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Microsoft BI (MSBI) vs. SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft BI (MSBI)

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft BI is a business intelligence product used for data analysis and generating reports on server-based data. It features unlimited data analysis capacity with its reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services alongside ETL, master data management, and data cleansing.

    $14

    per month per user

    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AThe SAP BPC software is designed to help users plan and achieve a faster, more accurate close. The SAP BPC software aims to help users spend more time growing their business and less time closing books. The vendor’s value proposition is that their software delivers planning, budgeting, forecasting, and financial consolidation capabilities in a single application. This, in turn, enables them to easily adjust plans and forecasts, speed up budget and closing cycles, and ensure compliance with…N/A
    Pricing
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Editions & Modules
    Power BI Pro
    $14
    per month per user
    Power BI Premium
    $24
    per month per user
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    SAP
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.0
    53 Ratings
    10% above category average
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    -
    Ratings
    Pixel Perfect reports8.546 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards9.653 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates8.951 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    53 Ratings
    6% above category average
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    -
    Ratings
    Drill-down analysis8.548 Ratings00 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities8.253 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages8.342 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration8.953 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    52 Ratings
    3% above category average
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    -
    Ratings
    Publish to Web9.348 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publish to PDF9.148 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Versioning7.444 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling8.547 Ratings00 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers8.426 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.7
    52 Ratings
    9% above category average
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    -
    Ratings
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.651 Ratings00 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.748 Ratings00 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics7.745 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining8.76 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.3
    53 Ratings
    9% above category average
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-User Support (named login)9.449 Ratings00 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model9.347 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.949 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control9.36 Ratings00 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)9.431 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.0
    42 Ratings
    3% above category average
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    -
    Ratings
    Responsive Design for Web Access8.239 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Application8.030 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.739 Ratings00 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    24 Ratings
    9% above category average
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    -
    Ratings
    REST API9.221 Ratings00 Ratings
    Javascript API8.821 Ratings00 Ratings
    iFrames8.820 Ratings00 Ratings
    Java API8.718 Ratings00 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)8.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.319 Ratings00 Ratings
    Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting
    Comparison of Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    7.8
    41 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Long-term financial planning00 Ratings7.535 Ratings
    Financial budgeting00 Ratings8.137 Ratings
    Forecasting00 Ratings7.840 Ratings
    Scenario modeling00 Ratings7.336 Ratings
    Management reporting00 Ratings8.140 Ratings
    Consolidation and Close
    Comparison of Consolidation and Close features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    7.3
    40 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Financial data consolidation00 Ratings8.436 Ratings
    Journal entries and reports00 Ratings7.330 Ratings
    Multi-currency management00 Ratings6.928 Ratings
    Intercompany Eliminations00 Ratings6.930 Ratings
    Minority Ownership00 Ratings7.020 Ratings
    Local and consolidated reporting00 Ratings6.433 Ratings
    Detailed Audit Trails00 Ratings8.227 Ratings
    Financial Reporting and Compliance
    Comparison of Financial Reporting and Compliance features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    7.3
    40 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Financial Statement Reporting00 Ratings8.035 Ratings
    Management Reporting00 Ratings7.240 Ratings
    Excel-based Reporting00 Ratings7.539 Ratings
    Automated board and financial reporting00 Ratings6.430 Ratings
    Analytics and Reporting
    Comparison of Analytics and Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    5.6
    36 Ratings
    30% below category average
    Personalized dashboards00 Ratings5.024 Ratings
    Color-coded scorecards00 Ratings6.922 Ratings
    KPIs00 Ratings3.031 Ratings
    Cost and profitability analysis00 Ratings7.628 Ratings
    Key Performance Indicator setting00 Ratings4.024 Ratings
    Benchmarking with external data00 Ratings7.018 Ratings
    Integration
    Comparison of Integration features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    6.4
    39 Ratings
    23% below category average
    Flat file integration00 Ratings6.935 Ratings
    Excel data integration00 Ratings6.937 Ratings
    Direct links to 3rd-party data sources00 Ratings5.425 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Small Businesses
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    IBM Planning Analytics
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
    Score7.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (77 ratings)
    7.4
    (41 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.9
    (19 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (15 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.6
    (7 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.5
    (42 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.7
    (39 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    Microsoft BI has a lot of features and is a very powerful tool, especially if you have folks on your team that know how to utilize all of its capabilities. To truly unlock all that it can do, it does require people to have a deep understanding of its capabilities. That's where the software really shines. If you are looking for a simpler, more basic reporting tool, there are other programs available that do not require such a steep learning curve.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SAP
    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) overall is a good package and has helped improve our reporting a lot whilst also making it more efficient due to the reliability of data input / output. There are limitations like graphs being so limited in functionality and reports failing when too much data being processed however i would recommend to others.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Comparatively easy to use compared to other data analytics solutions, collaborating with other colleagues on data work is simple.
    • Using Visual Studio for database, ETL, reporting, and analytics development save time and money.
    • Transfer of data from one application to another via Excel and comparison of data attributes between applications
    • Dashboard functionality, as well as Python support, are available, allowing you to add additional charts and graphs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SAP
    • SAP BPC is real time data. You can send information into the system and see it reflected in your reports immediately. Other systems may require a manual push into a reporting system.
    • SAP BPC is a shared reporting tool, so multiple users can be working in a model/environment at the same time, real time. This is especially helpful if your workbooks incorporated multiple processes requiring multiple users to get into the same model.
    • SAP BPC is a powerful tool designed to help all facets of the company, from cash flow to capital expenditures to headcount management to financial planning to consolidation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • MSBI designs can work on increasing data processing capabilities enough to handle the huge datasets etc.
    • It would be a lot better if it is a little low on cost.
    • it needs to create opportunities little more than they do regarding customization of some very unique visualization effects
    Read full review
    SAP
    • SAP should focus on delivering one single product for planning, consolidation and budgeting needs rather than providing a large list of options to choose from.
    • The product is not very user-friendly compared to other cloud competitors. There is a heavy dependency on IT teams.
    • SAP BPC should come up a pure cloud option.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    Microsoft BI is fundamental to our suite of BI applications. That being said, Northcraft Analytics is focused on delighting our customers, so if the underlying factors of our decision change, we would choose to re-write our BI applications on a different stack. Luckily, mathematics are the fundamental IP of our technology... and is portable across all BI platforms for the foreseeable future.
    Read full review
    SAP
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Microsoft
    The Microsoft BI tools have great usability for both developers and end users alike. For developers familiar with Visual Studio, there is little learning curve. For those not, the single Visual Studio IDE means not having to learn separate tools for each component. For end-users, the web interface for SSRS is simple to navigate with intuitive controls. For ad-hoc analysis, Excel can connect directly to SSAS and provide a pivot table like experience which is familiar to many users. For database development, there is beginning to be some confusion, as there are now three tool choices (VS, SSMS, Azure Data Studio) for developers. I would like to see Azure Data Studio become the superset of SSMS and eventually supplant it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SAP
    Unlike other SAP traditional products, SAP BPC was meant to be simple and familiar to financial users
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    The product has been reliable.
    Read full review
    SAP
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Microsoft
    SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) can drag at times. We created two report servers and placed them under an F5 load balancer. This configuration has worked well. We have seen sluggish performance at times due to the Windows Firewall.
    Read full review
    SAP
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    MSBI natively has a site that allows you to vote on user enhancements and bug fixes. This allows the largest nagging issues to float to the top and the development team can prioritize accordingly. As mentioned earlier, the large community base of MSBI developers assist technical resources in handling technical questions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SAP
    We need a big support team with various skillset like BPC, ABAP, BW, HANA, FICO etc
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.
    Read full review
    SAP
    SAP BPC training content and trainers are very good. The training is structured and provides a very good understanding of the product features and functionalities. I attended 6 separate training sessions of week-long or more. I had very good experience in all the sessions. The training is organized very well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Microsoft
    I have used on-line training from Microsoft and from Pragmatic Works. I would recommend Pragmatic Works as the best way to get up to speed quickly, and then use the Microsoft on-line training to deep dive into specific features that you need to get depth with.
    Read full review
    SAP
    SAP Training contents are very good, informative and exhaustive.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    We are a consulting firm and as such our best resources are always billing on client projects. Our internal implementation has weaknesses, but that's true for any company like ours. My rating is based on the product's ease of implementation.
    Read full review
    SAP
    The implementation was carried out in two phases spread over a period of 4 years with 2 upgrades in between. We also had multiple upgrades to HANA.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    We have used the built in ConnectWise Manager reports and custom reports. The reports provide static data. PowerBI shows us live data we can drill down into and easily adjust parameters. It's much more useful than a static PDF report.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SAP
    With Hyperion we struggled as it didn’t have integrated planning and consolidation, whereas BPC does have it. BPC is easier for reporting as it is Excel-based. Also BPC has prepackaged business process flows that helped a lot. Hyperion on the other hand has a faster response time for user queries or report generation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • As a SaaS provider we see being able to provide self-service BI to our client users as a competitive advantage. In fact the MSSQL enabled BI is a contributing factor to many winning RFPs we have done for prospective client organisations.
    • However MSSQL BI requires extensive knowledge and skills to design and develop data warehouses & data models as a foundation to support business analysts and users to interrogate data effectively and efficiently. Often times we find having strong in-house MSSQL expertise is a bless.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    SAP
    • When originally implemented (as the predecessor product Outlooksoft) BPC took ASU from trying to budget and forecast for a 2B enterprise out of spreadsheets and into a far more consolidated tool. It has saved us considerable time over the years and paid for itself several times over.
    • BPC also allows us to present our budget in multiple different views to support management, board and departmental reporting.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation) Screenshots

    Screenshot of SAP BPC Home ScreenScreenshot of SAP BPC Web ClientScreenshot of SAP BPC DashboardScreenshot of SAP BPC Web Report