SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

CEO with 51-200 employees

Jul 7, 2013

Business Objects - Big in Every Way

Yes, SAP Business Objects (BO) will address your BI needs – no doubt about it. But so will many other products – MicroStrategy, Oracle, IBM Cognos and so on come to mind. Now BO is big. It is big on capability, big on footprint, big on required skill-sets and tends to be big on cost (consultants love it). SAP groupies will undoubtedly want to use BO, others might want to reflect more carefully.

SAP BO comprises over twenty products that address everything from Microsoft Office integration through to data integration. It would be truly futile to provide details on these components, although it is worth pointing out that SAP Predictive Analysis uses the same visual front-end as the rest of the products – and this is a particularly useful feature as the boundaries between BI and data mining start to blur – as they inevitably will.

Criticism of BO usually revolves around complexity and cost. Some of the newer BI entrants (specifically QlikView and Spotfire) provide much more manageable BI environments at a fraction of the cost. But then again they are not quite so all-embracing. As always it’s a trade-off. If you really want a huge monolithic BI environment then be prepared to pay for it. If you don’t, then accept that some of the bells and whistles might be absent – although an extensible BI environment (again QlikView and Spotfire) should make up for this. The choice is yours.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user6579Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Jul 13, 2013

Nice review by the author Martin Butler, As every coin has two sides, the same way Business Objects has some positive and negative points. Agree with the author that it requires great skill set, great amount of time and of course huge budget to use Business Objects. Though there are some positive points of the BO like :
Reusability : Build or create once and use multiple times as the query you use is not hard coded.

it_user434871

SAP BO/BI Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Sep 30, 2016

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BI launch pad to design and develop the analysis application for the business is valuable.

What is most valuable?

Publication
Webi Reports
UDT
CMC
BI launch pad to design and develop the analysis application for the business

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for over seven years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Lot of issues, because it is a huge product.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Lot of issues, because it is a huge product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Lot of issues, because it is a huge product.

How are customer service and technical support?

Sometimes it's average, and sometimes it's excellent.

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

No other solution was in place.

How was the initial setup?

It can be easy or complex depending upon the scenario and complexity of your data warehouse.

What about the implementation team?

We've done it both ways, you need to make sure you have a good implementation plan.

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

It is more suitable for huge businesses from a pricing/licensing point of view.

What other advice do I have?

It is the best product for business analysis and help to grow the business.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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it_user426543

SAP BW on HANA/BO Consultant at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Apr 18, 2016

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The Web Intelligence reports are the most valuable feature because they have the flexibility for detailed data analysis.

Valuable Features

Web Intelligence reports because they have flexibility for detailed data analysis
Dashboard designer for managerial reports
OLAP Analysis reports for ad-hoc analysis.

Improvements to My Organization

We were able to combine data from two different sources and compare and identify data discrepancies thereby enabling us to correct the data.

Room for Improvement

It needs to become more user friendly. Currently, it is very cumbersome to use.

Use of Solution

I've been using it for seven years.

Deployment Issues

We have no issues with the deployment.

Stability Issues

Some database issues were encountered, but SAP has vastly improved on technical support for Business Objects over the last three to four years.

Scalability Issues

We've been able to scale it for our needs.

Customer Service and Technical Support

It's good, and around three to four years ago, SAP’s technical support was not up to the mark. Now SAP it is reliable and fast.

Initial Setup

It's complex and has technical challenges.

Implementation Team

We achieved the implementation in-house with hard work and technical support.

Other Advice

Go ahead with it -- it’s a good product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Paul GrillPresident & CEO at Infosol Inc

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Sep 4, 2017

With tons of new features in Web Intelligence in BI 4.2 there is even more capabilities - Shared Elements, Geomaps, Discussions, Cascading Input Prompts, New Charts, Graphs and Visual components.

it_user7653

Consultant at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Jul 9, 2013

Business Objects on Linux and SQL Server

This is just a quick post to share a lesson learned while I was on an engagement where the client’s reporting environment was using SAP Business Objects (BO)running on Linux for reporting. We were doing a test to move the underlying data warehouse from another database platform to SQL Server 2008 R2.

As we changed connections over, however, we quickly ran into a roadblock. It seems when we tried to make a connection to SQL Server via BO we got the error of ‘Unable to bind to Configuration Objects WIS 10901′. What made this situation strange is that from a Windows box you could connect but from Linux itself, it wasn’t having any of it. After some digging around we found we needed a third party ODBC driver to make this connection work.

Read full post: http://www.sqlchicken.com/2013/05/business-objects-on-linux-and-sql-server/

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user6462

Architect at a retailer with 501-1,000 employees

May 9, 2013

Deployment is easy but scalability and stability of the product has been cumbersome

On a scale from 1-5 (1=worst, 5=best), how would you rate this product overall compared to similar products?
- 3.5

For how long have you used this product?
- 2 Yrs

Which features of this product are most valuable to you?
- Scheduling Reports and Features supported to schedule reports.

Can you give an example of how this product has improved the way your organization functions?
- Users are getting reports that run for hours offtime on their inbox and file share devices or Shared Portals.

What areas of this product have room for improvement?
- Ease of use and understanding.

Did you encounter any issues with deployment, stability or scalability?
- Deployment is easy but scalability and stability of the product has been cumbersome.

Before choosing this product, did you evaluate other options? If so, which ones?
- Yes. Tableau

How would you rate the level of customer service and technical support?
- Horrible

Was the initial setup straightforward or complex? In what ways?
- Being in this technology for more years I'm impressed with the straightforward setup approach of their recent releases.

Did you implement through a vendor team or an in-house one? If through a vendor team, how would you rate their level of expertise?
- In House.

What advice would you give to others looking into implementing this product?
- Great Product but requires attention on their individual needs.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user10185IT Analyst Programmer with 10,001+ employees

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Sep 20, 2013

I have been using this product for 10+ years and I can agree wholeheartedly with the points about poor support. It has always been a big issue. I suspect that their product testing just isn't of the correct quality so they are fire fighting all the time.

With regards to how much knowledge users need, I think that depends on what they are using it for and what parts of the suite they are using. If you are a developer or support person then yes you do. need as much knowledge as you can get.
If you are a normal user writing your own ad-hoc reports then the difficulty is really down to the complexity of the universe you are using. A group of small Universes using business understandable terms for object names, good object grouping and each with limited business scope will usually serve you far better than one monolithic universe covering everything.
I say usually because it is not impossible to create a good large universe and segment off the different business areas to different groups of users.

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it_user494226

Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 31, 2017

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Great suite with a lot of different options and a great user interface. Requires improvement on stability and scalability.

What is most valuable?

I guess most customers seek SAP BOBJ for its visualization and intuitive user experience.

How has it helped my organization?

Most of the customers where we implemented SAP BOBJ have used Analysis for Office because it uses Excel as its base and it increases efficiency. Mostly, we have seen businesses run faster because they use SAP BOBJ.

What needs improvement?

Of course, there is always room of improvement:

The SAP BOBJ suite needs to be more stable and seamlessly integrated with SAP BW and SAP HANA (one-time variable creation, etc.).
I would like to see one tool that combines all of the capabilities, be it ad-hoc, formatted, dashboarding, etc. I guess SAP Design Studio is that right tool.
More OLAP functionality should be added, so that adding key figure characteristics can be done directly on the reporting side.
Also, I think one major confusion that all customers have is what tool to use and when? It would be a good idea to slim down the options to make customers’ lives easier.

What other advice do I have?

It is a really great suite with a lot of different options and a great user interface, but requires improvement on stability and scalability.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: My company is a SAP Partner.

it_user117558

BI Junior consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jun 23, 2014

We found the deployment of SAP BO to be very complex, and the initial setup complex as well

During my project work (by group & at school), I’ve had the opportunity to work with Qlikview & SAP BO. I've been working with SAP BO for 1 year. On a scale from 1-5 (1=worst, 5=best), I would give SAP BO a 1. My experiences with SAP BO were not positive. But on a technical level, the way BO works to handle the loop is very good.

In our company we have to build lots of complex things to answer simple requirements. Luckily, the solution still works, nonetheless this product has a lot of room for improvement: we found the deployment of SAP BO to be very complex, and the initial setup complex as well. If I were advising others about to implement this product, I would tell them to search for a company who specialize in implementing BI.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

H.Emre ArıkanBusiness Intelligence Specialist at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Apr 10, 2015

Best on publication functionality especially if you dont schedule the publication:-). it doesnt work since we are on 4.1 SP5 namely. Tech Support is really sick I agree. If you have a major problem, be ready to discuss to death with the support engineer over a ticket.

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it_user115764

Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jun 23, 2014

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Made reporting of data more consistent but SAP BO is expensive