Dundas BI Software

Explore, analyze and get fast insights of your data in an easy and fast way using Dundas BI.

I've been working in Business Intelligence for quite a long time and in the beginning it was hard to explore data and show information in form of data visualizations for the end users. Since I discovered Dundas BI, this task turned to be much more simple and easy to achieve! Dundas Bi has an IDE for developing Dashboards, Reports and Scorecards that uses the last technologies in web applications developments which makes your life simplier. The smart drag and drop design tools, the rich set of data visualizations customizable to the lowermost detail, the style and themes feature, turns possible to create rich and interactive dashboards in a breeze! Dundas BI comes with an ETL (Export , Transform and Load) layer, where you can clean and prepare your data, this is done using a canvas where you can drag your tables from a data source, choose the columns you want, aggregate them, join with other tables, filter and a lot of interesting features regarding the ETL process. It connects to a lot of data sources: Oracle, Microsoft SqlServer, Excel files, ... It is a collaborative tool, with scheduled reports, based on a metric or not, you can even annotate data points, writing a comment on it in a way that others can see and respond to it! Every view can be exported to excel, pdf, image and even powerpoint. The management of the software is in the form all in one! every thing is done in the application, from user creation object permissions, overall configuration, project exporting/importing and management!

Pros

The drag and drop feature for creating views is a very productive feature. The ETL is also great, it's easy to use and, for more advanced users, it evens permits to write direct sql against tha data source you choose. Regarding performance it has two possibilities, you can cache in memory or in DBI data warehouse. The collaborative feature of this tool is a must to have feature, I specially like the data driven notification option that could alert you by email when a specific metric goes behind a threshold or state.

Cons

It needs to take a step further and aboard predicted analytics!

A steep learning curve, with great reward at the end of it.

Pros

Dundas is a conglomeration of expertly coded dashboard development tools and infrastructures. The thing I like most about Dundas is that they are very helpful, the gentleman assigned to me to educate me in the ways of Dundas, was one I will never forget to this day, he was calm, helpful, understanding and with his help I learned Dundas in no time.

I like the way Dundas structure's its Dashboard development, it starts with virtual tables, where the programmer can manually or automatically generate SQL queries, these queries are then used for the basis of adding statistical flavour to the Dashboard, the way this is done is very straight forward. Dundas has a steep unforgiving learning curve, but when you master the fundamentals, the sky really is the limit.

Also their support service is world class, the representatives will assist you in any way they can, they will help you understand what the issue you are facing is and provide a resolution. If they cant help you via email, they will 'WebEx' you, i.e skype call with 2 way screen control.

Everything in Dundas is customizable, charts, graphs and other statistical data can be glossed up and made to look as simple or as plush as the user envisions. You can add formulae, trend analysis and other key statistical methods are employed by Dundas.

They have charts for Finance, Risk analysis and other key statistical methodologies. All of these charts can be jazzed up with scripts so that you can Drill down and filter through the data you want in order to get the right Business Intelligence feel to your work.

Dundas supports the Data Cube, It supports Microsoft, Oracle, MySQL, EXCEL, it has export capabilities onto Excel, so those clients which prefer their data in Spreadsheets can manually export directly from the dashboard. Everything in Dundas is designed to give you the most professional feel possible at all times!

Cons

Dundas, for the good of it's users needs to publish more comprehensive educational equipment to train it's users, it is very hard to get to an expert level in Dundas without some help from your Friends in Dundas. I would love to see Dundas publish university style lectures, with step by step guides that show every aspect of the working sphere. With adequate educational material, one would be able to gain adept or even artisan status with the Tool on their own.

Dundas embodies data visulization

I think overall, I would not rule out Dundas, even with it's so called quirks. Dundas staff showed very much that they listen to users, even those that haven't purchased and have taken my criticisms to heart. Since we're not talking about a 2017 Toyota car or whatever, I feel it's important to note the constant evolution of any progressive software company. The complaints stated could be obsolete in a mere few weeks.

Pros

Dundas seems to really understand the need of handling big data and the tools needed to process these overwhelming mountains of 1's and 0's into actionable data. While working with the demo of Dundas I was able to create a very helpful tree-map that showed me the dissection of purchases comparatively from vendor to vendor to evaluate our performance or "loyalty" per vendor by item category and so on.

Cons

The U.I. of Dundas, while quite robust, seems to concern me in regards to the amount of boxes, checks, and clicks and long clicks I have to make to merely navigate my way through the program. I would rather see more keyboard shortcuts and less "Windows Vista" popups that slow my work. I felt like the settings I would implement would get lost. For instance, I would filter the vendors that weren't pertinent to my particular evaluation, then also the item categories that I wasn't interested in working with. Later on, when in the final building of the dashboard I wanted to add a checkbox filter to allow the end user to select individual item categories and be able to view 1 or all 20-30 at a time. Strangely, even though I filtered (or so I though) this data in the data cube level, I realized that the checkbox list populated with ALL the categories. This was quite frustrating. Also, I have yet to figure out how to go from an unfinished dashboard back to the data metrics screen where I built the KPI to start with. Unless i'm mistaken, it seems you have to go back to your saved metric set and then create a new dashboard after edits. Hopefully I'm wrong in my assessment of this but even so, the answer did not seem to be intuitive .

End to End Enterprise BI Solution

I used Dundas BI for almost the last two years, Dundas BI is Enterprise end to end solution where you can connect to your data through wide range of data sources available and the ability to add extra data sources through its open API, Dundas BI contain embedded ETL engine to transform the data and it allows for multiple data access options (Datawarehouse, In memory analysis and direct connection to data). by using Dundas BI you can build your dashboards, reports and scorecard with friendly interface and with rich library of visualization charts from bar and pie charts and ending with relationship chart and histogram chart. Also Dundas BI allow business users to do their self service analysis with referring back to IT people, I cannot forget their customer support, they have well trained team to support their customers from incidents and issues and service request like helping us in writing Java codes to do amazing things in the solution. The tools is completely open and it is build over JS and HTML5, this is so amazing since Dundas BI is fully supported on mobiles with all mobile features like pinch to zoom and others. As Dundas BI have full Java and .Net APIs then it is very easy to integrated Dundas and embedded it in other portals and it has out the box integration with SharePoint.

Pros

Flexible tool where you can do what ever you want, I beleive that 95% of use cases can be build in Dundas BI as quick-wins and the rest is possible through JS and HTML5.

Cons

I wish Dundas BI to have out the box integration with web-services as this will be helpful and currently not available but it can be done through programming,

Comprehensive BI = Dundas BI

Pros

Dundas BI is the most comprehensive BI platform available (trust me, we looked at BI products for almost a year before choosing DBI). Our three main criteria when selecting a BI platform for our clients were visualizations, reports and mobile. DBI covers all three criteria (with a codicil that will show up in the "What I like least" section) and the licensing costs are reasonable. Key features that are crazy cool: 1) DBI is data-source agnostic, 2) the scripting capability allows developers to do just about anything, 3) DBI is based on HTML5 technology (other well-known BI products are based on proprietary and/or outdated technology) and 4) the DBI support team (including the development team) provides excellent customer service.

For us, as a small software company, there is always the chance to second-guess the selection of a BI product. This was a critical decision for us as the BI software we deploy to our clients will directly impact the viability of our organization and our ability to stay relevant in the coming years. It is a testament to the DBI product and the Dundas team that the answer to the question "Did we select the right software?" is always a resounding "Yes".

Cons

The one knock on DBI is the lack of a mobile app. User experience is the number one factor for us when delivering products to our clients. Currently, mobile data is delivered via web pages. DBI would be greatly enhanced if the mobile experience was via a mobile app (even if the "app" was simply a wrapper the redirects users to the web page).

Great BI tool

We have chosen Dundas BI because of its flexibility and the ability to integrate with wide range of data sources, the open API platform that allows to do non-traditional integrations with our in-house systems. Dundas support team are always on time to solve any issues or to provide any suggestions and java scripts to help our issues.

Pros

Flexibility to do whatever you want, Open API and known scripting languages like HTML5 and JS where 99% of your word can be accomplished through drag and drop including preparing the connections to database, you can do all the task which usually have to be done through SQL language by using Dundas and only drag and drop like join, sort , filter, union, aggregation and more.

Cons

The tool doesn't support the 3D Charts even it is clear that 3D charts are not professional.

Dundas Developer for the last 3 years

Pros

1. Data Visualisation is what Dundas do, and do well at; as opposed to many BI vendors, who offer a broader range of functionality but end up being a jack of all trades, and a master of none.
2. It's a difficult balance for a product to be easy to use, as well as being flexible. It's subjective, but I feel that they have the balance right.
3. I can't speak highly enough about the support team.

Cons

1. Exports to Powerpoint, etc... are needed.
2. Ability to work off line, with everything nicely cached. I agree the benefit will diminish over the years, but other products, like Microstrategy, do. Senior managers like this.
3. A better way to add comments; something like Cognos.
4. More an issue with the previous Dundas product, and though rare, but we had a couple of cases where newer versions could often resolve one issue raised, but result in something else no longer working, which made us look a rather silly. With new versions, don't assume anything, and test thoroughly again.
5. Greater presence in Europe.

Flexibility in design,

I am developer and implementer of Dundas BI. I rememered how we choosed dundas from 10s of options for to many aspects like flexibility to do whatever you want , variety of data sources and the open API. Moreover, the price od dundas is reasonable comparing to the features that it provides and cheaper comparing to other products in the market. Later on, our requirements increased but dundas BI was flexible enought so we did all them. In dundas BI, think what to do rather than how to do it or if it is doable or not. One year later, dundas become the central portal for every department including Executives ,IT, sales, and marketing. By giving other departments small training on dundas bi, they started to build their reports and dashboards, our role was to prepare the connection to databases and the data cubes only. Dundas Support team are great and reply to any query withen same day. I liked their support because they are ready to help in building java scripts that solve or do my requests or to to provide solutions to issues which were sometimes related to OS or the database.

Pros

Flexibility in design, variety of charts and data sources, open API and the great dundas support

Cons

No 3D charts even it is clear to me that 3D is not professional but some people just like to see it.

Dundas BI - If you don't have it, get it...

We have been a partner with Dundas BI for almost two years, since the initial release of the product. We were searching for a BI offering to present to our clients and stumbled upon Dundas almost by accident. Good thing we did. In hindsight, choosing any product other than Dundas BI would have been the wrong choice. The architecture of Dundas BI uses HTML5, CSS and JavaScript - no legacy technology here. The product is can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud, includes multi-tenant functionality, includes out-of-the-box connectors to an array of data sources, allows for ETL in the application, gives developers granular control over most design elements, the dashboard features are almost limitless and the support team is outstanding.

Pros

Flexibility and functionality.

Cons

I'll never fully exploit the capabilities of the software - it's simply too massive.

Best functionalities in a BI tool that money can buy

I am working with Dundas BI since the day it was born (roughly 2014 begining) and I can say that I had only good experiences with it, as long as you know it very well.

Pros

- ease of use - really intuitive
- extremly open to external integration, like javascript D3 charts, tools like TinyMCE, picture uploaders etc.
- writeback option to send data to a database
- R and Python Integration
- big array of visualisations and also some interesting ones, like Sankey Driagram, Tree Node Map, Chord Diagram etc.

Cons

- big learning curve for developers
- not so self service BI orientated
- Dundas diferentiates a dashboard from a report or scorecars, so you have to learn how to do 3 things

Promising, good and high potential but not there yet

Dundas BI is a very good contender in the BI segment and has great potential. At the moment it is a tool for developers proficient with JavaScript and not recommended for end users. There are great potential with DBI. Unfortunately v4 got the wrong focus on non-essential upgrades thus put the bar high for version 5. To compete with Power BI, Tableau and QlikView DBI need much improvement on user-friendliness. If DBI can be really improved on administration and formatting and keeping the flexibility it will surpass most of it's competitors.

Pros

Relatively easy to get started and creating visualizations and dashboards. The scorecard, which is a kind of repeating panel is brilliant and undervalued. The report is a great addition which makes DBI an all-in-one BI tool. Dashboard layers and pop-ups enhances the experience. Data driven notification adds to a useful experience. ETL cube with data warehouse has powerful transformations and much capabilities. The open API with JavaScript makes it flexible beyond expectations.

Cons

Project and file and content management is amongst the worst in class! This need to be completely changed in v5! It's a frustrating experience to organize content. Auto save is okay, but need to be able to decide where. Check in /out is over-used and add frustration to developing dashboards. Poor cube management; need option to process multiple cubes and have incremential processing as option. Need an equation writer for those who is not proficient in JavaScript. Need more formulas for metric sets. Hidden metric sets in dashboards are a bad idea. Properties tab need complete re-organization.

Amazing Things You Wouldn’t Have Guessed About Dundas BI

Metric set color/base changes need to apply automatically to the same metric set where it used in dashboard instead of editing each dashboard and do changes manually. [Simple : if user did changes in one metric set level it needs to update all places wherever it used in dashboard currently it is not happening. In this case user need to edit each dashboard and apply the same changes at dashboard level ]

Pros

Many advantages/functions inside the Dundas BI . example Good Visulizations,Responsive dashboards (mobile friendly), User friendly and easy use for development of dashboards and many more.

Cons

Score cards ,Table & Reports are not responsive and after refreshing the parameterized URL its lost the base parameters (In general case if URL captured with parameter its should hold the parameters even user refresh the URL).

Huge bang for the buck

There are so many features to this software that we learn new tricks every time we work with it, but you don't have to learn everything to start providing value to your customers. We are well ahead of schedule at moving from our old visualizations to new Dashboard and reports in Dundas. A definite productivity booster for the costly Business Analytics group and BI in general.

Pros

We're moving from a SSIS, SSRS, Datazen and Excel, very manual process over to Dundas BI (DBI) and we are daily amazed at how much we can do so quickly in DBI. The ETL process is very quick so creating the data cubes isn't rocket science. Once created a cube can be used immediately to begin providing very high-quality visualization to customers, or super users in analytics-heavy departments can start creating their own visualization for their members. Setting up users is as easy as typing in their name and setting permissions is fairly intuitive, so it only takes a few minutes.

Cons

For developers there are several things that take a little while to wrap your head around. Retraining ourselves to simplify our queries will make our whole ETL process more maintainable in the future, but it is a paradigm shift that takes a little while.

New generation self-BI

Pros

Dundas BI is the flexible BI tool I've ever seen and quite easy to use for BI developers. For the end-users, It can be a bit confuse at the beginning. But when they learn to manage the functionality and abilities of Dundas BI they will probably really like it.
They can learn it quickly with free videos and once data model ready; end-users can start to build their own report without need any technical support cause you don't need to create scripts. You can easyly create your dashboards with drags and drops.
Dundas BI has also a great support team. They are always there for you. On the website you can easyly reach all the documention and examples.
Dundas BI makes the complex reporting system too simple for you like version management, multi-tanency.

Cons

The product is huge ability. You can create whatever you want(I saw an example like a developer was changing the lamps with a bar of Dundas). But to manage this ability you need to have a good Java Script knowladge which i don't like.

best of breed, open standards BI dashboarding environment

keep up the great work -- after a two months, in-depth technical review of about a dozen BI tools out there, including PowerBI, Spotfire, DOMO, MicroStrategy, Pyramid Analytics, Tableau, Looker, Qlik, + Open Source solutions -- for the aforementioned points, our company settled on DundasBI, as the "best of breed", most flexible, scalable, modern, fast, "future-proof" & cost-effective solution.

Pros

In no particular order:
1. Licensing options: a. concurrent, b. unlimited, c. perpetual (some vendors may offer just one or two)
2. Open Standards & API hooks for JavaScript, .Net, REST
3. "No pressure" Sales engagement.
4. Company is willing to go the extra mile to assist with POCs, onboarding, technology adoption.,
5. Clear documentation, FAQ's, Scripting Samples.
6. Forums to interact with community.
7. Modern, fast GUI, with rich set of components.
8. Frequent product updates.
9. Fast, responsive and knowledgeable support personnel.
10. Scalable architecture.

Cons

takes a bit getting used to, to ramp up on complex engineering/solutioning of needs (including scripting), for notice JavaScript/REST developers, however the company is willing and able to assist with these endeavors.

Dundas is the way to go!!!

Pros

The visualization is great! I think this is exactly what executives are looking. We looked at several other software that did the same thing but they weren't as visually awesome as Dundas. Dundas BI is much much easier and user friendly than the first version they had. I like this one very much... They have basically incorporated the SSRS, SSIS and SSAS in a nice neat package. The drag and drop features for Excel documents are great.

Cons

The mobile app functionality isn't what we thought it would be. It is a bit difficult to understand and get at first.

Currently I'm fighting adding maps to it(I don't be believe this is a Dundas issue), but it would've been cool if they had the US states in the default map along with "every other country in the world"

Data Visualization specialists

Overall it has been a great experience working with Dundas BI. We use Dundas to help our co workers be able to visually see how certain programs in our company are running, how much money is being spent and so on. Having this tool gave us the ability to do all of this. There is lots Dundas BI can and cannot do but has been progressing quickly releasing new versions of the software. Always including new features and letting users try new versions and give their feedback on how they like the new software compared to the old. Overall it is a very useful program, but for new users it may be complex to get used to.

Pros

What i like most about the software is the many different ways to be able to connect and visualize data. to be able to manipulate your data to be displayed how you want becomes very useful. if there is a way you want to visualize data, im sure dundas has a way of doing so. Their customer support is one of their top qualities, they typically respond within 24 hours and are very interested in a very helpful way.

Cons

the terminology can be pretty difficult sometimes to understand. Other than that, some of their features have minor glitches which im sure they are in the process in fixing as their customer support is tremendous.

Great tool for your BI toolbox

We have been using Dundas BI for over a year now and everyone loves it. The visuals look good,are very customizable and the data loads quickly. We utilize this tool embedded in SharePoint using a SharePoint WebPart, as well as in our custom apps utilizing an iFrame.

Pros

Quick time to market - drag and drop excel sheet for instant analysis, connect to SQL (including SSAS) easily for quick browsing of data. The tool can be customized to meet our needs.

Cons

No out of the box funnel chart - I really had to think about a con, I couldn't think of anything I don't like about Dunas BI

New life and light for the dark side of information

We are a privately held company with multiple locations using shared services for administration, accounting, HR, risk management, acquisitions and mergers. Our ERP uses IBM DB2, and Dundas letting us tap into a wealth of details that would otherwise be buried in thousand-page reports. Never before has the ability to profile previous periods and events had such speed and accuracy (our data goes back over 15 years). The access and sumarization of this data is revealing patterns and insight to the business processes. We've only just begun and are excited about our game-changing experiences!

Pros

The flexibility. A developer (license type) can do almost anything imaginable.

Cons

The flexibility. There's a lot of details to attend to, and the complexities can lead to misinformation if you don't continuously validate the visualizations of the data.

A fresh view of analytics with Dundas BI

Pros

Having used other dashboard and reporting softwares, Dundas brings a breath of freshness into the analytics domain. The rendering of graphs, charts and other visualization is very appealing to novice as well as experienced users. The fact that it is web based with the flexibility to connect to a raft of datasets makes it a strong contender.

Cons

As the resultant information that Dundas produces are viewed in different kinds of mediums, the responsive design architecture needs to a bit more intuitive and easy to design and develop. Similar to the sandbox view, there could be other predefined views targeting mobile and tablets.