SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Reviews

The features that are most valuable are report and dashboard development, universe layer, ability to connect to a wide variety of data sources, ability to develop robust semantic layer, ability to combine different data sources and data federation.

Provides a platform for developing reporting that can be used by end users, which will give relevant, consistent and correct results. Also, ability to combine data, I created a report based on SAP data from BW and combined it with data from SQL server to be able to report on the data in a way that would not have been possible to do except with manual steps. The solution I built replaced a manual process that would take 3 weeks and provided an automated solution. We were able to get the critical analysis in a small fraction of time and able to run the business better as a result.

Can be a little buggy. As with any system you need to do the work to set up the foundation; nothing is as easy as you install it and all your problems are solved.

I have been using this solution for 12 years.

No issues with deployment.

Sometimes encounter some bugs. SAP seems to have taken the approach of letting the users test the product lately.

No - the system is very scalable.

Customer service was average.

Technical support was average.

I've developed many solutions to replace solutions using Access and Excel.

Initial setup was straightforward.

I've done implementations myself.

I'm not sure, as I've been part of projects as a part of the larger organization. In general, it could be very high or very low. I know that BOBJ is costly - so you would need projects to justify the cost.

Not sure haven't been involved in this aspect.

No.

Definitely cost justify it. If you have a lot of manual processes involved in getting the reporting that you need, then this product will definitely help. You can cut out all the manual steps.

Universe Designer is the product's most valuable feature because you can manage joins or derived tables as you wish.

The business can create their own reports and dashboards.

Maybe they can improve some features in report designer, like the possibility of associating colors with the dimensions. For example, if you could associate blue with the dimension "France", red with "United States", etc.

I have used this solution for a year and a half.

I have not yet encountered any issues with stability.

I have not yet encountered any issues with scalability.

I rate them 9/10. Very good and very fast support from SAP.

I used Jaspersoft and I changed at the same time as I changed jobs.

I think the pricing and licensing is expensive, but the tool is aimed at the big companies.

If the business case calls for creating static reports/dashboards, this tool is awesome. If the business case is for dynamic reports/dashboards, I don't recommend it.

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

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.

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.

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

• Design Studio is very flexible because we can use JavaScript.
• We can use CSS styles for stunning visualization.

• Design Studio is a highly optimized tool for integrating with SAP BW and SAP HANA. Obviously, that increases reporting performance.
• Complex requirements can be met using JavaScript.
• The CSS editor saves time.

In Design Studio version 1.6, when creating a custom geo map component, we are not able to associate a shape layer with data sources.

We have used all the business objects tools, but this one satisfies all of the business requirements in an optimized way.

It’s a straightforward and simple tool to install.

It was a simple to implement after we met the prerequisite before installing it.

• Data integration
• 64-bit architecture

I would like to see the capability to directly access social media data.

I have been using it for 14 years.

We have encountered so many issues when the architecture and design was fragile.

Technical support is 10/10.

I previously used Microsoft DTS. Microsoft BI products are ideal for small-scale businesses. whereas SAP BusinessObjects is suitable for enterprise-level implementation.

If you have the skills and time, initial setup will be easy.

I worked for both vendor teams and in-house teams. I have been involved in the implementation of complex BI solutions on the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise platform in major USA and Canadian companies across different industries.

For successful implementation, you need a technical expert who has specialized in the area of Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) with in-depth knowledge of the data warehouse lifecycle processes (DWH design and ETL development) and extensive hands-on experience with both the SAP Enterprise Information Management (SAP Data Services) technology stack and the SAP BusinessObjects reporting products stack (IDT, Universe, Web Intelligence, Designer, Dashboards).

The manager should be from the in-house (for decision making) team and the technical experts should be from the outside (vendors and consultants).

SAP has different kinds of licensing for mid-size to large enterprises.

If you want to implement SAP Analytical applications, you need skilled resources with clear requirements.

Ease of report development is a key feature. Also, installation is largely automated. The nicest part of BOE remains the semantic layer (Designer), giving developers a powerful way to encapsulate business logic and push it out to users through Webi or WRC.

Because I am primarily an installation and configuration architect working independently through a separate company, the product itself doesn't necessarily affect us in a BI sense. That's really the big-picture issue within our community; that companies often misunderstand how BI is supposed to work and that in order for the business to really participate, there needs to be sufficient training and the cultivation of a "culture of BI".

I would like to see their data visualization products enhanced and made more robust and easier to implement. Most of the other parts of the tool are fairly easy to get going and it would help getting user buy-in if they could extend that across the entire platform.

Like we always say, the tool is only as good as the person using it. But SAP sort of dropped the ball with their 4.x release, leaving out features that we had become used to with 3.1, which was stable.

We started with Crystal Enterprise 10 eleven years ago, transitioning through BOBJ R2, XI and now 4.x.

BOE 4.2 is currently pretty stable in our experience and we already know that it can scale to any level. The only downside to that is cost.

My personal experience with the SAP engineers is that they are very supportive and develop personal connections easily.

Depending on whether you are doing a simple, one-machine install (single-stack) or clustering according to the sizing recommendations from SAP, it can go from easy to more difficult. But the process is thoroughly documented.

We are more or less the vendor team for our clients.

Always determine your prerequisites before you kick off remotely or onsite. It can save a lot of grief. Have a detailed SOW and project plan that you adhere to as much as possible, but be flexible.

We are operating in the Electronic Health Record space using Epic and BOE for reporting. Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard.

I've evaluated other visualization tools, but BOE still has the best out-of-the-box enterprise security.

Planning is critical.

The SAP BusinessObjects product suite is made of different products. This review refers to the Web Intelligence product.

The user friendliness of the interface enables non-IT-literate persons to create their own queries without need SQL knowledge, and that has been the case a very long time. (I started to use BO in 1990.)

It gives power to the user, who can create his/her own queries without needing IT services, therefore leading to savings. However, it must be noted that the semantic layer (Universe) must be built carefully by IT staff with the full collaboration from beginning to end of future key users in order to be intuitive and user friendly. The training given to the user community and the documentation is also extremely important, so that the users know what objects they can combine together.

Since I started using BO, the desktop version gave way to the web version. The beginning of the web version (Web Intelligence) was a little bit chaotic, with some key functionalities present in the desktop version forgotten in the web version (like custom groupings, double scaling...) However, these functionalities are finally back. I think SAP should listen more and better to its customers.

I have 25+ years experience of working with SAP BusinessObjects, combining SAP and non-SAP data in BO and I also have started to use QlikView and roll it out in our organization. I hold the function of BI director now and develop an entire reporting strategy for a multinational organization.

I encountered stability issues. The beginning of the web version was very chaotic. It look a long time for Web Intelligence to open, refresh and so on. We regret that versions that are initially released do not seem to be well finished (a lot of bugs), and that a lot of patching is necessary to get to a stable version (our experience for BOXIR3, BI4 and so on).

I did not encounter any scalability issues. It is easy to deploy (weblink). But in order to be able to use the query panel, users must ensure that the Java component is installed.

Technical support is quite OK.

Initial setup is straightforward.

I cannot give any advice on this, as I am not involved at all in this issue, but depending on the licensing model used, this product can be quite expensive.

We considered Oracle Discoverer, MS BI, but BO was chosen for its flexibility of usage.

The reporting tool is easy to use and implement. Overall, you should consider how this tool is going to be implemented in your organization, and what added value it will bring to your organisation (e.g., do you have a lot of people doing a lot of reports in Excel). Finally, a decision whether or not to use BusinessObjects Web Intelligence should not be taken on its own but rather as a part of how information is managed in the organization.