TIBCO Spotfire 4.0 Simplifies Data Sharing, Improves Visual Data Analysis
Combines “free dimensional” analytics with collective intelligence.
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TIBCO Software Inc. has updated its namesake Spotfire analytics platform to version 4.0, combining visual data discovery with collaboration capabilities for improved decision-making. Spotfire 4 delivers contextual and social collaboration capabilities that put data insights within a relevant business context. Featuring integration with Microsoft SharePoint and TIBCO’s own tibbr, Spotfire 4.0 unites interactive dashboards, in-context analysis, and rich "social discovery" features to simplify individual and collective analysis.
"With Spotfire 4.0, we did not look at collaboration as a collection of the latest social networking fads, but more as a decision-making process within a business environment. The best decisions are always made in context and typically involve a group of people who provide valuable insights," said Lars Bauerle, vice president of product strategy at TIBCO Spotfire. "We've taken that model and applied the most appropriate collaborative features to enhance data analysis in a way that harnesses the wisdom of the crowd and speeds final decisions."
Collective Intelligence -- Bringing Data to Preferred Places and People for Fastest Insight and Action
Effective collaboration requires both contextual information and social interaction, enabling people to investigate, share and discuss a wide range of possible actions. By providing broad collaborative capabilities, Spotfire 4.0 is delivering a medium where the full breadth of an organization's collective intelligence can be harnessed to reach the best possible decisions.
Contextual Collaboration: By putting analysis in the right business context, individuals and groups can do more meaningful analysis, discover more important insights and make better decisions. Spotfire 4.0 embeds analysis in the context of critical business activity. With Spotfire 4.0 users can:
- Easily embed Spotfire analyses within corporate portals, blogs, and Microsoft SharePoint
- Embed Web pages, such as wikis, within a Spotfire analysis to provide easy access to online information that relates to the analysis
- Embed live, threaded discussions from social media (such as tibbr) within a Spotfire analysis to provide contextual discussions relevant to the decision
- Link to Spotfire analyses from other websites or blogs with ease
Social Collaboration: Enhanced by tibbr, TIBCO's enterprise social computing platform, Spotfire harnesses social networking to leverage the insights of distributed teams to rapidly develop consensus and drive action, making Spotfire 4.0a "social" decision-making platform. With Spotfire 4.0 users can:
- Actively "follow" an analysis subject or author
- Spontaneously create a new discussion "workspace" around an insight or decision and invite others to join
- Embed a discussion thread into an analysis, so users see the discussion that prompted the analysis directly within Spotfire
- Save an analysis to a discussion thread where others can see and discuss it; discussion participants can simply click to open the analysis within a Web browser
- Access an analysis and be alerted to changes through each member's "channel of choice" including Web, text, or mobile (including iPhone, iPad, Android platform, and BlackBerry devices)
- Initiate video conferencing or desktop sharing via a single click to initiate a live "Spotfire Meeting;" users can automatically record and repost discussions and presentations with accompanying analysis and resulting decisions.
The new collaboration features in Spotfire 4.0 build on existing features, including universal search, collaborative bookmarks, and the ability to easily share analyses across an organization. Users can search by keyword and instantly identify all associated data points across the analysis. With collaborative public bookmarks, users can capture a dashboard -- its complete configuration, including markings, drop-down selections, and filter settings -- and share that visualization immediately with others following that dashboard. Users can capture a particular analytic and decision-making approach, and then easily share that analysis via the Web to desktop and iPad users.
In one customer scenario, SharePoint sites used by finance departments contain information on costs, previous budgets, forecasts, anticipated trends, and more. By embedding a Spotfire application directly within that portal, users can explore a wide range of "what-if" scenarios while accessing the portal's contents. By making this analysis and discussion visible to all the relevant participants, consensus and buy-in are achieved much more quickly.
At-A-Glance Insight, Interactive Investigation
By striking a balance between just enough information and the appropriate interactivity options for a given user, Spotfire 4.0 serves a wide range of data analysts and information consumers. Users can move seamlessly between data discovery and analytic application creation, consistently employing best practices for data analysis. Spotfire designed 4.0 to deliver powerful analytics that operate "under the hood" and ensure that dashboards provide "at-a-glance" understanding. Spotfire 4.0 offers:
- New designs and visualizations that allow users to quickly see all relevant information in a single screen. "Information-at-a-glance" delivers a succinct display of information, easily understood by busy decision makers.
- New capabilities improve the user experience by allowing analysts to tailor flexible, interactive dashboards for information consumers that replace dozens of static dashboards. These smarter dashboards allow users to quickly determine those factors influencing KPIs, delivered with just the right amount of information and interactivity for that user's decision-making needs.
- Spotfire's analytic applications and dashboards can be easily created without programming or IT support. One-click deployment to the Web provides easy, rapid access to a community of users.
- TIBCO Spotfire for iPad features fully interactive, analytic dashboards and visualizations that can be exported to images or PDF files.
For more information about the product, visit spotfire.tibco.com/4-0.aspx.