While SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform offers powerful reporting features, I believe there is room for improvement in providing more user-friendly and versatile reporting options. Currently, users might face limitations and complexities in developing specific use cases within SAP. Unlike other business intelligence tools such as Power BI, SAP could enhance flexibility, allowing users to seamlessly integrate data from various sources like CRM systems, providing a more dynamic and adaptable reporting environment for users.
Software Engineer at a mining and metals company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
2023-08-24T14:24:20Z
Aug 24, 2023
The financial area in the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement. The solution's financial area needs to improve because a lot of the segment reports have been working with the finance part, so a lot of projects can be done now that our company couldn't do in the past. Sometimes, there is a possibility that our company has to share some files with certain external users, and we find it hard to provide them with all the information that they want even after using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement. The machine learning part in the solution is an area of concern that should be considered for improvement.
Some configurations related to business objects are a little tricky. Integrations with things like Active Directory and LDAP tend to be a little complex. There's not enough documentation available on the net.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has always struggled with dashboarding. I think SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is already working on that, and they have improved a lot from where they were, but there's still a long way to go.
We would like to see the semantic layer opened up to other popular BI tools like Tableau and PowerBI. This integration makes a lot of sense for most organizations. We would also like to see a native version of BusinessObjects and Web Intelligence created for the cloud. It would be nice to see some native integration with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and capabilities to really take Web Intelligence to the next level of Business Intelligence. This could be integrated with existing popular AI tools instead of new development.
Learn what your peers think about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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.
The performance could be improved, like when we extract a large amount of data. Especially in the last project, what I've seen is multi-source. If we are developing a universe, based on Db2, SQL, Oracle and SAP BW, and developing a report on top of the multi-source universe, then there are some performance-related issues and data federation service instability. There is a data federation administration tool, but that configuration is not very easy to use. That needs to be improved. The solution could be more user-friendly. Right now, there is self-service functionality like how we have in Tableau, and a split view. Whatever the self-service functionalities, that needs to be improved. SAP has apparently improved it in version 4.3, but I haven't tested it.
System Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2021-12-27T19:55:10Z
Dec 27, 2021
It is limited for us because SAP is shifting toward the cloud, and we can't use a cloud solution for SAP BusinessObjects. SAP introduced a product called PlusTimes one or two years ago and another one that I believe was called Automatic BI. This tool is more powerful than BusinessObjects and other tools because it's provided in the cloud.
BusinessObject Delivery Dev. at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2021-11-19T13:10:19Z
Nov 19, 2021
BusinessObjects originated in France, and then it was bought by SAP, a German company. Some things don't totally fit into the American culture of software development. For example, German software always uses detailed steps, whereas Oracle and Microsoft are very straightforward. Everything in this tool is stepwise. There are so many steps, but it is pretty good functionally.
Analytics Manager at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Real User
2021-11-02T08:56:36Z
Nov 2, 2021
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.
Data Science Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2021-09-10T17:50:00Z
Sep 10, 2021
In terms of what could be improved, it would be good if they could integrate the possibility for end users to create end models for themselves that they can use, especially for site operators, and if they could provide the end user not only the self-service BI, but also the self-service analytics, based on a predefined model, the same way that Oracle did (I manage Oracle, as well), because I like that feature with Oracle. I would like them to implement analytics the same as Oracle does and have the machine learning model within their Web Intelligence.
Global Product Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2021-07-13T12:35:37Z
Jul 13, 2021
According to our experience, SAP BO is too heavy and very difficult for customers with medium, or smaller-sized businesses to install and maintain. It is such a heavy reporting tool. Even though they provide the business layer, it's difficult for the programmer to create their own business layer. It's too complex for them. They need to simplify this. The user interface should be easier to use and navigate. The initial setup is difficult. Technical support could be more responsive.
Manager IT (SAP) at CLASSIC MARBLE COMPANY PRIVATE LIMITED
Real User
Top 20
2021-05-21T14:38:14Z
May 21, 2021
We are not on the latest patch, the latest version. There are different pain points, such as data loading or inventory issues. It can take a lot of time to load. The solution could be less expensive. It's a bit pricey now.
Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
2021-03-03T04:12:13Z
Mar 3, 2021
I don't like the fact that I have to use two tools. Web Intelligence is good for reporting and all kinds of stuff, but I would rather have one product. All the reporting features of Web Intelligence should be developed within Lumira. A lot of predictive abilities have been brought into the cloud version of SAP Analytics. It would be nice to see a lot of newer technologies and AI. Predictive capabilities are becoming a little more standard. Instead of having to get another model, we are just looking for one solution to deal with analytics including predictive.
Gerente de BI at a government with 201-500 employees
Real User
2021-02-10T07:21:12Z
Feb 10, 2021
The basic components of the solution could be improved. The UI could be updated a bit. I can't think of any features that are currently missing from the product at this time.
Entrepreneur at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
2021-02-02T17:51:16Z
Feb 2, 2021
Its price should be better. It is expensive and not cost-effective. It should also be improved in terms of end-user experience. It requires further improvements for usability and ease of use. It should have more dashboarding metrics and much faster integration with ERP so that when you double click, you can instantly see the scenario-based result.
Associate Manager at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2021-01-27T16:57:15Z
Jan 27, 2021
Its data visualization tool is not as good as Power BI and Tableau. Currently, for data visualization, you need to spend more money to buy another solution such as Power BI or Tableau. It is also very hard to integrate it with other third-party solutions. Its integration with other solutions should be improved.
Business Intelligence Functional Manager BU SAP at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
MSP
2020-10-27T17:56:19Z
Oct 27, 2020
The self-service area, or dashboard, needs some improvement. While the reporting itself is great, the dashboard and Analytics Cloud are not so user friendly. SAP's current strategy consists in keeping the reporting part On premise and delegating the Analytics part to the Cloud. You are therefore involved in a hybrid scenario. The complete environment setup is pretty complex. To carry out a real project that presents erp / business data on "Cloud Story Telling" you need more specialist actors who manage issues such as: Analytics and Data architecture, Data source identification, System Compatibility, Connectivity and Security. These aspects are certainly also required on other vendor BI solutions. On the SAP front, we are certainly trying to improve and complete the On Premise / Cloud integration, with the latest version SAP BO 4.3.
This solution is complex to configure and administer. It is even more so, I believe, than it should be, even with such a complex product. As an example it has many server processes (typically 15+). In Windows these are not services rather they are individual processes managed via a single service called the SIA. Each server process can be separately configured and performs a specific set of functions It uses Java constructions for specific customisations such as default reporting formats and using SSL for burst email reports. This requires a broad set of skills to set-up. It is rather cryptic in its error handling when there are issues that require trawling through a number of voluminous log files that are accessed from the server.
Team Leader at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
2018-07-25T07:31:00Z
Jul 25, 2018
SAP BusinessObjects is actually losing popularity within our company because people find the user interface and the way things are set up not to be as easy as many other tools that are on the market, like Qlik and things like that. In addition, we would definitely like to be able, through the tool, to show more metadata, and access a data dictionary directly from the tool. Also, a user should see data lineage, because we have found out that the abstraction being done in the Universes is sometimes too much for the more specific kind of users. They want to see the origin of the data.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is a versatile and flexible solution for reporting and dashboards, focusing on analytics and ad hoc reporting. It can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud. The solution includes tools such as Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, SAP Lumira, and Analytical Cloud and is primarily used for comprehensive business intelligence reporting.
The most valuable features include excellent reporting features, good technical support, scalability, and the...
While SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform offers powerful reporting features, I believe there is room for improvement in providing more user-friendly and versatile reporting options. Currently, users might face limitations and complexities in developing specific use cases within SAP. Unlike other business intelligence tools such as Power BI, SAP could enhance flexibility, allowing users to seamlessly integrate data from various sources like CRM systems, providing a more dynamic and adaptable reporting environment for users.
The financial area in the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement. The solution's financial area needs to improve because a lot of the segment reports have been working with the finance part, so a lot of projects can be done now that our company couldn't do in the past. Sometimes, there is a possibility that our company has to share some files with certain external users, and we find it hard to provide them with all the information that they want even after using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement. The machine learning part in the solution is an area of concern that should be considered for improvement.
Some configurations related to business objects are a little tricky. Integrations with things like Active Directory and LDAP tend to be a little complex. There's not enough documentation available on the net.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has always struggled with dashboarding. I think SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is already working on that, and they have improved a lot from where they were, but there's still a long way to go.
The solution is more difficult to use than other products.
We would like to see the semantic layer opened up to other popular BI tools like Tableau and PowerBI. This integration makes a lot of sense for most organizations. We would also like to see a native version of BusinessObjects and Web Intelligence created for the cloud. It would be nice to see some native integration with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and capabilities to really take Web Intelligence to the next level of Business Intelligence. This could be integrated with existing popular AI tools instead of new development.
The initial setup could be simplified.
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.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is lacking dashboards and this would be the only reason we are looking for another solution.
We'd like to have SAP notes better incorporated. There is a lot of patching. It could be a lighter solution.
The solution can improve by having more analytical features.
The performance could be improved, like when we extract a large amount of data. Especially in the last project, what I've seen is multi-source. If we are developing a universe, based on Db2, SQL, Oracle and SAP BW, and developing a report on top of the multi-source universe, then there are some performance-related issues and data federation service instability. There is a data federation administration tool, but that configuration is not very easy to use. That needs to be improved. The solution could be more user-friendly. Right now, there is self-service functionality like how we have in Tableau, and a split view. Whatever the self-service functionalities, that needs to be improved. SAP has apparently improved it in version 4.3, but I haven't tested it.
It is limited for us because SAP is shifting toward the cloud, and we can't use a cloud solution for SAP BusinessObjects. SAP introduced a product called PlusTimes one or two years ago and another one that I believe was called Automatic BI. This tool is more powerful than BusinessObjects and other tools because it's provided in the cloud.
BusinessObjects originated in France, and then it was bought by SAP, a German company. Some things don't totally fit into the American culture of software development. For example, German software always uses detailed steps, whereas Oracle and Microsoft are very straightforward. Everything in this tool is stepwise. There are so many steps, but it is pretty good functionally.
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.
Tableau was easier for me to use because the interface is more similar to Excel which I was used to using.
In terms of what could be improved, it would be good if they could integrate the possibility for end users to create end models for themselves that they can use, especially for site operators, and if they could provide the end user not only the self-service BI, but also the self-service analytics, based on a predefined model, the same way that Oracle did (I manage Oracle, as well), because I like that feature with Oracle. I would like them to implement analytics the same as Oracle does and have the machine learning model within their Web Intelligence.
According to our experience, SAP BO is too heavy and very difficult for customers with medium, or smaller-sized businesses to install and maintain. It is such a heavy reporting tool. Even though they provide the business layer, it's difficult for the programmer to create their own business layer. It's too complex for them. They need to simplify this. The user interface should be easier to use and navigate. The initial setup is difficult. Technical support could be more responsive.
We are not on the latest patch, the latest version. There are different pain points, such as data loading or inventory issues. It can take a lot of time to load. The solution could be less expensive. It's a bit pricey now.
Their WebGUI presentation layer could be improved. They are still a little bit behind, for example, Tableau and QlikView.
I don't like the fact that I have to use two tools. Web Intelligence is good for reporting and all kinds of stuff, but I would rather have one product. All the reporting features of Web Intelligence should be developed within Lumira. A lot of predictive abilities have been brought into the cloud version of SAP Analytics. It would be nice to see a lot of newer technologies and AI. Predictive capabilities are becoming a little more standard. Instead of having to get another model, we are just looking for one solution to deal with analytics including predictive.
The basic components of the solution could be improved. The UI could be updated a bit. I can't think of any features that are currently missing from the product at this time.
Its price should be better. It is expensive and not cost-effective. It should also be improved in terms of end-user experience. It requires further improvements for usability and ease of use. It should have more dashboarding metrics and much faster integration with ERP so that when you double click, you can instantly see the scenario-based result.
Its data visualization tool is not as good as Power BI and Tableau. Currently, for data visualization, you need to spend more money to buy another solution such as Power BI or Tableau. It is also very hard to integrate it with other third-party solutions. Its integration with other solutions should be improved.
The self-service area, or dashboard, needs some improvement. While the reporting itself is great, the dashboard and Analytics Cloud are not so user friendly. SAP's current strategy consists in keeping the reporting part On premise and delegating the Analytics part to the Cloud. You are therefore involved in a hybrid scenario. The complete environment setup is pretty complex. To carry out a real project that presents erp / business data on "Cloud Story Telling" you need more specialist actors who manage issues such as: Analytics and Data architecture, Data source identification, System Compatibility, Connectivity and Security. These aspects are certainly also required on other vendor BI solutions. On the SAP front, we are certainly trying to improve and complete the On Premise / Cloud integration, with the latest version SAP BO 4.3.
This solution is complex to configure and administer. It is even more so, I believe, than it should be, even with such a complex product. As an example it has many server processes (typically 15+). In Windows these are not services rather they are individual processes managed via a single service called the SIA. Each server process can be separately configured and performs a specific set of functions It uses Java constructions for specific customisations such as default reporting formats and using SSL for burst email reports. This requires a broad set of skills to set-up. It is rather cryptic in its error handling when there are issues that require trawling through a number of voluminous log files that are accessed from the server.
Over the years, the product tends to rename and rebrand itself and change its direction. This is a deficit of the solution.
The combination of Lumira along with Design Studio merger last year still needs development from a visualization standpoint.
SAP BusinessObjects is actually losing popularity within our company because people find the user interface and the way things are set up not to be as easy as many other tools that are on the market, like Qlik and things like that. In addition, we would definitely like to be able, through the tool, to show more metadata, and access a data dictionary directly from the tool. Also, a user should see data lineage, because we have found out that the abstraction being done in the Universes is sometimes too much for the more specific kind of users. They want to see the origin of the data.