SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Reviews

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. 

SAP BusinessObjects is one of the oldest business intelligence tools. SAP has been in the market for quite a long time, and it is truly an enterprise company. They make sure that they talk to every component of the enterprise. 

They are evolving quickly. They are quite innovative. They understand a user's viewpoint. The best part is their enterprise presence. They're already market leaders in ERP, and they already have a large user base. Having a business intelligence suite and an established product makes things easier for them.

I really want SAP to focus on the dashboarding side. Based on what I have seen in the past 10 years, dashboarding has captured a lot of markets. Executives at the top-level want data that is summarized, looks good, and tells you a story. That's where Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI have an upper edge. It doesn't mean SAP doesn't give you dashboarding. They do have a dashboarding solution, but Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI are more intuitive and more attractive. I would like SAP to capture the dashboarding market as well, wherein they give at least some competition to other competitors. Presently, Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI are leading the market. 

I have seen other organizations such as Need4Viz that are creating beautiful charts. They are a partner of SAP.  SAP needs to onboard companies that are developing open-source charts. They need to improve their user experience in terms of dashboarding.

Another thing that I would like SAP to improve is its licensing. Because of their licensing model, they are losing the market.

It has been more than 10 years. I am an SAP BusinessObjects consultant. I've been working with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Suite. I have worked on the ETL side, reporting side, and infrastructure side.

It is absolutely trustworthy. Once you develop a BI solution and it is signed off, you can definitely rely on it. I have seen big enterprises that have the finance or other critical reports going out from the system. It is reliable. I don't see any problem there. The problem only comes if it is not properly deployed, or you do not understand the product or don't know what you want from the product. Your business goals should be clear. Reliability is not an issue. It is an enterprise product at the end of the day.

SP Business Objects is a Scalable Product and allows you to Scale your application Vertically & Horizontally both ,We can Scale up either by adding resources on a Single machine or add a Separate machine to increase the Performance.

Scaling up the Application is quite simple & can ensure performance & Reliability.

I have seen thousand of reports running on the platform without a performance overhead. 

Initially, it was not that good, but SAP took the feedback from their customers, consultants, partners, and Gold/Platinum partners, and then they improved that process and the user experience. They set up a community, and there was a lot of engagement at SAP's level. At one point, SAP involved their experienced engineers to write blogs to have a community engagement, which eventually improved the experience when it comes to their support. SAP understands customers. They have their strategies in place.

At this point in time, there is still scope for improvement, but their support is not bad. I would rate them at least seven out of 10.

I do work for enterprise customers, and in the past 10 years, I have seen more presence of SAP, Tableau, and Qlik, but now Power BI has also started capturing the market. Power BI is cheap. Its per-user license fee is cheaper than SAP. That is the key reason why people are switching from SAP to Power BI, but at the end of the day, when customers who have been using SAP for ages do the PoC on Power BI, they are not getting the ROI that they're expecting. They already have a solution that is proven, working, and giving them what they are looking for.

All the tools have certain technical challenges in terms of the whole landscape or whole ecosystem, and our clients use tools as per their requirements. 

Its integration with the SAP ERP system is a pro. Another pro is that SAP is already in the enterprise market. They understand the landscape of big companies, and that's how they actually enhanced their product. They also have a very good user community. However, SAP's dashboard capability needs to be further improved. It is improving, but Tableau, Power BI, and Qlik have already captured a big share of the market, and regaining that share of the market would be quite difficult.

SAP's deployment is not straightforward. As compared to how it used to be 10 years ago, it is not that difficult. That's because SAP has worked on things that were lacking when it comes to deployment. They also worked on the other factors such as how good the support is, how good the product is, and how much help is provided on the internet. They have a user community of experienced people. They have worked on these factors, and now, it is much easier than it used to be about 10 years ago.

Its deployment cannot be compared with Tableau, Qlik, or Power BI because these are light tools. SAP has many more components than these solutions. SAP has more functionality, which makes the deployment a little bit tricky. When you have thousands of reports, it becomes more difficult. That's why its deployment needs more expertise than other tools. It is an enterprise solution, and at the end of the day, you need to scale it. When you have hundreds or thousands of reports, you need to scale your environment. When you have a large user base, you can come across issues, but it has improved over the period of time. 

SAP is losing market to its competitors because of its costly user license and licensing model. They can do much better on the licensing side. That's what Microsoft has been doing, and that's why Power BI is gaining market share at the moment. 

SAP needs to relax a little bit on the licensing part. If Microsoft is giving people a solution that is half of the cost of SAP, people will definitely go with Power BI.

They're evolving very quickly. They are giving users new features. They are taking feedback from the users, and they are making sure that they are not losing the trends. They understand the user needs and where the industry is moving in terms of cloud, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies that are going to be the driving force in the future. It is really amazing how SAP is doing it. I have been working with their tools for the last 10 years, and I've seen that they are coming up with almost everything that users need. 

Now that everything is moving to the cloud, they are also working on the cloud side of their business. For example, SAP BusinessObjects is not good with dashboarding. It is basically for financial reporting and drill-down reporting. So, they came up with a cloud product that is not only for reporting but also for dashboarding. They have given a one-stop solution wherein you can do your reporting, dashboarding, and storytelling.

If you are completely new to business intelligence but you are already using SAP solutions, this is the best tool that you can use to leverage your financial systems or logistic systems. It is not a self-BI type of tool. It needs an IT expert. If your data is important and you are a big company or a mid-scale company, you should go with SAP BusinessObjects because it is already in the market, and it has integration with SAP ERP. The user experience will be good. You'll not see any performance issues with the queries. At the end of the day, when a business user sees a report, he doesn't understand which tool it is, whether it is SAP, Power BI, or something else. They want the experience to be good. They want the functionalities.

The advice for a new company is to first find out the integration. If you're using Power BI with SQL Server, it will work wonders, but if you are using it with SAP HANA or SAP BW, you'll not get the experience that SAP can give you. You need to understand the landscape and different applications that are there and then decide whether it would work for your use case. SAP doesn't fit everywhere. Similarly, Power BI doesn't fit everywhere. 

An organization that is completely new to BI should try to identify:

• What type of reports do they want? Do they want aggregated reports or operational reports?
• Who is the target audience?

There are a lot of processes that are involved depending on whether the data is coming from your data warehouse, or you're querying the OLAP system directly. 

I read a very good article where a company did this exercise and asked enterprises about the BI tools they use. What they ended up seeing was that no organization was using one BI tool. There were two, three, or even four BI tools. So, it all depends on your source systems. It is always a combination, and there can't be only one BI tool. It is difficult to have a single, centralized BI tool.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is used for a variety of reporting purposes. 

We have data from the business warehouse that has been affected by the S/4HANA system.  Various reports have been created in the BOBI.  This would reflect those reports based on the various requirements.

Business analytics are the most valuable features of this solution; I don't have experience with the other functional features offered.

The initial setup could be simplified.

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

The product is stable, but we do experience issues around the time SAP releases patches.

Yes, the scalability is satisfactory. We have the authority, and we will run the systems on-premises. It is possible to scale both up and down.

We have 2,000 users in our organization.

We have no plans to increase usage. We will gradually migrate to the SAP cloud platform.

Technical support is the same as that provided by the cloud platform.

We are a premier partner with a premium SAP account. We have biweekly calls with SAP account managers and SAP to promote the product as needed. For example, we currently have a large number of applications running on the SAP data center. It is known as the Neo data center, and SAP is gradually reducing its use of the SAP data center. SAP encourages the use of multiple clouds. It's called Cloud Foundry, which is an open-source platform where you can develop for all of the different hyperscalers. SAP is assisting us in transitioning from the Neo platform, which is the SAP data center, to the Cloud Foundry data center.

All of the systems were running on-premise. However, when the SAP Cloud Platform was introduced, we began using SAP's native solutions and native applications. You can use the SAP cloud connector to connect backend systems that are running on-premise. This is the type of usage we began with when we first used the SAP Cloud Platform, and we have been very pleased.

The initial setup was a bit complex.

The implementation took about six months. We installed the development systems first, followed by the quality system, test system, and production system.

We have a team of six to deploy and maintain this solution.

We used a third-party service to help us with the implementation.

This is a standard licensing fee. 

It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this.

The SAP Business Objects BLB platform is available in the SAP business technology platform, which is accessible via the cloud platform. Instead of going with on-premise, it is better to analyze software as a solution.

I would rate the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform a seven out of ten.

BusinessObjects has a lot of tools, including Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, Analysis for Office, SAP Lumira, and Analytical Cloud. SAP also has a new tool for HANA-based applications it introduced around 2018. Analysis for Office is an SAP add-on inside Microsoft Office. It works inside of Office tools like Excel, so you have the option to get data from Excel, and there's a direct connection with SAP. You can point that to your HANA database or a BEx query also. 

You can also connect SAP to PowerPoint, so you can create presentations from the HANA database or a BEx query.  We had more than 180 to 200 reports on Analysis for Office in my last implementation. Most of our company users were good at Excel, so it was easy to use an external data connection to Excel.

For example, say we have different sheets in Excel. We populate the data from the BEx query or the HANA database in the first sheet. In the second, we'll do some options like the lookup function for Match Index and the reports. The data will be constantly refreshed in the backend. Finally, we have to create the report and publish it to the SAP BI Launchpad to be shared with everyone. 

The other thing is the WEBI, or Web Intelligence report. That's the most powerful reporting feature inside BusinessObjects. We normally use WEBI for ad hoc reporting, not for dashboarding, because the dashboard visualization is not that great. WEBI will work even if you have more than 10 million rows. 

WEBI will work with any amount of data. I have more than 100 gigabytes of data in WEBI. It's best for ad hoc reporting instead of dashboards. SAP has its own dashboard tool inside BusinessObjects dedicated to dashboards and visualizations. You cannot do any ad-hoc reporting inside that.

In terms of the dashboard, they introduced another tool called Design Studio. Design Studio is another took inside SAP BusinessObjects. Design Studio is better for dashboarding and summary reporting. For example, you can take a data table and create a graphical representation. That's SAP Design Studio, and WEBI is a tool we use globally. 

All of our SAP Businessthey will always prefer to work in WEBI, Web Intelligence. WEBI has two versions. One is inside the launch pad that is a browser-based tool. Second, you can have a tool of WEBI inside your desktop itself, that is called Web Intelligence Rich Client. Web Intelligence Rich Client is the same tool as the second version, there are two versions of WEBI, one is inside the browser, and the second is, you can install it on the desktop. Lumira is comparable to Tableau, or Power BI. Lumira was introduced in 2013 or 2014. I forgot the year, but it was introduced after Tableau. Lumira has a great story function. There is a story option in Tableau, but that started in Lumira.

SAP had another tool called Explorer. Explorer is a simple tool to preview the data that can be used for both ad hoc reporting and visualization, but they discontinued Explorer in December 2020. Adobe Flash Player was discontinued, and Explorer was completely dependent on Flash. The last tool, SAP Analytics Cloud, is currently strong in the market, and it was introduced in 2020, I think. They prefer SAC. SAC can be used for both ad hoc and dashboard reporting. 

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.

UDT is perfect, and you can do anything in it. There are never any issues when joining the tables because there are a lot of options. In terms of tables, two things always come to mind: looping and traps. These are the main difficulties we face when joining tables, but loops and traps are easily resolved inside BusinessOjbects UDT and IDT. We have API functions and contact operators that resolve these issues.

IDT and UDT form the backbone of BusinessObjects. There is one more thing called publication. I haven't seen this feature in any other tools. Publication is useful for bulk reporting. For example, say I want to send reports to 200 Indian salespeople, and I want to apply a filter so the reports only go to specific cities. This can be done in BusinessObjects in five minutes. This cannot be done in any other tool like Tableau or Power BI. 

BusinessObjects reporting tools have not been perfected yet. However, there are two ETL tools inside the BusinessObjects. They are ETL tools in the schematic between the database and the reporting. 

But if we're talking negative aspects of BusinessObjects, it's like comparing a bus and a bike. If you want to reach somewhere nearby within five minutes, you can use a bike instead of the bus because there will be a lot of traffic and lots of people inside the bus. If you have large amounts of data, then go for BusinessObjects. If you have a light amount of data, it's better to use Tableau or Power BI tools.

I've worked with SAP BusinessObjects for 10 to 15 years.

BusinessObjects' stability is awesome with a huge amount of data, but you're often running three or four tools at a time. For example, say I want to do reporting in BusinessObjects. First, I have to think about the type of schematic layer I must use: UDT or IDT.  Second, I have to think about what type of reporting tool I'll need: ad hoc, detailed summary, or dashboard reporting. 

If it is an ad hoc report, I will go for Crystal Report. If it is just dashboard reporting, I've to go for SAC or Lumira. These confusions will be there for every user. If someone wants to really work on BusinessObjects, they should understand at least three or four of its tools. With Tableau, you only need to know about Tableau. You don't have to think about other tools because everything is inside Tableau or Power BI.

BusinessObjects will give you a lot of options. There will be a proper category, like schematic layout developer, report developer, report viewers, etc. And there are different categories of users inside BusinessObjects. Tableau and Power BI don't have such categories.

Factoring in total implementation and maintenance costs, SAP BusinessObjects is too expensive. If you deal with a huge amount of data, you can go with BusinessObjects. However, if you are a medium-sized company with a modest amount of data, you can opt for another solution. 

I rate SAP BusinessObjects eight out of 10.

It is primarily used for reporting and dashboarding.

The scheduling and publication features are very useful. Additionally, the reporting tool and Lumira dashboard are also quite beneficial.

One area of improvement could be technical support because it is not that great. Specifically, the response time for SAP support is slow.

In the next release, I would like to see additional dashboarding-related features.

I have been using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform since 2008. I have been using it for around 15 years now.

I would give stability a nine out of ten. I haven't faced any major issues with the product. If you have experience with the product, you can increase its performance and scale it up. So it's all about your experience with the product.

I rate the scalability of this solution a nine out of ten.

The customer service and support is slow in response. 

Positive

Since I have been working on it for 15 years, the setup isn't complicated. The deployment depends on the requirements. For example, if the customer wants to go for the clustered box, clustered since being on installation on multiple boxes, then it will take two days, three days, and sometimes five days. But if it is straightforward, then it's in it is a job of four hours.

Standalone, straightforward installation for a small client; it will take four hours for a new installation. And if we want to upgrade it, it will take around two and a half hours.

About three to four developers use the platform, and I am responsible for maintaining and troubleshooting any issues they may encounter. Additionally, we have business analysts and users who utilize the platform to view data.

The license is cheaper, but the support is costlier.

I evaluated different options based on your company's requirements, and some people preferred SAP, while others preferred Tableau. And because SAP BusinessObjects is primarily used for reporting and Tableau for dashboarding, users didn't want to use both products for their respective functions. It ultimately depends on the specific needs of the company and its users.

SAP BusinessObjects is the simplest and most stable reporting product in the market and the best enterprise-level reporting product. Many companies use SAP BusinessObjects, including Apple and Cisco. However, in dashboarding, SAP BusinessObjects is not that stable. Therefore, Tableau, ClickView, and other tools have captured the market. But in terms of reporting, SAP BusinessObjects is the market leader. The reason behind its success is the Symantec layer it provides between the database and the report. It is the only big company like Oracle or Microsoft that can provide this.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution more for analysis and reporting.

The solution is very easy to use.

We find the product to be very stable. 

The solution is scalable.

SAP does force users to manage it a certain way. specifically around queries, and does not integrate well with other platforms, or lacks a certain level of flexibility. It needs to be more flexible for the end-user.

For example, we have been using Cognos also for years now, however, if a user has to do a query on their own then it doesn't work. That's why we are now gradually trying to migrate to Power BI. And, while it's easy to integrate on the SAP landscape, when it comes to the flexibility for the user to create a report on their own, there isn't really an option to do that. 

I've been dealing with the solution for over ten years at this point. It's been around a decade since I started working with it. It's been a while. 

The level of stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable and the performance is good. 

The solution can scale if you need it to as an organization. 

Globally, we have almost 2,000 users on this product.

We are also using Power BI.

When we moved into the SAP landscape we had two choices. We had IBM Cognos and could integrate SAP with Cognos or we go for an SAP solution which is an SAP BI that automatically integrated with SAP ECC. We chose SAP BI. However, now, we are moving more towards Power BI and moving away from SAP.

I did not handle the implementation and therefore cannot speak to the process. I'm not sure if it's easy or difficult. 

We have our own support and architecture teams and they are able to handle any maintenance necessary if it comes up. We generally have five to six people who could handle such tasks. 

We pay for an enterprise license. We pay yearly when we renew our license. 

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're currently using. What we have is completely on-premise as we are still on ECC. We are using the HANA architecture, and we are still on-premise.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

I would recommend the solution to other users and companies. 

What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making process by automating data injection, eliminating manual preparation, and reducing associated costs. The user-friendly interface allows for quick analysis, while robust security ensures controlled access to sensitive information.

While SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform offers powerful reporting features, I believe there is room for improvement in providing more user-friendly and versatile reporting options. Currently, users might face limitations and complexities in developing specific use cases within SAP. Unlike other business intelligence tools such as Power BI, SAP could enhance flexibility, allowing users to seamlessly integrate data from various sources like CRM systems, providing a more dynamic and adaptable reporting environment for users.

In terms of stability, SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform has been good. It is a reliable solution, especially for injecting and integrating data from sources like SAP, Microsoft Azure, or AWS. The platform's partnerships with major systems like SAP and Oracle contribute to its overall stability.

SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is highly scalable. You can easily upgrade the account to accommodate your specific needs. The platform's cloud capabilities allow for seamless integration of advanced analytics like machine learning or AI. Currently, we have over 20 customers using it.

Setting up SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform can vary in complexity depending on the customer's specific use case. For us, the process was generally straightforward. We identified the tables the customer wanted data from and extracted and injected the data accordingly. Visualization and analytics were then tailored to their specific needs. The deployment process, from development completion to implementation, involved collaboration with staff and followed a systematic approach.

The licensing cost for SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform can be significant due to its complexity. It is crucial for customers to carefully assess the value they expect to derive from the implementation. Start with a basic version before opting for more advanced options like SAP HANA to manage initial expenses wisely.

My advice for new users is to consider SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, especially if they're dealing with complex organizational structures. It is beneficial for centralizing data from various departments into a unified system, providing a robust solution for analysis and decision-making. Overall, I would rate it as a nine out of ten.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an enterprise reporting platform. We use it to read data from the data warehouses and serve the internal usage of the company for reporting purposes.

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.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform should be made easier for the end-users and the performance could be improved.

In a feature release, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform the visual should improve, such as dashboards. They need to improve the visualization issues. The analytics are a bit behind the sector because alternative tools have integration between other platforms, such as Microsoft Office or Cloud. SAP BusinessObjects is trying to move all the platforms to the cloud, but we couldn't use the cloud and we are in the middle of a division. They don't offer an on-premise solution for the platform.

I have been using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for approximately 10 years.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is a stable solution.

The scalability of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is good.

We have approximately 200 power users and 1,000 report users using this solution in my company.

I have used the support from SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform.

I rate the support from SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform a two out of five.

I have not used another solution previously.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is in the middle range of difficulty. It is not easy or complex.

I rate the initial setup of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform a four of five.

We have three people who do the maintenance and support of the solution. They are data and BI engineers.

We used a third party for the implementation of the solution.

There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform.

I rate the price of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform a four out of five.

I would advise others the solution has a great presentation layer, but it needs to be managed well before you receive the most out of the performance.

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

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is currently deployed as on-premise solution and recently the server got hosted into cloud, but it's more or less assembled as on-premise solution.

It was a tool that was established in its current form a very long time back, so most of the uses are familiar. The familiarity is very good with that tool. Since it is familiar, they're able to navigate and get the reports and even share the requirements needed for anything new that needs to be developed. To an extent, they know its features and capabilities. So that's one thing.

It is providing a wide range of reports in different departments. Especially for the department I'm working in, they are mostly interested in the regulation side. So they are looking for the information or properties regarding the products and getting their details on the regulation, which will help them to manage or make sure that all the regulatory standards are maintained for the information captured in the database.

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.

It has additional capabilities like scheduling and getting the reports in the various forms, like through the mails and through the shared locations, and all those sorts of formats, so those features are good. The user friendliness helps create the reports out of the data source available.

It's not like apps. Most of the Apps right now are into dashboarding. This tool, for the Crystal Reports in the phase I'm primarily working on, does not have those dashboarding capabilities, like in the other advanced tools like Power BI or ClickView, and compared to them the dashboard generation is not that great.

But there are other products, like SAP Analytics Cloud, all of which actually provide this information under the Business Intelligence platform. But I have not used it much because my customer has not moved onto those platforms yet. That may be one thing that may need improvement - the dashboarding side. Also sometimes the performance is not that great when getting millions of records out of it. It'll take its own sweet time to get that report refreshed.

Feature-wise, it's a slightly old technology, so I don't expect anything getting updated much in it, rather just continuing with their current thing.

I'm right now using other dashboarding tools for the dashboarding requirements. As I mentioned, it's not that capable of providing the current dashboarding requirements. I was introduced first to this tool then later to others.

I'm using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform in my current project. One of my roles is to develop the reports and universes, so I'm currently using it for that.

On the backside, there is not much that needs to get fixed. Occasionally we used to figure out some bugs with the versions, mostly compatibility issues with the latest databases, for example with Snowflakes. But we used to get the patches for that compatibility issues. But so far I haven't seen those sorts of issues in the environment that I'm working in.

In terms of the maintenance, we have seen some server slowness or shutdowns or something like that. We have noticed it, but not much on the admin side of activities. But if we see some issues in the system then we usually reach out to SAP to see their point of view and they may be coming with a fix for it or with a solution to adjust the system parameters.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is not that scalable. I will say the scalability is medium. It's not as easy to scale it up as we need it to deploy. We have an option to cluster it with multiple servers, but it's not like it's just a configuration change. It should be repeating the process of the entire installation in a different box, and linking those up.

It is being widely used and we have people from various departments and roles. It is covering some of the finance reports and it covers from the financial side. On the VP level, they are getting some sales reports and other data, with daily refreshes on it. It is used by the analyst for day-to-day activities. It is widely used. I cannot pinpoint one specific use we set for it for the current client I'm working for.

Maybe I'm planning to increase usage. The BI platform has different components in it. The current components I'm using are mostly the Web Intelligence and the Crystal Reports. I feel like it's a little outdated, it's a little more like old technology. But under that they have an SAP Analytics Cloud platform that they're building up under the Business Intelligence itself. I guess eventually the roadmap will be inclined to that solution.

We usually use both the forum and the support group for SAP. As I mentioned, if there are some serious issues, we are in contact with SAP, so we'll raise tech issues with them and they will come back with a fix, like connectivity to a new database. And if there are any ongoing issues that we identify in our landscape which need to be addressed, they usually get back with the fix or they usually analyze our system and give us suggestions.

We also interact with the forum. The blog forums and the social forums for this product are well established. We will get most, 60% to 70% of queries, addressed in those forums. I have observed most of the very similar issues already registered in those forum, which will be helpful for debugging or solving our issues.

Occasionally we may have to do multiple follow-ups for a product with tech support and get them to understand and then have a debate to get it fixed. That's little challenging. It'll take some time since maybe our issues are specific to a landscape, the way that we operate with this huge, massive amount of records. So at times they may not be easily open, but with more proof and if we can provide more justification, they usually pick it up. But it's not very fast, it will take some time.

The deployment process is quite easy. We have a dedicated admin team to manage the queues of deployment. It is very easy to get that once we deploy the changes in dev, it can be easily moved across environments to different test environments and to the cloud. It also has the capability to roll back the changes if there are any issues that we identify, so I don't see any issues with the deployment process.

To set it up, provided we have all the infra support needed, it will mostly be handled by different teams, like database. From that perspective, maybe a couple of teams may be involved as repositories are mounted on top of database, but the installation side can be handled by one person. That can be possible if it is a small scale deployment with not too many clusters involved.

But if there are cluster servers and multiple servers needed to be deployed and linked, it may be worth having a considerable effort to deploy this solution. I'm mostly talking about the installation of the product. But it can be handled with a couple of people, provided we have the support from the infra team with the servers, with required specification for the server, as well as any other support needed, including admin support for the servers.

If it is standalone, a simple server installation can be completed in a day or two.

It is very widely used across different departments and it definitely serves a purpose to give insights on the data. It is surely giving the returns, but I may not be in a position to give the exact figures or how much it will be in connection with the purchase demand or purchase cost. But it is definitely a tool that is needed for the day-to-day tracking.

I think the licensing depends upon the user base. If it is a limited license, the user base has some restrictions. If we need to expand our user base, I guess there needs to be enhanced licensing. At a high level I can share that, but we haven't faced it as we have the full premium license with them, but I know the starter packages are limited on the number of users. Maybe not for all licensing, but only the lowest range licensing fee may have some limitation on the number of concurrent users.

My advice to anyone considering SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is to keep an eye on the requirement side that they need. If you are looking for a flashy dashboard with a lot of user interactions with click and dicing the graphs, I don't recommend the Business Intelligence component or the Crystal Reports. They may have to look into other products.

On a scale of one to then, I would say SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is a 7.