How others compare – an update

• Software
  • Qlik
  • Tableau
  • PowerBI
• Scripting:
  • D3 (& D3-based alternatives)
  • R-Shiny

• Qlik Sense built-in maps
  • Really only good for point data and simple KML
  • Limited to 1 layer
• Qlik GeoAnalytics
  • Can consume most GIS data formats
  • Can consume map/feature services via JSON
  • Standard geography layers included
  • Additional licensing
• 3rd party extensions:
  • QlikMaps
  • Geo-Discover

Spatial Example: Insights & Qlik

Tableau

• Since last year, have added support for WMS and Mapbox layers
• Also Added geojson support
• Still very limited custom polygon support
  • 3rd party tools to help, but not easy

Spatial Example - Insights & Tableau

PowerBI

• Since last year
  • Drive-time areas
  • Custom tooltips
  • Living Atlas (Premium)
• Still no “Publish to Web”!

Insights Strengths

• More intuitive interface
• Simple drag-and-drop
• Very easy to quickly create custom variables
• Much easier to set up relationships between tables

Insights Strengths - Analysis

• Analysis-driven, great for data exploration
  • Insights guides you through questions to find answers
• Spatial analysis tools not provided elsewhere
  • Drive-times, filtering, enrichment, etc.
• Everything is recorded as models, and can share workflows

Insights Strengths -   Spatial First

• Spatial first, not an afterthought or add-on
• Drag-and-drop spatial filtering and aggregation
• Access to all data in the Living Atlas

Insights Limitations - Presentation

• Insights is analyst-focused, so sometimes lacks in presentation
• Very limited customization of charts (colors, labels, etc)
• Can only share an entire page, not a single card (yet)
• In AGOL, no public sharing at all (yet)

Insights Limitations - Extensibility

• Both Tableau and Qlik Sense have APIs that provide much more customizability than Insights
• Both have APIs to develop new visualization extensions as well as REST APIs to interact with the server

Extensibility Example - Qlik

• Don’t like the built-in charts in Qlik?

• Qlik has an online community called Qlik Branch where users can post their own custom extensions

http://branch.qlik.com/

• Developers can then take those and customize even further

Limitations of Insights - Connectivity

• Insights is improving this all the time, but still not as many options as other software
  • Oracle, Teradata, SQL Server, SAP HANA
• Qlik and Tableau provide many more
  • Apache Hive, Cloudera, DB2, MySQL, Postgres, Salesforce, Sybase, Microsoft Sharepoint, REST JSON, Dropbox and more

Limitations of Insights - Advanced Aggregation

• Both Tableau and Qlik have the ability to compute aggregations that are not at the level of detail of the current dimension
  • Tableau: Level of Detail Expressions
  • Qlik: Set Expressions
• Can do some level of aggregation in Insights, but not to the same degree

Limitations of Insights - Advanced Crossfiltering

• Insights 2.2.1 has cross-filtering – yay!
• Unfortunately, there is no way to control what all gets cross-filtered
  • All selections/filters passed along
• Sometimes need to obtain some static calculated value that is not affected by any filters that are applied to the view
  • Tableau: Triggers OR LoD expressions
  • Qlik: Set expressions