SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

Score6.5 out of 10

844 Reviews and Ratings

What is SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence?

The 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.

Categories & Use Cases

Business Intelligence (BI)

Role-Based Security Model
Role-based access means that access to data is determined by job or position in the corporation.
Category average: 8.4
Report-Level Access Control
Report-level access control means that the type of report determines who has access to it.
Category average: 8.1
Publish to Web
Category average: 8.4

Customizable Platform (Open Source)
A customizable, open source API Gateway is a fast and scalable type of API
Category average: 7.7
Mobile Application
A dedicated app for iOS and/or Android.
Category average: 7.4
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.
Category average: 7.9

Most Frequent Users

Top 3 industries using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence.

Based on HG Insights installation data

View all Reviews

#1 most frequent

Manufacturing

18.5%

279 installations of 1,511

#2 most frequent

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

15.6%

236 installations of 1,511

#3 most frequent

Finance and Insurance

12.2%

185 installations of 1,511

Rica Camus View profile

SAP Analytics Lead in Information Technology at Fonterra (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have been using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence for many years now as the front-end tool across multiple sources, but it has very limited functions. What we mostly use it now is a tool to schedule running a report after loading has completed and save that report to a shared drive. Most users prefer using the Analysis for office or Power BI as they can use online and offline data. I think SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence is a bit older than SAC and now people are liking stories and other functions in SAC and are moving away from SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

Pros

Scheduling the report run with prompts
Front end too that can get data from multiple sources
Roles synced from BW can be added to limit data access

Cons

Flexibility of multiple drill down options
Combining data in system and offline data from computer
The need of Universe designer so less self service ability

Return on Investment

Slow response takes up more of people's time
Not valuable for analysis, so a bit of waste

Usability

irfan shaik View profile

Technical Consultant in Information Technology at Numeric technologies inc (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We mainly use this to perform business reporting, and visualization for a broader range of audience. We perform large scale data analytics to discuss in-depth business insights and perform forecasts for the rest of the financial year. The best of this application we can perform cross-enterprise sharing which helps in sharing business insights with colleagues and makes decision-making easier. Before this, we used to use an internal product developed that gets crashed for a large set of data. Now using this we can load huge datasets that helps filtering things very easier.

Pros

Cross enterprise sharing where sharing the insights are easier across organisation.
Creative role based dashboards helps to provide information to specific users that way they can make decisions easier any time any where across any device.
Large scale data analytics is one where data from large sets are used to discover in depth business insights and perform the forecast for rest of the financial year to make decisions easier.

Cons

UI part need much improvements as every one don't have complete idea of the components.
The transfer of the data between the system seems to be tricky if you have a system with one data type and different system with different data type the kind of conversion is harder.
The features that are available in Desktop version are not available in mobile which is big drawback for this sap.

Return on Investment

The kind of financial reporting we are performing to make the decision faster has a positive impact with SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence.
We primarily use this tool for reporting and analytics purpose on top of SAP data we use this for live reporting on SAP S/4 HANA. It has real-time connectivity with S4 HANA.
Main area of improvement if I can see the visualization on the mobile which is lagging so much.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Analisa.io

Other Software Used

Microsoft Power BI

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence is heavily used in our company. Since we moved all the workbooks from BW Analyzer to SAP Analysis for Office, all the workbooks are saved in the BI Launchpad platform. The folder structure is based on the company organization and connected to BW roles which shows to the end user only the folder they are able to see.

Pros

Scheduling workbooks
Organization of SAP Analysis workbooks
Central repository of Lumira Dashboards

Cons

Better interface for the end users
No technical content. Example: report to show the BW queries used by AfO workbooks

Return on Investment

Not lots of updates in SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Best tool for Scheduling. SAC cannot do everything SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence does in terms of Scheduling

Usability

Alternatives Considered

SAP Analytics Cloud

Other Software Used

SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Business Warehouse, SAP Integrated Business Planning

Jim Myers

Chief, IT Asset management in Information Technology at USG (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards to broadcast reports to our customers. This is our analytical suite for reporting and monitoring our baseline data for procurement and logistics operations. Our organization is an Information Technology group that manages a very large amount of assets along with procurement activities. SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards is our only way to manage reporting and soon-to-be SAC.

Pros

Broadcasting reports on schedule
Showing data analytics that have drill down capabilities
Monitoring and managing custom report by user

Cons

Ease of use
Reports building can be a challenge unless your an excel wiz
Easier use of adding in other data sources

Return on Investment

Additional resource to manage

Usability

Gaurav Pandey - PMP,ITIL,CSM View profile

SAP Application Manager in Information Technology at Flynn Restaurant Group (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SAP Business Objects and Business Intelligence is one of the flagship products of SAP. I remember the BW days and then the acquisition of BO and eventually the rollout of the new SAP data analytics platform i.e. BI. The product is good for large data volumes, month-end closings, analytical analysis, generating 360-degree reports, handling workload, managing process chain, etc. However more the data, more the memory needed.

Pros

Analytics
Continuous refresh of reports
Easy customizations using ABAP

Cons

Memory requirements
Hardware requirements
Continuous operational support

Return on Investment

Smooth month end close
On time reports
Better business visibility

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Power BI

Other Software Used

1EDISource, Mainframe Modernization with AWS (Blu Age), uPerform

Usability

Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Tableau Desktop

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

What is SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence?

Categories & Use Cases