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THIS PAGE REPRESENTS ONLY A VERY SHORT EXTRACT FROM THE FULL REVIEW.
TO VIEW THE FULL REVIEW YOU CAN PURCHASE THE REVIEW INDIVIDUALLY OR PURCHASE AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION TO THE OLAP REPORT WHICH ALLOWS ACCESS TO ALL OLAP REPORT CONTENT.
Targit Analysis has slightly unusual, and not unattractive, human factors. This fits in with its targeted role as an EIS rather than an analytical platform. The emphasis is always on multiple linked (and usually small) graphic objects in a view, rather than richly formatted, sophisticated tabular views. Targit also aims Analysis at interactive use, and not for producing highly controlled printed reports, though it does now include its own relational reporting component as well as integration with Microsoft Reporting Services. Overall, Targit might be appropriate for users who want to get a quick overview of business information (for example, in a balanced scorecard deployment), but probably would not be enough for organizations that require pixel-perfect reporting.
The main screen uses graduated blue areas rather than the usual ubiquitous gray, and menu options are kept to a minimum. The interface has been remodeled since we last reviewed it, and now has an appearance more like Microsoft Outlook. However, we still found the Web client less intuitive than would be expected.
The display objects can be either graphical or tabular (both relational style columnar tables and crosstabs). There is the usual range of 2D and 3D business charts, plus flat and global maps. The globe can be rotated very easily. The maps are just bit map images (and so could be any images, not just geographical maps), and only cities (and not areas) can be color codes. This is like the pinboard maps that Wired for OLAP introduced in the mid 1990s. Single measure objects can be shown as simple circular gauges styled after a stopwatch or other user-defined graphics.
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Views normally consist of multiple objects, often of multiple types. There is
an optional “criteria bar” used to make dimension selections that
affect all the objects; it is possible to select which dimensions are represented
in the bar. In addition, Targit Analysis sports a useful feature whereby if
a user clicks on one or more data segments in one object, the other objects
are updated to only include data for the selected segments. For example, if
you click on a bar that represents a product in a chart, all other objects on
the screen will be redrawn to represent data for only that product. This also
applies to cells in a grid. And if you <control> click on three product
bars, all the other objects will be redrawn to show the data for that grouping
of products. This is a useful form of drilling, similar to the somewhat more
sophisticated implementation found in Microsoft Data Analyzer.
There is limited control over the formats of the objects, and no features to support high quality hard copy output other than through Targit Report or Microsoft Reporting Services. In general, we felt that the screen looked colorful and attractive, but that the human factors were not particularly intuitive compared to better-known products. We also felt that power users would be frustrated both by the unusual way that normal Windows features are made available, and by the limited functionality offered. For example, there is no Undo feature (the drillpad is used to achieve similar functionality) and drilling is only available in one dimension in an object (rows if it is a grid). It is also not possible to selectively drill into dimension members in grid rows. The help system is very basic indeed and of little value. Instead, Targit provides a range of on-line video demonstrations with its software and on its Web site.
The Targit Report feature introduced with 2K2 is a classic banded-reporting tool. It can include charts or other objects from a Targit Analysis view which will be run in the context of the report when rendered. It supports a typical set of design options like fonts, colors, positioning, line drawing, images etc. It can export to PDF, RTF and HTML.
The other option is the Reporting Services support introduced with 2K5. It enhances the “old” option by allowing true crosstab reports (ie, dimensions across), but it also has some limitations mostly due to missing capabilities of the RS engine. For instance, it is not possible to include Analysis charts or images. It can export to any of the RS supported formats, like PDF, Excel, XML, HTML, etc. Reports can be built from both the Windows and Web clients, using a fairly simple Wizard. No knowledge of RDL, MDX or SQL is required, and users of the wizard do not need to use Visual Studio. It is also possible to generate reports from objects in Analysis. There is some limited control over formatting, but much less than would be available in Visual Studio.
Targit also provides a plug-in for Visual Studio that allows users to create reports inside VS using the Targit Windows client to define the queries, then import the RDL and further manipulate the layout in ways not possible by the Targit software. The resulting RDL can – optionally – be stored in the Targit file system (accessible from the Smartpad) and the users can execute the reports in their security context, change the criteria and enjoy the hyper-related OLAP functionality (but the report can for obvious reasons no longer be edited from Targit Analysis).
Targit says it will continue to develop the two options in parallel, but in the long run – when RS becomes more mature – it will probably focus more and more on supporting RS.
One feature introduced with the link to Reporting Services is what Targit calls ‘Hyper Related OLAP’. This allows the user simply to click on a cell in a Reporting Services report or Analysis Windows client to launch an analysis in Analysis of the data behind the figure.
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THIS PAGE REPRESENTS ONLY A VERY SHORT EXTRACT FROM THE FULL REVIEW.
TO VIEW THE FULL REVIEW YOU CAN PURCHASE THE REVIEW INDIVIDUALLY OR PURCHASE AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION TO THE OLAP REPORT WHICH ALLOWS ACCESS TO ALL OLAP REPORT CONTENT.
