Yellowfin

What it is

Yellowfin is a business intelligence platform that runs in the browser. The company describes it as "a completely Web-based BI platform deployed on a centralized architecture, with governance baked into the application." Its pitch is that, "unlike most BI products," it delivers "all the BI functionality you need via a single, integrated platform," so business users, analysts and IT each get what they need from one product.

The reader it fits is a team that wants analysts to build reports and dashboards, business users to explore and discuss them, and IT to hold the security and governance. The site's wording for the 3 groups is that business users "consume, share and collaborate on trusted data," analysts get "the self-service freedom to create reports and build dashboards," and IT has "complete security and governance over the platform." The site lists regional contact points for Australia, Japan, North America, South America, Europe and South Africa, and its solution menu addresses business users, analytics teams, software developers, embedded analytics, cloud, enterprise IT, resellers and data scientists.

What you build and how

You build reports, dashboards and the narrative content around them. The collaboration page names the content types: Yellowfin Reports, Dashboards, Signals and Stories. Stories carry governed analysis and commentary that people can read on several devices. Storyboards also appear among the things you can subscribe to.

Data comes first. The data sources page says Yellowfin lets you connect to "all your enterprise data sources, wherever they are, from one platform," and even blend data from databases, spreadsheets and web applications. It describes direct, real-time querying of relational and cube sources. Web connectors come with out-of-the-box dashboards and reports for Salesforce, Xero, Google Analytics, Zendesk, Twitter and YouTube, "and more", and the support menu advertises "200+ Enterprise SaaS/Cloud & Application Connectors". Spreadsheets count as a data source, so CSV files can be combined with other data types. For big data, the page names Hadoop, Redshift, SAP HANA and Google BigQuery.

Preparation is built in. The Data Preparation Module, according to the governance page, lets you "model, profile, clean, shape, enrich, publish and secure your data," reusing business logic so that everyone sees the data in simple business terms. A separate data transformation module has a drag-and-drop interface, so you create transformation flows "so you don't have to learn scripts." Inputs can be tables, flat files or free-hand SQL, plus web connectors. You can use an existing Yellowfin report as the input to a transformation. Standard steps such as aggregating, calculating and merging are there, and transformation widgets can tap data science models in PMML and PFA formats and from H2O.ai, plus geocoding, on the fly. A visual data lineage view shows transformed data in real time, color-coded by source, with error detection across the flow.

Sharing and collaboration are a large part of the product. Content can be distributed, exported, emailed and linked, and live, interactive content can be attached to in-application discussions. Timeline is a searchable, personalized, chronological stream of the BI content, people and discussions you follow.

Alerting and action sit beside it. Broadcasts send customized reports to a user's mobile device, personal Timeline and email address. Trigger-based alerts notify people the moment key metrics fall outside predefined thresholds. Smart Tasks go a step further and create and assign tasks automatically, such as sending a stock controller a task to replenish. People can subscribe to the reports, dashboards, Storyboards and discussion streams they care about, and Yellowfin Signals puts change notifications on a mobile device.

AI is a current theme. The pages announce Yellowfin BI 9.18 with AI-powered conversational analytics, and offer 2 chatbot assistants, Ask Yellowfin and Code Assistant, to answer questions about Yellowfin.

For embedding, the governance page says the range of integration options makes it "quick and easy to embed Yellowfin into your intranet, or even your customer facing applications."

What the pages say about cost, security and proof

The site publishes no prices on these pages. Its pricing menu describes 2 tracks: for embedded analytics, "value based pricing" and "a flexible pricing model for software vendors", and for enterprise BI, flexible pricing "designed to make BI more accessible to a wide range of companies." The company says its pricing is "simple, predictable and scalable, with no surprises - and no hidden add-ons." To get started there is a "Free Trial", a "Free POC" (proof of concept) and a demo. The governance page adds that the "Java and browser-based architecture" lets you scale a deployment "without the spectre of an exorbitant pricing model hanging over your head." For learning, Yellowfin University offers step-by-step tutorials and a getting started guide, alongside how-to videos and a live webinar on what is new in version 9.18.

Security is described as a "user, role, group, content, function and data level security model that you can configure as you wish," or you can use LDAP or Active Directory to reuse the frameworks you already have. An Administration Console lets administrators manage, view and search system-wide configurations, including data sources.

3 outside voices appear. Daniel Ko, a Senior Consulting Analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, is quoted on collaboration, saying the features "improve adoption amongst business users and the decision-making process within the organization." James Haight, a Principal Analyst at Blue Hill Research, says the approach "can have a meaningful impact on creating a BI culture where persistent user adoption creates long-term value." Prof. Dr. Marc H. Scholl, CIO of the University of Konstanz, says Yellowfin connects to their different data sources and lets them design views, reports and dashboards "in a flexible and user-friendly way."

Who it suits and who it does not

Yellowfin suits an organization that wants one platform to carry the whole BI loop: connecting and blending sources, preparing data, building dashboards, and pushing results out through alerts, subscriptions, tasks and discussions. The role-based security model and LDAP or Active Directory support make it a candidate for IT groups that need consistent governance, and the embedding options suit teams that want BI inside an intranet or a customer-facing application.

It also suits teams that want analysts and business users working in the same place, with the analyst building content and everyone else consuming and discussing it.

The caveats are about depth and clarity. This is a full BI suite with modules for preparation, transformation, alerting and collaboration, so it is more than a solo founder needs for a first chart. Budgeting starts with a conversation, a trial or a proof of concept. The focus is analytics rather than building general business apps. A buyer who only wants a quick dashboard from one spreadsheet will find the surrounding platform more than the job requires.