SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Reviews

The solution can be deployed on-premise and in cloud environments. We are using Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS for cloud services.

Our main use case for the use of this solution is for reporting.

The solution has given us multi-systems and databases that have been very good for us.

The development using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is very good.

The solution can improve by having more analytical features.

I have been using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for approximately nine years.

The stability of the solution has been good.

I have found the scalability to be good.

I rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform an eight out of ten.

Semantic Layer (Universes), ease of use

New Undelete of Public objects..

New Dashboard of overall environment

Java Applet still relying on the quirkiness of Java VM, and potential version mis-matches.

10+ Years

With proper planning and understanding of the application landscape the deployment is fairly straight forward. Better to do a new install if you have multiple updates and patches...better to build from scratch vs remodel

Highly scalable, new configuration wizard with 4.1 version assists in scaling correctly.

Fair

Fair to Poor..Business Objects sometimes gets lost in the quagmire of SAP

No

Depends on the deployment. Can be very complex in a 100% fail over/fault tolerant/load balanced scenario.

I deploy for clients.

No

Use a consulting firm with expertise in deployment.

We use it for our customers and to schedule reports. We use it so we can provide them options, to let anyone type in the system and run the report anytime they want.

What I find most valuable is that you can run the reports anytime and you can receive the report at a scheduled time. When someone wants to receive these reports at a certain time, we schedule the report to be sent at their requested time. The user can access the application and run the report anytime he wants, whenever.

In terms of improvement, some reports need more customizations. Customers request reports that need more customization.

I have been using this solution for about five years. 

It is reliable. 

Technical support is good, but we have to renew the support license every year. If we don't renew, we don't get any support.

The setup was a little complicated. It's not as easy to install it and there is not much information on the internet, so you have to depend on yourself. When you compare it to other applications, like BMC, HP, Dell, and IBM, there are many users who have experience with the solution and share their knowledge on the internet, but there is not much information online for SAP.

It integrates well with many other solutions. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The reporting is the most valuable aspect of the solution. The WebIntelligence Solution is the name of the reporting solution and it is very powerful. 

The solution offers very good features for broadcasting information or scheduling reports. You can schedule everything and make it very easy to disseminate by sending emails with a PDF or Excel. It's very quick and powerful.  

The solution's user security is extremely effective. You can profile very well. All the users and all the functionality is protected and that includes information and data segregation.

The documentation provided is very, very good. There's so much available, that if you ever run into any issues and need a workaround, you have it right there to guide you.

The solution offers good user management.

The self-service area, or dashboard, needs some improvement. While the reporting itself is great, the dashboard and Analytics Cloud are not so user friendly.

SAP's current strategy consists in keeping the reporting part On premise and delegating the Analytics part to the Cloud. You are therefore involved in a hybrid scenario.

The complete environment setup is pretty complex.

To carry out a real project that presents erp / business data on "Cloud Story Telling" you need more specialist actors who manage issues such as: Analytics and Data architecture, Data source identification, System Compatibility, Connectivity and Security.

These aspects are certainly also required on other vendor BI solutions.

On the SAP front, we are certainly trying to improve and complete the On Premise / Cloud integration, with the latest version SAP BO 4.3.

I've been working with the solution for twenty years now. It's been a very long time. I started using it around 1998.

The solution is very stable, and, on the off chance you have a problem, SAP is very quick to help. There are lots of workarounds if you do run into issues.

You can scale this solution if you need to. It's easy enough to do so.

One of the great things about SAP is the information that is available. When you have a problem, SAP is very quick to give you an answer or solution. You can also Google a lot of workarounds. There's so much documentation online that it's really easy to troubleshoot. That's because if anyone has a problem, SAP notes it and finds a solution which they post.

The initial setup is not straightforward. It's pretty complex.

The installation configuring environment is not so easy to work with. Also, the connection of the SAP Analytics Cloud is very complex.  It's not very easy to configure the environment.

The time I need to configure and install the solution is about one week for the BusinessIntelligence Platform solution, On premise. Another week is required for the connectivity aspect and settings of the Cloud (Analytics).

We are working with an older version also well as the latest version of the solution. 

I would recommend this product to other organizations. It's a stable and powerful enterprise solution. Everything from the broadcasting to the scheduling, to the user management and the reporting, is very powerful. 90% of customers end up asking for a solid and consistent reporting solution. In these cases, I definitely suggest SAP Business Objects Platform.

That said, the dashboard isn't the best with this product.  It should be noted that SAP is working on their dashboards offerings in Cloud environment.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Being able to utilize a connection to the database with a semantic layer, so it can be modified if needed to fit a particular need. The Universe does this quite well and allows for business names to be used in place of the cryptic database name.

Instead of downloading the information into a spreadsheet or something similar, you can now develop the graphs and drilldown, drillup needs for the different departments in an easy to use and functional method.

The development of the Design Studio to be ready for prime time. It is pretty well ready now just needs a few points finished to make it completely ready.

I have used this solution in different areas for about 17 years

A few, these were related mainly to the development team not realizing how much data they actually had.

Not really, there have been a few hiccups but that was mainly due to bandwidth since we have a centralized location for the servers now.

No issues with scalability.

For SAP it's not too bad, would always like to have it better of course.

Very good.

We used Cognos however the price was getting too prohibitive, and it was time for a change.

Fairly straightforward but, not as easy as the vendor made it sound. As with most things it was not just a flip of the switch.

We used a mix of both in-house and vendor teams.

Take time to realize how much data you will be processing and how many users you will have, this will help you to scale the needs to the product. The product works well, but is only as good as the servers it uses.

In my position, it's very important to define data models in order to develop a solution that provide end users with the ability to freely analyze data. That's why the Information Design tool of Business Objects is the most valuable feature. But I also use the Web Intelligence feature for testing my personal data models.

For a recent project, I used the BI Workspace module of Business Objects. I found it to be very helpful in providing specific home pages for different user groups. Thanks to this module, I can define a home page for a particular audience.

I encountered an issue with security. When I promoted the association between the CMC security profile and the Security Universe profile as I took our application from dev to test to production, I noticed that the associations were lost. This forced me to newly associate all over again.

I've used Business Objects for four years for various projects.

I've had no issues with deployment.

Yes, sometimes the services didn't work well, generating a decreasing of performance.

I've had no issues with scalability.

In my experience, customer service it good.

In my experience, technical support is good.

Yes, I used other solutions, but I chose Business Objects because it's easy to use.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup.

SAP Business Warehouse for its pre-built BI standard contents as it contain best practices generally and specific to industries both. Also standard analytic reports are very valuable.

SAP BO because of its functionalities, ad-hoc reporting, drill down, formatted reporting features. SAP BO tools like Explorer and Lumira for data explorer and trends.

All these things have benefit the main stakeholders to check and observe the trends and take the decision for the betterment of the company. Dashboards are one of the best features of SAP BO tools.

It helped the organization in analysis. It always helps the C level and upper management in monitoring the progress of the company by using dashboards and reports which contain important KPIs and trends. Based on such things, then main stakeholders take the decision for the betterment of the company.

Of course every product needs some room for improvement but currently nothing is coming to my mind. However, because SAP lacks a professional services offering, we had issues with deployment, stability, and scalability. Also, the initial setup had a medium level of complexity, so it should be done by someone with relevant knowledge.

I've used it for eight years.

There were issues because they lack professional services.

There were issues because they lack professional services.

There were issues because they lack professional services.

8/10

8/10

Because of its features and ease for adoption for the user. IT become strategic after adopting these tools.

It was on medium level.

Have a capable resource who knows how to work and have a good knowledge and experience in the relevant field.