Oracle OBIEE Reviews

I like the scheduling feature. It has an inbuilt scheduler which is very good, and it allows us to create agents, and those agents can be scheduled. It's quite flexible in that respect and goes into our IT infrastructure. The outputs are sent encrypted to various endpoints. Some are internal, and some are our clients, and it's encrypted at a high level.

I do find Oracle OBIEE flexible. If there is stuff that's not in your model or schema, it's very flexible to create SQL scripts and create the data you want. It's quite nice to create a dashboard in OBIEE, and that's pretty straightforward in the way you drag and drop everything. You can create sections, and you can add elements to your page. That bit of the interface is relatively straightforward.

The graphical capabilities could be better. They are also cumbersome, and they are limited compared to Tableau, Power BI, or even Business Objects to a certain extent and Cognos. The error logging isn't great either. The errors that come out when you schedule aren't easy to understand.

I find how they filter within a query quite cumbersome and difficult to debug if somebody else has done it. You can see as you build, and I think that's where the problem is. It doesn't lend itself to debug something. For example, if you create a formula that's quite complicated, it's not easy to understand what goes with what. 

It becomes spaghetti, and it's very difficult to unpick. That's really my gripe about it, and in some ways, it's too flexible. It tries to be a Jack of all trades when it's not. I think a lot of these products, if they concentrate on trying to produce your reports, then that's fine. But when they're trying to do all sorts of other things as well, then it isn't very easy.

We get lots of support from Oracle, but I think the problem is that we get many invalid file operations. Nobody understands why. It can be a multitude of reasons, but no one reason could cause it. That's just one of the issues we've had in the last year. But the scope of reporting has gone through the roof over the previous 12 to 18 months.

We want an end-of-life OBIEE in our environment because some of the infrastructure runs unclustered. We weren't allowed to go clustered for some reason, and we never knew why. Unfortunately, going down that route means that the platform we run it on, WebLogic, has now become non-standard within our organization.

Everything's been moved off it and onto other platforms. Unfortunately, our OBIEE runs on that platform, and we're being pushed down different routes, and we don't know where we're going at the moment. Within the next two years, I don't think we'll have OBIEE in our part of the business.

In the next release, I think having the capability of being able to develop and then promote to a production environment rather than having to have separate environments will help. I know that Tableau and Power BI can be created on a desktop application, and then when it's ready to go live, you can promote it. 

I have been using Oracle OBIEE for about four years, but I don't use it a lot.

Oracle OBIEE is very stable. The only issue have is scheduling too much at the same time. It can get overloaded, and unfortunately, like most things, there are always bottlenecks. 

You're actually pushing it down a tunnel in effect, and if that tunnel's not large enough, it can't cope with the load. Some of the files and some reports are a lot bigger, and OBIEE has a limited 64,000 rows of output. It's not suitable for really extracting large amounts of data.

If I wanted to extract all the transactions on a report for one particular day, then that would blow the 64,000 rows of output. This means that we have to run it separately, and we can't schedule it. It has to be a manual task, or we have to get work done by our development people to provide that report as a standard report. This can be quite difficult at times.

Oracle OBIEE is scalable because you can cluster them and have multiple servers. You can spread the load up to a point. You can have multiple environments running under the same cluster. In our production space, we have two environments. We have a test environment, and we have a production environment. Being clustered, you can cluster those together.

When I used Cognos, it seemed as though it didn't cater to telling stories. It's like you've got to get the data out into something like Excel or another tool to do the visualizations. It can be done, but it's quite fiddly.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Oracle OBIEE a seven.

The solution is offered as a PaaS - a platform as a service.

The setup isn't too difficult.

While technical support used to be quite bad, it's my understanding that it has gotten better.

I find I prefer Oracle OAC over OBIEE. It's more advanced, has artificial intelligence, and there's more that we can do with it in general. OBIEE is lacking features.

The reporting could be better. We can only develop standard PDF reports. We don't have reports that show analytics. It doesn't generate barcodes at the top and it doesn't have the ability to show notes. The reporting system needs to introduce logic so that we can make the reporting more flexible.

Writing any code takes a long time. Merging data is also a long and tedious process. 

I've been working with the solution for 13 and a half years so far. It's been a while. 

The solution isn't exactly stable. There are some reports, for example, in relation to email compliance or other policies that are not working as they should. We're actually migrating off of OBIEE's reports to Crystal Reports as some functionality is just not possible.

The scalability of the solution is fine. It's arranged per user. However, you need to pay more if you add more. 

There are no plans to increase usage as the solution is limiting in the features on offer and the client is leaning more towards Oracle OAC. 

I haven't tried to contact technical support in a long while. The last time might have been 2017 or 2018. I recall support not being very good. At the time, the application was new and we had questions, and we did not really get any response. It took them a long, long time to say anything. At that time, we were installing the application and facing some issues and it was a frustrating process. 

That said, their support may have stabilized and gotten better, however, I haven't really dealt with them since. 

I've started working more with Oracle OAC.

The solution is a platform as a service. We pick and choose our requirements as we like. If we need more CPU or RAM or hardware, we make sure we have that in the setup. We decide how many users we want, et cetera, and the system is set up to accommodate for that.

Oracle can help set up the solution.

OAC has a more reasonable price point than OBIEE. OAC gives you more options and choices. It's more flexible.

I'm a consultant. I'm not a partner of Oracle. I have no business relationship with the company.

There is a lot of competition in the market right now and there are so many cloud applications that users can look at, including Power BI. Some have more features and are more user-friendly. This product needs to advance its technology and catch up. It needs more advanced features.

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

I use this BI solution for ad-hoc and complex reports for finance and HR.

The main features of this solution are that it is easy to use, intuitive, and user-friendly. When I retrieve the data from the database it is in a very raw form, then when I use the Oracle Report Builder it has advanced intelligence features to allow me to view and make changes to the data easily.

There could be better integration with other solutions, such as Microsoft Office.

I have been using this solution for approximately six years.

The solution is 100% reliable and stable.

The solution is scalable. I have extended many areas in the reports and in other areas of the tool. My colleague was doing a project report in which he had to make some divisions and multiplications, similar to analytical functions. However, he was not able to do it in the SQL language. He gave me to try it in this BI tool solution and we achieved accurate results.

I have not found any issue to contact the support about.

The solution was easy to deploy and install. However, I have used the solution for a very long time and I am familiar with the technology, this could be why it was extremely easy for me to install and configure but might not be for others.

I would recommend this solution.

I rate Oracle OBIEE a ten out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is for public reporting, creating a dashboard for our users so they can create their own reports. If they're using Tableau and other things, we give them a dashboard to use. It provides a structure or enterprise solution or framework, which gives you a free hand to create your own reports. We have some form of partnership with Oracle and I'm an ABB.

The ability for a user to create their own reports is one of the valuable features. The solution also allows you to manage your access roles, like permissions, directly from the port. There is also a separate enterprise manager where groups and other roles can be created and given access. Finally, if we have certain scripts, we can add chipping into that scheduling function as well as a dashboard and the like. In the newer version, there's a visual analyzer which is more Tableau driven and gives you a free hand. From a user perspective, it's an advantage and will provide us with an additional asset if we do upgrade. 

Implementation is a little cumbersome and requires expertise. From the support perspective, it seems that they are a level behind. Another, thing is if you're working in the 12.2.1.3 version, fields don't come with proper venues and proper testing is lacking. For an additional feature, I'd like to see data science and functions added.

I've been using this solution for five years. 

Most of the time the solution is stable but it depends on who is doing the set up configuration. A senior person will know how much memory is required, without that there might be problems. So lots of configuration files need to be optimized according to the usage. There may also be other parameters that need to be set up and if you are aware of this then the system will be stable. 

This is a scalable solution. 

Customer service is sometimes very good. At other times it's very, very dense and they ask for irrelevant information. It could definitely be improved. 

The initial setup was quite complex and I didn't do it in one go because when we deployed something, there were some problems that needed sorting out and that took around five to six hours. Deployment probably took close to six hours. The deployment was carried out internally. In my department we have over 300 users and the solution is used on a daily basis. 

This is an expensive solution and I think people tend to stop using this product as a result. Cost is a major factor in companies choosing other solutions. 

It's important to have an understanding of your requirements because if people are looking for visualization and realization, this is a very good solution that can work with thousands of users generally and can work on billions and billions of records. 

I rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

We implemented this solution for reporting purposes primarily. We got it for the client a few months back. This whole system is an EBS system. We used the solution to pull the data from the EDA source system and convert it. Once a data valid solution is developed, we model the data model using RCB, and then we create reports for the service contract module.

The solution helps businesses to make a very quick analysis and can help them make business decisions quickly.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the fact that hierarchies are centralized. 

The solution offers a condition-based analysis. For example, if the user wants to see two reports on the dashboard based on different categories or different attributes, but they want to see one report at a time, using the condition-based development, they can do so. 

From version 11G to 12C the solution has made a lot of improvements.

The solution is easy to use and very flexible.

In the 11G model, there are restricted visualizations, whereas in Oracle Analytics Cloud we have multiple different variations of visualization. If there was a way of presenting the data in a pictorial way, it would be very helpful. Right now, the solution, at least in that deployment model, is lacking a number of visualizations.

The solution needs to be easier to scale.

I've been using the solution for almost seven years at this point. The company itself may have used it for about 15 to 20 years now.

I haven't had much chance to really test the stability, however, I don't recall any instances of trouble.

Scalability is not that easy. We need to apply a batch. It would definitely take time to execute and to check all the reports or development work once the batch applied.

We've used technical support in the past and have been quite satisfied with their level of service. Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten. Occasionally, we would have issues that remained unanswered, however, it's rare.

The initial setup is not straightforward. It is complex. Oracle introduced another product called Oracle Analytics Cloud, and in that case, the installation of the product is very easy. Comparatively, this product's installation is difficult. It takes time and needs mission instants.

We set up the solution in-house. We didn't need to hire an integrator or consultant.

I'm not sure what the solution costs. I'm not involved with aspects of billing or contract negotiations. I don't know if we pay on a monthly or yearly basis.

I don't recall evaluating other options.

I'm not the latest version of the solution, however, I do have information on the latest one as well. I'm using the 11G version. The latest one is 12C. I worked on it two years ago.

Our company loves the benefits of this solution and has used it for a long time. Even with new products on the market, they continue to use the product.

I'd advise companies considering using the solution to make sure they explore the product quite a bit before fully implementing it.

Overall, I'd rate the solution at eight out of ten. Each version continues to get better and better. I would definitely give 10 out of 10 for OASC, for example, which was recently launched, due to the fact that it is fully on the cloud.

I'm mostly using OBIEE in the context of regulation by the national central bank. The regulatory authority floats many reports required daily, monthly, weekly, and yearly. So, for example, there'll be a stream of reports at the end of the year, and the banking regulator requires banks to comply. It's challenging for banks to develop these reports constantly, so we develop these regulatory or statutory reports for the regulatory authority and put them in the BI.

I like the data analyzer introduced in OBIEE version 10. Previously, there was no data analytics tool, but the data analyzer allows you to visualize your data on the fly. I also like the voice recognition tool. With voice recognition, the data visualization tool will flip the charts and diagrams left, right, center.

Warehouse and business intelligence are two different things, but OBIEE also has some warehouse features in it. I would like to see some of those capabilities improved.

I've been using OBIEE for five or six years.

Oracle products are all stable. We deployed Oracle OBIEE version 11 at the national revenue authority four years ago, and since then we've run more than 400 reports on an Oracle X5 server. It still runs smoothly with no issues.

The customer wanted Valtix, an internet BI system, but couldn't afford it. We advised him to go with OBIEE and the X5-4. I'm also fully certified in BGIF, and part of my job in that deployment was to deploy BGIF was challenging because it's an arm of the government. Still, we finally got some of the data into BGIF that wasn't mission-critical for the government. The rest of the data sat inside OBIEE.

I rate OBIEE 12 out of 10. For me, OBIEE is king.

Oracle OBIEE is used for financial reporting.

The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ease of use.

Oracle OBIEE could improve the visualizations, such as diagrams, charts, and graphical user interface. Other tools on the market have better graphical visualizations this Oracle OBIEE.

I have been using Oracle OBIEE for approximately three years.

I have found Oracle OBIEE to be stable.

Oracle OBIEE is scalable.

We have three people using this solution in my organization.

I have not contacted the support because the solution was easy to use and the problems I faced were solved by our technical team in our enterprise.

I have evaluated Tableau and Microsoft Power BI and they have better charts and graphical visualizations than Oracle OBIEE.

My advice to others is they should explore other tools to get an idea of how they compare to one another. There are better solutions on the market, such as Tableau and Microsoft Power BI.

I rate Oracle OBIEE a seven out of ten.

Very large and complexes environments implementation, 10000+ users with 24x7 global operation and multiple EPM tools working in sync.

With a good model implemented, businesses can easily take decisions to improve anything they want.

An example I like to give is a retail company for which we developed online BI for sales. With this model, the managers follow the sales in real-time and can make decision like when, how much, and where to start a sales campaign during the day. This helps all managers to fulfill their quotas easily.

It's a great tool for the businesses as it's easy to manipulate and to create new dashboards. For the development side, it requires a good datamart to make things easier. It's very robust with a lot of resources.

It needs better parent-child dimension options that don't need to pass through OBIEE to build it. It's an easier way to update the model in case of a change of dimension size or sources.

Also, it needs better and more dynamic graphics. There are a lot of tools with better graphics and big part of BI is about this.

More than 12 years.

There were issues mainly because of a Java memory leak.

The scalability is limited because of WebLogic.

The technical support for EPM is bad. I don't remember anytime that the service support help me in something. The problem is bigger when you have a environment with more than one product like Hyperion Planning and ODI. This happens because the products have different owners within Oracle and then different supports and because this if, you open a trouble ticket of loading data to planning and you say the words ODI, you'll be pushed around the two separate support teams indefinitely, even if your company has an Oracle support director just for you.

Neutral

EPM is an enterprise suit that is made of some independent tools and to have all working together it makes it complex no matter your level of knowledge. The bigger the environment the bigger is the challenge you need to face. Maybe one day Oracle will integrate all their tools. It'll be easier and the good thing is that I saw a lot of improvements over the years.

Always talk with a Oracle representative and negotiate a discount. I already saw 99% of discounts and a free licence once.

Some times is cheaper if you get a hardware together (helps to negotiate a discount)

I'm a consultant and my only evaluation was on the database. I decided on Oracle because of the database and, during my career, their other tools are starting to come naturally.

Because Oracle products are development frameworks, your final results are as good as the people who implemented it. Make sure that your implementation team is the best it could be, at least for the first implementation. If something is implemented incorrectly at the start, it'll cost you a lot more to fix than to build a new system from scratch. Sometimes it can be so badly designed that it is impossible to fix.

I've been working on implementation for 20 years and I have seen bad implementations everywhere. In fact, I have seen the same tools implemented in the same team by two different people, with one being a success and the other a failure. In the same company, one department says that the tool does not work for them and another says that the tool is the best. The only difference was the implementer. Make sure you get a good team to implement it. The tool has its flaws, but most of time (99%) it is the implementer's fault that you have a bad or slow model.

We use Oracle OBIEE for data visualization and analytical reporting.

Oracle OBIEE is good for data visualization and analytical reporting.

There are a lot of aspects of Oracle OBIEE that are exceptionally complicated, make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone who uses it. In terms of the integrations, Oracle needs to improve a little more, but I believe that they have tried to capture all those issues. The issues we are facing in the Oracle OBIEE 12C versions, in the Oracle Analytical Server Center or Analytical Cloud versions, Oracle has managed to overcome the challenges.

Oracle OBIEE could improve its marketing. There is no additional training, trials, or something else needed. Oracle has  Business partners, such as TCS and Cognizant. All the business partners for Oracle, I never saw that they ever tried to market the Oracle tools for visualization.  We can do visualization of data with it, large analytical data, and analytical analysis. They never try to market it in that way. All I understood as it is a tool for extracting large amounts of data. They need to improve on their outreach.

I used Oracle OBIEE within the last 12 months.

The solution is stable.

Oracle OBIEE is a scalable solution.

The technical support was good, I am satisfied.

The implementation of Oracle OBIEE was very complicated in the older versions, but now it has become much easier.

I was able to evaluate many other options before choosing Oracle OBIEE. When I was working for one of my clients in Africa, they wanted us to implement Microsoft BI in their environment for data visualizations. I felt bad about the Oracle OBIEE because Oracle never tried to market that product as a visualization tool, they always try to market it as an analytical tool, and people do not understand what Oracle OBIEE can do. In visualization, it can give the other contenders in the market a good fight, but Oracle never tried to market it in that way.

This is one of the biggest problems with Oracle. If Oracle would have marketed better then they would have had more customers. There are a lot of other clients people prefer, such as Tableau, ClickView, Qlik Sense, or Microsoft BI, because they want to see things in a graph, in a colorful way. The same can be achieved in Oracle OBIEE, but it was never marketed properly.

Oracle OBIEE has been tested and is a proven product and I would highly recommend Oracle OBIEE over any other solution.

I rate Oracle Database an eight out of ten.

I rated the Oracle OBIEE and eight because I haven't tried the newer versions of OBIEE which are in the market. Whatever I have been working in Oracle OBIEE  currently I rate it an eight. Additionally, Oracle might have added many other features that are not in the 12C version. The market is saturated with other visualization tools, such as Tableau, or Microsoft BI. People prefer Tableau and other solutions because they are much more user-friendly and very easy to work on.

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.