SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Reviews

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an enterprise reporting platform. We use it to read data from the data warehouses and serve the internal usage of the company for reporting purposes.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform's most valuable features are it has a great presentation layer. We can develop the presentation layer with drag-and-drop capabilities. For end-users and for our interns in the company can create reports and do their data analysis processes or works by using the objects that we created on the presentation layer by themselves.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform should be made easier for the end-users and the performance could be improved.

In a feature release, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform the visual should improve, such as dashboards. They need to improve the visualization issues. The analytics are a bit behind the sector because alternative tools have integration between other platforms, such as Microsoft Office or Cloud. SAP BusinessObjects is trying to move all the platforms to the cloud, but we couldn't use the cloud and we are in the middle of a division. They don't offer an on-premise solution for the platform.

I have been using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for approximately 10 years.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is a stable solution.

The scalability of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is good.

We have approximately 200 power users and 1,000 report users using this solution in my company.

I have used the support from SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform.

I rate the support from SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform a two out of five.

I have not used another solution previously.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is in the middle range of difficulty. It is not easy or complex.

I rate the initial setup of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform a four of five.

We have three people who do the maintenance and support of the solution. They are data and BI engineers.

We used a third party for the implementation of the solution.

There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform.

I rate the price of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform a four out of five.

I would advise others the solution has a great presentation layer, but it needs to be managed well before you receive the most out of the performance.

I rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform an eight out of ten.

The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is useful for all kinds of analytics, reporting, and alerting.

The features which the solution has been awesome. The way the data is fetched from the database, and the queries are executed, is unique using the Universe of Business Objects. That makes it unique and we could not find another solution that functions in a similar way. It's has a great way of receiving and executing queries.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is lacking dashboards and this would be the only reason we are looking for another solution.

I have been using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for approximately 20 years.

The stability of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform depends on your infrastructure. However, the solution itself is very stable reliable.

There are other solutions that can be implemented alongside SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform to make it more scalable, but in our environment, it's not used in that way.

We have approximately 500 to 1,000 users using this solution. We are working on this self-service BI strategy and therefore the number of users will be increased in the future.

We sometimes receive technical bugs, especially with the new releases, and some patches are required. We then speak to BusinessObjects SAP support for assistance.

The initial setup of the solution is simple and the documentation provided was straightforward. It was not a difficult task.

The first time we used it when SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform was when it was not an SAP solution, it was owned by Business Strategies, we brought in consultants to deploy. Later we have created our own team who can manage the implementation.

We have one person who does the administration and upgrades of the solution.

We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with.

We are on an annual subscription to use this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

We are using an on-premise version which is good but the cloud version is more up-to-date.

I rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform an eight out of ten.

We use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for reporting, dashboards, and broadcasting.

What I find useful in SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is that it has a lot of flexibilities. It's where you can develop so many reports, and it's able to connect to multiple source systems.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to be improved performance-wise. The look and feel of this application also needs improvement.

The scalability of this application has to be improved, and its setup should also be more simplified.

Technical support for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform also needs to be improved.

We've been using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform in our company for six years.

The application is now stable, but there are still some things they have to improve on the hardware side.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is scalable, but the scalability of the servers and other parts is complex. SAP has made scalability complex. It's not so easy, and it's not so quick, while in other solutions, we can increase the scalability of the servers very easily and very fast, e.g. in Microsoft, but in SAP, it's complex and it takes more time.

Technical support for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is okay, but it depends on the priority level. For example, if you raise a ticket that's high priority, then they'll respond to that ticket, but if you raise a medium priority ticket, they don't respond at all. Technical support needs to be improved in that sense.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has a complex setup, and could still be simplified, especially if you want to increase your capacity, which could be difficult in the SAP side.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an expensive application, e.g. compared to Power BI. The analytics cloud is complex to set up. It's very hard. It takes a lot of time to complete the setup, because there are so many prerequisites to set it up before your analytics cloud. It's complex and it's expensive.

We've evaluated Analytics Cloud and Power BI.

Just recently, we moved SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform over to the cloud. Before, it was on our home site, but recently, e.g. just two days ago, we moved it to the cloud.

We've been using three different products: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, Analytics Cloud though not fully on it yet, and Power BI.

I would rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform a seven out of ten.

You cannot compare SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform with Power BI, but WebI, or SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence, is there. Power BI is more powerful compared to WebI, because there are a lot of flexibilities, and you can use them in a simpler way, e.g. these are also possible in WebI, but it's more complex, especially during the setup.

SAP BI product is basically for analytics. If your management wants to see the complete business's structure, what is going on in terms of business, what you are doing, everything you can have gathered by SAP BI. Management does not want to check entries. They want the ledgers. They want the numbers. The numbers and ledgers can be focused on via the analytics tool. We are using this type of functionality to gather management or partners' requirements.

SAP BI includes the SAP Portfolio. It's not a different product, it's a part of the same segment. Whenever you use SAP there is functionality to check the reporting part. That is SAP BI. It is an internal process.

The product has been stable.

We find that we can scale it as needed.

SAP is quite good in terms of manufacturing, in terms of retail, in terms of oil and gas sectors because the functionality is very user-friendly and the continuity of business with this ETL application is quite good.

The solution is constantly upgraded and updated.

In terms of setting up the solution, it's easy.

We'd like to have SAP notes better incorporated.

There is a lot of patching.

It could be a lighter solution.

We've been using SAP for the last 17 years or so. We've been using SAP BI for ten or 11 years. 

We have found the product to be stable and reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches. 

The solution can scale. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so.

Not everyone in the company uses the product. SAP BI tool is used by only ten or 12 people, including the management layer - the CEO, CFO, COO, the VP of Supply Chain, and me. 

Technical support is good. There's no need for them to be better or faster than they already are. 

The initial setup is quite straightforward and simple. It's not overly complex. 

A complete portfolio will take about six months. 

We have an in-house team that is well versed in SAP and could handle any setup requirements. 

The license is included with the SAP portfolio.

For the last 17 years, we were using on-prem. Last year, we upgraded our SAP into HANA. From that time we have been using the cloud and updating on the cloud. We don't have any database servers. We don't have any physical hardware in my organization. We are using a cloud solution now.

I would recommend the solution to other organizations. In order to grow, you really need some sort of analysis element to help guide you, and this solution fulfills that need.

I'd advise new users to use a single solution for all the functionality to make a user-friendly solution. If you are using multiple solutions you have to integrate all the solutions together. If multiple solutions are out there, everybody is facing challenges. It's much easier to just have one solution, one point of entry. It helps align with your business needs.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

The planning and dashboarding features have been useful. Additionally, the fixed-format reports are good.

The solution is not good for self-services, they can improve in this area.

We are in the beginning stages of the implementation and once we roll it out to end-users then we will see further improvement areas.

In SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform we use Lumira Designer, or the earlier version is Design Studio, where we create management dashboards. We feel that the tool is very complex in terms of implementing the dashboard. Lots of coding and performance issues. We require particular skillsets and resources, regular users cannot understand it. The management dashboards should be easy to configure. The only option right now is Lumira Designer, but it is complex to implement. Maintaining and supporting it takes time, and something should be done to improve the experience.

I have been using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for approximately five years.

The solution is stable.

I have found the solution to be scalable.

We have approximately 1,000 users using this solution in our company.

We did not find any major support areas that needed the support from SAP. The majority of the application support our team managed fine and we did not suffer any hardware issues. Our issues were resolved. 

The installation was a medium difficulty level because we do not have complex scenarios in our use case. There are some complex portions but there were no roadblocks that prevented us from continuing.

The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value.

Our organization prefers one visualization tool, that's why SAP will be in our roadmap.

I think companies prefer self-service. BSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform seems a little typical tool in terms of self-service. We recommend other solutions, such as Microsoft BI, because they can do a lot more functions.

Our company is in the healthcare industry and we are using BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for a lot of our data, such as eligibility, claims, premium, plan. We run all kinds of different reports for our customers and our brokers on how the claims and planners are performing and what is the utilization of different services throughout the claims.

The feature that allows pivot users to create the report dashboards and run them when they want with a lot of flexibility with the drill-downs is very useful. The drill-down features are very good because, in other solutions, such as Excel, you have to create separate pivot tables and a lot of other operations to do drill-downs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform tool does the drill-downs automatically. Overall the solution is user-friendly and has a lot of drag and drop features.

Tableau was easier for me to use because the interface is more similar to Excel which I was used to using.

I have been using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for a short period of time.

The solution has been stable in my usage. Our company has had SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for as long as I have been here, which is 20 years. I think we have had dashboards with it before. I did not know how it worked with the data universes and we did not have a lot of data in the universe. Using software for service we will upgrade when they upgrade. I have heard that when we move to version 4.3, the user interface looks entirely different and I do not know how that experience will go.

Our IT department does the data and the universe design. We have a universe designer who does it and it is their full-time job. Additionally, they do all the ETLs and many other operations within the company. My team is more focused on business analysts and is trying to learn the report-building side of the solution, designing the reports, and working with the interface. I have one person that does works with the designer to try to make the connections better and they have a good understanding of the data. The IT people do not understand the data, we understand the data. We are trying to learn how to write the reports and we only have five people in training. I have five users that I want to learn how to be involved in the process and create these reports.

I have previously used Tableau.

For anybody who does not have a BI solution and is thinking about implementation should look at them all before deciding. We have another vendor we have worked with, Cognos, and I have worked with Tableau and it is important to evaluate all of the solutions to see which one makes more sense for their use case. I downloaded a list of the top five and they all are pretty similar, I will not say they are the same because there are a lot of differences but they are all heading in the same direction of getting the information to the universe and pulling out the data.

I rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform an eight out of ten.

I've used BusinessObjects for projects in finance and healthcare. Also, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies uses it as a reporting tool. We had the data source and ad hoc requirements, so we created semantic layer data modeling for the database and reporting system. Then we used BusinessObjects as a tool for reporting and dashboards.

BusinessObject's most useful feature is the semantic layer, which offers us the flexibility to go for ad hoc reporting.

I want BusinessObjects to have more flexibility like Tableau or Power BI. The interface could be slicker and more user-friendly. SAP could add more ability to design and customize the dashboards.

BusinessObjects is not that user-friendly. They have different tools for designing dashboards like Discovery— previously called Lumira. That isn't as user-friendly as Tableau. 

I've been using BusinessObjects for four to five years.

BusinessObjects is stable.

BusinessObject's main advantage is the ad hoc capability.

I've contacted SAP support once or twice. We raised a support request, and they responded promptly. They organized a call and helped us resolve the issue. 

BusinessObjects' installation is comparable to Tableau, but BusinessObjects requires a skilled administrator for management and maintenance because it's a little more complex than Tableau.  

In terms of flexibility and user-friendliness, Tableau is better than BusinessObjects, but if you have ad hoc requirements, then BusinessObjects is better.

I rate SAP BusinessObjects eight out of 10. I would recommend BusinessObjects, but it depends on the requirements. SAP is a better choice if you are doing daily reporting where you need to drag and drop objects and create ad hoc reporting then export to Excel or CSV. 

We are using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for a lot of things, such as simple reports and business dashboards, and in all the business areas, for example, finance, sales, and purchasing.

The most valuable feature we have found to be the SAP BW, which is a warehouse tool. Additionally, it is an easy tool to use.

The dashboard tool is called Lumira and it is very uncomfortable for developers to use. They should improve this in the future.

I have been using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for approximately five years.

The stability is good. However, the performance could be better.

We have several hundred end-users using this solution and we use the solution on a daily basis.

The solution is scalable. We feel comfortable with the infrastructure that we have, but we can expand if we want to. 

The technical support is good, I am satisfied.

I previously use Oracle BI. I think the Oracle BI is stronger and has more functionality than SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. However, it does not connect to SAP ERP which is a disadvantage.

The initial setup is simple, it took us two days to complete.

The implementation, maintenance, and updates can be done by staff within the company. There are times we have used local support or integrators in our area.

This solution is not meant to be very complicated, solutions that are complicated require other tools.

I rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform a seven out of ten.