SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Reviews and Pricing

President & CEO at Infosol Inc

May 3, 2024

Using Xcelsius dashboard instead of Qlikview

When I first started presenting Xcelsius dashboards back in 2006, I said that it should carry a warning sign stating “May Cause Xtreme Xcitement”!

Despite all the advances in technology and tools over the last decade that statement not only remains true today, but maybe should be changed to “Will Cause Xtreme Xcitement”.

In the last month, I have both seen and heard stories from companies singing the praises of Xcelsius and hailing it as the savior of BI user adoption in their organizations.

A company specializing in reporting and analysis of employee business travel was looking for a client facing BI application that would help sell their solution. The client showed me their current solution running in Qlikview bemoaning how rigid, limiting and unexciting it was to use. They then showed me an example of something they found on the web that was an animated PowerPoint dashboard much closer to what they were looking for. Of course, I recognized it as an Xcelsius dashboard embedded in PowerPoint immediately. It had been developed over seven years ago, but it still sizzled. So, we mocked up a new prototype in Xcelsius for the client and to say they loved it would be an understatement. The VP of Marketing came up with the best quote of the day when he said, “It’s alive!”

A multi-national vehicle leasing company developed a super cool Xcelsius dashboard for improving their vendor management with built-in location intelligence using the GMaps plug-in and the InfoBurst XML Data Caching for high data volume performance. They presented it at their annual sales meeting last month and it stole the show. The excitement generated was so contagious, the VP and Director responsible spent the evening at the bar designing the next dashboard together! (I can’t wait to see that one!).

A new finance director of a global software company needed a way to provide better visibility to their financial statements and reports. She remembered using Xcelsius many years ago and said it really helped then. We put a prototype together for her in a day and everyone loved it, so they are buying it next week.

So why is Xcelsius so amazing and still slaying the BI data visualization competition everywhere? There are dozens of reasons from its ease of use, animations, ability to embed in everything, fast prototyping to its “what if” scenarios and cool components. But it goes deeper than all these features which you can also find in other BI visualization tools. The real secret to the success of Xcelsius is that it was initially designed and developed by computer gamers. To develop a winning computer game, you need to engage your audience visually, make it cool and fun to use and have limitless possibilities. You can find all these elements in Xcelsius dashboards allowing you to create killer BI applications.

That is why Xcelsius dashboards is still the best show in town. Xcelsius lives!

Update Nov 2015 : Lots of activity around Xcelsius HTML5 for deployment on mobile and on desktop with dCode add-on (www.getdcode.com). Now that Xcelsius generates HTML5 output, I see it being around for many, many more years

Update April 2016 : Xcelsius continues to thrive with many organizations using and deploying it for the first time in 2016. SAP provided updates to it with latest BI 4.2 release including full support for Excel 2013

Update Sept. 2016 : Xcelsius HTML5 definitely seems to be the dashboard solution of choice and many new add-on HTML5 components are becoming available including D3 charts, flat components and query drag and drop discover.

Update Sept 2018 : Adobe announced end of life for Flash for Dec 31, 2020 and SAP announced it would no longer support Xcelsius after this date since the development client uses Flash. While some Xcelsius users are looking for a viable alternative solution, others vow to continue to use the tool regardless. There are some new Xcelsius compatible solutions in development so let's see what materializes in the coming months.

Update Feb 2019 : Xcelsius still heavily in use. Some companies looking to replace with Tableau or PowerBI but just not the same. Web Intelligence dashboards may be a viable alternative for simple dashboards .

Update July 2019 : SAP has announced it will no longer support Xcelsius after Dec. 31, 2020 to coincide with Adobe no longer supporting Flash in the browser. However, most Xcelsius users have been generating HTML5 dashboards for a number of years now and are continuing to do so and their Xcelsius HTML5 dashboards should not be affected. SAP has no equivalent follow-on product and is recommending customers move to SAC (cloud only) and rewrite their dashboards - this will require programming skills . An alternative to Xcelsius, called Squirrel, that requires no training for an existing Xcelsius developer and has a built-in XLF migration utility is due for beta release by InfoSol in October and will be GA in December.

Update Dec 2019 : Squirrel has been in beta for the last few weeks with multiple organizations and is scheduled for general release on Dec 31. Initial feedback is very positive with Xcelsius users who require no re-training to use it. They have been able to both migrate or recreate existing Xcelsius dashboards. This is great news for the Xcelsius community who now have another option when Flash goes away and SAP stops supporting Xcelsius in 2021.

Update May 2020 : Squirrel is now at version 1.3 with multiple Xcelsius customers having converted their dashboards and running with the Squirrel HTML5 versions in production. This appears to be a very viable path forward for those customers left with Xcelsius Flash dashboards that will probably no longer work starting in 2021.

Update Nov 2020 : Squirrel 1.6 which has a cloud based version and allows you to embed dashboards in PPT was just released last week. More and more Xcelsius customers have now successfully moved to Squirrel and companies like Salesforce are using it too. Xcelsius has about a month to go before Adobe and SAP stop all support.

Update June 2022 : Squirrel365 has now replaced hundreds of Xcelsius dashboards and has become the de facto follow-on solution for Xcelsius

Update May 2024 : Squirrel 365 can now be embedded in BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, Tableau and PowerBI bringing "What If" scenarios and write back capability to these traditional BI solutions

Disclaimer: My company is partners with several vendors including SAP BO.

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

it_user255801Works

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Nov 20, 2015

I absolutely would like to hear your point of view and anything you wish to share about the app.
I would like to know things like:

1) Is SAP Crystal Dashboard Design, personal edition 2013 really the upgrade to Engage 2008?

2) How is it possible that they are asking such an outrageous amount of money for it?

3) How is it so different to the Xcelsius dashboard presentation apps they offer for under $500?. Am I missing something?

4) What justifies the kind of money they are asking? I am interested in things like, a fully updated MAP component, brand new dashboards, the possibility of a video component to insert videos, and the like. I guess it is possible that they are including some arcane stuff I don't care about, but I am ready to be surprised by you.

Thanks

See all 7 comments

SergeNdin

Assistant SAP at ipscnam

Mar 30, 2023

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It has improved our work but is difficult to use

Pros and Cons

"I have seen improvement in our work after using the solution."

"It is not simple to use."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to manage our databases.

What needs improvement?

The solution is more difficult to use than other products.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for five years.

What other advice do I have?

I have seen improvement in our work after using the solution. I rate the solution as a seven out of ten.

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

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reviewer1470402

Strategic Account Manager at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees

Jan 31, 2022

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Useful for development, reliable, and scalable

Pros and Cons

"The development using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is very good."

"The solution can improve by having more analytical features."

What is our primary use case?

The solution can be deployed on-premise and in cloud environments. We are using Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS for cloud services.

Our main use case for the use of this solution is for reporting.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has given us multi-systems and databases that have been very good for us.

What is most valuable?

The development using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is very good.

What needs improvement?

The solution can improve by having more analytical features.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the solution has been good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have found the scalability to be good.

What other advice do I have?

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

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

reviewer1311126

Managing Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jan 8, 2022

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Can cover any business need, but SAP needs to focus on customers and quality first instead of money

Pros and Cons

"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."

"The integration could be improved. The SAP suite has some integration problems and it has some huge development needs. For example, when you use Power BI, if you publish a dataset to the web, there is no issue in seeing the data with the report. The data and report are integrated automatically. Or when you use QlikView, when you publish the QVD file, the report is integrated with QVD. Also, with Tableau, when you publish the data, it's in the hyper database, in the memory, and the dashboard with data is integrated seamlessly. In the SAP side, it's not easy. There are lots of business layers. There are also some performance issues in the SAP BusinessObjects suite. They should focus on the technologies. We are partners and every step of the way, SAP asks us for money. If you want to see the products, the PDFs, if you want to learn the product, online training, etc., everything has a cost on the SAP site. Because of this, partners try to get to know the products on their own. SAP only focuses on the sales side—only money is important for SAP, not the quality. In that way, the operation is not easy on the SAP side. As a suggestion, they should focus on customers first instead of money."

What is our primary use case?

SAP BusinessObjects can be used for operational reporting. It is an enterprise solution and a suite of products.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

The integration could be improved. The SAP suite has some integration problems and it has some huge development needs. For example, when you use Power BI, if you publish a dataset to the web, there is no issue in seeing the data with the report. The data and report are integrated automatically. Or when you use QlikView, when you publish the QVD file, the report is integrated with QVD. Also, with Tableau, when you publish the data, it's in the hyper database, in the memory, and the dashboard with data is integrated seamlessly. In the SAP side, it's not easy. There are lots of business layers.

There are also some performance issues in the SAP BusinessObjects suite. They should focus on the technologies.

As far as additional features, SAP needs a BI analytics solution. I mean, a fully integrated BI analytics suite.

We are partners and every step of the way, SAP asks us for money. If you want to see the products, the PDFs, if you want to learn the product, online training, etc., everything has a cost on the SAP site. Because of this, partners try to get to know the products on their own. SAP only focuses on the sales side—only money is important for SAP, not the quality. In that way, the operation is not easy on the SAP side. As a suggestion, they should focus on customers first instead of money.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SAP BusinessObjects for 20 years.

What other advice do I have?

I rate SAP BusinessObjects a six out of ten.

To those looking into implementing this solution, in the SAP side, there are modules. You should focus on one of the modules. There's HR, FI, SDMM, et cetera. Also, there are BI modules, and there are lots of products on the BI side: BW, Hana, SAP BusinessObjects. There is also a cloud side of SAP. So, they are time consuming. You should focus on one of them before jumping to the second one.

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

reviewer1128492

System Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jan 6, 2022

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It has better scheduling capabilities than other solutions, but it has limitations on how you can use it

Pros and Cons

"We are using SAP BusinessObjects because its scheduling capabilities are more powerful than those of other tools."

"It is limited for us because SAP is shifting toward the cloud, and we can't use a cloud solution for SAP BusinessObjects. SAP introduced a product called PlusTimes one or two years ago and another one that I believe was called Automatic BI. This tool is more powerful than BusinessObjects and other tools because it's provided in the cloud."

What is our primary use case?

In general, we use BusinessObjects for extensive reports. BusinessObjects reports have several pages. Our users prefer BusinessObjects over Microsoft Excel because Excel is limited in its data files and all that.

What is most valuable?

We are using SAP BusinessObjects because its scheduling capabilities are more powerful than those of other tools.

What needs improvement?

It is limited for us because SAP is shifting toward the cloud, and we can't use a cloud solution for SAP BusinessObjects. SAP introduced a product called PlusTimes one or two years ago and another one that I believe was called Automatic BI. This tool is more powerful than BusinessObjects and other tools because it's provided in the cloud.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with BusinessObjects for about eight years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

BusinessObjects is scalable, allowing us to work with many pages.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are thinking about switching to Power BI. I think we will no longer use SAP BusinessObjects after one or two years.

What other advice do I have?

I rate SAP BusinessObjects seven out of 10. However, I can't recommend BusinessObjects because its usage is limited, and it can't provide a new solution for end-users.

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

reviewer1486620

Enterprise Architect at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 31, 2021

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Fairly scalable and stable but WebGUI presentation layer could be improved

Pros and Cons

"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."
"The platform uses a lot of Java technologies so the performance and system-level management are tricky because it needs a lot of resources."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for this solution is business enterprise reporting.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform feature are metadata service layers. 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. The end user can then use this data to create a report, dashboard, or whatever else.

It also has scheduling and can generate BI content for you.

What needs improvement?

Their WebGUI presentation layer could be improved. They are still a little bit behind, for example, Tableau and QlikView.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about nine years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The features SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform provides are fairly stable. I only noticed one data error in the past.

Of course, the platform uses a lot of Java technologies so the performance and system-level management are tricky because it needs a lot of resources.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is fairly scalable. You can either scale it up or create a cluster. They do have load balance and we have a cluster for important stuff. However, we use it relatively lightly, so we never have performance issues when we needed to scale up or scale out. Mostly, we have to scale up to give it enough RAM.

Currently, we have a couple hundred people using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform at our institution.

How are customer service and technical support?

The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform we use are not too advanced so we haven't had much need to contact tech support. When we run into an issue, we can usually solve it through community answers. We have had some SAP technical support come in a few times and every time we met with them we had a good experience. We have a fairly good relationship with their tech support.

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

Just before switching to SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, we were using QlikView.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was was not bad, but it was relatively complex. It did take some time to get it to work for us.

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

I don't have the exact number, but SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is not too cheap.

What other advice do I have?

My advice is to try to truly understand the system. It is fairly complicated. To get this system to work, you need a systems engineer and an architect in addition to a lot of other people who understand what's going on behind the scenes.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Thales Azevedo

Gerente de BI at a government with 201-500 employees

Feb 10, 2021

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Easy to set up with good stability and helpful technical support

Pros and Cons

"The setup is pretty easy. It's not hard at all."

"The UI could be updated a bit."

What is most valuable?

The solution has been extremely stable. We haven't had any issues so far.

The setup is pretty easy. It's not hard at all.

Technical support, overall, has been very good and we've been happy with their level of service.

What needs improvement?

The basic components of the solution could be improved.

The UI could be updated a bit.

I can't think of any features that are currently missing from the product at this time.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution for about seven years at this point. It's been a while. We have a lot of experience with it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've found the stability of the solution to be very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Plenty of users in our organization actually use the solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support for the most part has been very good. We've had a positive experience and we are quite satisfied with the level of support they provide to us.

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

I don't recall the company using a previous solution. As far as I know, the company has only ever really used SAP.

How was the initial setup?

We've found the initial setup to be pretty straightforward. It's not so complex. A company shouldn't have any trouble with the implementation process.

What about the implementation team?

We didn't need any assistance with the integration process. It's a process that I manage as an integration manager.

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

We pay our licensing fees on a monthly basis. I can't speak to how much they are. I don't recall there being any extra costs above the licensing itself.

What other advice do I have?

We are customers and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with the organization.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it as a perfect ten. It's been great. For the most part, we have been happy with the product.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user1477425

Associate Manager at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 30, 2021

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Flexible, useful for complex reporting, and comes with many components

Pros and Cons

"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."

"Its data visualization tool is not as good as Power BI and Tableau. Currently, for data visualization, you need to spend more money to buy another solution such as Power BI or Tableau. It is also very hard to integrate it with other third-party solutions. Its integration with other solutions should be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for reporting.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

Its data visualization tool is not as good as Power BI and Tableau. Currently, for data visualization, you need to spend more money to buy another solution such as Power BI or Tableau.

It is also very hard to integrate it with other third-party solutions. Its integration with other solutions should be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for around seven years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have around 200 users of this solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

They are helpful and quite professional. Sometimes, they don't respond faster, and sometimes, they say that it needs to be upgraded to the next version, which is something that I don't like.

How was the initial setup?

Its installation was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

I did the installation.

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

Its price is fair.

What other advice do I have?

For data visualization, I would recommend Power BI and Tableau. For the report format, I would recommend SAP BusinessObjects.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

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