Learn what your peers think about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
The most important feature of BusinessObjects is its integration with the SAP ERP system. If an organization is using SAP as its ERP system, and they want to do business intelligence, reporting, or analysis, SAP BusinessObjects is the only tool that I see doing that quite efficiently. That's because of the fact it is tightly integrated, and it gives a good user experience in terms of faster reporting. Its integration is the feature that I have found most valuable, but there are also other factors.
Business Intelligence Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
2022-01-05T08:16:10Z
Jan 5, 2022
There are two tools inside BusinessObjects' schematic layout called the Universal Design Tool and Information Design Tool. These are the most powerful tools that set BusinessObjects' reporting from other solutions. If my organization has 300 or 400 tables, I can combine all of them into one universe, and everyone can use that. It is just a schematic layout that does not hold any data but the table relationships.
Managing Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5
2022-01-05T07:26:56Z
Jan 5, 2022
One of the most valuable features of SAP BusinessObjects is that it's not a dashboarding solution. It's a real product. You can create operational reports and publish it to anyone. You can create schedules. You can create a Universe, semantic layers. There's also a security configuration. It's a huge product, so if there is a business need, SAP BusinessObjects can cover it.
It is more user-friendly and easier to work with the report creation part, creating reports out of an established universe. Maybe a business person could liberate the existing universe and create a report on top of it, as well. So that's one cool feature.
Manager Data Analytics and Interfaces at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
2021-09-07T15:39:11Z
Sep 7, 2021
I like the fact that we can integrate it seamlessly within our Epic environment, but probably the best thing that Crystal Reports offers is the ability to do visualizations. They're simple to do, and they're catchy. So, it is a really great tool.
BI & Analytics Manager at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2022-05-04T06:59:39Z
May 4, 2022
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform's most valuable features are it has a great presentation layer. We can develop the presentation layer with drag-and-drop capabilities. For end-users and for our interns in the company can create reports and do their data analysis processes or works by using the objects that we created on the presentation layer by themselves.
Business Intelligence & Data Management Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2022-03-21T12:11:37Z
Mar 21, 2022
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.
The reports are most valuable. If it is a single-source universe, based on only one database, the performance, and the reporting tool is user-friendly, and users are very familiar with the tool and are comfortable using it.
Director of Underwriting & Product Development at a non-profit with 51-200 employees
Real User
2021-10-16T07:22:16Z
Oct 16, 2021
The feature that allows pivot users to create the report dashboards and run them when they want with a lot of flexibility with the drill-downs is very useful. The drill-down features are very good because, in other solutions, such as Excel, you have to create separate pivot tables and a lot of other operations to do drill-downs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform tool does the drill-downs automatically. Overall the solution is user-friendly and has a lot of drag and drop features.
Data Science Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2021-09-10T17:50:00Z
Sep 10, 2021
The features that I have found most valuable are that we are able to build all dashboards with self-service BI and are able to provide our business users with self-service BI. We are building a repository on top of our data warehouse and building all the dashboards and KPIs.
Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
2021-03-03T04:12:13Z
Mar 3, 2021
If I were to compare it with Power BI and I wanted to build proper well-formatted reports, BusinessObjects Business Intelligence does that much better. Power BI is just getting into that space. They've concentrated more on visualization, which is what the SAP Lumira does. With Web Intelligence, you are able to build reports that users can interact with. They can also do a lot of querying themselves.
It is robust in terms of security and integration. It is also quite scalable.
Associate Manager at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2021-01-27T16:57:15Z
Jan 27, 2021
It provides flexibility for creating reports. It is very good for creating highly-complex reports. I like this solution because when I buy BusinessObjects, it comes with many components, such as reporting, dashboard, and data visualization tools.
Its performance is good. It is running on top of SAP BW and SAP HANA.
Business Intelligence Functional Manager BU SAP at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
MSP
2020-10-27T17:56:19Z
Oct 27, 2020
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 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.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is a versatile and flexible solution for reporting and dashboards, focusing on analytics and ad hoc reporting. It can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud. The solution includes tools such as Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, SAP Lumira, and Analytical Cloud and is primarily used for comprehensive business intelligence reporting.
The most valuable features include excellent reporting features, good technical support, scalability, and the...
What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making process.
The initial setup of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform was easy since the solution is user-friendly.
Has features that can be leveraged to scale out and scale up.
The platform is a complete enterprise-level tool where everything is integrated to suffice your requirement.
I have seen improvement in our work after using the solution.
The web intelligence reporting tool and universe designer are the most valuable aspects of the solution.
This reporting and broadcasting solution has a lot of flexibilities and can connect to multiple source systems.
The most important feature of BusinessObjects is its integration with the SAP ERP system. If an organization is using SAP as its ERP system, and they want to do business intelligence, reporting, or analysis, SAP BusinessObjects is the only tool that I see doing that quite efficiently. That's because of the fact it is tightly integrated, and it gives a good user experience in terms of faster reporting. Its integration is the feature that I have found most valuable, but there are also other factors.
There are two tools inside BusinessObjects' schematic layout called the Universal Design Tool and Information Design Tool. These are the most powerful tools that set BusinessObjects' reporting from other solutions. If my organization has 300 or 400 tables, I can combine all of them into one universe, and everyone can use that. It is just a schematic layout that does not hold any data but the table relationships.
BusinessObject's most useful feature is the semantic layer, which offers us the flexibility to go for ad hoc reporting.
One of the most valuable features of SAP BusinessObjects is that it's not a dashboarding solution. It's a real product. You can create operational reports and publish it to anyone. You can create schedules. You can create a Universe, semantic layers. There's also a security configuration. It's a huge product, so if there is a business need, SAP BusinessObjects can cover it.
It is more user-friendly and easier to work with the report creation part, creating reports out of an established universe. Maybe a business person could liberate the existing universe and create a report on top of it, as well. So that's one cool feature.
The most valuable feature we have found to be the SAP BW, which is a warehouse tool. Additionally, it is an easy tool to use.
We find the product to be very stable.
I like the fact that we can integrate it seamlessly within our Epic environment, but probably the best thing that Crystal Reports offers is the ability to do visualizations. They're simple to do, and they're catchy. So, it is a really great tool.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is definitely scalable.
The ability to merge dimensions in a report is great.
Business analytics are the most valuable features of this solution; I don't have experience with the other functional features offered.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform's most valuable features are it has a great presentation layer. We can develop the presentation layer with drag-and-drop capabilities. For end-users and for our interns in the company can create reports and do their data analysis processes or works by using the objects that we created on the presentation layer by themselves.
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.
We find that we can scale it as needed.
The development using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is very good.
The reports are most valuable. If it is a single-source universe, based on only one database, the performance, and the reporting tool is user-friendly, and users are very familiar with the tool and are comfortable using it.
We are using SAP BusinessObjects because its scheduling capabilities are more powerful than those of other tools.
BusinessObjects can handle a lot of usage on the front end, and many users can view these reports. It's a relatively stable and secure tool.
The planning and dashboarding features have been useful. Additionally, the fixed-format reports are good.
The feature that allows pivot users to create the report dashboards and run them when they want with a lot of flexibility with the drill-downs is very useful. The drill-down features are very good because, in other solutions, such as Excel, you have to create separate pivot tables and a lot of other operations to do drill-downs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform tool does the drill-downs automatically. Overall the solution is user-friendly and has a lot of drag and drop features.
The features that I have found most valuable are that we are able to build all dashboards with self-service BI and are able to provide our business users with self-service BI. We are building a repository on top of our data warehouse and building all the dashboards and KPIs.
The reporting features the solution offers are excellent.
To share a metadata service layer, you don't need to add a user or write a SQL query. Instead, you can present a raw database to your end user.
If I were to compare it with Power BI and I wanted to build proper well-formatted reports, BusinessObjects Business Intelligence does that much better. Power BI is just getting into that space. They've concentrated more on visualization, which is what the SAP Lumira does. With Web Intelligence, you are able to build reports that users can interact with. They can also do a lot of querying themselves.
It is robust in terms of security and integration. It is also quite scalable.
The setup is pretty easy. It's not hard at all.
It is stable and robust. It has pretty direct integration with SAP ERP. It is easy to use.
It provides flexibility for creating reports. It is very good for creating highly-complex reports. I like this solution because when I buy BusinessObjects, it comes with many components, such as reporting, dashboard, and data visualization tools.
Its performance is good. It is running on top of SAP BW and SAP HANA.
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 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 is solid and stable.
It gives you a lot of flexibility in designing your dashboards.
It has been extremely valuable, to combine data from various data sources.