SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Reviews & Product Details - Page 24

The interface is very clean and it's very easy to navigate through the different functions within the system. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Business Objects sometimes could really lag when the data set is too big. It would be great if SAP could improve in this area. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have mostly used SAP BO 4.1 as web intelligence user, the tool is quite useful for adhoc querying and reporting, provided a robust universe is in place with all relationships.

Relatively easy to create reports, but sometimes syntax/transformation on variable or measures are quite complicated.

Basic drag drop supports and easy scheduling of reports

Custom query support. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Not sure if there is a central place to monitor scheduled jobs.

No Auto Save - results rework

Lots of unknown issues and bugs with 4.1, reliability and questionably is bit questionable.

Sub standard dashboard support.

More like a developer tools than an analyst/users tool.

Working with excel and other adhoc files is quite complicated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Complex data models can be resolved with BO, it has features from both, developer and user profile. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Charts are very poor, the charts are very simple, poor colors and effects. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy to Use, Self Service BI, Format Reporting, Great performance, drill-down capability Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Desktop based semantic layer universe design, limited real-time reporting capability Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is easy to use in terms of creating a report and it has a more of a drag and drop appeal. You need to know your data in order to create reports. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The connection with Java, I run into issues with using the Java program to modify and create report. I wish that there's an easier way. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

ability to query a large database of data and link multiple universes of info Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

functionality. buggy. often easier to run raw data and export to excel as pivot tables were more flexible and had more analytic tools than BO Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Very robust tool which could be used to meet any type of reporting needs ranging from light OLTP reporting to heavy BI analytics. It stands out of the crowd in terms of data extraction capabilities. It can integrate multiple data sources and provide seamless reporting solutions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Not so likeable interface. It lacks the good looks of other BI tools available in market. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I like best is how robust BusinessObjects is. SAP brings together Dashboards (For dynamic reporting), Web Intelligence (For ad-hoc reporting), and Crystal Reports (For clean, formatted reporting) all in one package. This gives customers/clients a lot more options on how they want to display their data. Each comes with their own perks, but it's beneficial, for administrators/developers/clients alike, to have it all in one.

With 4.0, they've made system administration a lot easier by implementing 'Monitoring' capabilities. This is a double edge sword because with these extra look-ins, more work can be created, but optimizing the services becomes a lot easier. Not only that, they've taken the liberty in creating a 'Monitoring' Universe, so reports can be built off of it to analyze the information a lot more. Vital pieces that were missing in 3.1, it's now available in 4.0. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I dislike about this product is the total cost of ownership and how resource heavy it is. BusinessObjects should be an application that is implemented, if a reporting tool, such as SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services), isn't powerful enough to do the job. Not only that, if everything else has been created (IE: InfoCubes), BusinessObjects could be a potential fit.

Not only that, each team needs to understand the application and how it works. I saw one person talk about how pulling big data slows down the application. Absolutely correct, in which it's expected, as it's a reporting tool, not a data dumping instrument. Meaning, developers & consultants need to work with the client/customer to ensure that they are aggregating the data, in such a way, that the most relevant information is pulled. This will drastically speed up performance, lower the overall footprint of the application, and can expotentially speed things up. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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.

I am currently working with SAP BI and Oracle BI EE and had a brief exposure to Microstrategy. I categorize BI tools as a “developer oriented” and an “end-user (power-user) oriented”

I am a big fan of BOXI 3.X. It’s robust, stable, reliable; simple for report design, and a “end-user (power-user) oriented” tool.

I find the SAP Web Intelligence application the most user friendly and easy to understand in comparison to other BI tools. I praise it for:

-Ability to build a single report combined from multiple queries (as long as they have merged dimensions);

-Ability to apply variable/formula on a cell level is extremely useful;

-Ability to create a custom formula for any cell under the Grand Total line allows to build complex reports;

-Very easy to navigate through the report and query properties (table/cell/report level). Interface is visual and intuitive.

-Ability to view the actual SQL built by the query is priceless. Among three listed above tools only SAP BI offers this feature;

Ultimately the best “developer oriented” reporting tool is SAP CrystalReports. A tool cost is virtually free (under $400) copy. This tool can connect to any data source. Intuitive, robust, accommodate all levels of twisted business logic; allow to complete any complexity of assignment; plus offers “pixel perfect” design.

A short note about SAP BOXI Universe Designer tool- you can design the semantic layer on snowflake or star schema.

Technical support is excellent. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I am very new to SAP BO 4.0. I found this product is less stable; full of bugs for now. It’s becomes more developer tool than end-user. Completely new interface which requires an additional time to get used to and to learn where all functionalities are hidden. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.