Easy to set up, good reporting, and very efficient
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case for BusinessObjects today is for comprehensive Business Intelligence reporting. Most organizations using BusinessObjects today primarily use Web Intelligence or Crystal Reports or both for critical enterprise reporting and ad-hoc query and analysis.
We managed multiple BO deployments for multiple organizations, from the local and federal government to healthcare providers and from insurance to manufacturing.
In all these organizations, timely and accurate reporting is essential, and BusinessObjects is solid, reliable, and versatile. You can produce professional drillable formatted reports quickly and either interact with them or publish and distribute them in commodity formats like PDF and Excel.
How has it helped my organization?
They've made it more efficient and able to respond to both report and ad-hoc requests in a timely fashion.
The world still runs on reports. Reports are needed for financial statements, compliance, auditing, and dozens of other areas.
BusinessObjects has proven to be a report engine powerhouse where we can quickly create these reports and get them to the right destination in the right format.
The speed of turning around report requests has really had the most impact on the organizations we manage.
What is most valuable?
The semantic layer or BusinessObjects universe behind the Web Intelligence report provides the ability to create contexts and calculations that can be easily shared across multiple reports.
The ability to merge dimensions in a report is great.
The new features in BI 4.3 that allow you to use a Web Intelligence report as a data source have helped to create "master" reports that can be delivered to casual users, who can then create their own derived reports from this "master" report.
Shared Elements allow commonly used charts, tables, and graphs to be saved and re-used in other reports.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using BusinessObjects almost as long as the product has existed - 30 years, believe it or not. The most current version BI 4.3 has been out for just over 18 months and is currently at Service Pack 4 (SP4) which was released in December 2023.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. After 30+ years of development, this is a very solid platform.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
BusinessObjects scales all the way from one or two users to global enterprises with hundreds of thousands of users.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is not bad. Sometimes the responsiveness could be better. Once someone is assigned to the call, it is handled well.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is straightforward after you have done it at least once. You would need some hand-holding the first time.
What about the implementation team?
We are the vendor team that helps with implementation.
What was our ROI?
We saw an ROI within six to 12 months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Very reasonable compared to other BI solutions/tools
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
What other advice do I have?
The next release BI 2025 became available in March 2025 and has even more features and functionality. Evaluating it now
Enterprise solution for BI reporting
What do you like best about the product?
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
What do you dislike about the product?
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.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
we are using SAP BO as a legacy reporting tool and were moving the new requirements to Qlikview/Tableau/PowerBI. Crystal reports were migrated to SAP BO as Crystal reports required high maintenance.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
There are better solution available in market as of now, please check them.
SAP Business onjectives review
What do you like best about the product?
SAP business objects business intelligence is user friendly, it's easy to make a manual out of it!
What do you dislike about the product?
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.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It's very helpful when it's comes to analysis especially when the data is with complexity. It's easy to determine and to present data which can be understand by the users of the information.
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.
Great for data management and reporting
What do you like best about the product?
Great for data management and reporting. Makes query easy.
What do you dislike about the product?
Hard to format and build reports. it's time consuming. Not very yet friendly.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We are using this to data mine and query across several databases.
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.
Powerful tool, but the UI is cumbersome
What do you like best about the product?
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.
What do you dislike about the product?
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.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
This tool is used to mine data from our enterprise system, primarily for those people who cannot use SQL developer and craft their own complex queries. We primarily use this tool for analysis and not particularly for reporting. In other words, data analytics.
