Oracle OBIEE Reviews

What I like about OBIEE is the kind of interface we have at OBIEE gives us all the financial reporting, all the operational reporting, as well as the delivery reporting. All of these reporting modules are quite good at OBIEE, and they actually help us.

It's quite faster, the way it is integrated with the whole Oracle ecosystem. Speed is one of the key issues. You don't like clicking on something and just waiting for even a few minutes. It becomes a pain; so performance is the key when it comes to using OBIEE.

I just saw somewhere, OBIEE on cloud: that could be the good thing. Right now, what we have is OBIEE on premise. Certainly, I cannot currently check the reports on my mobile. But that could be one advantage OBIEE would have on cloud, once they move.

Certainly the look and feel of the user interface is something should be improved further.

I have been using it for three years.

I've been using it for the last three years, and we never faced any such issues.

It is certainly scalable. Obviously, I can't predict how it will respond to millions of users working, but certainly a few thousand. We have added, subtracted, and soon, and it works perfectly.

We get quite good support if we enter a service request, and so forth. It's good.

Obviously, I can't answer that because, as an end user, setup is more a matter of configuring parameters, like, if I need to generate certain reports on basis of certain dimensions, for different quarters, and so forth. Apart from that, as an end user, I don't customize or configure the application.

Obviously, I would prefer a product which was integrated with the whole Oracle ecosystem. If you are already using an Oracle ecosystem without some database, an ERP solution ,or integrations and so forth, OBIEE is a natural choice in that case. Obviously, there some advantages with the ecosystem, and it works perfectly fine for us.

• Ad hoc analysis
• Dashboarding
• Dimensional modeling (Administration tool)
• Security and permissions

For me as a consultant, these are the most valuable features of the product. By using the Analytics feature, users (and consultants) are able to build both simple and complex reports / graphs. The user is able to add complex calculations and to create almost any column he desires.

The Administration tool is the workbench for the implementation consultant; this is where the data warehouse is called, and facts and dimensions are defined and joined. Here we transform data into a business model and make it accessible to the end user. It is possible to join multiple physical sources and combine their data into a single business model. So, if sales are recorded in a sales application and inventory is recorded in a different system, it can be combined right here.

Security and permissions are important when, within a company, specific roles are defined that are (not) allowed to certain areas of data. OBIEEprovides roles and groups and data shielding by role or even user-level to cope with almost any business requirement at this point.

Users find it difficult to understand which combinations of facts and dimensions are ‘allowed’ in a single report. The application does not provide feedback up front, but gives an error afterwards.

The user interface provides subject areas where the user can choose columns for a report. A column can be either a fact (measure) or a dimension (like company, or date).

It is not uncommon to have two measures that cannot be compared by the same dimension. The report will show a blank column, or give an error message saying something like ‘incomparable measures at this level’.

Most of the times, this is a design flaw in the underlying dimensional model, but this does not have to be the case. If a user could see the unavailable columns based on their selection - by greying out options that are not available - this would greatly help the user understand the underlying data model and prevent frustration.

I have used it for five years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support is excellent; there are many companies specialized in delivering technical support for OBIEE.

For the end user, the product runs inside the web browser; technical setup requires a specialist.

Contact a reseller (such as Ordina) to negotiate the best price. Oracle list prices are always negotiable.

Seriously consider a cloud implementation. Cut back on implementation and maintenance / upgrade costs and very little time-to-market.

We are a solution provider and Oracle OBIEE is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

The security is good. For example, we can implement column-level security.

For a beginner, this is a product that is difficult to learn. You cannot learn it quickly.

There are a few utilization-level limitations in Oracle OBIEE that can be improved. However, they are releasing another product called OAS, Oracle Analytics Server, which might include a few more utilizations.

I have been working with Oracle OBIEE for almost 11 years.

This is a very stable product.

Oracle OBIEE is a very scalable solution.

I also use Microsoft BI, although I have more experience with Oracle.

With Oracle, we can implement column-level security whereas, with Microsoft BI, it cannot be done. However, Microsoft BI is more cost-effective.

Oracle OBIEE is easy to implement.

This is a very costly product.

My advice for anybody looking into implementing Oracle OBIEE is that product-wise, it has a few limitations but it is good. The primary drawback is that it's very costly compared to Microsoft BI.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The flexibility to work with this on the cloud only if you would like is very helpful. There are fewer log-ins required. It's easy to connect to the live system.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The solution is stable.

We've found the technical support to be very helpful.

The solution has great reporting and forecasting capabilities.

If I want to develop a new repository, any new table, any new schema that I want to incorporate into the RPD, then in my local schema, can't directly connect to the cloud. I do not have complete end-to-end access to it. In such cases, I need to install some local DV. I don't know if that is the right path or not, however, as far as I'm concerned, I'm just creating some tables, some sample space in my local DB and from the DB I just try to import into my local RPD in order to publish to the cloud. It is double work. If I'm in a non-cloud environment and I need not connect to the local DB, I need not re-import everything into my local space. I can connect to the available on-premise DB and connecting to that on-premise DB I can create the RPD.

In terms of linking to the cloud, there are many restrictions. From a business standpoint, it is a great way to approach things. That said, from a developer's standpoint, it's a bit tough to develop the code and progress the code to the next environment like that. 

There's a lot of redundancy, especially in relation to creating the code. Developers, in fact, have to deal with many hurdles, including security restrictions and vendor communications.

I've been using the solution for the next nine years at this point. It's been almost a decade.

The solution is stable. In fact, we are working to build out capabilities so that users who might use Tableau or Power BI can handle reports and other tasks right on top of this product. We're working to make it even more flexible for future users. So far, it's going very well.

Technical support is pretty good. I have no complaints as, whenever we raised any kind of tickets to them, within a short time, within a week, they have closed everything and solved the issue. We are pretty impressed. They have provided a wonderful solution as of now and whenever we've raised a new patch request, the upcoming patches have been fine. 

The initial setup is not overly complex or difficult. It's quite straightforward. A company shouldn't have too many issues with the process.

I typically handle the initial setup for clients. 

The solution is a bit expensive for a lot of clients. Many might not have the funds available for Oracle products. Most believe it to be a costly product. Nobody has compared it to the other reporting tools, however. They might not understand the costs involved. 

We are just Oracle customers. We handle several clients. We don't have any kind of owned Oracle products, however, we are giving support to Oracle clients.

We use multiple deployment models, including the cloud and on-premises. 

One thing from an Oracle standpoint is that we only concentrate on Oracle products - whatever the number of products you have in our chain. There are certainly other business users that also use Tableau as well as business objects and maybe Power BI. These are competitive reporting tools. The same users of Oracle might also have similar tools within one of those solutions.

My intention is let's migrate everybody to Oracle in order to connect certain scenarios on how to migrate those existing tools to Oracle. We're asking: what are the core competencies, what are the advantages of using this Oracle tool, and what are the flexibilities in order to migrate from these other solutions to Oracle. With Tableau, for our client, we have conducted several demonstrations on how to migrate the particular Tableau reports to OBIEE via the DV.

The way in which we have developed preferred reports has impressed them. They help play with their existing repositories as well. They can easily connect to their repository to an existing OBI repository to the direct source tables so they can easily use external additional sources. They can easily connect all their existing models and they can play here and there and experience all of that flexibility they have there in Tableau currently. We've written a custom SQL where they can create, they can dump everything in, and extract.

On the other hand, for particular business users, if they want to change the logic to Tableau it is not feasible for them. We are here for them to give support from Oracle and we need a lot of knowledge from business stakeholders to come up and check the flexibility by using this Oracle product on top of their other reporting areas.

I would 100% recommend Oracle, especially to people who on other platforms and want to adopt new typical areas specific to the cloud. If they want to enhance their reporting capabilities, Oracle is perfect for them. If they are looking for forecasting, this solution is great. There's a kind of flexibility you just won't typically see in other solutions. 

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten.

My first challenge with OBIEE was to create a set of Dashboards to monitor sales performance in real time.

Before using OBIEE, my customer had difficulties building Dashboards and usine visual components to show information. Now they can do it fast and easily selecting the data and organizing the physical model, they just have to connect to the source. The solution has some limitations, but there's always a way to adapt and show a good work.

The easy integration with different database sources and the strength when working with complex data. It’s possible to integrate different data sources and show the information in the same place with a very good performance.

I think there are some issues to be solved, and it needs some visual improvements, especially on the charts, but it is still the best solution in my opinion.

No issues encountered.

When the number of projects on the repository increases, updates and new deployments get slower.

Customer Service:

I have never used it.

Technical Support:

I have never used it.

I had aready used Microsoft reporting services. I migrated to OBIEE  because my customer doesn´t use Microsoft tools for BI.

It was straightforward in the begining, but became complex later.

I evaluated other solutions like Tableau, Cognos, MicroStrategy. They are more attractive visually, but in my opinion OBIEE has a stronger platform.

My customers want a solution that connects any data source, and does all the jobs for them. It doesn´t exist. People have to know their data, and know what they want to do with it. My customer had the illusion that OBIEE would do everything for them, and they became frustrated, so we had to learn to work together in the right way. It’s very important to guide the user in the right direction to take all the advantages of OBIEE.

The “Business Model & Mapping” layer in the Administration Tool, because the maintenance and evolution processes are greatly facilitated.

Now, we can better and rapidly answer the user’s reporting needs, even if it involves different sources of information (different applications, different databases, external sources, etc.).

Our actual needs are covered.

10 years.

Since 11g, no issues.

No, but no real experience.

Five out of 10. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Relatively straightforward.

Don’t hesitate, if you need this for enterprise reporting and BI needs.

The cost factor is the most valuable feature. It's very cheap to deploy it enterprise-wide without having to worry about breaking the bank.

The biggest advantage that I find is the centralized data governance, i.e., one version of truth is critical for any business. For me, OBIEE provides that one version of truth.

The visualizations and usability aspects in this product can be improved a lot. Even now, I constantly hear people comparing Tableau to OBIEE and how Tableau has a better UI and is easier to use compared to OBIEE, which is a bit difficult.

It does need some level of tuning but more or less, it is stable.

We have deployed it enterprise-wide and it works well for us.

Opening a ticket with the support team can be frustrating. It takes a long time to resolve the issue.

We did not look at any other products.

The setup process was straightforward.

It's self-explanatory and not much guidance is needed.

However, you should not skimp on the hardware. It's a hardware-intensive product, so you must make sure you have good hardware.

The scheduling function is the most valuable feature. We can schedule at specific times to generate specific reports and email them to the mailbox of the end users.

The user interface is rather clumsy, so to speak, compared to other reporting tools on the market where you have drag and drop, drilldown and all these nice user interface features. This product is more textual based.

I used it for six years.

We have had several downtimes. I'm not in IT, so I don't know the infrastructure behind it, but we have quite a lot of downtime. That means we only realize it when the report doesn't appear in the inbox at a certain time.

It has met my company’s scalability needs but I don’t think it will moving forward. I don’t think it is flexible enough for our future requirements.

I have no idea about Oracle technical support because we have our own internal IT support for report writing. We just ask them and they solve it.

My company has been using it as long as I have been with the company. I think we chose it because it was part of the Oracle implementation we did.

Initial setup was straightforward; I don't know if it was simple. They sent people to us and we also had an in-house team.

We have trained OBIEE users writing their own reports, and we have our internal IT department for more complex reports, and for scheduling.

This product does not provide value for money. We have since replaced it; not in the entire company, but in my area. We created our own data mine, and do our own reporting based on that.

When I’m selecting a vendor such as Oracle or IBM to work with I look at functionality, first of all, and then I look at cost. That's also a big one.