David Menninger's Analyst Perspectives

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

Earlier this year 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 Yellowfin and 17 other vendors in seven categories: five relevant to the product – Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability – and two related to the vendor – 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.

Yellowfin is an independent vendor of BI based in Australia and operating globally. It was categorized as an Innovative Vendor, ranking seventh overall in this Value Index evaluation. Yellowfin was a Value Index Leader in Adaptability and performed its best in Manageability.

The Yellowfin product is available as a completely web-based offering either on-premises or through a partner as a cloud-based service. Yellowfin accesses data in place via relational databases, and includes a broad set of capabilities ranging from traditional reporting and dashboarding to interactive visualization to assisted insights using machine learning. The product provides good collaboration, communication and presentation capabilities, enabling users to act on the analyses they perform.

Yellowfin would perform better in Reliability with an option for in-memory analysis of data and more support for big data sources. More information about the business case, including helping prospects project costs and benefits, would help improve TCO/ROI. Predictive analytics and planning analyses with write-back would improve its Capability rating.

To maximize the value of analytics investments, organizations need business intelligence products that support the sharing of — and communication on — output from analytical processes. Facilitating communication and collaboration among those involved in the decision-making process leads to more informed and better decisions. The Yellowfin product provides a variety of collaborative capabilities, including sharing and emailing of analyses, wall posting and broadcasting, social recognition, annotations, instant messaging, assigning and tracking tasks, and alerting. Yellowfin’s Reliability ranking would improve with an option for in-memory analysis of data and more support for big data sources.

Embedded analytics can dramatically reduce or eliminate time-consuming data preparation and makes analyses easier to consume because there is no need to switch context between the business application and an analysis tool. Providing line-of-business personnel access to cross-functional analytics embedded in activities and processes makes operational decision-making more efficient and effective. Yellowfin provides developers capabilities for restyling, integrating and extending its product. The product can be completely rebranded. Developers can choose to use iFrames, JavaScript or Web services for integration. Yellowfin includes a plug-in framework for creating new user interface components, database connectors, analytical functions and data transformations. Yellowfin’s Capability score would improve with more financial and spatial functions, support for offline usage, and more widespread use of ML.

A mobile workforce seeking to conduct business in any location at any time expects mobile capabilities. Organizations are increasingly choosing analytics platforms that deliver analytics and BI on a variety of mobile devices including smartphones and tablets. Yellowfin Mobile is available as a native application for iOS and Android devices. The product provides good mobile navigation and interaction including a wide range of visualizations and some offline interactions. The Yellowfin mobile app also supports a full range of collaboration capabilities of the platform, which is rare among the products we evaluated. Yellowfin’s Capability score would improve with camera support, location awareness and better support of wearables.

This assessment was based on Yellowfin 9.4, which was available at end of December 2020. Since then, Yellowfin has released version 9.5 with additional features and capabilities. The product now supports new image formats including SVG, GIF and Adobe Photoshop Documents. It also provides notifications within the product, several filtering improvements and user experience enhancements to dashboard canvas operations. Yellowfin has also incorporated metadata caching to improve performance in modeling and data preparation activities. You can see the full list of enhancements here.

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

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