Solution empowers self-service reporting and delivers comprehensive performance insights
What is our primary use case?
As a BusinessObjects Administrator, I work to deploy the solution, handle new installations, security setup, user management, and all of those tasks. Later, I started report development and became a BI developer, and then I did some data warehousing.
With the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, we build financial reports such as P&L and income statements for financial reporting, and we also build dashboards for top management.
Through interacting with top management in our business, I have been able to meet their needs through ad-hoc reporting capabilities.
What is most valuable?
Empowering business users means they should be able to work independently without depending on the developer. One advantage of
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is self-service capabilities, allowing users to do drag and drop to build their own reports and perform analyses without needing technical know-how.
The platform has many drivers that I can use to connect to virtually all available databases, making it easy to integrate with Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and many others. With the cloud version, I can fetch data on-premises and to the cloud for analysis easily. It is so flexible that I can make choices for fetching data. For authentication in an SAP environment, I can choose to integrate with SAP logon for SSO or use AD authentication for convenience, along with the flexible integration options.
What needs improvement?
There are areas of SAP BusinessObjects
Business Intelligence Platform that need improvement, particularly in licensing, which can make it complex and expensive for users. If SAP could split the analytics side from financial analytics, it would become more affordable and easier to learn for technicians.
The integration of the cloud product needs improvement, as I have faced challenges fetching data from SuccessFactors, which isn't as seamless compared to on-premises solutions. I expect improvements over time, and SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is still superior compared to other reporting tools.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for over 15 years now.
How are customer service and support?
I have experience with SAP technical support and have supported customers, including those in financial services. I continue to assist old clients while supporting my colleagues as well.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
Setting up SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is one of the easiest things I've done. Having started my career as an SAP BusinessObjects administrator, I find it still easy due to my foundational knowledge.
What was our ROI?
For most of my clients using the on-premises version of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, the return on investment is positive due to its affordability and ability to handle diverse reporting needs while automating information distribution.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Using Power BI as an example, most customers choose it instead of SAP, primarily due to the cost, acquisition cost, and maintenance. People choose other products because of the flexibility, though I am not sure whether any other reporting tool is as flexible as SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. Users often complain about the interface of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, saying it is not as aesthetic as Power BI, but SAC is addressing that issue. In terms of performance, other BI tools cannot compare with SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, as those reports are not as fast as those built on SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, and other tools are not as robust for financial reporting.
What other advice do I have?
Based on my years of experience with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, I have worked with all the products, starting from Analysis for Microsoft Excel, then SAP Web Intelligence, and then the BusinessObjects dashboards, which graduated to Lumira. From Lumira, I moved to SAC, which is now the current product that SAP is positioning for reporting, and that is the cloud solution.
Currently, the organization I work for, Dangote, has close to 9,000 users in an SAP environment. We utilize SAP for our ERP, CRM, and SuccessFactors, and we also implement Power BI to enhance reporting aesthetics for specific users.
I am currently using Microsoft products for analysis and Power BI fabrics while fetching data from SAP ERP, SAP HANA, and BW, but I have not necessarily had any AI-driven projects within BusinessObjects.
I work on both the cloud and on-premises versions of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. While the cloud version isn't popular yet in this part of the world due to costs, some users still prefer the perpetual license of the on-premises version.
I rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Business intelligence tools have improved decision-making with reliable performance and competitive pricing
What is our primary use case?
I am not sure about how it supports my compliance and data governance requirements.
I am working as an IT manager.
What is most valuable?
It integrates well with BW and HANA, which demonstrates strong data integration capabilities.
The solution is reliable, which is the main feature for creating insightful reports.
It helps in decision-making, which impacts ROI, especially in terms of efficiency.
What needs improvement?
The solution is performing well, and I don't think any improvement is needed.
I would appreciate integration with Outlook as an additional feature in the future to make it closer to a perfect score.
For how long have I used the solution?
How are customer service and support?
I am satisfied with the technical support provided by SAP.
I would rate their technical support as excellent.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
What was our ROI?
It helps in decision-making, which impacts ROI, especially in terms of efficiency.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is very competitive and reliable.
What other advice do I have?
Based on my experience, I would recommend SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform to others.
The solution currently lacks AI capabilities.
I would rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform eight out of ten.
Pretty Decent for Business Reporting
What do you like best about the product?
Robust software with multiple features relevant for business reporting.
Software supports automated delivery and auto refresh. BO supports large reports too.
What do you dislike about the product?
BO has a very small community, and most of the support you find online is pretty outdated.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Solving large reporting delivery. The feature related to publications is very handy.
Simply to Use
What do you like best about the product?
Easy to use and search for exactly what you want and need. The system uses excel as a base and functions similar to a pivot table so it's relatively easy to manipulate data.
What do you dislike about the product?
You have to be quick to export data. You can't leave the system open because it can cause other issues. Simply go in and get the data you need and copy and paste it into another worksheet.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
There's some software issues where I've had issues clicking through the screens requiring me to use the tab button and enter key instead. It's a work around but highlights other issues the system has.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) good experience
What do you like best about the product?
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) good software which supports management reporting and make analysis reports to make decisions fastly in any organization.
What do you dislike about the product?
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) did not identify any dislilke but some configuration are very technical and need to experience staff to monitor this configuration with SAP integration.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
In our organization, we are using SAP S4/Hana and we have utilized BOBJ for management reporting after integration with SAP. We present dashboards and pad reports for managment.
Good base analytics tools
What do you like best about the product?
The ease of dragging and dropping in the system is great for a base user. The ability to write custom SQL is awesome for higher-level users for customization for what is needed.
What do you dislike about the product?
There is a lack of new features and more analytical-driven tools. The company is looking for more dashboard orientated, real-time embedded tools, and this is lacking.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Extracting data from our core system, data mining/validation, automated reports that are scheduled for our end users and clients. Automation of company reporting.
A little difficult to use but reliable
What do you like best about the product?
This is very helpful for pulling various customer sales metrics, including dollar revenue, units, and volume. There are various other universes that you can use to get accurate data cut by timing, customers, etc.
What do you dislike about the product?
I dislike that this system is not super user friendly in terms of trying to learn how to use it. There are several steps to starting a report, and I think there could be improvements in design of the pages.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I have used this to solve problems related to diving into low sales for certain products or geographies, and looking into what the best selling items are so we can make recommendations for customers.
Easy quick reporting
What do you like best about the product?
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) is an easy method to create reports with tables and charts from a database. The reports can be easily set up to run automatically, so no further manual handling is required once the report is set up.
What do you dislike about the product?
Although SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) in general works quite well, it can be a bit difficult to get the reports to output in excel correctly. In addition, it would be nice if it was easier to copy over information and tables from one report to another report.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) to quickly create reports to respond to urgent questions and to send out reports automatically to colleagues.
Easy to use, commonly known reporting tool
What do you like best about the product?
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) offers a lot of features to its users. The most used functionalities are report scheduling, query building, retrieving queries built by other users, accessing different databases, building dashboards, and generating data exports. These are the functionalities that I like the best.
What do you dislike about the product?
First-time users need training on basic data querying. Also, users need to know which universes, data tables, data fields that they need to execute the queries. The data formatting can be challenging for users (using different data separators).
The upgrade process of SAP BO is very tricky. User experience may decline two years after the initial installation. And at some point, the SAP BO becomes just a data query tool. At that point, people start using Excel to visualize the data.
In summary, I don't particularly appreciate reformating data or using an outdated version of the SAP BO because of undone upgrades. The major downside is, however only experienced users can start using it on day one.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
This tool helps the controlling, finance, and marketing departments of organizations. It enables users to visualize, analyze the collected data in ERP systems. It can access not only SAP systems but also other third-party systems.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
I recommend that organizations reserve their controlling departments as power users of SAP BO. These power users should create training, user manuals for other users within the organization.
Comprehensive Data Analytics Platform
What do you like best about the product?
Ease of use and easily integrated into other spreadsheets. SAP Business Objects is a great tool for data analysis and was useful for our team to develop informed strategies for growth. Our data team was able to code and use additional queries to help customize our search.
What do you dislike about the product?
SAP Business Objects is a powerful tool that can be used to accomplish a variety of data requests. It is not an easy to learn platform and isn't very intuitive for first-time users. This program requires attention, training and help for users.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Recently, SAP BusinessObjects was instrumental in informing our strategies to move into a virtual setting in light of Covid. Specifically, the tool allowed our team to separate out different users and groups more likely to engage in new virtual programs and target our marketing efforts accordingly.
