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PeerSpot user
SAP BO/BW Consultant at KIIT University
Vendor
The query-prompt and query-refresh selectors are valuable features, though I've only been using it for 1 1/2 years.

What is most valuable?

1. Dynamic Visibility

2. Query Prompt Selector

3. Query Refresh Selector

For how long have I used the solution?

1.5 Years

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No

Buyer's Guide
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

Very Good

Technical Support:

Excellent

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

No

How was the initial setup?

Straightforward

What about the implementation team?

Excellent. Through the vendor SAP India.

What other advice do I have?

A very creative tool to present the data in graphical and pictorial form, so as to make better decision for the growth of the organization.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user266763 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user266763SAP BO/BW Consultant at KIIT University
Vendor

Very correct Saraswati. Business Objects is a set of tools and i will add one more i.e. it is a Complete Suite of tools, which are used as per Industry requirement (basing on kind of user i.e. top level, middle level and Subordinate level) and fitment.

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it_user8181 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Staff at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Issues with BO

Here are second thoughts:
- BO development team release patch every two weeks.
- Patchsets are released very often.
- Every new patchset introduces several new bugs,
- including many bugs regression.

In small project I have raised several incidents, including one with high priority.

I've been using BuisnessObjects since early 2000's.
In my ( but not limited) opinion, after SAP took over control of product development, entire software quality gone worst

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user7581 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Development at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Seven thoughts about SAP BusinessObjects BI Analytics Editions

SAP BusinessObjects BI Analytics Editions provides to you the full spectrum of Analytics technologies and innovations which enables you to design, build and consume business friendly, agile, fast, quality and intelligent Analytics solutions for your business.

Complete – because it provides the full spectrum of powerful, unified and innovative Business Analytics technologies and solutions for all your Analytics needs.

Business friendly – because now your business can easily understand and learn how to prepare, build and consume Analytics.

Agile – because now you can unleash the full potential of your data and get the largest business benefits and value by harvesting agility with the deepest involvement of your business.

Intelligent – because now you can create the most intelligent Analytics that meets all your individual, departmental and Enterprise requirements.

Fast – because now you can design, implement and consume Analytics at the speed of rapidly changing business.

Quality – because now it is easier than ever to build trustworthy and reliable Analytics for your business.

Analytics for all – Analytics should and must be accessible for all and everyone. And now it is…

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user1068 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user1068Tech Support Staff at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Vendor

Thank you for the brief yet critical information about SAP Business Objects. Generally, a good program is one that is easy to use and achieves the purpose for which it was developed. Business Objects qualifies as such for its attributes mentioned above by this author. In addition to providing quality analytic results, the analysis process is easy and thus fast. The tool is designed for use by any kind of business that needs data analysis; all that is required is a person with skills and knowledge in utilizing the program. Moreover, every business can use the tool for their specific analysis needs.

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it_user543585 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Allows our users to access reports and make business decisions based on them
Pros and Cons
    • "The admin features for disk space management need work. It's very difficult to manage the disk space by the application; good admin features and not included to allow you to do that. I don't believe that is in the latest version of the product either."

    What is our primary use case?

    It's used for business reporting and it performs well.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It allows hundreds of end-users to be able to access business reports and make business decisions based upon them.

    What is most valuable?

    It provides good centralized management, and it performs well against our day-to-day solution.

    What needs improvement?

    The admin features for disk space management need work. It's very difficult to manage the disk space by the application; good admin features and not included to allow you to do that. I don't believe that is in the latest version of the product either.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We find it's stable, very little down time, good level of performance.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It's scalable simply by adding extra servers, application servers, so the scalability is good.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Our technical support is through a value added reseller.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We've been using Business Objects for a long time. The last time we did an upgrade from a client version to a browser-based version.

    When selecting a vendor, the most important criteria are the features of the product, that it is a good fit with our environment, and price will be a part of the consideration.

    How was the initial setup?

    It was complex because we were upgrading from a previous version with a different architecture.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate it about nine out of 10 because it performs well.

    Do a trial. Fully investigate all the ins and outs of the license as well.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    PeerSpot user
    SAP Business Objects Lead Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
    Consultant
    ​Provides autonomy for all the business users to develop their own reports
    Pros and Cons
    • "​Provides autonomy for all the business users to develop their own reports.​"
    • "​The report development tool called SAP Web Intelligence under the BI Launch Pad portal has been the most valuable feature."
    • "​It is a very good product, stable, and has good technical capabilities.​"
    • "​This product could be improved with Cloud Integrations and Predictive Analytics functions integration."

    How has it helped my organization?

    Autonomy for all the business users to develop their own reports.

    What is most valuable?

    The report development tool called SAP Web Intelligence under the BI Launch Pad portal.

    What needs improvement?

    This product could be improved with Cloud Integrations and Predictive Analytics functions integration.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    More than five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    No issues.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    No issues.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Technical support is excellent.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    No.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was straightforward.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    It is not an expensive platform. The licensing is for a package of users starting at 10 users. Currently, it has an option of a Cloud Platform (SAP Analytics Cloud) which has a lower price than the on-premise platform, and you can buy individual licences per user.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We evaluated Cognos and OBIEE.

    What other advice do I have?

    It is a very good product, stable, and has good technical capabilities.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user413388 - PeerSpot reviewer
    BI Application Consulting Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
    Consultant
    It reduces the manual process of gathering and creating reports into a much simpler and easier ways via self-service and dashboard management.​

    Valuable Features:

    It has got a broad range of options for SMBs and enterprise level companies.

    1. Dashboard Design (xcelcius) - this feature is a great tool to visualize information especially for enterprise dashboards in a board room and it can do what if analyses simply. The possibility of creating a specific dashboard format is unlimited.
    2. Web Intelligence - this feature is the most mature feature of Business Objects, and it has the capabilities of ad hoc reporting, pixel perfect reporting, formatted style, as well as complex and advanced calculations. It can also publicize reports to help with distribution
    3. Explorer - the best of breed for self service and visualization before SAP Lumira came in. The ease of use is unrivalled by the other features of Business Objects.

    Improvements to My Organization:

    My company uses this to monitor revenue and its achievement for every product, salesman, period and department. We also implement for financial statement purpose such as profit loss statement, balance sheet statement and opex report.

    Our sister company also use SAP Business Objects to monitor all the sales activities, stock, aging stock, and forecast.

    At the end of the day, Business Objects reduces the manual process of gathering and creating reports into a much simpler and easier ways via self-service and dashboard management.

    Room for Improvement:

    1. Annotation in the BI Launch pad. Previously there was the Discussion board function, but it was not good and no one used it. If SAP could create a functionality like annotation just like when we open in SAP BI Mobile application, it would be a great boost of functionality and collaboration feature.
    2. Clear roadmap, they need to simplify the tools and features
    3. Speedometer/Gauge in SAP Lumira
    4. Integration of Lumira with SAP BI Platform on a non-Windows OS
    5. Ability to Visualize in a browser SAP Lumira when it is uploaded into BI Platform

    Initial Setup:

    It was straightforward.

    Implementation Team:

    In-house development since I’m in a consulting company

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user591984 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Manager at a consumer goods company with 501-1,000 employees
    Vendor
    It gives you a lot of flexibility in designing your dashboards. It still needs development from a visualization standpoint.
    Pros and Cons
    • "It gives you a lot of flexibility in designing your dashboards."
    • "We use it to identify critical KPIs to senior management."
    • "The combination of Lumira along with Design Studio merger last year still needs development from a visualization standpoint."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case for SAP BusinessObjects has been to provide users static dashboards and reports with a fixed trend where the analysis part is predefined in terms of a fixed set of visualizations.

    We use it to identify critical KPIs to senior management, which automatically get circulated every morning.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We started receiving benefits from SAP BusinessObjects the first week we used it. 

    What is most valuable?

    It will give you better performance if your warehouse is also on SAP Business Warehouse. It gives you a lot of flexibility in designing your dashboards. For example, BusinessObjects Design Studio provides custom templates where you can create your own templates. You can also create your own custom charts. There are CSS formats which you can take in, then you can create your own color coding. Thus, a lot is possible. 

    From a developer's point of view, it has definitely provided a lot of flexibility.

    What needs improvement?

    The combination of Lumira along with Design Studio merger last year still needs development from a visualization standpoint.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Three to five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It depends a lot on how BusinessObjects has been installed and configured, because there are a lot of services which run in the background. For example, if I have not done the proper sizing at implementation in terms of allocating the right resources in terms of memory and RAM for the different services within BO to run, any analytic documents which are built on BO can get impacted in terms of their performance. Therefore, stability is good provided your sizing and configuration has been done properly.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Scalability is good. Once it is set up in the mid-layer, multiple users can access it. Then, the product can grow into an enterprise-wide deployment.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    The technical support for general issues gives us a good response, but for certain critical issues, it can takes four weeks to obtain a response. It will initially go to an SAP support team, and if they are not able to resolve the issues, then they will route the call to SAP in Germany. The German development team usually takes a bit more lead time to come back on those issues.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We were not using a previous solution.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was not that complex as SAP has all the documentation in place. However, initially, we went for suboptimal sizing, which in the first few months led to performance issues. We had to reconfigure, do the proper sizing, and give the right memory requirements to meet our performance expectations.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user456411 - PeerSpot reviewer
    SAP BI AMS Lead at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Vendor
    In my experience, the Analytics module provides the business the ability to make the appropriate decisions.

    Valuable Features

    In my experience, the Analytics module provides the business the ability to make the appropriate decisions for improving our organization.

    Improvements to My Organization

    It provided our customer and their users usage of the product, and enable their planning team to be able to plan their stock availability accordingly.

    Room for Improvement

    It needs to be more user friendly for web use. Its integration into social media platforms needs to be easier.

    Use of Solution

    I've used this solution for approximately 10 years.

    Deployment Issues

    There are issues with deployment, but only during new rollouts. Once the product development team fix the issues and provide customers with support packs, we are good.

    Stability Issues

    We had no issues with the performance.

    Scalability Issues

    It's been able to scale for our needs.

    Customer Service and Technical Support

    You have to pay to get the good service. The really nice thing about is that tech support is performed across the globe, so timezones doesn’t get into picture.

    Initial Setup

    It's straightforward but you need the expertise.

    Implementation Team

    We have done implementation using both in—house and vendor teams. If you are using a vendor, make sure it is done by one vendor, else it will be hard to get a good quality end product.

    Other Solutions Considered

    I did a partial evaluation as every solution has its pros and cons.

    Other Advice

    This works only for medium to large scale companies due to the high cost.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are partners with SAP.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: October 2024
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.