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SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform Reviews

721 Ratings
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Score 7.6 out of 100
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Reviews (1-25 of 63)

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December 09, 2020

SAP Business Objects: Review by a Grumpy Old Customer

Dariusz Zyskowski | TrustRadius Reviewer
Dariusz Zyskowski
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Simplicity. It is very easy for a non technical user to create and format a report in Web Intelligence. This is especially true with the new 4.1 release.
  • Report distribution. Several options available, such as FTP, File Location, BO Inbox and Email. Each is very intuitive and simple to use without any confusing, very technical options (ex. Oracle's OBIEE).
  • Scheduling. This is a very important feature that is being used a lot here at the city (over 700 scheduled reports run every night). Very robust scheduling engine that can be easily configured and adjusted by the administrator if needed.
  • Service Pack/Fix Pack reliability. Each SP/FP fixes certain bugs, but unfortunately sometimes messes up other features (problematic upgrade from TOMCAT 5 to 7) which can be very frustrating. That is why we carefully test every one of them in our DEV environment before promoting it to Production/
  • JAVA vulnerability. It appears SAP is slow with latest JAVA client (needed for Web Intelligence report creation/edit) support. This creates issues when users update their JAVA release to the latest version, which is not yet supported by SAP resulting in error messages.
  • Internal reporting on Business Objects environment. You can report against user activity (from the audit tables), but there is no build in tool/capability to report on BO content, users, security environment which is very helpful for the administrators. Third party expensive tools are needed (APOS).
Read Dariusz Zyskowski's full review
December 01, 2020

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform Review

Dharmesh Shah | TrustRadius Reviewer
Dharmesh Shah
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • SOA Service Oriented architecture
  • Architecture scaling and deployment can be managed easily, clustering nodes and servers to give scalability
  • User friendly administration modules
  • User friendly reporting modules like Web Intelligence, SAP Lumira, SAC
  • Strong semantic layer supporting multi-source database
  • Waterfall model design is used
  • Need to compete with Agile architecture and design
  • Quick turn time like Modern BI agile tools
Read Dharmesh Shah's full review
October 25, 2019

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform - The corporate on-premise solution from SAP

Martin Lopez | TrustRadius Reviewer
Martin Lopez
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Operational reporting through the SAP Web Intelligence tool
  • Pixel-perfect reporting through SAP Crystal Reports
  • Visualizations with SAP Lumira
  • Avoid the need to use Java in certain functionalities.
  • Avoid reliance on Adobe Flash on certain features.
  • Improvement in the need for adaptations for mobile devices.
Read Martin Lopez's full review
October 28, 2019

BI Platform Review

David Angers | TrustRadius Reviewer
David Angers
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Easy access to fully developed reports
  • Ability to schedule report output to different destination types.
  • Platform administration.
  • Stability. Servers go down, memory leaks.
  • Support is better than five years ago, but still doesn't measure up.
Read David Angers's full review
September 24, 2019

Great tool to access and analyze SAP BW data

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • To create a personalized report and be able to refresh data every month with simple clicks.
  • Flexibility in analysis and creating reports (like a Pivot Table).
  • Interactive: Drag and drops items in columns/rows/filters.
  • Speed is sometimes low.
  • Forced to refresh data every time Excel with Analysis Office is opened.
  • Crashes sometimes when many prompts are opening.
Read this authenticated review
December 12, 2019

BusinessObjects Business Intelligence for Data-informed decision making.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Easily adaptable for any level of user's technical ability to use reporting tools.
  • Ad-hoc reporting capabilities.
  • Impact analysis (data lineage) features are not available in the tool.
  • Administrators cannot perform bulk activities.
Read this authenticated review
October 30, 2019

Get over the set-up hump and you are in the clear!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Real-time business intelligence.
  • Data consumption is super simple.
  • Integrations with Microsoft office.
  • The price is high.
  • Initial implementation could be easier.
  • Customer support wasn't what we expected and could use some work.
Read this authenticated review
October 15, 2019

Good choice for providing business reports from a variety of data sources

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • It has a good capability of combining a variety of different data sources like ODBC, Excel, SQL Server, text, etc.
  • Design is relatively straightforward and is flexible enough to let different functions be used in different scopes (whole report, section of a report, etc) to create parts, combining data from different sources.
  • There are different design interfaces like HTML, applet and rich client which may be handy in different circumstances.
  • Scheduling of the report updates help you organize timing of your report activities.
  • Although limited, comparison of the updated report with its previous data is a good feature.
  • Adding complex functions and calculations may significantly slow down the reports.
  • Comparison of the report data histories could be extended. Currently you can only compare your report with only previous run but not with any older versions.
  • Web, applet and rich clients UI's do not always have the same design functions available, for example.
  • , you may find yourself unable to export multiple reports at the same time in web interface where you can do it in the rich client interface.
  • More flexibility in report design could be helpful such as copying report sections between different reports, multi select and modifications of sub reports, etc.
  • Drilldown could be improved . For example, a feature to export drilldown structure to Excel or faster drilldown would help a lot.
Read this authenticated review
January 28, 2020

SAP BI Review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • It is easy to use and is easily understandable.
  • Lots of built-in functionality which makes things easier for developers.
  • Paid tool.
  • Connectivity should be better with the latest data sources.
Read this authenticated review
September 18, 2019

On-Demand Reporting Made Easy

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Fast, on demand reporting.
  • Rapid development of new business analysis.
  • It is low maintenance once configured and deployed to production.
  • Report scheduling and distribution.
  • Quicker methods to bulk load reports into the reporting pool.
Read this authenticated review
December 12, 2019

SAP BI Platform

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Collaborative.
  • Ease of use.
  • No clear road map, SAP changes the direction every year.
Read this authenticated review
December 10, 2019

Possibly the best reporting tool you can have.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Crystal Reports allows you to get any report and in the layout you prefer.
  • Customisation to any area and to get any report you want.
  • Once learned, it's really easy to use and understand the logic.
  • Some more training time is needed to understand, but it's worth the time investment.
Read this authenticated review
April 02, 2019

Why SAP? Why?

Michael Diaz-Suarez | TrustRadius Reviewer
Michael Diaz-Suarez
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • It has a great way of displaying information.
  • It's affordable.
  • It can scale well provided you have good support.
  • The interface looks like it's something out of 1999.
  • Customer support is horrible and honestly it's a lottery any time you call.
  • The system crashes constantly.
Read Michael Diaz-Suarez's full review
January 31, 2019

SAP Business Objects Intelligence: I wish I was allowed another way

Tim Dorscher | TrustRadius Reviewer
Tim Dorscher
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Allows significant customization and filtering of the data when creating reports.
  • Is an easy, relatively user-friendly way of accessing the data.
  • No SQL or other programming languages needed for queries.
  • The interface is old and unintuitive. The tooltips are helpful but for someone new to it there is little help in where to begin and what to do
  • This may be our systems but it is slow when querying our data.
  • For some reason when exporting the data, if I choose reports it never exports ALL the data so I am not sure what function that option is supposed to provide.
Read Tim Dorscher's full review
January 15, 2019

SAP BO and I: A love story

Ben Williams | TrustRadius Reviewer
Ben Williams
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Ingest data from multiple areas of the business and use them to generate easy to understand reports.
  • Report scheduling is simple and efficient allowing the team to run reports at a variety of different times to suit the stakeholder's needs.
  • The metalayer takes away some of the complexities of other programs, allowing the end user to interact with the program in a clean and efficient way.
  • We have had some difficulty linking up with data in some of our web portals. This has caused a large amount of development time, and support has been less than its usual helpful self in this regard.
  • Older versions had functions which have now been removed, or replaced with less effecient functions. For example the HTML output option.
  • Some configuration issues have arisen when we have attempted to configure API'S. Some require a JDBC connection, which was slightly more difficult than expected.
Read Ben Williams's full review
December 12, 2018

A wonderful tool that has evolutionized to the new needs in business.

Rodolfo Pinera | TrustRadius Reviewer
Rodolfo Pinera
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • We can expand results for a lot of users in a short time.
  • The tool WebIntelligence is easy for the user and the training also is in a short time.
  • It is possible to inherit the security that is implemented in SAP BW.
  • Funcional users can be independent for generating your own analytics.
  • I am using WebI 4.1, and I think it has deficiency in a variety of charts, for example vs Power BI.
  • I generate my principal reports from BW querys, would be wonderful if for example in IDT if I could edit the BW query in like a: change names, create folders, new ratios...
  • Some times when I need change the data source in special from a BW query, is difficult.
Read Rodolfo Pinera's full review
March 26, 2018

Great capabilities but complex and the future will soon make it obselete

Josh Anderson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Josh Anderson
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • The fact that you are able to work offline on creating reports and then, within the local client, be able to upload it to the BI Platform and continue editing from the local client, while connected to the BI Platform
  • Separation of end user (BI Launchpad) and management/administration (Central Management Console) access points
  • Interoperability with other SAP products (e.g. Lumira, FIORI, AA)
  • The "FIORI-fied" BI Launchpad still has limited functionality which causes us not to leverage it. It is important to have a consistent UI look and feel for our users but we cannot sacrifice functionality. Therefore we don't have users access the BI Launchpad, we just link them from FIORI, directly to the reports.
  • We've found it very hard to find answers to very simple questions (e.g. what is the best approach for security model, bearing in mind the size of our organization). Both directly with SAP and via third-party contractors, we have struggled to find answers quickly, and sometimes at all...
  • As with all SAP products, they constantly change their recommendation. One minute, the BI Platform is the way forward and we should invest everything into this, and then the next it is SAP Analytics Cloud, and BI Platform will become obsolete.
Read Josh Anderson's full review
January 16, 2018

A solution that will grow with the company

Viktor Mulac | TrustRadius Reviewer
Viktor Mulac
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Very good scalability and a real must if you have an SAP as the main ERP system in the production across several factories.
  • Very good vertical integration with other SAP tools and even other main ERP solutions.
  • A good choice for a publicly traded company, where a robust auditable system is a prerequisite for getting transparency into internal.
  • Mobility - in the version currently in use it is complicated to build responsive mobile reports
  • We have integrated the reports on SAP HANA data, and SAP BO did not deliver the required results - the solution had to be replaced by SAP BO Design Studio, purchased additionally.
  • Pricing - this is not a technical feature, but for companies with only a handful of analysts, this could be an insuperable problem.
Read Viktor Mulac's full review
August 25, 2017

SAP BusinessObjects BI - the budget killer

Jason Westenskow | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jason Westenskow
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • Merged dimension queries.
  • Flexibility with Universe Query vs. Free-Hand SQL.
  • Licensing cost is very prohibitive for smaller/medium-sized businesses.
  • Upgrades to BOBJ are non-existent without additional cost.
  • BOBJ is severely lagging on available technologies at the current price point.
Read Jason Westenskow's full review
August 31, 2017

Is SAP BusinessObjects Good for your company?

Sumeet Saraf | TrustRadius Reviewer
Sumeet Saraf
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
Review Source

Pros and Cons

  • It can get the right set of information in the format you want out of the whole organisation wide data.
  • It can allow you to automate the data to be shared with internal and external vendors.
  • It allows dashboards, analytics and graphical representation of data for better understanding.
  • The Lumira tool needs to be stabilised.
  • Scheduling of dashboards and analysis need to be simplified.
Read Sumeet Saraf's full review

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (721)
7.6
Likelihood to Renew (22)
8.4
Usability (5)
10.0
Availability (4)
10.0
Performance (11)
9.0
Support Rating (8)
9.0
In-Person Training (3)
10.0
Online Training (2)
9.0
Implementation Rating (8)
9.0
Data Sharing and Collaboration (48)
8.0
Data Sources (48)
8.1
Product Scalability (2)
9.0

Feature Scorecard Summary

BI Standard Reporting
7.9
Pixel Perfect reports (40)
8.3
Customizable dashboards (41)
7.6
Report Formatting Templates (42)
7.8
Ad-hoc Reporting
8.2
Drill-down analysis (42)
8.7
Formatting capabilities (42)
8.5
Integration with R or other statistical packages (28)
7.0
Report sharing and collaboration (40)
8.4
Report Output and Scheduling
8.2
Publish to Web (35)
8.1
Publish to PDF (40)
8.2
Report Versioning (36)
7.9
Report Delivery Scheduling (40)
8.4
Delivery to Remote Servers (22)
8.4
Data Discovery and Visualization
8.1
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.) (35)
8.2
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization (34)
8.3
Predictive Analytics (32)
7.8
Access Control and Security
8.3
Multi-User Support (named login) (41)
8.1
Role-Based Security Model (40)
8.2
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete) (40)
8.3
Single Sign-On (SSO) (26)
8.5
Mobile Capabilities
7.4
Responsive Design for Web Access (28)
7.7
Dedicated iOS Application (22)
7.2
Dedicated Android Application (20)
6.8
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile (25)
8.1
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
7.4
REST API (17)
8.1
Javascript API (15)
7.7
iFrames (13)
7.0
Java API (17)
7.7
Themeable User Interface (UI) (16)
7.0
Customizable Platform (Open Source) (17)
7.0

What is SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform?

The SAP® BusinessObjects™ Business Intelligence (BI) platform is a flexible, scalable information infrastructure that aims to help you more easily discover and share insights for better business decisions. According to the vendor, the integrated, unified infrastructure enables scalability from one to many tools and interfaces on premise, in the cloud, or as a hybrid approach.
Categories:  Business Intelligence (BI)

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform Features

Has featureReporting and analysis
Has featureData visualization and analytics applications
Has featureOffice integration

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform Competitors

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform Technical Details

Deployment Types:On-premise
Operating Systems: Apple Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Windows: Server 2008 and 2012; Suse SLES 11 x86_64; Red Hat EL 5 and 6 x86_64; AIX 6.1 and 7.1 Power; Solaris 10 and 11 SPARC
Mobile Application:No