SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Reviews and Pricing

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

Apr 26, 2016

The ad hoc capabilities using Web intelligence over universe is very productive.

What is most valuable?

I would say universe designer as I have used or looked at other vendor tools and they don't even come close. Semantic layer is their main heart of SAP Business Objects.

How has it helped my organization?

Not one tool can satisfy everyone, and this tool is no different but in my opinion the ad hoc capabilities using Web intelligence over universe is very productive as users can self serve themselves

What needs improvement?

The Dashboard tool Current Xcelsius is not so user and developer friendly and is very bad compared to other vendor products. It has been wonderful but they have to integrate it with the Big Data economy system to sustain it.

For how long have I used the solution?

This particular version six years, but I have been using Business Objects before SAP acquired for over 16 years ago.

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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We had no issues with the deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There have been no stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have had no issues scaling it for our needs.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

8/10

Technical Support:

8/10

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

It has been wonderful but they have to integrate it with the Big Data economy system to sustain it.

How was the initial setup?

It's straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

In house with a little help from professional services.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing and licensing is competitive with other solutions.

What other advice do I have?

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

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user26124

Business Objects Admin/Developer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 26, 2015

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Web intelligence is valuable but SAP patch methodology is horrific

What is most valuable?

Universe Designer
Web Intelligence
InfoView

How has it helped my organization?

Able to quickly create and publish reports using WebI. Eliminated most printed reports, they are now emailed or consumed online via InfoView. Has given users the ability to run reports on their own and get the information they need without having to ask IS.

What needs improvement?

Compatibility of Crystal Reports within BOE, especially when using universes and prompts – the prompts are turned into static values, not generated on-the-fly.

Scheduling functions. We have to maintain separate lists and custom apps of report schedules so that we know what’s scheduled when, and who is getting what reports. If a person leaves and is on distribution lists, we have to manually go through and remove/replace them. There is also no easy way to bulk re-schedule reports.

Report documentation must be manually maintained. Can’t EASILY find all reports using field X.

WebI needs a report template function so that basic re-used elements and formatting don’t have to be re-created with every report. Also need to be able to do more with custom SQL and merged dimensions.

SAP patch methodology is horrific, it was much better pre-SAP. As it is now, if you are on 6.1 and report a bug and it gets fixed in 6.2 you update and confirm it’s fixed. Then, a new release comes out and you update but because its cut-off date was prior to the date 6.2 fix, the fix isn’t included! Imagine trying to manage a system if you are waiting for multiple fixes. You can (we did!) end up with a system where major issues were finally fixed but other major problems not fixed and when the outstanding issues were finally resolved, the other previously addressed problems weren’t included in the newer update! It’s a maintenance and tracking headache.

For how long have I used the solution?

Approximately nine years -

BusinessObjects Enterprise 3.1 SP6 (CMC, LCM, WebI, CR, Universe Designer, Business View Manager, InfoView)

(previously used XI R2)

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Original XI R2 install was done by consultants, the install was a disaster and non-functional and we had to completely start over. Tech support walked us through doing it ourselves and we’ve managed it since. Biggest issue of the upgrade to 3.1 was functionality change in WebI merged dimensions, all reports using them broke and had to be re-written. Looked at upgrading to 4.0 over a year ago and installed in a sandbox, but the product did not function out of the box. It required massive reconfiguration of the default settings to run bare bones and there was no upgrade path to multi-source universes. As a result, we haven’t upgraded yet.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Rarely and was always due to bugs in new SP or FP. Current patch level is very stable.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

In a word, bad. Account reps constantly change and it’s impossible to find out who your current rep is. Phone calls and emails are not returned. At one point we were interested in buying additional licenses, but no one could/would help us. The licensing renewal process is severely lacking. They sent renewal emails to the wrong people, these are non-IS line staff not even on our account, and we have no idea how they even got their contact information. They refused to accept the PO that our accounting system generated, wanting one specially designed for them. Our purchasing agent, literally took a black sharpie and wrote all over the PO to meet their requirements. Who is the customer? Do they really want to make that sale? It doesn’t seem like it. Maybe we are too small for them to bother with?

Technical Support:

First level support is horrible. I avoid opening cases because of the bad experiences. I would typically find myself explaining very basic product functionality to the support personnel and in the end the response is always that they will consult their resources and get back to you. After going around in circles for days or weeks, the stock response is “it’s working as designed,” yet they can’t explain why. If you are lucky enough to get to higher level support (which is rare), they are very knowledgeable and able to quickly help get to the bottom of issues and find real solutions.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

No previous solution was used.

What about the implementation team?

Initially a vendor, recommended by BO. They had the product installed multiple times on the server, it was a mess and had to be completely blown away and reinstalled. Since then, we’ve done it in-house.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

H.Emre ArıkanBusiness Intelligence Specialist at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Jun 30, 2015

This review communicates real, hands-on experience.

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Paul Grill

President & CEO at Infosol Inc

May 3, 2024

Using Xcelsius dashboard instead of Qlikview

When I first started presenting Xcelsius dashboards back in 2006, I said that it should carry a warning sign stating “May Cause Xtreme Xcitement”!

Despite all the advances in technology and tools over the last decade that statement not only remains true today, but maybe should be changed to “Will Cause Xtreme Xcitement”.

In the last month, I have both seen and heard stories from companies singing the praises of Xcelsius and hailing it as the savior of BI user adoption in their organizations.

A company specializing in reporting and analysis of employee business travel was looking for a client facing BI application that would help sell their solution. The client showed me their current solution running in Qlikview bemoaning how rigid, limiting and unexciting it was to use. They then showed me an example of something they found on the web that was an animated PowerPoint dashboard much closer to what they were looking for. Of course, I recognized it as an Xcelsius dashboard embedded in PowerPoint immediately. It had been developed over seven years ago, but it still sizzled. So, we mocked up a new prototype in Xcelsius for the client and to say they loved it would be an understatement. The VP of Marketing came up with the best quote of the day when he said, “It’s alive!”

A multi-national vehicle leasing company developed a super cool Xcelsius dashboard for improving their vendor management with built-in location intelligence using the GMaps plug-in and the InfoBurst XML Data Caching for high data volume performance. They presented it at their annual sales meeting last month and it stole the show. The excitement generated was so contagious, the VP and Director responsible spent the evening at the bar designing the next dashboard together! (I can’t wait to see that one!).

A new finance director of a global software company needed a way to provide better visibility to their financial statements and reports. She remembered using Xcelsius many years ago and said it really helped then. We put a prototype together for her in a day and everyone loved it, so they are buying it next week.

So why is Xcelsius so amazing and still slaying the BI data visualization competition everywhere? There are dozens of reasons from its ease of use, animations, ability to embed in everything, fast prototyping to its “what if” scenarios and cool components. But it goes deeper than all these features which you can also find in other BI visualization tools. The real secret to the success of Xcelsius is that it was initially designed and developed by computer gamers. To develop a winning computer game, you need to engage your audience visually, make it cool and fun to use and have limitless possibilities. You can find all these elements in Xcelsius dashboards allowing you to create killer BI applications.

That is why Xcelsius dashboards is still the best show in town. Xcelsius lives!

Update Nov 2015 : Lots of activity around Xcelsius HTML5 for deployment on mobile and on desktop with dCode add-on (www.getdcode.com). Now that Xcelsius generates HTML5 output, I see it being around for many, many more years

Update April 2016 : Xcelsius continues to thrive with many organizations using and deploying it for the first time in 2016. SAP provided updates to it with latest BI 4.2 release including full support for Excel 2013

Update Sept. 2016 : Xcelsius HTML5 definitely seems to be the dashboard solution of choice and many new add-on HTML5 components are becoming available including D3 charts, flat components and query drag and drop discover.

Update Sept 2018 : Adobe announced end of life for Flash for Dec 31, 2020 and SAP announced it would no longer support Xcelsius after this date since the development client uses Flash. While some Xcelsius users are looking for a viable alternative solution, others vow to continue to use the tool regardless. There are some new Xcelsius compatible solutions in development so let's see what materializes in the coming months.

Update Feb 2019 : Xcelsius still heavily in use. Some companies looking to replace with Tableau or PowerBI but just not the same. Web Intelligence dashboards may be a viable alternative for simple dashboards .

Update July 2019 : SAP has announced it will no longer support Xcelsius after Dec. 31, 2020 to coincide with Adobe no longer supporting Flash in the browser. However, most Xcelsius users have been generating HTML5 dashboards for a number of years now and are continuing to do so and their Xcelsius HTML5 dashboards should not be affected. SAP has no equivalent follow-on product and is recommending customers move to SAC (cloud only) and rewrite their dashboards - this will require programming skills . An alternative to Xcelsius, called Squirrel, that requires no training for an existing Xcelsius developer and has a built-in XLF migration utility is due for beta release by InfoSol in October and will be GA in December.

Update Dec 2019 : Squirrel has been in beta for the last few weeks with multiple organizations and is scheduled for general release on Dec 31. Initial feedback is very positive with Xcelsius users who require no re-training to use it. They have been able to both migrate or recreate existing Xcelsius dashboards. This is great news for the Xcelsius community who now have another option when Flash goes away and SAP stops supporting Xcelsius in 2021.

Update May 2020 : Squirrel is now at version 1.3 with multiple Xcelsius customers having converted their dashboards and running with the Squirrel HTML5 versions in production. This appears to be a very viable path forward for those customers left with Xcelsius Flash dashboards that will probably no longer work starting in 2021.

Update Nov 2020 : Squirrel 1.6 which has a cloud based version and allows you to embed dashboards in PPT was just released last week. More and more Xcelsius customers have now successfully moved to Squirrel and companies like Salesforce are using it too. Xcelsius has about a month to go before Adobe and SAP stop all support.

Update June 2022 : Squirrel365 has now replaced hundreds of Xcelsius dashboards and has become the de facto follow-on solution for Xcelsius

Update May 2024 : Squirrel 365 can now be embedded in BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, Tableau and PowerBI bringing "What If" scenarios and write back capability to these traditional BI solutions

Disclaimer: My company is partners with several vendors including SAP BO.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner of SAP

it_user255801Works

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Nov 20, 2015

I absolutely would like to hear your point of view and anything you wish to share about the app.
I would like to know things like:

1) Is SAP Crystal Dashboard Design, personal edition 2013 really the upgrade to Engage 2008?

2) How is it possible that they are asking such an outrageous amount of money for it?

3) How is it so different to the Xcelsius dashboard presentation apps they offer for under $500?. Am I missing something?

4) What justifies the kind of money they are asking? I am interested in things like, a fully updated MAP component, brand new dashboards, the possibility of a video component to insert videos, and the like. I guess it is possible that they are including some arcane stuff I don't care about, but I am ready to be surprised by you.

Thanks

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Paul Grill

President & CEO at Infosol Inc

Mar 7, 2024

Once you are stable on a BusinessObjects release, it is worth staying there for a while

It is true that there are often challenges when upgrading between releases of BusinessObjects but this has always been the case as it has been for all the other BI and software application vendors too.

A few rules of thumb for BusinessObjects software are:

1. Never upgrade to an x.0 release - always wait for at least the x.1 release and even the first or second service pack of that release

2. Never attempt to perform a release upgrade if you have not done one before. Get training and experience first or use a reputable BO Consulting company

3. Experiment with the new release on a sandbox environment to become familiar with the changes and find any major issues before attempting a migration to production

Once you are stable on a BusinessObjects release, it is worth staying there for a while.

Update April 2014 : BusinessObjects BI 4.1 has been out for 8 months now and is looking like a stable release. Expect to see a lot of activity moving to this release over the next year.

Update September 2014 : BI 4.1 is now at Service Pack 4 (SP4) which corrected multiple issues in earlier service packs (SP2 and SP3). As more customers move to BI 4.1. more experience is gained and the platform improves. Main features attracting customers to BI 4.1 are improvements in Web Intelligence, Mobile Dashboard support and support of Desktop Intelligence.

Update February 2015 : BI 4.1 is now at Service Pack 6 (SP6). Both SP5 and 6 have been stable. Most BI 4.0 customers are also migrating to BI 4.1 and many more XI 3.1 customers are also migrating since XI 3.1 goes into a maintenance only support mode ( no more service packs or fix packs) after Dec. 31, 2015. The next major release BI 4.2 is currently scheduled for end of the year.

Update December 2015 : BI 4.1 SP7 has just been released. BI 4.2 is in Customer User Validation phase and will not be released until 2016. The jury is still out regarding if the quality of software updates has improved but new QA processes have been implemented by the SAP BusinessObjects development and support teams this year.

Update May 2016 : BI 4.2 SP2 was released at the end of March. There are quite a few new features including to the Upgrade Management Tool (UMT) which is used for migrating content from previous releases. It is now possible to handle incremental updates and moving certain types of content instead of all. There is also a new mechanism that allows part of the update to be performed while the system is still running. There is also a new Recycle bin feature for public folders in case you accidently delete a report. Organizations still running BusinessObjects XI 3.1 are now looking to go straight to BI 4.2.

Update October 2016 : BI 4.2 SP03 is now the latest version released at end of August. It has a lot of new features for a service pack including additional new functionality for Web Intelligence like cascading prompts for input controls, references and further enhancements to the new discussions. The Administrators cockpit has also been further enhanced to provide more options. So far, stability looks good.

Update April 2017 : SP03 has proven to be a relatively stable service pack that many BO customers have updated to. The next service pack, SP04 is now in beta and scheduled to be released in May. Again, it promises to have a bunch of new functionality for Web Intelligence including full parity between the Java and dhtml clients, an optional new UI and many new graphics

Update September 2017 : SP04 has now been available since May and there were additional quite a few code changes . The first release release had multiple issues. Some were addressed in the two subsequent Fix Packs that have been released. The general feeling was that it was not as stable as SP03. However SP04 was the first version that included SQL Server 2016 support so many customers wanted to install it.

Update February 2018 : SP05 was released in December and there were further enhancements particularly to the new optional HTML5 Fiori portal that can now be used for consuming BO reports. This first version has some issues around installation/upgrade but too early to judge its overall stability yet.

Update July 2018 : Like all the previous BI 4.2 Service Packs, SP05 had multiple issues when first released and really did not completely stabilize until Fix Pack 200 (after Fix Pack 100). It is now at Fix Pack 400 and SP06 is in beta testing and should be released soon.

Update December 2018 : SP06 is now the current BI 4.2 Service Pack update released late July. Like all the other service packs there were some initial issues and after a couple of fix pack updates, it now is quite stable. Like its predecessors it has a lot of additional functionality especially with the new Fiori HTML5 UI and Web Intelligence (more new charts like funnels, pyramids, intra-document links and more). Nice enhancements to BO Administrators Cockpit for usage/performance monitoring. Now BI 4.3 has been announced for release at end of 2019, the next service packs may be more maintenance fixes than new functionality.

Update June 2019 : SP07 was released a couple of months ago. Unlike previous BI 4.2 Service Packs this had a very small amount of new functionality and was mainly a maintenance update. Again the first version had a few issues but a fix pack has been released and customers are upgrading to it. The remaining 4.2 service packs are also supposed to be primarily maintenance updates and fixes as new functionality will be focused in the eagerly awaited BI 4.3 release now likely to be released in early 2020.

Update December 2019 : BI 4.2 SP07 remains the current release. There have been issues with some of the Fix Packs and it is best to go with the most current. The BI 4.3 open beta is due to start this month but GA is not expected until mid 2020 now. There should also be an SP08 update to BI 4.2 coming in early 2020.

Update April 2020 : BI 4.2 SP08 was released a few weeks back and despite it being primarily a maintenance release, SAP has included some interesting new features like a direct connector to Snowflake for Webi. Some early bugs in SP08 have been reported and the first fix patch 100 has just been released. There is still much anticipation for BI 4.3, the next major release due out this Summer.

Update September 2020 : BI 4.3 SP0 was released in June and has a radically different HTML6 UI that will take some getting use to. There are a lot of other new features including Webi as a data source allowing you to use universes on top of a Webi report. a few brave souls may try out an SP0 release but most will wait till at least SP2 due out mid 2021. BI 4.2 will continue as the dominant release for at least the next couple of years with SP9 coming out later this year.

Update September 2022 : BI 4.3 SP02 is now the current release with SP03 due for release in December. BusinessObjects BI 4.2 will go into Priority 1 support mode for 2 years starting Jan 1, 2023. In addition, SAP has announced the next major release after BI 4.3 which has been code-named BI 2024 and is die for release at end of 2024/beginning of 2025. This release like all previous BI 4 releases will run both on-premise and in the cloud. This effectively means the BusinessObjects roadmap is solid for at least the next 10 years which is a testimony to both the popularity and success of the product.

Update March 2024 : BI 4.3 SP04 is now the current release but since it has only been out a couple of months, not too many people are moving it to it yet. SP03 is now at patch level 900 and there have been some issues over the last year. Again, a lot of new functionality (and therefore new code) was delivered with both SP03 and SP04. The most significant was the new Data Tab mode in Web Intelligence which allows merging and transformation of data sources. You can join sources toigether with Left Join, Inner Join, Outer Join and Append. You can also profile your data and see disticts and nulls and apply simple transforms using a Replace option.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: My company is a SAP BO partner - http://www.infosol.com/about/partners/

it_user282606SAP BusinessObjects Reporting Cookbook Author at a media company with 501-1,000 employees

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Jul 30, 2015

The Free hand SQL is a none issue ,there are even better dynamic solutions for implementing free hand SQL with edit abilities even in Web intelligence 3.1

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reviewer1394319

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

Mar 22, 2022

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Simple setup, beneficial documentation, and scalable

Pros and Cons

"The features which the solution has been awesome. The way the data is fetched from the database, and the queries are executed, is unique using the Universe of Business Objects. That makes it unique and we could not find another solution that functions in a similar way. It's has a great way of receiving and executing queries."

"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is lacking dashboards and this would be the only reason we are looking for another solution."

What is our primary use case?

The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is useful for all kinds of analytics, reporting, and alerting.

What is most valuable?

The features which the solution has been awesome. The way the data is fetched from the database, and the queries are executed, is unique using the Universe of Business Objects. That makes it unique and we could not find another solution that functions in a similar way. It's has a great way of receiving and executing queries.

What needs improvement?

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is lacking dashboards and this would be the only reason we are looking for another solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform for approximately 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform depends on your infrastructure. However, the solution itself is very stable reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There are other solutions that can be implemented alongside SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform to make it more scalable, but in our environment, it's not used in that way.

We have approximately 500 to 1,000 users using this solution. We are working on this self-service BI strategy and therefore the number of users will be increased in the future.

How are customer service and support?

We sometimes receive technical bugs, especially with the new releases, and some patches are required. We then speak to BusinessObjects SAP support for assistance.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of the solution is simple and the documentation provided was straightforward. It was not a difficult task.

What about the implementation team?

The first time we used it when SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform was when it was not an SAP solution, it was owned by Business Strategies, we brought in consultants to deploy. Later we have created our own team who can manage the implementation.

We have one person who does the administration and upgrades of the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with.

We are on an annual subscription to use this solution.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

YogendraSingh

Head-IT/SAP at Barista Coffee Company Ltd.

Feb 18, 2022

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Easy to set up, included in the SAP portfolio, and good for analytics

Pros and Cons

"We find that we can scale it as needed."

"It could be a lighter solution."

What is our primary use case?

SAP BI product is basically for analytics. If your management wants to see the complete business's structure, what is going on in terms of business, what you are doing, everything you can have gathered by SAP BI. Management does not want to check entries. They want the ledgers. They want the numbers. The numbers and ledgers can be focused on via the analytics tool. We are using this type of functionality to gather management or partners' requirements.

What is most valuable?

SAP BI includes the SAP Portfolio. It's not a different product, it's a part of the same segment. Whenever you use SAP there is functionality to check the reporting part. That is SAP BI. It is an internal process.

The product has been stable.

We find that we can scale it as needed.

SAP is quite good in terms of manufacturing, in terms of retail, in terms of oil and gas sectors because the functionality is very user-friendly and the continuity of business with this ETL application is quite good.

The solution is constantly upgraded and updated.

In terms of setting up the solution, it's easy.

What needs improvement?

We'd like to have SAP notes better incorporated.

There is a lot of patching.

It could be a lighter solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using SAP for the last 17 years or so. We've been using SAP BI for ten or 11 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have found the product to be stable and reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so.

Not everyone in the company uses the product. SAP BI tool is used by only ten or 12 people, including the management layer - the CEO, CFO, COO, the VP of Supply Chain, and me.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. There's no need for them to be better or faster than they already are.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is quite straightforward and simple. It's not overly complex.

A complete portfolio will take about six months.

What about the implementation team?

We have an in-house team that is well versed in SAP and could handle any setup requirements.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The license is included with the SAP portfolio.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Narayansingh Bhandari

Manager IT (SAP) at CLASSIC MARBLE COMPANY PRIVATE LIMITED

May 23, 2021

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Scalable with good technical support and excellent reporting features

Pros and Cons

"The reporting features the solution offers are excellent."

"The solution could be less expensive. It's a bit pricey now."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for reports regarding sales inventory and production.

What is most valuable?

The reporting features the solution offers are excellent.

Technical support is quite good. They are responsive when we reach out.

The solution can scale.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution at the company for around six or seven years at this point. However, I've only used it for the last two years or so.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability isn't quite as good as it could be. It's not a perfectly scalable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is very easy to expand. It scales quite well. If a company needs to expand the solution, it can do so relatively easily.

I'm the only one who is using this solution and I'm publishing the reports and a few others are using Microsoft Analysis for SAP, doing the reports.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've used technical support in the past. I've found them to be responsive and knowledgeable. They are quite helpful. We're satisfied with the level of service we receive.

How was the initial setup?

I was not a part of the initial setup. I can't speak to how long the deployment was or how easy or difficult the process ended up being.

In terms of upgrading, we have no need to at this point.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing is paid on a yearly basis.

There is room for improvement in the pricing. It could be more reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Paul Kellett

Software Engineer at KIS Ltd

Jan 2, 2020

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Good reporting and promotes a common view of information across the organisation

Pros and Cons

"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."

"This solution is complex to configure and administer."

What is our primary use case?

I have several use cases, generally in more complex environments. These are typically corporate, requiring functionality such as strong data security, bursting, metadata-based support, scalability, fault tolerance, load balancing, support for high volume, breadth of functionality in one set of products, etc.

It has been used in Retail, Construction, Banks, and Insurance organisations.

It works well for organisations where a structured, common, and more disciplined view of larger, more complex information is required. This is generally with more complex and multiple source systems with larger volumes of information.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution provides much greater and faster access to information for a wide mixture of users. It supports and promotes a common view of information across the organisation. It also removes dependence on spreadsheets and technical resource for report generation.

It supports a wide range of types of users. It is particularly effective for information consumers. Ad Hoc information access and simpler self-service are well supported. Once we had the foundation in place, we also found we could provide most reports in under an hour for smaller company environments. Because of change control, the latter rarely happens in corporate environments but the effort involved was reduced.

What is most valuable?

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. It also provides a structured data security model whereby a single report provides dedicated results to a given usage, such as a branch or department-based. For instance, the same report will provide a branch-specific result depending on the user's branch and can be common to multiple branches.

Similarly, bursting enables provision of tailored static reporting to specific users or user groups that also includes data security.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for more than ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Reliability dropped in 2017-2018 with a major release but indications are that this has been addressed.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Very scalable across thousands (if not 10,000+) users and large data volumes.

How are customer service and technical support?

Average. Technical support from SAP is mediocre. The local support is decent.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've used many different BI solutions. The choice was the customer's.

How was the initial setup?

See earlier comments but a vanilla install is not too complex. The moment it is not vanilla it becomes quite complex. The SAP website for software management, downloads, licenses etc makes the Da Vinci Code look simple.

What about the implementation team?

Mix of contractors and vendor. The vendor is skillful though overworked resources.

What was our ROI?

No Idea

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Cost to setup and run is high as it is complex but then again one also gets a highly functional product. SAP do have a small business pricing so, at least, the licensing is not too expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The most comparable product is MicroStrategy, which is frankly a better technical product but has not been as commercially successful outside of large sites.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Senior BI consultant