Microsoft Excel vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

I don't really know another program as powerful as Excel. I've used Google Doc programs but do not feel they come close. So far, anytime I've needed a table of some sort for data, whether it's budget oriented or information off a survey, the best system has been Excel. We do web audits on occasion and we create an Excel worksheet featuring every URL of the pages we're auditing, notes, data about the content, information about files attached to the page and other information to help us determine what pages need updating, deleting or otherwise. We also use Excel primarily to export our Google Analytics to in order for us to create reports for clients that need to see specific information about their traffic.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• It is very good at embedded formulas and tying cells to one another
• It allows me to compare deals terms on a side-by-side basis and talk my clients through it easily.
• It is very helpful as well in terms of allowing me to filter/sort results in many different ways depending on what specific information I am most interested in prioritizing.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Excel offers collaboration features that allow multiple users to work on the same spreadsheet, but managing changes made by different users can be challenging. Excel could improve its features by offering more granular control, better tracking of changes, and more robust conflict resolution tools.
• Itcan be a barrier to productivity when importing and exporting data from other applications or file formats. To improve its features, it should offer better support for standard file formats and more robust error handling and reporting tools.
• Excel can be challenging for finance students and working professionals, but it can be improved by offering more robust tutorials, better documentation, and more user communities and support forums.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

Excel remains the industry standard for spreadsheets and has maintained simple and straight-forward formula writing methods. Although there is a learning curve to do more complex calculations, there are countless help sites and videos on the Internet for almost any need.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I'm giving it a 7 because it is my go to. But the fact other prefer Google Sheets when working with a team does get irritating. I've used the online version of Microsoft Excel that other teams can get into and it still seems behind Google Sheets. It's a little clanky and slow? If that's even a term.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I have rarely, if ever, had issues with its availability.

Incentivized

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

Excel load and performs calculations immediately. It integrate well with all Microsoft Office applications and does not slow them down.

Incentivized

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).

I have not had to use it often, but it is good.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

SAP authorized training is best, Please go ahead with it. Even lot of online training options/videos available for self learning

Incentivized

I haven't used it or got feedback from the end user.

Content looks to be pretty detailed. Focused on SQL but not BW.

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.

Incentivized

Out of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, IBM SPSS, and Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel is by far the most common tool used for anything data-related across organizations. Accordingly, our organization has also implemented Microsoft Excel as a first-step tool. We recently adopted Microsoft Power BI (the free version), and use it occasionally (mostly for creating dashboards), but it is less commonly understood by stakeholders across our organization and by our clients. Accordingly, Microsoft Excel is more user-friendly and because of its popularity, we can easily look up how to do things in the program online. Google Sheets is a comparable alternative to Microsoft Excel, but because it's cloud-based and we have sensitive data that needs to be protected, we chose against using this software. Finally, a few users (including myself) have access to and utilize IBM's SPSS. For my role, it's a helpful tool to do more rigorous analyses. However, because of its cost and limited functionality as a simple spreadsheet, we only use it for more complex analyses.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

N/A I was not involved in this process.

Incentivized

Each user can use it to whatever level of expertise they have. It remains the same so users can contribute to another's work regardless of whether they have more or less expertise

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• Excel has positively impacted the business as it has increased our efficiency.
• It also saves us the time that we would have spent on making the calculations that it does for us.
• Since it works on all devices and is compatible with both Windows and Mac, we do not have to invest in any other alternative.

• 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.

Incentivized