Business intelligence and analytics vendor Yellowfin has released the latest version of its BI software, Yellowfin 6.3, with enhancements that focus on three key product areas: collaboration, usability and data visualization.
New collaborative BI features and functionality make it easier to share and consume data and analysis through features such as “Timeline,” which enables users to monitor and understand their relationship with BI content and relevant decision-makers. Timeline records users’ specific activities and interactions within Yellowfin in real-time. According to Yellowfin, the result is a searchable, personalized, chronological catalog of the particular movements of, and anything related to, each individual user within Yellowfin. In addition, Yellowfin Discussion Module makes it easier for users to engage in dialogue with other users and to link BI content to those discussions.
Usability enhancements include Dashboard Sub Tabs, which enables users to create multiple tabs within a single dashboard tab, and Dashboard Help which assists users in understanding how to utilize key features of a Yellowfin dashboard via informational pop-ups. Pop-ups appear over key dashboard elements and explain their purpose and usefulness.
Yellowfin 6.3 also includes new data visualization features to make it easier to build more insightful and intuitive BI content, while supporting improved analysis. Key additions in this area include “Brushing” which enables users to quickly select or exclude data points on a chart by pointing, clicking and dragging to highlight the area of data they want to eliminate from their data set, or isolate and explore in greater detail. In addition, colored metrics for series selection allow users to assign a specific color to each metric, supporting easier data analysis through consistent coloring, while report summaries encapsulate the key metrics and trends within a report, and are displayed as mini KPI-type charts along the top of a report, for easy at-a-glance understanding.
Finally, a new HTML 5 Mobile BI application for Android devices complements Yellowfin’s existing native applications for iPad and iPhone. The application is available on Android version 4.1, and like Yellowfin’s other mobile applications, comes as part of a standard Yellowfin license.
For a comprehensive list of all product additions and enhancements included in Yellowfin 6.3, download the official Release Notes.