!" etc...
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Likelihood to Renew
This was a long-term buy-in from a corporate perspective, to remain in the SharePoint space. Migration is certainly possible, which is good for planning and having options further out. At this point, the only planned migration is to eventually move the architecture up to SharePoint/SQL 2013. At that point, we will be able to leverage some greater efficiencies, some enhanced content design and management features, and some more current social features. It is well worth a full consideration in any shop looking at a new implementation of or migration to SharePoint (although you will probably be considering 2013 versions or beyond in those discussions), but the platform should be a strong competitor to any alternatives. Realizing the capability of a fully-branded and customized website was not part of the original choice for the architecture at Lincoln, but seeing it implemented and functioning now with this capacity far beyond original expectations has certainly cemented plans to continue using it.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
I gave this rating due to MS SharePoint being a big help with our userbase. We have a lot of users that are just old enough to not have much technical skills or they have been in this industry long enough to where they haven't really needed to utilize much technology. MS SharePoint helped us move beyond that barrier without too many bumps and bruises.
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I rate Zendesk Explore 8 out of 10 for it's overall usability because it offers powerful reporting and analytics with an easy to navigate interface and intuitive dashboards. It helps improve customer satisfaction by providing valuable insights into ticket handling, agent performance and customer satisfaction. Though the complex query builder can be challenging for non technical users.
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Support Rating
I've only had to call in to support on one occasion but they were able to work though our issue and find a solution that did fully resolve the issue in a timely manner. I can't always say the same about support from other companies so it was a refreshing change to have support that did help.
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Zendesk Community is extremely useful for Zendesk Explore beginners. The live support provided by Zendesk will also help a lot. If you don't know anything you can ask live support right away. However, one drawback of Zendesk Community and Support is the creation of complex reports on Zendesk Explore. Zendesk Community and Support cannot really help you much if you are trying to build a complex report as they are not a complete expert on it as well.
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Implementation Rating
Mo major insight regarding the implementation if very well documented for standard products.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
At the time of the two large projects, SharePoint was the enterprise solution so we were required to use that. We have since lobbied the enterprise teams to review and consider Atlassian Confluence and were successful. Confluence is cheaper than Sharepoint which is why we wanted to bring that in. The enterprise has now made Confluence an enterprise solution as an alternative to SharePoint. After using both I think SharePoint has many more add-ins than Confluence. It has much more customization ability than Confluence. SharePoint is not good for mobile readiness. Confluence is so there is a difference that might lead you to Confluence over SharePoint. I would also say that SharePoint is very document-centric and that Confluence has better KM than SharePoint does. even with the use of SQL Server. We were told that we could not use Google Drive even though it had features we liked.
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Zendesk Explore stands out against Freshchat and Freshdesk for it's deeper analytics capabilities and seamless integration with Zendesk ecosystem. While Freshdesk offers reporting, it lacks on the same level of granular insights and customization that Zendesk Explore provides. Compared to Freshchat which focuses more on live chat and conversational analytics Zendesk Explore excels in historical trend analysis and comprehensive dashboarding. We choose Zendesk Explore for it's robust reporting and drill down capabilities.
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Return on Investment
  • ROI for ms SharePoint/SQL considering that is the best database engine with excellent features that help you to have all information in your hand.
  • Something negative could be license format.
  • These are the best relational databases in the market with powerful features that complement your system.
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  • Positive impact of around 5 hours/week in Dashboard building and visualization
  • 10 hours from Product to review dashboards and find potential patterns
  • Enabler to find opportunities based on agents´ occupancy rates
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ScreenShots