Best Data Visualization Tools to explore for your reporting needs

In this age of data and modern-day technology, it is crucial to have capable tools to help your business reach its full potential. It is also extremely important to have a good knowledge of representing the data in correct manner to make it easy to consume and understand for decision makers.

This is where data visualization comes in. Data visualization tools are capable of converting captured and analysed data into preferred charts, graphs, and other easy-to-read insights. Relevant stakeholders can then use the findings to make more efficient real-time decisions.

When you surf through the web, you will find hundreds of data visualization tools offering their best. However, first, you must have the basic knowledge of what ‘Data Visualization’ is.

What is Data Visualization?

Data visualization is a way to transform data into visual representations such as charts, graphs, and maps. This makes it easier for the human brain to process information and quickly recognize data patterns and outliers.

Below are some of the most common techniques of data visualization:

Bar Charts
Pie Charts
Gantt Charts
Line Graphs
Word Clouds
Heatmaps
Scatterplots
Infographics

Is data visualization important? If so, why?

Humans can process images 5 times faster than text. Looking at data in a visual context allows you to discover insights and trends and identify problem areas much faster than looking at raw data. Speed is the essence of success. Therefore, if your data reveals business problems, you need to be able to quickly identify and fix those problems.

CXO’s and decision makers can use this information for decision-making and become a data-driven business because they don’t have to be data scientists to interpret clear visualization. Now that you know why data visualization software is so important, let us take a look at some of the most popular data visualization tools of 2021.

❖ Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft power BI is one of the most powerful and easy to use data visualization tool available today. It is one of the most complete and secured data visualization tool that supports more than 70+ data source connectors which is higher than any other tool.

Power BI empower developers and decision makers to create attractive and easy to understand data visualizations from 100+ visualization templates and provides real-time insights for faster decision making. It is compatible to integrate with other Microsoft services and products.

❖ Tableau

Tableau is a popular data visualization tool, and for good reasons. It’s powerful and the numerous visualizations available range from simple to very sophisticated. Tableau is available to almost everyone, from students to businesses.

However, the desktop version is especially popular with large companies and in the free version, all visualizations are fully exposed. In addition, you can only upload manually from Excel, which reduces the number of data sources you can integrate.

❖ Sisense

Sisense is a full-stack analytics platform consisting of parts: ElastiCube, its analytics database, and a web interface. Like Power BI, Sisense has drag-and-drop capabilities and is highly customizable. It is great for anyone who is familiar with the data and is looking for more advanced features.

Sisense has the advanced features often found in more mature software on the market such as Tableau.

One of these features is in-chip processing, which enables faster and more efficient queries. However, users need to know the data to get the most out of this system.

❖ Infogram

Infogram is a common option for creating reports, charts, and maps. They provide over 550 maps and 35 interactive maps. With an easy-to-use interface, data visualization is simple and easy to learn. Another advantage is that it offers a variety of templates with beautiful-looking designs.

The data you are processing needs to be prepared and linked to the analytics platform to ensure it is correct.

❖ Dundas BI

A classic and popular data visualization tool, the Dundas BI is Business Intelligence and Data Visualization tool with Dashboards, Reporting and Data Analytics providing seamless integration into business apps, enabling organizations access to all their data for faster insights.

It provides hundreds of ultra-interactive visualizations that help users manage, interpret, and analyse their data easily. Howeever, it has limitations in providing predictive analytics, and 3D charts.

❖ Google Charts

You now have a Google chart that allows you to create interactive charts including maps, bar charts, histograms, and more. Google chart allows users to embed the visualizations online and run them live. It is great for people who are already using Google Workspace and want to integrate many data sources.

Google Charts is compatible with SQL databases; you can use large datasets like any other premium tool. However, to use it, you need to know how to code it. This can be a big hurdle when it comes to getting people to use it or even for beginners.

❖ Data Wrapper

Data Wrapper started specifically for the news industry, but now serves a variety of industries. The three types of visualizations supported are maps, diagrams, and tables. It is great for anyone who needs a simple, code-free data visualization tool.

The major drawback of this tool is that data can only be uploaded manually. This lack of data source integration limits offerings compared to other large providers.

❖ Fusion Charts

Fusion Charts is a tool with over 100 interactive charts and over 2,000 maps. This choice sets it apart from other tools. It also integrates with many platforms for greater flexibility and accessibility. This data visualization tool is great for anyone looking for lots of map and chart options.

Fusion Charts comes with a large number of pre-set templates, so you can choose one of them instead of programming your own template. However, the one drawback is that because it is based on JavaScript, you need to learn it to get the most out of it.

Bottom Line

With many Business Intelligence tools available on the internet today, it is difficult to choose the best for your business.

Intellify – Being a Microsoft Partner for 7+ years, have consultants and technology experience of more than 20+ years in the fields of business intelligence, data analysis, data visualization, and artificial intelligence have capabilities to address the complex business problems and guide through choosing the best BI solution according to your needs. Intellify has worked with Start-ups to Fortune 500 companies around the world to solve some unique data problems.

Let’s connect to solve your unique business challenges now.