Question
· Jan 17, 2020

Best BI Tool Compatible with IRIS

Hi All, We have been using DeepSee which has been the integrated Analytic Dashboard built over Cache Cubes. It works fine but it's visual capabilities are limited and most probably is getting phased out. If I am not wrong, Tableau is the suggested alternative to DeepSee . It is expensive and a big and considerable shift from existing technology I wanted to get an opinion of the community as to these few key points - What other BI tools others have been using with IRIS and what have been their experience - For which tools are the best inbuilt support / api's avaialble in IRIS - How easy would it be to configure in an existing ZEN application as we definitely don't want users to go to another app just for BI. ( Yes ZEN is phased out but we have a lot built on it already, thus will take a while to make that change, thus this is a discussion for some other day) - Top of my head these are few names which come to mind. MS Power BI, SAS & Apache Spark. I don't have good knowledge of either, thus before spending my time on learning, a guide to which direction should we put our efforts in would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Discussion (10)1
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Hi @Neerav Adam Verma!

You can try to give the second life with DeepSee Dashboards using DeepSeeWeb  - it gives Angular face for your current DeepSee Dashboards, has nice map widgets, mobile UI and is open source (though there is commercial for commercial use Highcharts inside).

It's very easy to install with ZPM:

zpm:USER>install dsw

and you can browse your Zen DeepSee dashboards with DSW.

That's a good question, @Neerav Adam Verma.  We've never worked with Zen, so I don't know.  We have both a Desktop and Web client for VDM that offer a number of APIs.  Most our developers leverage the Web along with APIs to render both Visualize (dashboards) and Finished Reports (professional report writer) in browser.   I have a public demo site that'll show Visualize and Finished Reports in browser.  You'll see an option to register an account to access the demo site https://license.bridgeworksllc.com/WebReports and the Commission examples do a pretty good job of showing the features/options.

Thanks Evgeny.  You have covered the options well:

1.  Use DeepSee (or DeepSeeWeb) 

2.  Use Microsoft PowerBI which also supports access to the measures and dimensions of DeepSee cubes

3.  Work with one of the solution partners on OpenExchange : BridgeWorks or Yanbor

4.  Use ODBC or JDBC to get to other tools:  I am aware of other customers using Tableau and Qlik

Will it be a smooth transition from current to new version?

Current to new version of what?
DSW could be used against DeepSee dashboards starting from Caché/Ensemble 2014 and with any version of IRIS/IRIS4H.

Can I incorporate it in the zen app?

You can use it as standalone web-app (it's a REST API + Angular app in its nature) or you can insert an iframe into any current zen app.

E.g. try to insert this iframe into any zen app:

<iframe style="border: none" src="https://analytics.community.intersystems.com/dswpub/index.html#!/d/PostsByYears.dashboard?ns=COMMUNITYPUBLIC&embed=1&widget=0&height=271&isLegend=true" width="473" height="271" ></iframe>

There is a Windows version to it right?

It runs in a browser, so it works on any OS - same as Zen. And it has a mobile UI.

Hello Neerav,

Evgeny mentioned our tool BridgeWorks VDM on Open Exchange.  We're new to the InterSystems Developer Community, but we've been working in the Ontario Systems space, who leverages InterSystems, for the last 8 years.  Our DeepSee feature is currently in beta and we've been looking for folks in the InterSystems community who are interested in providing feedback so we can continue to build on and improve our platform.  We leverage the DeepSee REST API Client to access the Cubes and build MDX queries using a drag and drop interface.  If you or any member of the InterSystems Developer Community is interested in reviewing our platform and working with us to better understand any missing features and functionality, it'll cost you $0.00 and we'll grant a perpetual full developer seat license at no cost.