Top Rated SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Alternatives
I have been around Data warehousing and BI for 13 years now and have used, tested and read about about most of the BI tools out there and here are my 2 cent thoughts about SAP BO.
There are lots to like about SAP BO. It will take you from the design of the applications/reports to the final frontier of your user or decision maker in many ways. Once you understand the tool is very user friendly and provides numerous ways to make your work, more understandable and presentable. It can access most common databases out there and mesh the data together and gain control and understanding of your organization's stored information/data and exploit them.
If you are already a SAP user then you will really be happy as BO will give you more capability to do what you could not before and I imagine SAP will blend in their other products around BO and use BO to spear head the BI industry more aggressively.
It is quite a robust environment , once you set it correctly, and the administrator has enough tools to do the job, from an administrative prospective is an excellent tool. The developers also like it as it allows them to use their creativity more freely apart from the must have ins.
It is a true BI tool.
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High purchase and licensing cost, SAP must really get their act together where pricing is concerned.
The new version of SAP BO 4.x goes a bit heavy on the server, I do not see this as a major concern, hardware is getting cheaper by the hour nowadays but the Administrator will have to more vigilant and organized and be careful with the sizing of the server. SAP do actually help a bit here.
Security has always been a concern with BO and SAP has done next to nothing in this area. A number of companies employ a third party software to make sure that nothing is leaking in the middle-ware.
It has been reported that v4.x is still unstable and there are a few bugs here and there. Migrating from 3.x to 4.x is a bit of a hustle and a bumpy road.
If your company is completely new to BO and in BI in general then it will take some time to fully understand and comprehend the tool but once there , its clear skies.
I hear this a lot but I do not endorse it from my experience. People some times complain about its capability to handle big loads. Well this is mainly down to 3 factors. The sizing of the server and the clients, wrong set up and configuration and in some cases bad designing by the developing team. Yes there are some limitations but what is a heavy load actually ? Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Video Reviews
BI analysis done from multiple data sources and in different formats, accessible via any platform.
Nice product
253 out of 254 Total Reviews for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI)
Overall Review Sentiment for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI)
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What I like most about SAP BI, is the ability to bring in our data sources and produce better visuals around our pharmacy dispensing data. In my job, I track pharmacy revenue, reimbursements, and other sales metrics. We are able to produce pretty visuals and charts for senior leadership on a whim, and also build out elaborate dashboards that incorporate our pharmacies data. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
We use Tableau and PowerBI also, so being able to incorporate these together would be nice. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Very easy to use and navigate. The function keys are easy to understand. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The use of MS Excel to update sheets for business objects. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The integration of redwood with SAP Business Objects is seemless. The best use-case where i find that redwood is the best tool is to schedule the reports.
So, In our case, redwood can schedule the process chains responsible for reloading the data, which will be an input for report. And later, we can process the reports. In this way, we are able to fulfill the dependency of the report that, first the data loading should take place and then the report should be triggered. And all these things can be managed by redwood itself.
So overall, it's a great tool that can cover various situations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
One thing which I don't like with Redwood & SAP BO/BI integration is , if we have a failure in process chain/report then it gives us very generic error message, which is not near to the actual issue.
My suggestion : We should try to integrate the error message from the integrated system(Here it's SAP BO) and fetch the error message and show in redwood itself.
Because if there is a monitoring team, they might have access to redwood but not to SAP BO. So this will reduce the turnaround time of solving the issue as we can directly know the error from Redwood and start necessary actions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Used for reporting and data visualization, we were connected with DB2 and Sybase to perform the reporting requirement of the organization. Datawarehousing capabilities, allowing to connect with multiple sources Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Limited capabilities with respect to data transformation, GUI is also not much attracted compared to other tools in the market. Pricing is also high compare to other solutions in the market. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
There is no doubt that Business Objects has a lot of functionality and can perform many "heavy duty" tasks. It's GUI allows for business users who are not versed in complex SQL queries to craft robust and complex reports. Sharing reports amongst individuals and business groups is a nice feature. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
While the GUI is useful, it can be more user-friendly. The entire interface takes some getting used to and is not very intuitive. It seems as if this tool doesn't know if it wants to be technical and therefore contain a crowded set of functionality and a not so user-friendly interface or if it wants to be Business friendly and allow for the "common user" to craft reports with little technical knowledge, although it takes some technical training to create a basic report. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
SAP business objects business intelligence is user friendly, it's easy to make a manual out of it! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I think because of it's integration with accounting systems to different locations, there are functions that blocked by another user and cannot be used by another user. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Robust software with multiple features relevant for business reporting.
Software supports automated delivery and auto refresh. BO supports large reports too. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
BO has a very small community, and most of the support you find online is pretty outdated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The platform allows us to run reports about academic administration issues like enrollment, course completion, and budget-related issues. Having access to these materials enables us to look at long-term trends and adjust our expectations and understanding accordingly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence has a very steep learning curve, or at least I thought so. I went through the training documents and videos multiple times and felt confounded by the complexity and outdated user interface. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
