on 06-24-2008 10:37 AM
One of the project requires comparison between WEBI and Dashboard.
So they wants us to list out the pros and cons of both Webi and Dashboard manager. I am giving few points and need more information from you.
Please remember the following requirements / constraints while listing out Pros and Cons.
Points to note:
1. User wants to print the report / dashboard
2. All 28 major metrics (each of these 28 metrics has details). For example. Headcount is one metric and that has details of country, location, department, division, employee, leaves etc) and all these 28 major metrics to be shown in max 6 pages.
3. Apart from the database (SQL Server 2000), Excel sheets will also be used to input data for these metrics.
Here is a sample
Webi Pros
Printing possible
Drill down possible
Hyper linking for reports possible
More resource available
Webi Cons
No widgets like (traffic lights, Speedo etc
Dashboard Manager Pros
More widgets (speedo etc)
Dashboard Manager Cons
Printing not possible
Your comparison should be based on various Parameters.
Scalability
Security
Backup and recovery
Presentation
Ease of use
Ease of Development
Ease of maintenance
Web Intelligence Vs Dashboard Manager
The Web Intelligence and Dashboard manager are both from the Business Objects Suite with different levels of analysis or reporting. Comparing WEBI and Dashboard manager is just synonymous to a comparison between a report and dashboard. It all depends on the end user requirement. If the end user is particular about any specific segment like Finance or Marketing then a dashboard is apt. But if an end user needs to develop adhoc reports for all segments by limiting their access to data then WEBI is more powerful. Letu2019s discuss it further.
Web Intelligence Overview
Is used to develop both canned and adhoc reports and export them either as Adobe pdf format or MS Excel or as csv file (printable friendly formats). The report generated is either a chart or crosstab etc but WEBI cannot leverage speedometers or gauges. The WEBI adhoc reports are interactive either in drill or slice & dice but they cannot indicate the performance in comparison to the set goals.
The alerting system in WEBI delivers the complete report or the success or failure of the report but it does not deliver the action or attention we need to take. Web Intelligence can generate reports based on the Universe, a semantic layer which is made on top of the DW existing in RDBMS like Oracle, MS SQL Server etc.
Dashboard Manager Overview
It is used to track KPIu2019s (metrics) in their compliance with the set goals. Speedometer, Gauge, Interactive Metric Trends or Sliders are available and What If analysis can be accomplished successfully.
BusinessObjects Dashboard Manager also includes integrated alerting, allowing users to be notified of business issues via dashboards, email, and pagers. This allows metrics to be tracked around the clock, and allows problems to be identified and acted upon as soon as they arise.
With Dashboard Manager Customers can start building basic dashboards and alerting, and over time increase the analytic depth by adding segmentation, prediction, and statistical analysis from the other products in the Application Foundation framework like Set Analysis, Predictive Analysis etc.
Installation & Licensing
Web Intelligence Dashboard Manager
Web Intelligence is part and parcel of BOE, so no need to purchase separate license and hence economical Performance manager (dashboard manager) requires its own license that is to be purchased separately
WEBI can be deployed on both IIS and Tomcat as a WEB server Dashboard Manager can be deployed only on Tomcat server
Scalability and Security
Web Intelligence Dashboard Manager
If there are categories of reports, i.e. if different users have to access a set of different reports then WEBI is more powerful in providing security and scalable If the requirement is segment or department specific and the end report should represent only overall performance then Dashboard manager is more suitable
Back Up & Recovery
The Business Objects Enterprise provides a similar robust platform of backup and recovery for both WEBI and Dashboard Manager.
Delivery or Alert System
Web Intelligence Dashboard Manager
The Web Intelligence is much useful in scheduling and delivering reports to end users based on preset access level. The reports are either sent to the inbox of the user on BOE or emailed to their personal accounts Dashboard manager more are less is used to deliver alerts on the actions to be performed or warned about the performance rather than getting the full detailed report
Moreover the scheduling option improves performance Scheduling for dashboards is somewhat vague as dashboards need to track the business at all times.
The Web Intelligence provides all the features that Dashboard manager does and in addition the reports generated are more printable friendly and having a hard copy of these reports is more meaningful. Dashboard Manager is best suitable when Information Delivery is via Electronic media either by email etc, because the formats in which they can be saved are Flash or AVG or HTML. While the first two provides more interactive ways to deal with data, HTML lags a bit. Moreover getting a hardcopy of dashboard is meaningless as the interactive ability cannot be captured.
Ease of Use, Ease of development, Ease of Maintenance all these are again dependent on the user requirements and the Skill level of the developers.
Final Analysis
WEBI is more suitable to requirements where printing is essential and security and scalability are of priority as the formats to which it can be exported, the schedule options, drill down and slice & Dice capabilities all support this type of requirement
On the other hand, Dashboard manager is more suitable to requirements where there is a need of continuous monitoring of key performance indicators and the end users need highly business metrics in accordance with their set goals.
Many times, Web Intelligence is a better tool when compared to Dashboards.
Add on:
Xcelsius 2008 with its dashboard capabilities is much better tool then Dashboard Manager. It is closely integrated with BOE and is capable to work with the Metadata layer of BOE.
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