David Menninger's Analyst Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about Sisense drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

We published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Data 2021, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on analytics and business intelligence focusing on mobile, embedded and collaborative capabilities. Because each is a critical aspect of modern BI, we developed specific criteria to provide an in-depth look at features geared specifically to mobile, embedded and collaborative use.

In all of our Value Indexes, we utilize a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal and vendor selection process for analytics and business intelligence. We evaluated Sisense and 17 other vendors in seven categories: five relevant to the product experience – Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability – and two related to the customer experience – Total Cost of Ownership/Return on Investment and Vendor Validation. To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our Benchmark Research on Analytics and Business Intelligence. Sisense had an overall performance rating of 59.5% in the Value Index, with a 60.7% customer experience rating and a 59.2% product experience rating.

Sisense is an independent vendor of BI software. It was categorized as a Vendor with Merit, ranking 14th overall in this Value Index evaluation and performing its best in Manageability.

The Sisense product is available as an on-premises offering or a single-tenant cloud configuration. Sisense provides over 100 connectors to various databases and applications. Data can be loaded into in-memory ElastiCube models for maximum performance, or it can be accessed in place with live models. The product is designed to provide a complete end-to-end analytical platform. Sisense is very capable with respect to interactive visualization and presentation of information.

Sisense would perform better in Capability with more collaboration and predictive analytics capabilities. These additional capabilities would help customers implement and act on the decisions resulting from analyses. Support for a wider variety of roles beyond the analyst would improve Sisense’s rating for Usability. Sisense would perform better in Adaptability with better business process integration.

Most of today’s analytics and business intelligence products support some form of collaboration. Collaboration among a team is critical to interpreting the results of analyses, choosing a course of action and tracking the implementation of those actions. Sisense provides emailing and sharing analyses, mobile notifications, some integration with third-party collaboration tools, alerting, and personalization to support collaboration. Sisense would perform better in Capability with the ability to publish to presentations and briefing books, wall posting, social recognition, annotations, and assigning tasks and tracking them to completion.

When analytics are embedded in business processes and applications, analyses are easier to perform and more accessible to line-of-business personnel. The analyses are also easier to consume because there is no need to switch context between the business application and an analysis tool. Sisense supports JavaScript application programming interfaces, REST APIs and iFrames for embedding analytics in other applications. The REST API includes access to Sisense data models and metadata. Developers can also use JavaScript to create extensions to Sisense visualization capabilities. Sisense would perform better in Capability with support for incorporating real-time data sources, additional visualizations and more query capabilities.

Supporting a mobile workforce that conducts business in any location at any time requires analytics platforms that can deliver mobile access to analytics. Sisense Mobile is available as an iOS or Android application. It is also available as a “white label” version that you can brand with your organization’s identity. The product provides good interactivity and good integration with other content developed for Sisense. Support for Sisense Pulse provides alert and notification capabilities. Sisense would perform better in Capability with support for additional visualizations, more collaboration and support for wearables.

This assessment was based on Sisense’s analytics products available in December of 2020. Sisense recently announced its Q1 2021 release, introducing features such as new Sisense themes, a code-free customization enhancement, and enhanced live model connection parameters which enables multiple users to access to a live data model of the same schema structure in a data warehouse. The new release also enables Python code from Jupyter Notebooks to connect to services such as Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Comprehend and Amazon Translate to transform and augment data inside ElastiCube models. With the new code-free customization enhancement, individuals can dynamically update themes in embedded dashboards; create custom, integrated embedded analytics; and use a point-and-click experience to create and organize user interface customizations into a theme, which can then be assigned to groups.

Organizations should evaluate data and analytics requirements including collaborative, embedded and mobile capabilities to ensure existing solutions are meeting the organization’s needs. If existing solutions are not satisfying those requirements, organizations should consider whether Sisense can help meet those needs.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of analytics and BI software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here, and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.

Regards,

David Menninger