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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

    Score6.5 out of 10
    N/AThe SAP® BusinessObjects™ Business Intelligence Platform provides users with ad hoc queries, reporting, data visualizations, and analysis tools. Its integrated, unified infrastructure aims to offer scalability from one-to-many tools and interfaces on-premise, in the cloud, or as a hybrid approach.N/A
    Pricing
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Free Trial
    No
    Free/Freemium Version
    No
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    No
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Considered Both Products
    SAP
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    This has the biggest drawback of handling the large data volume which I feel is needed as this is time-consuming and making decisions at the right time is getting harder and we have decided to move to this platform considering the time taken to process the data.
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    We are using SAC as well but the Schedule part of SAC cannot be compared to SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence schedule.
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Microsoft's Power BI has certainly gained a lot of attention and became a leader in Gartner's magic quadrant. This is certainly a good product for average data volume which can be handled in the cloud, however, SAP BI is capable of handling much more data with complex reporting …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    SAP Business Objects have better security model than Tableau. One can setup a lot of security permissions as compared to a tool like Tableau. Tableau is good for creating visualizations/dashboards but not very great for operational reporting. Scheduling features are much better …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Other offering include PowerBI and Tableau. Both alternatives have different licensing options to consider, in terms of capabilities, they increase in conjunction with the license price.
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    When we get the installation of the SAP BO BI Platform done on one of the BO servers, we get a whole of stacks of SAP BO BI suite tools installed. This is a package that has reporting tools inside it. For instance, web intelligence-rich clients, SAP Crystal reports, etc. We can …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Board is a great ERP software. Business Objects is more nimble and flexible. Board is good if the Dash Boards and screens are relatively static and have selection/filter options. Business Objects is if you do lots of ad-hoc analysis and reporting on the fly.
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    I'd say they are on a par with each other. AppD definitely provides very technical insights, whereas BI provides better business reports.
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    MicroStrategy Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics is costlier compared to SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform stacks. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform stacks is user friendly, easy to adapt, easy to train resources and get them …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Even though all these tools are very similar to each other, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform does have better integration with the database than other competitors such as Microsoft Power BI. On the side of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    SAP BO BI is very similar to Microsoft Power BI. However, SAP BO BI is much stronger in terms of analytics and document management while Power bI is stronger in data visualization and big data integration. SAP BO BI is a great tool within its ally, which is performance analysis …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    There is no special differentiation point. My companies were using SAP as their main ERP and therefore using the SAP BO BI for reporting and analysis purposes. Some reports were defined to be released periodically but these reports were needed for day to day information. We …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Earlier, I used SAP BW's BEx tools for reporting, but it was challenging to format the report data and export to different formats. SAP BEx tools can access data from limited sources where as SAP BO can access data from most of the datasources which is why I prefer using BO …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    An upgrade to SAP BW/4HANA could be considered to get better performance. But if performance is not a huge problem, SAP BusinessObjects BI is a good solution on-premise.
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    We tried Yellowfin BI but it did not work for our business model. It was nice and the user-experience was good but ultimate we sided with SAP Business Objects BI Platform because the visual reports that were produced were simple and easy to understand. We need that level of …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Crystal was part of the platform prior to my tenure. Explorer has always had a limited use case. I helped drive the conversation for Visual Intelligence and by the time we acted, it turned into Lumira which can't hold a candle to Tableau or Power BI.
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform is an on premise solution that allows you to display information hosted on an SAP BW / 4 HANA server.
    SAP Analytics Cloud is SAP's business intelligence solution that works in the cloud and is complemented by SAP …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    As we have been using SAP ERP, having SAP BI was one of the key factors in our choice. Also design efficiency, variety of data sources' integration and document versioning gave better advantages to SAP BI over others. Also adding SAP BI during the SAP ERP rollout provided …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Crystal Reports has the most features that we need for our custom and purpose built reports.
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    We selected SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) based on price. It can stack up against others in terms of price and honestly, that's about it. Salesforce Commerce does a hell of a better job at handling it. However, in the space of Business Intelligence, SAP can do …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Sometimes configuration is challenging (unless you are also very familiar with setting up Java VMs). I like the meta-data layer design tool. I like that there are thick and thin versions of the tools users use. Users at this point try to build a report themselves rather than …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    We currently have implementations of both Microsoft BI and SAP Business Objects so our enterprise has found reasons for both. Some users prefer BI over SAP and it depends on the department they are working for. SAP was chosen for the more complex tasks that require large data …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    I use the platform as it is all that is available to me. I have no ability to query the warehouse directly probably for good reason. I have been using PowerBI and I know it can connect to the warehouse and do the query and visualization in real time. However, our admins will …
    Incentivized
    Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    That was the best alternative that could connect to our ERP instances. The availability of SAP Rapid Marts that could be leveraged to pull data models for specific SAP areas such as Sales tables, Production, Maintenance, and others was also a very important differentiation. …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    83%
    Would buy again
    10 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    9 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    83%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    88%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    8 Answers
    Features
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Feature
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    8.2
    51 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Pixel Perfect reports8.646 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards7.747 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates8.347 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Feature
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    7.8
    48 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Drill-down analysis7.247 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities8.347 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages7.333 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration8.647 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Feature
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    7.9
    48 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Publish to Web9.040 Ratings
    Publish to PDF7.546 Ratings
    Report Versioning6.742 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling8.447 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers7.726 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Feature
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    7.2
    43 Ratings
    10% below category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)6.941 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization6.939 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics7.938 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining7.32 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Feature
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    9.2
    48 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)9.048 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model9.646 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)9.045 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control9.62 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)9.029 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Feature
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    5.8
    34 Ratings
    30% below category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access6.733 Ratings
    Mobile Application3.828 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile3.830 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Feature
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    7.1
    24 Ratings
    9% below category average
    REST API6.721 Ratings
    Javascript API7.319 Ratings
    iFrames7.318 Ratings
    Java API7.222 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)7.321 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)6.720 Ratings
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    User Ratings
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.7
    (73 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.3
    (24 ratings)
    Usability
    7.6
    (16 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (5 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (10 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.6
    (16 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.2
    (45 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.3
    (45 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
    Likelihood to Recommend
    SAP
    As mentioned earlier reporting was a big headache for us and the tools we used didn't support large data sets and visualization Performing analytics with such data sets was cumbersome and later post using this SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence we were able to correlate different data sets and prepare the dashboard pretty easier which were helpful and easier to understand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    SAP
    • This software is easy to initially learn, and very powerful in producing reusable reports.
    • It is much faster than my company's internal manual queries. The ability to build off of a saved query and share queries to other users is a great positive.
    • My favorite part is that you can run queries in the background and it does not interfere with your current work or slow your computer down.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    SAP
    • The installation can be very complex and time-consuming, it requires a lot of planning and foresight as to what role the software will play in the organization.
    • The software has a relatively large learning curve that takes dedicated users months to get comfortable with, the UI is a bit intimidating for new users.
    • SAP could organize their help better, it can be difficult to find dependable solutions to issues via their website and support channels.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    SAP
    The institution has decided to move in a different direction, and will be using MSBI for reporting. I have been very happy with the Business Objects suite of tools, and will continue to use them heavily until we make the transition.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    SAP
    From a server and client side perspective. the Business Intelligence Platform provides a foundation for all aspects of content development, distribution, analysis, collaboration and self service. Ease of use from targeted content delivery through controlled accessibility. Content exporting in the format of the users choice. Scheduling for internal or external delivery. Public and private folders for secure content access when requied. Web based for viewing on the users device of choice without the need to download additional applications.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    SAP
    When we implemented 3.1, we had a tough time managing the system: It took almost a year to stabilize.

    With 4.0, we want to roll out to more users, and are holding back because of fears about the performance issue
    Read full review
    Performance
    SAP
    Overall, the tool (Web Intelligence 4.2) is fast and solid. One issue is a dependability on JAVA for a full feature report creation/edit capabilities (as opposed to limited HTML option). Second, planned end of JAVA support by major browsers (Chrome is already not supporting JAVA applet).
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    SAP
    SAP has released various versions of SAP BO BI. starting from 3.1 and going to 4.0,4.1,4.2 and latest being 4.3. SAP provides support to these new versions. As new versions keep on coming, support for the very old software goes out of scope from SAP. it is when the different organization plans to get their BO content migrated from a lower version to a newer version. The newer version had definitely added functionality and features which ease the work of users.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    SAP
    SAP authorized training is best, Please go ahead with it. Even lot of online training options/videos available for self learning
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    SAP
    I haven't used it or got feedback from the end user.

    Content looks to be pretty detailed. Focused on SQL but not BW.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    SAP
    Hire specialists and experienced staff. Mix some beginners so that everyone is not a leader but a learner too. Plan well; architect well; break down implementation in small steps and move towards larger steps. Create a centralized and authorized SAP Business Objects implementation team.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    SAP
    We selected SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) based on price. It can stack up against others in terms of price and honestly, that's about it. Salesforce Commerce does a hell of a better job at handling it. However, in the space of Business Intelligence, SAP can do more, and that's why at the end we went with it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    SAP
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform supports SOA Service Oriented Architecture. You can start/restart/enable/disable all the servers. You can seamless do load balancing and clustering. It supports all leading application and web server. Supports LDAP SSO integration. People who can work on excel with training they can work on SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence, dashboard, Lumira, Information design tool product suite. Tool is very user friendly and easy to learn and implement
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    SAP
    • By generating and distributing reports in a timely manner, we were able to save millions of dollars for the company which otherwise would not have been visible.
    • Almost realtime dashboard, saved the company a huge amount by showing the outages and kept the company from buying a tool to do just that.
    • It showed the customers who were not paying the bills and were missing in the system due to some loophole. This was visible by doing reporting on the theft usage of electricity.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots