Bright Analytics vs. Phocas Software

With a plethora of business intelligence (BI) solutions available, how do you know you’ve found the right software? Bright Analytics and Phocas Software might not be as popular as leading BI solutions, such as Microsoft Power BI, IBM Cognos, and Oracle, but these two software vendors have powerful features and valuable capabilities to help organizations understand business better.

Bright Analytics is a BI platform for data automation, flexible data management, bespoke dashboards, and custom metrics. Phocas Software is a cloud-based, SaaS company specializing in data analytics for manufacturing, distribution, and retail industries.

We’ll compare the main features of Bright Analytics vs. Phocas Software in this article to give you an idea of how each BI software can help you. You can also use our Product Selection Tool to learn more about other reliable BI solutions.

Bright Analytics vs. Phocas Software: What you need to know

Bright Analytics is a UK-made BI software with features and analytics framework that help businesses harness complex data sources to deliver the key metrics for the company. It has features for ad hoc reports, dashboards, KPIs, performance metrics, predictive analytics, sharing, scorecards, strategic planning, and visual analytics. Bright Analytics was built for mid-sized companies and large organizations and has mid-range prices.

Phocas Software is also a UK-made BI software that uses sector knowledge to consolidate essential business data from common ERP, CRM, and AP/AR systems to make it simple to access company-wide insights through historical and predictive analysis. Phocas Software has features for reporting, ad hoc reporting, dashboards, collaboration, scheduling, data discovery and visualization, access control, and predictive analytics. Like Bright Analytics, Phocas Software was designed for mid-sized to large businesses and also offers mid-range prices.

Comparing the features

Bright Analytics and Phocas Software have features for dashboard, data visualization, and collaboration.

Dashboard

Bright Analytics enables users to create compelling visualizations that tell the story in their data. The software lets users customize every last detail of their dashboards — including the size and layout of the reports, visualization types, chart settings, axis management, color schemes, number formatting, and data labels. Users can build any number of dashboards with any layout, showing whatever data they need to show. Users can also build template dashboards and use these as the basis for a consistent, easily maintained suite of insights that are easily filtered to show the appropriate context. Dashboards can be shared with users or groups of users, and access levels are assigned accordingly to ensure the right balance of control and flexibility for users to explore and interact with their data.

Phocas Software lets team members display key data in one easy-to-understand view through its dashboard feature. Users can slice and dice the data to follow their train of thought and get the answers they need on the fly. The software enables users to easily share what they’ve discovered from their dashboard by sending insights right to someone’s inbox or within the platform to ease the reporting burden and alert the right teams to positive or negative trends. Dashboards in Phocas Software are customizable so that users can modify the view they want to see and tailor dashboards to their needs by including any data and visualizations they want without the help of IT.

Data visualization

With Bright Analytics, users can create the visualizations they need to tell an impactful story using their data and deliver clear, compelling, and immediate insight. The system supports dozens of visualizations and variations of them, from simple pie charts and bar charts, to multi-axis charts with infinite drilldown, to heat maps, geographical maps, Gantt charts, and scorecards with integrated period comparison, as well as custom interactive visualizations for path analysis and channel overlap. This software gives their customers the tools to craft and fine-tune every last element of their visualization, from color selection to number formatting, customizable icons, line thicknesses, drilldown behaviors, and axis positions.

Phocas Software has data visualization tools like charts and graphics that help tell a concise story about a business. The data visualizations from this BI software are customizable to meet various needs. Users can drill down further into the details and analyze underlying data. They can select from a variety of charts and graphs that suit their needs,\ including pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, bubble charts, gauges, Pareto charts, tables, and waterfall charts. Data visualizations in Phocas Software can be embedded in a dashboard or scorecard, shared with other team members, or sent via email.

Collaboration

With Bright Analytics, users can instantly share insights and content with other team members to drive real-time collaboration. When changes are made by a user in the system, these changes are reflected in real time across the platform. This way, users can collaborate to review each other’s changes to shared content in real time. This BI software allows users to send a link to the dashboard they’re working on to their colleagues and comment on the changes made.

With Phocas Software, team members can start a group discussion from one centralized location. Users can create, share, present or email information with teams, branches, vendors, customers, and suppliers. They can easily collaborate with others by creating favorites, saving queries, and @mentioning team members. Users can also apply permissions to ensure the right data is in the hands of the right people.

Integrations

Bright Analytics has built-in integrations with applications for messaging, analytics, marketing, advertising, and time tracking:

• TubeMogul
• Adobe Analytics
• SnapChat
• BrightEyes
• Timeneye

Phocas Software readily integrates with tools for inbound marketing, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, finance, and eCommerce:

• HubSpot Marketing Hub
• Dynamics 365
• NetSuite
• SAP Business One
• Retail Express

The better BI software for your business needs

Bright Analytics and Phocas Software have important features and functionalities that can greatly help businesses present data in a simple and understandable way.

If you’re looking for the BI software with better customization capabilities then Bright Analytics can give you what you need. You can customize virtually every detail of reports, dashboards, and data visualizations with this software. However, if you need the BI software option that is easier to learn and use, Phocas Software is the right choice for you. The software’s usability is one of its best features, according to many Phocas users.

If you want to explore other options, use our Product Selection Tool. You’ll get a list of trusted BI software options for free.