SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform Reviews

It is a graphical way of getting to the data housed in an SAP Warehouse. It allows users without specific database knowledge to access the data they require and manipulate it in other tools they may be more familiar with. It serves a function and it does that reasonably well. However, it is not the most intuitive platform for new users if that is your audience.

The software is fantastic at pulling data from a wide variety of sources, such as the cloud, servers and even desktops. We have used this to generate reports based on a wide data sample. Whilst we haven't attempted it with the software, it is probably less appropriate to use it for single data sources that have a consistent data set. It's not that I think it couldn't handle it, it's more that it may be overkill for such a straight forward task.

SAP BuisnessObjects BI is great when used as a database. Not so great if the user wants to use it as a dashboard. Based on the access level I've been to SAP I can't create graphs in SAP directly. To do so I must export the data to excel and use this application for all my reporting needs. Its also important to note that the exporting function Spreadsheet for PO's tends to download symbols that are translated as pictures in the middle of the data table

I think that some times the restrictions are only in costs. But for me, WebIntelligence can be adapted in many situations, a lot or a few users, a lot of data or a little data...

SAP Business Objects is well suited for mid to large enterprise environments. It can handle multiple data types from almost any different source. It can be overly complex and expensive for a small organization or an organization new to BI. Microsoft's Business Intelligence may be a more realistic option for some customers.

Our Database Team can easily create Universes and simplified data models to be published to our corporate data warehouse. Experienced users can consume this data and build some valuable reporting and dashboards. Anyway, end users prefer a more dynamic tool to handle the reporting and dashboards like MS PBI for example.

It's well suited if you have a smaller team who are looking to develop more collaboratively and enable easy sharing, scheduling etc. of reports and documentation. It can also be expanded to a wider organization but there are complexities (such as security - where we decided to just leverage the database security and open everything up at BI file/folder level). For a larger organization, it certainly isn't quick to implement and with SAP changing their strategy so much, you will soon be out of date. Analytics cloud is certainly something you should look at first.

BusinessObjects provides a platform for any business which has SAP GUI to use it for reporting and extracting the data directly to report to executives in short time. It is also easy to customize, design the report from raw data for a skilled SAP user. This tool is becoming useful for reporting financials, inventory and billing reports to understand sales. A user needs to know basics of writing a SQL so that they can make queries and automate the reports.
It is less appropriate if we need to customize certain complex calculations for the management .

SAP Business Objects BI Platform is well suited for self service and adhoc reporting.
SAP Business Objects BI Platform may not be appropriate for creating quick dashboards and sharing.

Use it anywhere where scalability and performance are required, especially if newer SAP version has been implemented.
The mode users will use it, the better - otherwise, the pricing policy could spoil the ROI. Very good integration possibilities, with other standard enterprise applications. Support of various data resources, incl. XML, OLAP etc. including the ability to connect to JAVA, MS Sharepoint, MS Office and .NET applications.

The programmer community around SAP BO is HUGE. It is quite certain, that the problem you have has already been solved by someone else. It requires a little digging in discussions, but the help is mostly available. You definitely cannot start small with SAP BO. It feels too costly,

If you have a large budget and large staff to manage the deployment you can fare very well with BOBJ. Distributed reporting is excellent, however, to get benefits from big data you must also purchase HANA - more cost with more technical resources.

The tool is best for big and mid size organisations. This one tool can give you a complete picture of the whole organisation's data. It is not good for small scale industries as its license would be a bit expensive.

If your company is mainly an SAP shop and all your data is consolidated, SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is a necessary tool and will elevate your business strategy with great analysis and dashboard for leadership to track, monitor and decide. However, for large organizations like us, it took us several years to consolidate different tools and applications into SAP first which is a huge undertaking at the cost of several tens of millions of dollars and over 4yrs before we can begin to realize the benefits of SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform.

When there is a data warehouse that stores data, BusinessObjects can be linked to the data warehouse and a detailed line item level transactional query can be done by users once trained without relying on central IT.

Key question: who is the intended audience? Do you want your regular, non technical users to have report creation capabilities? If so, then BO is a way to go. Developers/Power Users can use other BO tools (Design Studio) to create elaborate, more advanced reports, graphs and dashboards.

SAP Business Objects is suitable for enterprise level implementation because of the variety modules available to cover all aspects of business intelligence and most of the reporting is based on semantic layer. It is less suitable for small sized organizations because of implementation/support cost.

SAP Business Objects is a solid player in the business intelligence market but it´s not a cheaper solution, I think it is a good option for big companies with a complex data structure. Its' greatest strengths are the visualizations tools and must be an important factor in the decision process.

For the report centric organization with an established data warehouse that would like to enter the self-service realm, SAP Business Objects is a great platform. For organizations with disparate, unorganized data that wish to gain immediate utilization benefits and self-service analytics from a variety of unestablished sources, your data strategy should either be to spend time devloping a data warehouse and solidifying your data practices, or looking at a tool more suited for this such as Tableau.

The web version is great because you can use it on any computer. In the past I've used programs that were software based and the problem you run into is if you're using another computer you won't be able to access your projects.

Yes, SAP business Objects can have a better advantage than using Excel. You can create very sophisticated reports and it even works offline to analyze reports. It is less time consuming and more efficient. Web intelligence and ad hoc reporting are available. and the good thing about SAP Business Objects is that it has many functionalities to create very powerful reports.

For us, it is very appropriate, but more than the tool, the way of implementing is the key to success

I have used multiple reporting tools in the market and I like Business Objects the most for financial and marketing reports. BO works like a charm.

Great for analytics, poor as a method of invoicing.