40-Point BI Evaluation Checklist: Score Vendors Before They Score Your Budget
Systematic scoring prevents $200K BI disasters. Covers performance, usability, costs, and vendor red flags with weighted criteria.
Scoring Framework
Rate each criterion 1-5 based on vendor demonstrations and answers. Multiply by weight percentage to get weighted score. Vendors scoring below 3.5 overall typically fail post-implementation due to user adoption issues or cost overruns.
Evaluation Criteria
User Experience & Adoption
30% weightEvaluate how quickly non-technical users can create useful reports. Test with actual business users during vendor demos, not IT staff. Failed user adoption kills 60% of BI investments within 18 months.
Sample Questions
- Can a sales manager create territory performance dashboard in under 30 minutes?
- Do users need training beyond 2 hours to build basic reports independently?
- Are dashboards readable and interactive on iPhone 12 screens?
- Can users modify existing reports without breaking functionality?
- Do error messages help users fix problems or just show technical codes?
Performance & Scalability
25% weightTest with your actual data volumes and concurrent user loads. Vendors demo with 1MB samples but production reality involves 50GB+ datasets and 25-50 simultaneous users during month-end reporting.
Sample Questions
- What are response times with 25 concurrent users on 50GB dataset?
- How does performance degrade when connecting 8+ data sources simultaneously?
- What caching mechanisms prevent repeated expensive queries?
- Can the system handle data refresh during business hours without impacting users?
- What happens to dashboard performance during peak usage periods?
Total Cost Transparency
20% weightUncover all costs including licenses, connectors, infrastructure, professional services, and ongoing maintenance. Software licenses typically represent only 30-50% of total 3-year costs in BI implementations.
Sample Questions
- What's the complete 3-year cost including infrastructure and services?
- Which features require premium licensing and what percentage of users need upgrades?
- Are data connectors separately licensed and what do they cost?
- What professional services are required vs optional for basic functionality?
- What are typical expansion costs when adding users or data sources?
Data Integration Capabilities
15% weightEvaluate connections to your specific systems like Salesforce, NetSuite, and custom databases. Test refresh reliability and data modeling complexity with your actual schema, not idealized samples.
Sample Questions
- How many hours to model our Salesforce and NetSuite data for self-service use?
- What's the data refresh failure rate and recovery process?
- Can the system handle incremental updates on large datasets?
- How complex is row-level security setup for our organizational structure?
- What happens when source system schemas change during updates?
Vendor Stability & Support
10% weightAssess vendor financial health, product roadmap, and actual support quality. Check references from customers 18+ months post-implementation for realistic support experience beyond honeymoon period.
Sample Questions
- What's median resolution time for performance issues affecting multiple users?
- Can you provide references from customers 18+ months post-implementation?
- What's your track record of product updates breaking existing functionality?
- How do you handle support escalation for business-critical issues?
- What data export capabilities exist if we need to migrate to different vendor?
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