Anaplan vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Anaplan
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Anaplan is a scenario planning and analysis platform designed to optimize decision-making in complex business environments so that enterprises can outpace their competition and the market. By building connections and collaboration across organizational silos, the Anaplan platform surfaces key insights.N/A
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
The SAP® BusinessObjects™ Business Intelligence Platform provides users with ad hoc queries, reporting, data visualizations, and analysis tools. Its integrated, unified infrastructure aims to offer scalability from one-to-many tools and interfaces on-premise, in the cloud, or as a hybrid approach.N/A
Pricing
AnaplanSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AnaplanSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AnaplanSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Considered Both Products
Anaplan
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
AnaplanSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
7.6
214 Ratings
1% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
8.0
51 Ratings
2% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports6.57 Ratings8.546 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.4214 Ratings7.547 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.96 Ratings8.047 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
9.1
8 Ratings
11% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.6
48 Ratings
6% below category average
Drill-down analysis9.18 Ratings7.047 Ratings
Formatting capabilities9.18 Ratings8.047 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.18 Ratings8.547 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings7.033 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
8.5
221 Ratings
3% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.7
48 Ratings
7% below category average
Publish to Web8.67 Ratings9.040 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.4219 Ratings7.046 Ratings
Report Versioning9.2192 Ratings6.542 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling7.98 Ratings8.547 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings7.526 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
8.1
8 Ratings
7% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6.9
43 Ratings
14% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.07 Ratings6.541 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization9.07 Ratings6.539 Ratings
Predictive Analytics6.43 Ratings7.538 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
9.3
224 Ratings
6% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9.2
48 Ratings
8% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.18 Ratings9.048 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.6224 Ratings9.546 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)9.18 Ratings9.045 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control9.673 Ratings9.52 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)9.18 Ratings9.029 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
7.7
213 Ratings
2% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5.9
34 Ratings
29% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access8.4204 Ratings6.533 Ratings
Mobile Application7.7190 Ratings4.028 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.0198 Ratings4.030 Ratings
Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting
Comparison of Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
9.0
322 Ratings
8% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
-
Ratings
Long-term financial planning9.3297 Ratings00 Ratings
Financial budgeting9.4301 Ratings00 Ratings
Forecasting9.3310 Ratings00 Ratings
Scenario modeling9.2312 Ratings00 Ratings
Management reporting7.9311 Ratings00 Ratings
Consolidation and Close
Comparison of Consolidation and Close features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
7.8
275 Ratings
2% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
-
Ratings
Financial data consolidation8.3255 Ratings00 Ratings
Journal entries and reports7.5211 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-currency management7.312 Ratings00 Ratings
Intercompany Eliminations7.39 Ratings00 Ratings
Minority Ownership7.38 Ratings00 Ratings
Local and consolidated reporting8.2244 Ratings00 Ratings
Detailed Audit Trails8.5256 Ratings00 Ratings
Financial Reporting and Compliance
Comparison of Financial Reporting and Compliance features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
8.1
293 Ratings
0% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
-
Ratings
Financial Statement Reporting8.9271 Ratings00 Ratings
Management Reporting8.2284 Ratings00 Ratings
Excel-based Reporting7.8262 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated board and financial reporting8.214 Ratings00 Ratings
XBRL support for regulatory filing7.31 Ratings00 Ratings
Analytics and Reporting
Comparison of Analytics and Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
9.1
313 Ratings
12% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
-
Ratings
Personalized dashboards8.7307 Ratings00 Ratings
Color-coded scorecards9.3291 Ratings00 Ratings
KPIs9.120 Ratings00 Ratings
Cost and profitability analysis9.3270 Ratings00 Ratings
Key Performance Indicator setting9.4281 Ratings00 Ratings
Benchmarking with external data9.114 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration
Comparison of Integration features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
8.5
319 Ratings
2% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
-
Ratings
Flat file integration9.3309 Ratings00 Ratings
Excel data integration8.2287 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources8.0269 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Anaplan
-
Ratings
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6.8
24 Ratings
14% below category average
REST API00 Ratings6.521 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings7.019 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings7.018 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings7.022 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings7.021 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings6.520 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AnaplanSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Small Businesses
IBM Planning Analytics
IBM Planning Analytics
Score 8.3 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Centage
Centage
Score 9.5 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Prophix
Prophix
Score 8.8 out of 10
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AnaplanSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(336 ratings)
7.5
(73 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(35 ratings)
8.3
(24 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(63 ratings)
7.5
(16 ratings)
Availability
8.7
(7 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(7 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
5.3
(27 ratings)
8.6
(16 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.9
(6 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(6 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(27 ratings)
9.0
(8 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(5 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(3 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.4
(7 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Professional Services
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.3
(4 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.2
(4 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AnaplanSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Likelihood to Recommend
Anaplan
Anaplan is a great tool for complex modeling of the future. When you are planning your actions for the future, have multiple, disparate datasets to interact with, have dozens if not hundreds of stakeholders who must contribute and need to be guided via a streamlined workflow engine, require complex logic that can grow with your org, require real-time reporting, and you need it all in less than 6 months.
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SAP
As mentioned earlier reporting was a big headache for us and the tools we used didn't support large data sets and visualization Performing analytics with such data sets was cumbersome and later post using this SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence we were able to correlate different data sets and prepare the dashboard pretty easier which were helpful and easier to understand.
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Pros
Anaplan
  • Anaplan can scale as your business grows, for example adding new regions into to your geographical hierarchy.
  • Anaplan is flexible and can do anything you want it to, there are no tables pre-configured that you need to fix your business process into.
  • Reading formulas in Anaplan is straight forward with a quick learning curve.
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SAP
  • This software is easy to initially learn, and very powerful in producing reusable reports.
  • It is much faster than my company's internal manual queries. The ability to build off of a saved query and share queries to other users is a great positive.
  • My favorite part is that you can run queries in the background and it does not interfere with your current work or slow your computer down.
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Cons
Anaplan
  • Ability to decide if to apply the formula or a manual input on front end for each line item
  • Real Time Data Transfer across models. Currently Data is transferred using Processes across different models. Having a functionality to access data from any model in real time would be great
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SAP
  • The installation can be very complex and time-consuming, it requires a lot of planning and foresight as to what role the software will play in the organization.
  • The software has a relatively large learning curve that takes dedicated users months to get comfortable with, the UI is a bit intimidating for new users.
  • SAP could organize their help better, it can be difficult to find dependable solutions to issues via their website and support channels.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Anaplan
Anaplan is a very strong multi-dimensional modeling tool that provides a calculation engine to empower a complex planning process. It is fairly easy to learn for those with experience in similar tools, or excel. It forces structure and auditability that spread sheets do not have, along with extensive security capabilities
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SAP
The institution has decided to move in a different direction, and will be using MSBI for reporting. I have been very happy with the Business Objects suite of tools, and will continue to use them heavily until we make the transition.
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Usability
Anaplan
Anaplan's usability is very good. Users can customize reports and make adjustments with very little training. They can quickly plan and collaborate very easily. Making large adjustments or creating complex functionality may require more experience or training but a lot of tasks can be completed by users with very little experience
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SAP
From a server and client side perspective. the Business Intelligence Platform provides a foundation for all aspects of content development, distribution, analysis, collaboration and self service. Ease of use from targeted content delivery through controlled accessibility. Content exporting in the format of the users choice. Scheduling for internal or external delivery. Public and private folders for secure content access when requied. Web based for viewing on the users device of choice without the need to download additional applications.
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Reliability and Availability
Anaplan
There are very few outages. Maintenance is scheduled on two or three Saturdays per month, so as not to affect businesses. When there is an outage, users are kept informed of progress to restore the platform and typically this takes no more than an hour. Anaplan customer support is very responsive if we ever have questions about platform issues
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SAP
When we implemented 3.1, we had a tough time managing the system: It took almost a year to stabilize.

With 4.0, we want to roll out to more users, and are holding back because of fears about the performance issue
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Performance
Anaplan
Everything is calculated in memory in the cloud. It's nearly instantaneous updates when you make changes. The only time things get a little slow is when you have a massive model with very intricate calculations...but "slow" for Anaplan is not what I would call "slow" for something like Hyperion. We used to have Hyperion calcs that ran for 60 mins before you could use data. The equivalent would be 60 seconds in Anaplan.
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SAP
Overall, the tool (Web Intelligence 4.2) is fast and solid. One issue is a dependability on JAVA for a full feature report creation/edit capabilities (as opposed to limited HTML option). Second, planned end of JAVA support by major browsers (Chrome is already not supporting JAVA applet).
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Support Rating
Anaplan
Support quality has dropped since Thoma Bravo has taken over. I think some serious re-focus needs to happen here -- part of the beauty of being in the Anaplan community was how involved you felt in it before. Before I didn't dread sending a support ticket, now I am starting to.
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SAP
SAP has released various versions of SAP BO BI. starting from 3.1 and going to 4.0,4.1,4.2 and latest being 4.3. SAP provides support to these new versions. As new versions keep on coming, support for the very old software goes out of scope from SAP. it is when the different organization plans to get their BO content migrated from a lower version to a newer version. The newer version had definitely added functionality and features which ease the work of users.
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In-Person Training
Anaplan
In my opinion, in-person training is always the best if you have the option to do so. This allows real-time interactions with the instructions, whereas the online training I took required me to write-down questions, email them, and wait for responses. This slows down the process, as you can imagine. That said, in-person training is an extra cost and it likely isn't needed for everyone. I would suggest selecting a small number of people to take in-person training and then having them act as mentors to the rest of your team. That way, as the rest of the team takes the online training, they have a resource to help them in real time.
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SAP
SAP authorized training is best, Please go ahead with it. Even lot of online training options/videos available for self learning
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Online Training
Anaplan
Anaplan training materials are clear, simple, easy to understand and to follow. Visuals are excellent. The vendor is good at updating training materials in a timely manner and encouraging users and administrators to keep coming back to Academy site for refresher courses or new feature courses. I really like their interactive diagrams
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SAP
I haven't used it or got feedback from the end user.

Content looks to be pretty detailed. Focused on SQL but not BW.
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Implementation Rating
Anaplan
The platform allows a flexible implementation mechanic to be put in place, since the possibilities and functionalities are vast and there are very few things the tool cannot do well. The solutions for the financial planning and the integrated business planning we put in place were easily adopted by the end users and their day-to-day work was made easier.
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SAP
Hire specialists and experienced staff. Mix some beginners so that everyone is not a leader but a learner too. Plan well; architect well; break down implementation in small steps and move towards larger steps. Create a centralized and authorized SAP Business Objects implementation team.
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Alternatives Considered
Anaplan
Compared to OneStream and Venna Anaplan offers a more modern look and feel of the platform. It is better situated and maintained in regards of platform updates as it's a full SaaS software there are never any issues with the system version as it's always automatically up to date with no backward compatibility issues. Due to the flexible nature of the modelling engine, it is also better suited to perform larger multi-department use cases, like IBP (Integrated Business Planning)
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SAP
We selected SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) based on price. It can stack up against others in terms of price and honestly, that's about it. Salesforce Commerce does a hell of a better job at handling it. However, in the space of Business Intelligence, SAP can do more, and that's why at the end we went with it
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Scalability
Anaplan
We have managed to leverage Anaplan for financial planning and forecasting across the business. It is now used by almost every department, with more than 50 users (but I know of companies that have hundreds of users) and still the platform is quick and reliable. It is easy to make changes to divisions and departments or add users and apply different user settings - the core part of the model is not affected and end users can continue their work without any disruption
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SAP
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform supports SOA Service Oriented Architecture. You can start/restart/enable/disable all the servers. You can seamless do load balancing and clustering. It supports all leading application and web server. Supports LDAP SSO integration. People who can work on excel with training they can work on SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence, dashboard, Lumira, Information design tool product suite. Tool is very user friendly and easy to learn and implement
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Return on Investment
Anaplan
  • We've typically seen an average of 40% removal of time from processes using Anaplan an enabler
  • Though difficult to quantify, we consistently find our processes less error prone than in the past. Essentially, we've removed a previously "hidden cost" of risk due to poor data quality that was buried in our processes.
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SAP
  • By generating and distributing reports in a timely manner, we were able to save millions of dollars for the company which otherwise would not have been visible.
  • Almost realtime dashboard, saved the company a huge amount by showing the outages and kept the company from buying a tool to do just that.
  • It showed the customers who were not paying the bills and were missing in the system due to some loophole. This was visible by doing reporting on the theft usage of electricity.
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ScreenShots

Anaplan Screenshots

Screenshot of Platform: The Anaplan platform is a unified cloud-based solution that connects people, data and plans to enable complex scenario modeling.Screenshot of OpEx Planning. This is where users review revenue-target-setting goals by brand, season, and capacity all on a visual dashboard.Screenshot of Supply Planning. This visualization breaks down costs across assembly production to project profitability and align an organization's supply chain to market opportunities.Screenshot of Territory and Quota Planning. This dashboard is used to track of sales goals and quotas across territories and industries to optimize sales performance.Screenshot of Headcount Planning. Here, users can align workforce plans with strategic plans, and see where the best qualified talent resides to fit an organization’s staffing needs.Screenshot of Marketing. This interface drives efficiency across planning, and is used to budget against planned activity.