SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Reviews

In the past, customers - both internal and external - were crying for data towards the end or the beginning of month, for month-end reporting. Through the use of Business Intelligence reporting and scheduling features, these reports are generated and automatically sent to them according to a schedule. This has freed up countless hours spent performing the same tasks, month over month. 

It also enables us to present data with Smart Objects that can be embedded within presentations and which automatically update when the presentations are run.

Depends on the use case. The reporting from SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence is amazing, and gives users the ability to quickly access data from existing universes and/or relevant data sources, without the need to involve a functional business analyst or financial analyst.

When it comes to visualizations and discovery, SAP Explorer lets the user deep-dive into the data from a visual standpoint.

The biggest area for improvement would be the dashboarding capabilities due to the recent change from Xcelsius to Dashboard Designer. This has created a gigantic ripple in many companies because the skill sets required are drastically different.

Minor at most. As with any application that presents data within a business, stability is critical to the success of the application and it's validity. Building failovers and redundancies around major functions, like accessing reports, data connectivity, and user security, ensures system stability. However, even with the most perfect system and its redundancies, any business intelligence application can run into issues if the data is bad.

Not really. The SAP Business Intelligence platform is a global solution that can be scaled both vertically and horizontally, based on company needs. 

SAP tech support is good. However, I prefer the use of the partners and communities like ASUG or SAPinsider to provide the support we need.

We previously used SQL Server Reporting Services because it was included with Microsoft Server and it was free. The reason we switched was because SSRS lacked the ability to do what we needed without involving IT.

I always recommend using a partner or consultant to deploy SAP BI. Not because it's difficult to install, that part is actually pretty easy, but to properly configure and customize application services and toolsets.

Depending on your size, try to stick with SAP BusinessObjects BI Edge. Most people tend to overthink the licensing. Remember that one concurrent user means that one person can be performing a task at a given time. That does not mean that only one user can be on the system at a time, it means that only one person can be refreshing a report or designing a dashboard. There are tons of ways you can access your data or reports without consuming a license. I've seen cases where five concurrent licenses support thousands of users.

I reviewed a whole bunch of them, everything under the sun.

Get a partner or consultant to help you configure and customize your deployment. And remember that there's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server.

• Universe Designer
• Web Intelligence
• InfoView

Able to quickly create and publish reports using WebI. Eliminated most printed reports, they are now emailed or consumed online via InfoView. Has given users the ability to run reports on their own and get the information they need without having to ask IS.

Compatibility of Crystal Reports within BOE, especially when using universes and prompts – the prompts are turned into static values, not generated on-the-fly.

Scheduling functions. We have to maintain separate lists and custom apps of report schedules so that we know what’s scheduled when, and who is getting what reports. If a person leaves and is on distribution lists, we have to manually go through and remove/replace them. There is also no easy way to bulk re-schedule reports.

Report documentation must be manually maintained. Can’t EASILY find all reports using field X.

WebI needs a report template function so that basic re-used elements and formatting don’t have to be re-created with every report. Also need to be able to do more with custom SQL and merged dimensions.

SAP patch methodology is horrific, it was much better pre-SAP. As it is now, if you are on 6.1 and report a bug and it gets fixed in 6.2 you update and confirm it’s fixed. Then, a new release comes out and you update but because its cut-off date was prior to the date 6.2 fix, the fix isn’t included! Imagine trying to manage a system if you are waiting for multiple fixes. You can (we did!) end up with a system where major issues were finally fixed but other major problems not fixed and when the outstanding issues were finally resolved, the other previously addressed problems weren’t included in the newer update! It’s a maintenance and tracking headache.

Approximately nine years -

BusinessObjects Enterprise 3.1 SP6 (CMC, LCM, WebI, CR, Universe Designer, Business View Manager, InfoView)

(previously used XI R2)

Original XI R2 install was done by consultants, the install was a disaster and non-functional and we had to completely start over. Tech support walked us through doing it ourselves and we’ve managed it since. Biggest issue of the upgrade to 3.1 was functionality change in WebI merged dimensions, all reports using them broke and had to be re-written. Looked at upgrading to 4.0 over a year ago and installed in a sandbox, but the product did not function out of the box. It required massive reconfiguration of the default settings to run bare bones and there was no upgrade path to multi-source universes. As a result, we haven’t upgraded yet.

Rarely and was always due to bugs in new SP or FP. Current patch level is very stable.

In a word, bad. Account reps constantly change and it’s impossible to find out who your current rep is. Phone calls and emails are not returned. At one point we were interested in buying additional licenses, but no one could/would help us. The licensing renewal process is severely lacking. They sent renewal emails to the wrong people, these are non-IS line staff not even on our account, and we have no idea how they even got their contact information. They refused to accept the PO that our accounting system generated, wanting one specially designed for them. Our purchasing agent, literally took a black sharpie and wrote all over the PO to meet their requirements. Who is the customer? Do they really want to make that sale? It doesn’t seem like it. Maybe we are too small for them to bother with?

First level support is horrible. I avoid opening cases because of the bad experiences. I would typically find myself explaining very basic product functionality to the support personnel and in the end the response is always that they will consult their resources and get back to you. After going around in circles for days or weeks, the stock response is “it’s working as designed,” yet they can’t explain why. If you are lucky enough to get to higher level support (which is rare), they are very knowledgeable and able to quickly help get to the bottom of issues and find real solutions.

No previous solution was used.

Initially a vendor, recommended by BO. They had the product installed multiple times on the server, it was a mess and had to be completely blown away and reinstalled. Since then, we’ve done it in-house.

The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is useful for all kinds of analytics, reporting, and alerting.

The features which the solution has been awesome. The way the data is fetched from the database, and the queries are executed, is unique using the Universe of Business Objects. That makes it unique and we could not find another solution that functions in a similar way. It's has a great way of receiving and executing queries.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is lacking dashboards and this would be the only reason we are looking for another solution.

I have been using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for approximately 20 years.

The stability of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform depends on your infrastructure. However, the solution itself is very stable reliable.

There are other solutions that can be implemented alongside SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform to make it more scalable, but in our environment, it's not used in that way.

We have approximately 500 to 1,000 users using this solution. We are working on this self-service BI strategy and therefore the number of users will be increased in the future.

We sometimes receive technical bugs, especially with the new releases, and some patches are required. We then speak to BusinessObjects SAP support for assistance.

The initial setup of the solution is simple and the documentation provided was straightforward. It was not a difficult task.

The first time we used it when SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform was when it was not an SAP solution, it was owned by Business Strategies, we brought in consultants to deploy. Later we have created our own team who can manage the implementation.

We have one person who does the administration and upgrades of the solution.

We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with.

We are on an annual subscription to use this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

We are using an on-premise version which is good but the cloud version is more up-to-date.

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

We primarily use the solution for reports regarding sales inventory and production.

The reporting features the solution offers are excellent.

Technical support is quite good. They are responsive when we reach out.

The solution can scale.

We are not on the latest patch, the latest version. There are different pain points, such as data loading or inventory issues. It can take a lot of time to load.

The solution could be less expensive. It's a bit pricey now.

We've been using the solution at the company for around six or seven years at this point. However, I've only used it for the last two years or so.

The stability isn't quite as good as it could be. It's not a perfectly scalable solution.

The solution is very easy to expand. It scales quite well. If a company needs to expand the solution, it can do so relatively easily.

I'm the only one who is using this solution and I'm publishing the reports and a few others are using Microsoft Analysis for SAP, doing the reports.

I've used technical support in the past. I've found them to be responsive and knowledgeable. They are quite helpful. We're satisfied with the level of service we receive.

I was not a part of the initial setup. I can't speak to how long the deployment was or how easy or difficult the process ended up being.

In terms of upgrading, we have no need to at this point. 

Licensing is paid on a yearly basis.

There is room for improvement in the pricing. It could be more reasonable.

We're just an end-user and a customer. We don't have a business relationship with SAP.

We are not yet on the latest version of the product.

I would advise new users to not go for these old versions and instead go for the new versions that at least use embedded analytics, et cetera.

I'd rate the solution at around seven out of ten. There are a few areas it could improve upon.

I have several use cases, generally in more complex environments. These are typically corporate, requiring functionality such as strong data security, bursting, metadata-based support, scalability, fault tolerance, load balancing, support for high volume, breadth of functionality in one set of products, etc. 

It has been used in Retail, Construction, Banks, and Insurance organisations.

It works well for organisations where a structured, common, and more disciplined view of larger, more complex information is required. This is generally with more complex and multiple source systems with larger volumes of information.

This solution provides much greater and faster access to information for a wide mixture of users. It supports and promotes a common view of information across the organisation. It also removes dependence on spreadsheets and technical resource for report generation.

It supports a wide range of types of users. It is particularly effective for information consumers. Ad Hoc information access and simpler self-service are well supported. Once we had the foundation in place, we also found we could provide most reports in under an hour for smaller company environments. Because of change control, the latter rarely happens in corporate environments but the effort involved was reduced.

The common metadata environment means that the entire organisation has the same definition of core measures rather than these being derived in spreadsheets or specific reports. It also provides a structured data security model whereby a single report provides dedicated results to a given usage, such as a branch or department-based. For instance, the same report will provide a branch-specific result depending on the user's branch and can be common to multiple branches.

Similarly, bursting enables provision of tailored static reporting to specific users or user groups that also includes data security.

This solution is complex to configure and administer. It is even more so, I believe, than it should be, even with such a complex product. As an example it has many server processes (typically 15+). In Windows these are not services rather they are individual processes managed via a single service called the SIA. Each server process can be separately configured and performs a specific set of functions

It uses Java constructions for specific customisations such as default reporting formats and using SSL for burst email reports. This requires a broad set of skills to set-up.

It is rather cryptic in its error handling when there are issues that require trawling through a number of voluminous log files that are accessed from the server.

I have been using this solution for more than ten years.

Reliability dropped in 2017-2018 with a major release but indications are that this has been addressed.

Very scalable across thousands (if not 10,000+) users and large data volumes.

Average. Technical support from SAP is mediocre. The local support is decent.

I've used many different BI solutions. The choice was the customer's. 

See earlier comments but a vanilla install is not too complex.  The moment it is not vanilla it becomes quite complex. The SAP website for software management, downloads, licenses etc makes the Da Vinci Code look simple.

Mix of contractors and vendor. The vendor is skillful though overworked resources.

No Idea

Cost to setup and run is high as it is complex but then again one also gets a highly functional product. SAP do have a small business pricing so, at least, the licensing is not too expensive.

The most comparable product is MicroStrategy, which is frankly a better technical product but has not been as commercially successful outside of large sites.

I am a great believe in choosing a commercially successful product rather than technical best of breed as there is nothing worse than having an 'orphan' product. That being a product that is poorly supported, does not have a development path and limited availability of expertise. Business Objects is a commercially successful product and despite SAP's poor management of the product is likely to continue to be so.

1. SAP BO/BI

• Enterprise scalability
• Security
• Ease of use
• Semantic layer

2. Tableau

• Visualization
• Data discovery
• Turnaround time

3. IBM Cognos

• Enterprise scalability
• Security
• In-memory feature

4. MS BI - Flexibility

5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade

6. QlikView

• Data visualization
• Turnaround time.

7. OBIEE

• Enterprise security
• Semantic model

1. SAP BO/BI

• Visualization

2. Tableau

• Scalability

3. IBM Cognos

• Ease of use

4. MS BI

• Visualization
• Ease of use

5. Pentaho

• Ease of use
• Semantic layer

6. QlikView

• Scalability

7. OBIEE

• Visualization
• Database connectivities

• I have used SAP for almost 12 years
• Tableau – Rate 6/10 overall but 9/10 for visualization. I have used it for three years
• IBM Cognos - Rate 7/10 and I have used it for three years
• MS BI - Rate 5/10 and I have used it for two years
• Pentaho - Rate 5/10 and I have used it for over five years
• QlikView- Rate 7/10 and I have used it for two years
• OBIEE – Rate 7/10 and I have used it for five years

• SAP BO/BI - Below average
• Tableau - Good
• IBM Cognos - Average
• MS BI - Average
• Pentaho - Average
• QlikView - Above average
• OBIEE - Average

• SAP BO/BI - Below average
• Tableau - Good
• IBM Cognos - Average
• MS BI - Average
• Pentaho - Average
• QlikView - Above average
• OBIEE - Average

There is no perfect solution or one size fits all. Be clear on the requirements that you are trying to meet with the tools and solutions and do a POC and thorough evaluation. Also most of the time a single vendor works better than using best of the breed solution.

Right now, we're using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for an in-house project — we don't have any customers. 

I work for an educational institute — in the main reporting area. I create different reports based on student performance using exam results and other data from various schools. In our university, we have around 20 different departments. One for Computer Science, one for Engineering, one for Audio Civil, one for Electronics, etc. I was planning to build a consolidated report that would show how our students are performing compared to other schools — a consolidated view. Then I can drill down further into individual fields. 

Big organizations can implement Business Warehouse on the cloud. Small organizations, like educational institutes, don't have that much complex data, so it doesn't make sense for them to buy Data Warehouse on the cloud. We want to use HANA and something called SLT. This will cover our replication and allows us to do modeling directly in the cloud, which is a great feature. 

As the technology stands, and from what I have researched at this particular point in time, companies that don't have much complex transaction data available on a day-to-day basis, don't need Business Warehouse or Data Warehouse on the cloud. We want to use SAP Analytics Cloud directly and do our data modeling on HANA Data Modular. This would really help because we wouldn't need separate licensing for Data Warehouse and for SAP, etc. We could remove all of this. We could do everything with HANA and SAP.

There should be more integration with other platforms. 

Everybody wants to use SAP Business Intelligence. Because we need a Business Warehouse or a Data Warehouse, we have to create a universe consisting of everything that we'll use as an input in BI. For this reason, we have a lot of dependencies. We require connection with the two different platforms. If we were to use HANA, then we wouldn't need Business Warehouse or Data Warehouse — we could just use SAP Analytics Cloud. We could use SAP Analytics Cloud as a standalone solution for reporting purposes and we could also use Business Intelligence as a standalone solution for reporting. 

This should be fixed so that companies don't require three separate licenses for three separate applications. Not everyone has that kind of a budget. It should be an all-in-one solution — this only turns away potential customers. If SAP provided a feature like standalone BI, we could use it directly, access ERP, get the data we need and start building reports. Single application licensed universities are ready to pay for that. But when it's three to four different applications, it's beyond their budget. 

I have worked in data services for the last eight to nine years. 

I haven't used all of the features yet, so I can't answer this question properly. 

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is definitely scalable. 

I haven't connected with support because we're using it for an in-house project. We installed it and work on it ourselves so we haven't had to contact them regarding SAP. Regarding ERP issues they are proactively able to help clients. We're a client for SAP. They've been able to help us. 

The initial installation is quite simple for me, but for inexperienced users, it may be difficult.

At my previous job, I deployed this solution myself. Deployment took two to three days.

As of now, we don't pay for a license. I think SAP has a program in which they give free access to Analytics Cloud for our university. Under that scheme, I have access to SAP Analytics Cloud, where I have explored different features; however, I don't have access to BI.

I am interested in SAP for the cloud because where I work, we have SAP ERP on the HANA Cloud. Currently, we don't have a license for SAP Analytics Cloud. That's why I'm exploring different methods to implement it. Currently, Business Warehouse is on-premise but I am planning to upgrade it to the cloud.

Although I haven't been able to use the BI portion, I would give this solution rating of eight.