Impact of IE 11 Desupport on Discoverer

Internet Explorer 11, the last major version of the desktop application from Microsoft, will be sunsetted in June 2022 when support will be withdrawn on some of the operating systems. Users are being encouraged to migrate to Microsoft Edge, a more new-age solution. 

For Discoverer users using IE II, this is yet another blow. Already Oracle has withdrawn support for the BI tool and now, with IE 11 doing the same, those who still hold on will be forced to look for alternatives. They will not be able to continue to do so anymore due to the risk it poses.

Some of the risks include:

• Security, as without support and regular patches, the system may be vulnerable to attacks
• Java Applet, which was used by Discoverer, is not supported by most modern browsers, including Microsoft Edge

This will put additional pressure on Discoverer users to migrate to other BI tools. In today’s world, finding an alternative BI tool is not the challenge, what is a challenge is to find one that can handle the existing Discoverer reports, making the migration process simpler and meeting their operational reporting requirements. 

Picking an alternative that makes migration seamless 

Despite the challenges, businesses may toy with the idea of continuing with the unsupported Discoverer. It is a fair thought since migration will involve migrating several hundreds and thousands of Discoverer reports to another reporting tool. Compatibility can be an issue as also the training needs. The IT and implementation challenges are other deterrents to looking for an alternative. Many take the attitude of, if something is working, don’t touch it. But this will leave the business vulnerable due to the lack of support from both Oracle and Microsoft.

The second option could be to migrate to OBIEE, which is Microsoft Edge compatible and provides other advantages such as a web platform and interactive dashboards suitable for C-level needs. However, it is not strong on day-to-day ad hoc analysis as Discoverer, and drilling into data details can be difficult. Further, it requires a data warehouse in most cases, and businesses will be expected to create the structure of reports they need in the next 6 to 12 months in advance. Building new reports or converting Discoverer reports to OBIEE can be cost and time-inefficient and need the help of IT.

The third option is to identify a replacement that enables real-time data access, is easy to implement, and cost-effective. It should provide data security and enable the automated conversion of Discoverer reports and ease of migration, among other things.

The Selection Process

Therefore, before choosing an alternative, it is important to complete some preliminary investigation that includes:

Identifying Your Needs for Oracle Discoverer Replacement: Knowing the current strengths and weaknesses of Discoverer will help you understand what to look for in the alternative product. It should be an upgrade rather than pull you back a few years. Defining your business objectives, identifying key performance areas, understanding the reporting requirements of the users are among the important aspects to understand, before picking the new tool. 

Identifying and Assessing Your Discoverer Replacement Alternatives: It may be a little overwhelming to shortlist the ones that seem like a potentially correct tool for you. Use the tools and features requirements already identified as the north star to guide you in the quest.  In addition to the features, some of the other factors to keep in mind are the cost of the product, the capability of the vendor, the implementation requirements, the training requirements, and whether it is user-friendly. Though you may be in a hurry, haste makes waste and a wrong tool may prove more costly.

Seeking Demos and POC for the Final Selection: Having shortlisted the potential vendors, share your requirements with vendors and seek consultations and demos. A hands-on demonstration will help in understanding whether it truly fits your reporting workflow and decide based on the features, cost, and vendor reputation.

OBIEE as a possible alternative?

OBIEE does bring to the fore several advantages such as interactive dashboards with a range of visualization tools and intuitive UI for C-level executives. It can pull together data from different sources to create impressive summary data. Exception reporting, enterprise-wide reporting, and spatial intelligence for map-based visualization for analytics are some of the other benefits. 

But it also has many limitations such as:

• The time needed for implementation, which can be anywhere between 6 and 12 years
• It may need a database for the warehouse for creating the report, which also further delays its implementation
• Only static data will be available for drilling down
• The cost and effort to find a resource can also be high
• Drilling down in the tool is difficult and you may need to build Excel plugins for the purpose

 Orbit: Speed, Ease, and Capabilities Make it a Compelling Option

Orbit’s reporting and analytics solution is an ideal replacement for Discoverer, for the following reasons: 

• • Speed of implementation: Orbit offers an Oracle Discoverer migration assistant that converts all the Discoverer reports without any interruption to your operations, ensuring quick time to value. 

• Pre-built reports: Orbit includes more than 1,000 pre-built Oracle Financials, Supply Chain, and HCM reports that ensure you are up-and-running quickly.

• Self-Service: Orbit empowers business users with self-service capabilities, thereby generating reports and running analytics on real-time data without the help of the IT team.
• Create visualizations with ease: Users can customize visualizations such as charts, graphs, and maps that best meet their requirements to draw insights. 
• Drill Down for Granular View: Orbit enables drilling down to the lowest level of detail to gain deeper insights.
• Collaboration: The reports can be exported to Excel, PDF, or other formats and shared with co-workers. 
• Schedule report generation: The Orbit tool allows users to schedule reports to run on a recurring or one-time basis to align with the organization’s month-end processes, internal planning needs, or when new data becomes available.
• Unified view of data: Orbit can aggregate data from on-prem and cloud sources, thereby providing a single source of truth.
• Excel integration: Excel is a popular tool that is integrated with Orbit such that users can generate their reports using real-time data without exiting the tool.
• Ad-hoc reporting: One of the popular uses of Orbit is ad-hoc reporting to gain insights into day-to-day transactions
• Security: Orbit tool protects data security by ensuring permission-based access aligned to the business’s data governance policies
• Mobile ready: Being cloud-based, the tool allows users secure access from anywhere, any time.

If you need to know more about Orbit Reporting and Analytics, Contact Us now.