SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Other Advice

DS
Business Intelligence Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

I rate SAP BusinessObjects eight out of 10.

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Sumeet  Zalpuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at ASR Nederland N.V.

Overall, I rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform an 8.5 out of 10.

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Joyee Sen - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP Service Delivery Manager at SoftwareONE

There are mixed reviews on this product from our customers. You won't find as many companies use it as you'd find with HANA. It's not widely used. 

I rate this solution seven out of 10. 

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Buyer's Guide
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
768,246 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Shylaraj AK - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Architect at a construction company with 10,001+ employees

The SAP Business Objects BLB platform is available in the SAP business technology platform, which is accessible via the cloud platform. Instead of going with on-premise, it is better to analyze software as a solution.

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

View full review »
AP
BusinessObject Delivery Dev. at a government with 10,001+ employees

I rate BusinessObjects nine out of 10. It's a mature, complete product with a long history and a decent reputation on the market. Many organizations and commercial companies are using it right now. It's reliable, scalable, and stable too. I would recommend it.

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Voravit Jongrugsakul - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development at Bicone

My advice for new users is to consider SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, especially if they're dealing with complex organizational structures. It is beneficial for centralizing data from various departments into a unified system, providing a robust solution for analysis and decision-making. Overall, I would rate it as a nine out of ten.

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SZ
Data & Business Architect at AME

They're evolving very quickly. They are giving users new features. They are taking feedback from the users, and they are making sure that they are not losing the trends. They understand the user needs and where the industry is moving in terms of cloud, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies that are going to be the driving force in the future. It is really amazing how SAP is doing it. I have been working with their tools for the last 10 years, and I've seen that they are coming up with almost everything that users need. 

Now that everything is moving to the cloud, they are also working on the cloud side of their business. For example, SAP BusinessObjects is not good with dashboarding. It is basically for financial reporting and drill-down reporting. So, they came up with a cloud product that is not only for reporting but also for dashboarding. They have given a one-stop solution wherein you can do your reporting, dashboarding, and storytelling.

If you are completely new to business intelligence but you are already using SAP solutions, this is the best tool that you can use to leverage your financial systems or logistic systems. It is not a self-BI type of tool. It needs an IT expert. If your data is important and you are a big company or a mid-scale company, you should go with SAP BusinessObjects because it is already in the market, and it has integration with SAP ERP. The user experience will be good. You'll not see any performance issues with the queries. At the end of the day, when a business user sees a report, he doesn't understand which tool it is, whether it is SAP, Power BI, or something else. They want the experience to be good. They want the functionalities.

The advice for a new company is to first find out the integration. If you're using Power BI with SQL Server, it will work wonders, but if you are using it with SAP HANA or SAP BW, you'll not get the experience that SAP can give you. You need to understand the landscape and different applications that are there and then decide whether it would work for your use case. SAP doesn't fit everywhere. Similarly, Power BI doesn't fit everywhere. 

An organization that is completely new to BI should try to identify:

  • What type of reports do they want? Do they want aggregated reports or operational reports?
  • Who is the target audience?

There are a lot of processes that are involved depending on whether the data is coming from your data warehouse, or you're querying the OLAP system directly. 

I read a very good article where a company did this exercise and asked enterprises about the BI tools they use. What they ended up seeing was that no organization was using one BI tool. There were two, three, or even four BI tools. So, it all depends on your source systems. It is always a combination, and there can't be only one BI tool. It is difficult to have a single, centralized BI tool.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10.

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Vishal Khare - PeerSpot reviewer
IT manager at Electrolux Home Products

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're currently using. What we have is completely on-premise as we are still on ECC. We are using the HANA architecture, and we are still on-premise.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

I would recommend the solution to other users and companies. 

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MV
Software Engineer at a mining and metals company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I recommend those planning to buy the solution to try it for a few days.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.

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Sumit Chhabra - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant - Business Development for Travel, Transport and Hospitality unit at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

SAP BusinessObjects is the simplest and most stable reporting product in the market and the best enterprise-level reporting product. Many companies use SAP BusinessObjects, including Apple and Cisco. However, in dashboarding, SAP BusinessObjects is not that stable. Therefore, Tableau, ClickView, and other tools have captured the market. But in terms of reporting, SAP BusinessObjects is the market leader. The reason behind its success is the Symantec layer it provides between the database and the report. It is the only big company like Oracle or Microsoft that can provide this.

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

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Vedat Gunes - PeerSpot reviewer
BI & Analytics Manager at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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TA
Technical Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

My advice to anyone considering SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is to keep an eye on the requirement side that they need. If you are looking for a flashy dashboard with a lot of user interactions with click and dicing the graphs, I don't recommend the Business Intelligence component or the Crystal Reports. They may have to look into other products.

On a scale of one to then, I would say SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is a 7.

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MM
Data Science Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

SAP is a stable solution, but you need to have multi-experts to be able to maintain it.

The biggest console that we implemented is using SAP as a self-service BI. It is an incentive for business users and different stakeholders, to be able to use the self-service BI and answer their questions instantly. This is conditioning that we as IT are using the right models, the right repository, and requiring all the data for them.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform an eight.

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JB
Manager Data Analytics and Interfaces at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

I would advise others to get somebody who knows what they're doing when they install it. That's what we did. It is a complex product, and trying to fumble through all the bits and pieces and the nuances of it is challenging.

It has been around for years. It has been there ever since I went to software engineering. It does what it does. It is built to do that every year. It just needs to get more efficient at doing it. It just needs better integration with third parties and maybe a price reduction for the licensing.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.

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Emilio Valle - PeerSpot reviewer
Programmer at Banco de Guatemala

We have used the latest version of the solution. However, I don't know the exact version number. 

New users need to understand a bit about business intelligence in order to prove the usefulness of the solution. You also need to have an idea of what you'd like to get out of the solution, and that should be decided at the outset.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

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Narayansingh Bhandari - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager IT (SAP) at CLASSIC MARBLE COMPANY PRIVATE LIMITED

We're just an end-user and a customer. We don't have a business relationship with SAP.

We are not yet on the latest version of the product.

I would advise new users to not go for these old versions and instead go for the new versions that at least use embedded analytics, et cetera.

I'd rate the solution at around seven out of ten. There are a few areas it could improve upon.

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YS
Head-IT/SAP at Barista Coffee Company Ltd.

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.

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DM
EAM Executive at a educational organization with 5,001-10,000 employees

Although I haven't been able to use the BI portion, I would give this solution rating of eight. 

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it_user431775 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect - Business Objects / Datawarehouse at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

Keep an eye upgrade and converting cost especially with deprecated tools like desk and it's reports, make consolidation of reports and universes and other objects early on .advise you to do user inbox,personal doc spring and fall clean up to make future upgrades easier

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TS
Business Intelligence & Data Management Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

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.

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AY
BI/BO Hana Application Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

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.

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it_user431760 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. SAP HANA / BI Developer with 1,001-5,000 employees

We used this product for years with Teradata as the datasource, but much can be gained by using SAP HANA as the source if possible - not only in performance but also in data security and not requiring a universe for a few of the tools.

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SC
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The features are pretty good, but there are also problems. The security rights can be confusing because security rights are universal.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.



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DD
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

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BA
Associate Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10. 

Crystal Report and the enterprise reporting is very good. It's very detailed. In the VB report, they have also come up with various features, not only setting up the security at the back-end. Even at the database-level, if a customer doesn't want to do any security setup or changes, and they want to do a report-level or the universe-level restrictions, that is in the IDT tool. From version 4.2 onwards, we have that functionality. Last time, we tested it in SP6 and it worked well. 

If they don't want to have any security at the back-end and want to go with the security at the BO level, and if they want to make sure that the report is accessible by the higher management, mid-level management, that kind of a security, we can do it. We have seen that feature in SP6.

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KS
Director of Underwriting & Product Development at a non-profit with 51-200 employees

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.

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MB
BI | Analytics | Insights | Leadership | Digital | Visualization Composer| Strategy | Design Language | BI Rehab

I advise someone considering this solution: Go big or go home!

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it_user121866 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Definitely cost justify it. If you have a lot of manual processes involved in getting the reporting that you need, then this product will definitely help. You can cut out all the manual steps.

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RK
Application Development Assoc Manager at Eccenture

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. 

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VG
Analytics Manager at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees

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.

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PA
Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

I will be a bit biased, and I would definitely recommend SAP BI. It is a bit more robust and mature as compared to Power BI. Power BI keeps changing every day, which is not a bad thing considering how old it is. For a serious setup, I would rather use SAP BI, but I look forward to having one tool rather than two.

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

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HS
Head of BI and Analytics at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees

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.

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GL
Enterprise Architect at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

My advice is to try to truly understand the system. It is fairly complicated. To get this system to work, you need a systems engineer and an architect in addition to a lot of other people who understand what's going on behind the scenes. 

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DH
Senior Business Intelligence Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Get a partner or consultant to help you configure and customize your deployment. And remember that there's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server.

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it_user101874 - PeerSpot reviewer
IS/IT program manager at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The reporting tool is easy to use and implement. Overall, you should consider how this tool is going to be implemented in your organization, and what added value it will bring to your organisation (e.g., do you have a lot of people doing a lot of reports in Excel). Finally, a decision whether or not to use BusinessObjects Web Intelligence should not be taken on its own but rather as a part of how information is managed in the organization.

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LH
Global Product Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

We are SAP partners. 

I use the latest version of the solution. I cannot speak to the exact version number.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend the product to others. Even now, for ourselves, we are looking into an alternative option. 

I would rate the solution at a six out of ten.

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SN
Assistant SAP at ipscnam

I have seen improvement in our work after using the solution. I rate the solution as a seven out of ten.

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PK
Software Engineer at KIS Ltd

I am a great believe in choosing a commercially successful product rather than technical best of breed as there is nothing worse than having an 'orphan' product. That being a product that is poorly supported, does not have a development path and limited availability of expertise. Business Objects is a commercially successful product and despite SAP's poor management of the product is likely to continue to be so.

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it_user415908 - PeerSpot reviewer
BI & Data Lead, Reporting & Analytics Center of Excellence at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees

When deploying SAP BW and BOBJ together, get an experienced practitioner who can educate and implement keeping the business users in mind, not just the deadline and processes of IT.

There are a lot of limitation in SAP BW especially for scheduling, which can limit the full utilization of BOBJ, but there is a solution for it all if you think out of the box.

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it_user176949 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior BI Consultant at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Do not undersize the system hardware. Turn on all functionality for a product when installing – even if not anticipating using immediately. Spend ample time up front planning the security set up and only go with one option whether SAP, Enterprise, Windows AD or LDAP.

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it_user5691 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Category leaders have their strengths and weaknesses but as seen from the lens of the person using the tool. Some may want ease of use ... others a full-blown suite of DML tools. From this perspective, BO is as good as any of the other leading tools for reports. If anything, BO is great at controlling the user's interface eg highly user friendly capable. It does not come out of the box that way, but a competent BO wizard can make that happen on balance easier than other products. Finally, BO supports conserving server resources better than most. BI solutions are not about the tool. Any solution concerning the presentation of information has to focus on the business requirements and then a corresponding data foundation. Getting these is often a challenge at several levels and so I understand that there is this hope that maybe the toolset can make up for a lack of clear specifications. Bottom Line: Get the data foundation in shape first prior to implementing a reporting tool. View full review »
EY
Head of Data Management & Analytics at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I give the solution a five out of ten.

We have over 100 people using the solution.

I do not recommend the solution as it does not meet most business requirements.

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SK
System Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

I rate SAP BusinessObjects seven out of 10. However, I can't recommend BusinessObjects because its usage is limited, and it can't provide a new solution for end-users.

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it_user87981 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

It's the best product in the market when it comes to reporting technology.

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Shahid Latif - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Analyst at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees

There is no perfect solution or one size fits all. Be clear on the requirements that you are trying to meet with the tools and solutions and do a POC and thorough evaluation. Also most of the time a single vendor works better than using best of the breed solution.

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TA
Gerente de BI at a government with 201-500 employees

We are customers and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with the organization.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it as a perfect ten. It's been great. For the most part, we have been happy with the product.

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it_user494013 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP Business Objects Architect at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Planning is critical.

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it_user240060 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Data Warehouse Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 51-200 employees

Make sure you understand the needs of the business and to evaluate different products before committing to a specific one.

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KB
Managing Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I rate SAP BusinessObjects a six out of ten. 

To those looking into implementing this solution, in the SAP side, there are modules. You should focus on one of the modules. There's HR, FI, SDMM, et cetera. Also, there are BI modules, and there are lots of products on the BI side: BW, Hana, SAP BusinessObjects. There is also a cloud side of SAP. So, they are time consuming. You should focus on one of them before jumping to the second one. 

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TT
Associate Manager at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

For data visualization, I would recommend Power BI and Tableau. For the report format, I would recommend SAP BusinessObjects.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

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LJ
Team Leader at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees

Look at who will be your end-user group. Who is going to use the tool?

I would rate this solution at seven out of 10. Seen from the administrative and compliance point of view, it's an excellent tool for an enterprise. But I can't give it any more than that because the user interface for the average user is not very intuitive. You need too much training before you're able to use the tool effectively.

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it_user430596 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. System Analyst at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I think this product is best if we are not loading huge data. Also for its easy to use and learn.

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it_user651837 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Applications Team Leader at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Check the number of intended users and which part of BI you are intending to introduce (reporting, analytics, etc.).

Check out the free trial periods and see if there are options to use cloud computing versus installing it in your own data center.

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it_user494061 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP Certified BI, BOBJ, BODS Consultant at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

If you want to implement SAP Analytical applications, you need skilled resources with clear requirements.

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RM
Strategic Account Manager at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
it_user73041 - PeerSpot reviewer
BI Expert with 51-200 employees

Use a consulting firm with expertise in deployment.

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KS
Technical Consultant at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

It integrates well with many other solutions. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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MC
Business Intelligence Functional Manager BU SAP at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We are working with an older version also well as the latest version of the solution. 

I would recommend this product to other organizations. It's a stable and powerful enterprise solution. Everything from the broadcasting to the scheduling, to the user management and the reporting, is very powerful. 90% of customers end up asking for a solid and consistent reporting solution. In these cases, I definitely suggest SAP Business Objects Platform.

That said, the dashboard isn't the best with this product.  It should be noted that SAP is working on their dashboards offerings in Cloud environment.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

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it_user181065 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Objects Developer at a aerospace/defense firm with 51-200 employees

Take time to realize how much data you will be processing and how many users you will have, this will help you to scale the needs to the product. The product works well, but is only as good as the servers it uses.

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it_user430635 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Managing Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Have a capable resource who knows how to work and have a good knowledge and experience in the relevant field.

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it_user266763 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP BO/BW Consultant at KIIT University

A very creative tool to present the data in graphical and pictorial form, so as to make better decision for the growth of the organization.

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it_user543585 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would rate it about nine out of 10 because it performs well.

Do a trial. Fully investigate all the ins and outs of the license as well.

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it_user265632 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP Business Objects Lead Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

It is a very good product, stable, and has good technical capabilities.

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it_user456411 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP BI AMS Lead at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees

This works only for medium to large scale companies due to the high cost.

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it_user425949 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior BI Project Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

It is definitely useful as an integrated platform for medium or large enterprises which require a modern information management solution. It is definitely not without issues, but looks like SAP has a clear vision about where they want to get and that vision is supported by the customers.

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it_user434871 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP BO/BI Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

It is the best product for business analysis and help to grow the business.

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it_user426543 - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP BW on HANA/BO Consultant at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Go ahead with it -- it’s a good product.

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it_user494226 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect with 1,001-5,000 employees

It is a really great suite with a lot of different options and a great user interface, but requires improvement on stability and scalability.

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it_user115764 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Check out the competition - SAP BO is expensive. View full review »
it_user252576 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence and Decision Support Team Leader at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

First, perform an analysis of your business users' requirements.

The data quality and your data warehouse models are the most important parts of a BI project. Design the model from both business requirements and source data. Make sure you involve business users from the beginning and explain the advantages of business intelligence to the data life-cycle well. Assign a short and attractive name to the web site and/or tool that users can remember easily and will like.

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VG
Sr. Software Engineer at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees

The implementation is much more fun when you know what kind of requirements you're going to process I think it is the best product on the market as it has good integration with ERP.

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it_user415707 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Business users can learn it very fast because it is easy to operate.

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DB
Entrepreneur at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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

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it_user489897 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant BI at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

If the business case calls for creating static reports/dashboards, this tool is awesome. If the business case is for dynamic reports/dashboards, I don't recommend it.

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Buyer's Guide
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
768,246 professionals have used our research since 2012.