VIDEO: Sisense Demo

Sisense is one of only a few fully functioning business intelligence software systems that lets non-technical users combine multiple data sets, customize dashboards, generate data visualizations, and share them with other users. In this video, we'll take a look at some of the main features of Sisense and explore the system's pros and cons. Sisense should definitely be on your radar if you're looking for a new BI solution, but it's not the only system out there worth your consideration.

Use our product selection tool to request your free short list of the best BI software for you. We'll ask a few questions to get a sense of what you're looking for, then we'll narrow down your search to help you find your perfect fit. Click the link in the description to get started. First, let's talk about the core features that Sisense offers. Sisense supports many different data connectors. Notably, it lets you connect data from your cloud sources.

From there, you can mix and blend your data using a tool in Sisense called Elastic Cubes. This tool basically lets you drag and drop large data sets to get a big picture view of how they're related. Data visualizations and dashboards in Sisense work using a drag-and-drop builder. For a tool as powerful as Sisense, building dashboards is surprisingly easy. Even novice users can build attractive dashboards using a number of different visualizations.

For an extra layer of customizability, Sisense also lets you edit dashboards through coding. Now, let's talk about what Sisense does best. Perhaps the biggest advantage of Sisense is its speed and processing power, which makes it great for handling large data sets. The system uses something called in-chip processing, which is usually a speed upgrade over a more traditional in-memory processing. You can purchase Sisense as an on-premise, private cloud, or hybrid deployment, which gives you some options.

If you prefer the extra control offered by hosting on premise, you can deploy Sisense on your Windows or Linux servers. If you don't want the hassle of on-premise hosting, you can also deploy the software on your private cloud or use a mix of public and private clouds and on-premise hardware. Lastly, Sisense recently acquired Periscope, which means users can now perform query-based analysis without having to rely solely on natural language processing.

For more technically proficient users, you can perform queries using SQL, Python, and R in addition to NLP. Sisense is a top-rated solution, but no system is perfect. The system is fully featured, but this also means it can come at a steep learning curve. Perhaps a little steeper than you'd want from a self-service tool. Experts shouldn't have a problem navigating Sisense, but users from a non-technical background might struggle. One of the pros of Sisense can also be a con.

Sisense uses a columnar database management system called Elasticube to help users clean and organize large sets of data. This is supposed to be fast, but some users have reported that Elasticube can take a long time to load and use a lot of computer processing power. Still not sure Sisense is right for you? Use our product selection tool to compare other business intelligence solutions and to get a free list of BI software recommendations custom-tailored to your needs. Click the button on the left to get started.

This transcript was generated automatically from the video's captions and may contain errors.