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SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence vs Workday Prism Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (4th)
Workday Prism Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence is 2.7%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday Prism Analytics is 0.9%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence2.7%
Workday Prism Analytics0.9%
Other96.4%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

TarunKumar7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at LTI LATAM and Toubro Improtech
Data insights have driven faster financial forecasts and improved role-based decision making
The best features SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform offers include cross-enterprise sharing, where sharing insights is easier and seamless across my organization, and creating role-based dashboards. The role-based dashboards help my team and organization by providing information to specific users, allowing them to make decisions more easily, anytime, anywhere, across any device. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to perform financial reporting to make decisions faster. Since we started using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, we have been able to make faster, data-driven business decisions based on actual data insights and data analysis, which has accelerated our ability to make better decisions for our business productivity.
Sarvesh Kumar Jha - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technology Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers
Provides great flexibility in terms of data transformation
I really like the flexibility the solution provides in terms of data transformation. Workday introduced Prism Analytics mainly because many clients wanted to merge data from different systems and then work with it to get some insights out of it. For that, they previously used tools like Power BI. Workday Prism Analytics gives you the power to do all the data transformations within Workday itself without taking out crucial data to a third system. I really like the way Workday has enabled Prism Analytics to be that one solution where you can bring everything. It also provides you the flexibility that things like the security model of Workday are still in place. You don't have to redo your security configuration if you do the data transformation outside Workday.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The common metadata environment means that the entire organisation has the same definition of core measures rather than these being derived in spreadsheets or specific reports."
"I have seen improvement in our work after using the solution."
"The most valuable function of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is the universe, so customers can build their own reports without programming skills."
"Web Intelligence for its ad-hoc ability and user interface for allowing business users to create reports without depending on the IT department."
"Crystal Report and the enterprise reporting is very good, it's very detailed."
"The combination of IDT and Web Intelligence has taken some of the burden of report creation off of our central data team."
"The feature that allows pivot users to create the report dashboards and run them when they want with a lot of flexibility with the drill-downs is very useful. The drill-down features are very good because, in other solutions, such as Excel, you have to create separate pivot tables and a lot of other operations to do drill-downs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform tool does the drill-downs automatically. Overall the solution is user-friendly and has a lot of drag and drop features."
"During the first of the 10 years we used it, it was a very valuable reporting product."
"The solution is stable and reliable, with minimal issues affecting its performance."
"The customer service and support are pretty good."
"The product is easier to use compared to other applications."
"Feature-wise, I feel that the solution's stability is good."
"I really like the flexibility the solution provides in terms of data transformation."
 

Cons

"It needs to become more user friendly. Currently, it is very cumbersome to use."
"Lot of issues, because it is a huge product."
"Technical support may not always be timely or effective."
"Its price should be better. It is expensive and not cost-effective."
"According to our experience, SAP BO is too heavy and very difficult for customers with medium, or smaller-sized businesses to install and maintain."
"More thorough testing of Service Packs before release."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform can be improved in that the user interface needs much improvement, as not everyone has a complete understanding of the components."
"Previously there was the Discussion board function, but it was not good and no one used it."
"One area for improvement in the solution is the ability to manually update individual rows or columns of data once it has been uploaded."
"When you create certain objects, a lot of the time, the fields are text. They’re not numeric, date, or any other field type"
"There is not much flexibility in how we can add external data within Workday Prisma Analytics."
"It is not a very scalable product."
"The visualization techniques must be upgraded."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an expensive application."
"I have always found SAP BI to be expensive. It is expensive even when you compare SAP BI Cloud with Microsoft Power BI. Power BI is probably around $9.99 per month, and the cheapest SAP BI is around $20, which is double. In terms of price, Power BI is definitely a lot better. If you have budget issues, you may want to go for Power BI."
"It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."
"Its price is fair."
"We purchase licenses through Epic. So, we get an Epic price as opposed to the SAP price. If we were going to use other products like Webby that they offer or exclusively use BI Launch Pad, it would cost a lot because half of our employees would touch it in some fashion. So, we use Epic-Crystal integration to keep the licensing cost down. I believe the BI Launch Pad licensing is something like $800 for each, and the Crystal Report licensing is something like $500 for each, but that's not what we pay."
"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."
"It has an option of a Cloud Platform (SAP Analytics Cloud) which has a lower price than the on-premise platform, and you can buy individual licences per user.​"
"The solution is very expensive."
"Based on whatever I have heard, Workday Prism Analytics is considered an expensive tool."
"I do not know of the licensing cost, but there are additional costs like 5,00,000 for recruitment modules."
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Comparison Review

it_user6663 - PeerSpot reviewer
BI Expert at a transportation company with 51-200 employees
May 25, 2013
SAP Business Objects vs. Microsoft BI
A quick look at the whole idea on another weblogs gives you a sense that all of them just talked about very brief things like report refresh feature in BO or cube feature in MS Analysis Service. I choose MS BI and I want to share my reasons and opinions on why I choose it and give you another quick…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise67
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Workday Prism Analytics?
Based on whatever I have heard, Workday Prism Analytics is considered an expensive tool. In fact, that has been one of the hindrance factors for Workday in making Prism Analytics more sellable.
What needs improvement with Workday Prism Analytics?
I think there are still some gaps in the solution. There is not much flexibility in how we can add external data within Workday Prisma Analytics. For now, Workday has enabled the SFTP server and Am...
What is your primary use case for Workday Prism Analytics?
As a consultant, I use Prism Analytics to implement my client systems. I first have design sessions with them, where we discuss their business gaps and then understand how Workday Prism Analytics c...
 

Also Known As

SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
Prism Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Denny's
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence vs. Workday Prism Analytics and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.