Business intelligence (BI) has transformed from data collecting and collating into a more advanced discipline, which employs BI tools or solutions to draw inferences from available data. These inferences, or actionable pieces of information, assist you in making informed decisions to improve your business processes. Since BI tools are numerous and variable in both cost and features, they can be difficult to evaluate.
If you’re a business intelligence analyst or software buyer, how do you choose the best? The ideal place to start would be using a comprehensive business intelligence requirements template. To start, listed below are our current top 10 business intelligence requirements to help you along. An interactive BI requirements template is available at the conclusion of this list:
Top 10 Business Intelligence (BI) Requirements
1. Evolution
Anything that does not evolve is quickly outdated; therefore, your BI analytical tool should be capable of expanding and accommodating changes. A decent BI solution provider will release timely updates aimed at enhancing current capabilities.
2. Open architecture
Extensive BI tool comparisons will reveal vendors who have limited their software to proprietary architecture. The best BI software is built on open architecture, which permits hassle-free integration with other software applications.
3. Support multiple data sources BI
Top BI tools don’t limit their support to just one particular database. Ideally, the best BI applications permit access to a variety of data sources including data warehouses, data marts, internal databases, other big data sources, etc.
4. Allow access to real-time data / Agile BI
Business analytics tools help make informed decisions, and the software must deliver fresh data to be considered productive.
5. Capacity to import applications
Top BI tools allow users to merge data from various applications. For instance, graphs and charts are integral to BI visualization tools and must be integrated into reports. Application importing saves end users the time it takes to recreate these features multiple times.
Get the full BI requirements template here
6. Multiple-device support
With the growing use of Internet accessibility across smart devices, top-rated business intelligence tools must provide good user experience across these devices.
7. Reporting options
Look for one that facilitates compound reporting options and tools, such as interactive reporting and what-if analysis. With this feature, you need not worry about integration with third-party reporting tools.
8. Mapping applications
This application gives you easy-to-interpret, at-a-glance, geographical data related to your business’ performance.
9. Security
User privilege parameter is an essential feature for a BI solution, since this parameter lets you set limits on who can access, export and edit files, spreadsheets and graphs. In effect, these options are not visible to unauthorized personnel.
10. Intelligent alerts
This feature is geared to alert you, via modern messaging tools, about the crucial aspects of your business. For example, you’ll be alerted if a long-time active client becomes dormant