SAP Data Services Reviews

It is a very widely used tool. We mostly use it for integration purposes between various systems and for data migration. One of the recent use cases is about the AWS database that we are trying to establish. We need the data from various on-premise systems, and SAP is one of them, which is majorly used. We want to put that data into our data lake.

We are not using the cataloging and metadata features much. We have a separate data cataloging tool.

Its integration capabilities and the data migration capabilities are the most valuable. It is very good for SAP and non-SAP tools. It has very good integration with SAP, but it also has the capabilities to connect to other systems. We find it very helpful and stable.

The skillset of data engineers matters a bit to use all the functionality of this solution. Otherwise, the delivery speed won't be faster. 

I have been using this solution for eight to ten years.

It is a very stable solution.

It is scalable.

We are getting responses from them. There were one or two issues that were very critical, and we got the needed attention from them. 

We also have other ETL tools, such as Informatica, that are being used in other teams, but SAP Data Services is the main solution that we are using. I have not heard any complaints about it.

We, fortunately, have a very good team in our organization, which makes it easy for us to implement.

It is a part of an enterprise agreement. There is another department that handles its maintenance.

Its pricing is as per the enterprise agreement and not a concern for us.

Overall, we have good experience and feedback. We have very skilled engineers in our team, and I haven't heard any kind of negative feedback about this solution.

I would rate SAP Data Services an eight out of ten.

We use the solution as a tool to do the deployment for the reports.

While we deal mostly with banks, who do not need complex analytics (their reports are largely static). It's useful for telecoms or other sectors that need to monitor daily trends. However, once designed, the banks can use the same report on a daily basis to see their somewhat static results quite easily.

We really like this product. Whenever we have customers, no matter where they are in the world, we suggest this app and we implement SAP for them.

The solution offers very good integration capabilities.

It's a quality product.

After working with the tool for so many years, I can say that overall their services are a really good deal. They continue to enhance their services regularly and are always improving their offering.

The tools that are provided are some of the best on the market and the pricing is really great.

In terms of data integration or other tools, we have a road map and we send out requests for enhancements through our marketing team who is involved in the process.

There should be some kind of enhancement that can be done on the admin side of certain sites where we can assign the roles and responsibilities. We should be able to control who is using the tool and how.

We have used the solution for ten to 12 years. I myself started with SAP in 2006.

The stability of the solution is excellent. There aren't bugs or glitches that I have seen. The system doesn't crash. Organizations can rely on its performance.

The scalability of the solution is very good. If an organization needs to expand it further after implementation, they shouldn't have any issues. 

We've never had to contact technical support. We have our own team in-house. If there are queries, we tend to resolve them ourselves or use SAP's portal.

We've never really faced any difficulty that would require us to involve SAP directly.

Initially, we did have a few issues around Arabic localization and Arabic values, but once we resolved it, we didn't find many other issues. Most of the reports, the layouts, the data headers, etc. are now in Arabic and it's no problem. 

For myself, I find the initial setup quite simple. However, I have many years under my belt working directly with the product. Someone with beginner-level knowledge might find it a bit challenging. In general, however, it's easy, not difficult.

The length of deployment depends on the organization and requirements. It does take a few days, but some projects are longer than others. It really depends on the client's needs. Each situation is unique.

We're a technical team, so we aren't directly involved in the prices or cost of the solution. Our marketing department handles the details and negotiates prices with SAP. They try to get reductions to lower pricing in the contracts. I have no idea what the exact amount is our company pays on a monthly or yearly basis.

Currently, I am doing some research into an Oracle solution that a client is asking about. While we focus on SAP, they are interested in this Oracle tool. I've been doing some analysis into it to compare the two solutions in case the bank decides that they do indeed want to migrate from SAP to Oracle. 

We are already an SAP gold partner. We have a significant level of partnership with SAP. We also used to do the reports for SAP. This is the only tool that we suggest to our clients and we do the implementation for banks in the Middle East. Nearly all customers have the same tool that we use. We are one of the leading banking software providers in the region.

We do not work with the cloud. We do local installations only. We don't use anything on the cloud because banks normally have policies in place where they cannot share with the cloud for security and risk aversion reasons. 

It is one of the nicest tools on the market and people really should use it.

As compared to the other tools it is easier to implement and easier to understand. It's very efficient especially if you are looking at performance and stability. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I'd give it perfect marks, but there is always room for some more enhancements.

SAP Data Services is a very general tool for SAP as a source and SAP as a destination. It can also connect to any source and any destination. This is a very valuable aspect of the solution.

The logic is simple. It makes it easy to build your extraction.

You can also do data transformation any way you want to. You can do any kind of transformation to your data and you can change the data.

There is a new tool that is going to replace this one, which will be more for platform integration data services. This is a close-knit tool that SAP is suggesting for different solutions. There's a lot lacking in it. You cannot do a lot of transformations. We are facing a lot of issues from that. As a whole, Data Services, is good, but not the platform integration of the Data Services aspect.

The preview for on-prem data services needs more information. The scheduling is also weak. Scheduling of jobs in the sequence is not available. It's a very tedious process to do that particular task. If there was a tool to schedule in the sequence that would be extremely helpful. 

The system is very stable. We have not faced any challenges since implementation.

Scalability is not an issue with this solution.

We have not used a single technical support call for SAP, which is great. As a whole, technical support was good, but recently we have been facing a delay because unless you raise a call with a very high priority there is a delay in the support. A very high priority means you have a financial loss or your computer system is not accessible. I would say the quality of support has been degrading as of late but we are somewhat satisfied with support overall.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not too complex.

SAP services handled the implementation. It was part of a larger implementation called a Systems Operations Planning Tool.

We use the on-premises version of the solution. We have started using the Cloud Platform Integration with the CPA Data Service. It's a hybrid: both on-premises and cloud.

SAP Data Services has a tool, but it is not a cloud-capable solution. I would advise users thinking about integrating this solution to look at your entire landscape. If you have any cloud systems as part of your landscape, then you need to have a clear understanding of what BODS is capable of doing. BODS Data Services is not good for the cloud.

I would rate this solution seven out of ten because cloud integration is not available and the scheduling part is very immature at this point.

We load data from databases into our data warehouse.

The most valuable feature is the ETL functionality.

Dealing with the REST API is not easy with Data Services.

It is mandatory to have a WADL file and it is difficult to find this file and set it up.

I would like to see a better connection with the API and the use of XML files.

It's an ETL that is very good with relational databases but not as good with files and semi-structured files. 

Also, the support could be better.

I have been working with SAP Data Services for 15 years.

We have a SaaS company doing level one support.

I have not had an exchange with SAP support. I deal with my local support, and when there is a problem, they escalate the issue to SAP technical support. 

I don't deal with SAP support directly.

Previously, I had used another ETL solution.

The initial setup was straightforward and easy to complete.

The price is very reasonable.

I would rate SAP Data Services an eight out of ten.

Our primary use is for storing incidents and all of the financial information that accompany them.

We do maintenance on buildings and our customers call if there is a problem. Each time a call comes in we log the incident, solve the problem, and later invoice the customer.

The most valuable feature is the logging capability. We use it for logging incidents.

The interface is not quite user-friendly and is in need of improvement. 

In the next release of this solution, I would like to have a planning tool.

I have been using SAP Data Services for two years.

With respect to stability, we have not had any problems.

We have not had issues with scalability.

We have our own technical support group, so I have not been in contact with SAP for support.

We are currently evaluating ServiceNow to see if it meets our needs and has a better user interface.

This is not a solution I recommend for incident management. SAP works well for the financial side of the business, but for anybody who is researching solutions for incident management, I suggest that they use another product.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

The solution has very good dashboards. They have a good refresh rate - after every 300 articles.

The reporting on the data, even from third-party software, is very good.

The solution should offer more machine learning and automation.

The solution should add more cognitive analytics, particularly on the RPA. It should allow for data to be picked up in Outlook and processed in SAP, then communicated via any third-party software. This will help with decision making and retrieve the data per the requirements of the user.

The existing ERP doesn't have any capabilities. The features of RPA need to be built into ERP. It's lagging in not just this solution, but almost all software.

I primarily use the solution for building data cubes from existing third party software at SAP and consolidating different stages on queries.

The solution is stable.

We do plan to increase usage in the future.

We interact with technical support regularly and often reach out about two times a week. Their support office is very close to ours in Bangalore. We've been very satisfied with their level of service.

We did previously use a different solution. We switched because Data Service has a lot of upcoming technology and there's a good market for their services currently.

The solution is straightforward to set up. A lot of research needs to go into the work, however. A standard deployment takes a few months.

We had our own consultants assist with the implementation. They have a lot of knowledge about SAP and SAP environments for building a gateway.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

SAP Data Services predominantly works for event tracking or training environments. However, if you're talking about social media, where there needs to be a lot of understanding about the data, you could build this solution into that area as well. You will just need a lot of research and development.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. If they build in cognitive capabilities and went beyond just reporting on the dashboard, I'd rate it higher.

The maintenance of data services is the solution's most valuable feature.

The solution should allow for better integration with other analysis tools. It needs to integrate better specifically with big data and other management solutions.

The pricing of the solution should be improved.

I've been using the solution for seven years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

Technical support could be a bit better. We haven't been completely satisfied with them.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

I’m not an SAP consultant but I have quite a long experience with SAP projects. I've been working in IT for 20 years (HP Services / DXC) and I have a lot of contacts with SAP customers so my opinion is based rather on my experience of real SAP implementations not based on a deep knowledge of SAP technology abilities. I’m a business consultant technology agnostic and very often my customers asking me for advice in the scope of a transformation of their IT environment.

Most of our customers are dealing with a huge amount of data so we usually apply the solution to enterprise companies that have SAP technology and they are usually SAP customers. It's not separate analytics that can be applied to another ERP system. 

Usually, between five and 10% of employees in a particular company will be using the solution, it will be slightly higher when the solution is applied in the retail sector. It really depends on the company. Some are based on IT technology and others provide a more operational or production base. In these companies, there is a utilization of analytics. It strongly depends on the company's activities. 

The HANA database, which is very fast, is a valuable feature. I think it's very useful and gives the customer a lot of options. I like the dashboard, it's very convenient. 

Integration with other products could be improved. Often we need to apply analytics for the data coming directly from production. The product could be improved by providing employees with a more simplified ability to build reports.

SAP is a very powerful system and definitely first class for big companies. Its wide scope of functionality and models adjusted to different business activities give SAP a leading position within extended ERP systems. From the other side, such a wide range of modules and functionality generates difficulties in implementation and real full utilization of all system possibilities. An example of this is with my last customer that I discussed with two weeks ago – one of the biggest logistics and retail companies in Poland. They implemented SAP seven years ago. They bought a wide scope of modules with some logistic extensions and up to now, they pay very expensive maintenance for licenses. In reality, they didn’t implement SAP in the scope of owned licenses because they finally find the system too inflexible to adopt applications to their business processes. As a result, they utilize core ERP, HR, BW and a small portion of APO while the rest of the modules that are not implemented are exchanged with Z programs. A very strong point is BW but for quick reporting and report personalization (BI) they bought other technology due to more flexible and chipper reporting. They integrated SAP with TMS, WMS, and core operating systems for their special business and have a big problem with maintaining a lot of interfaces (they didn’t implement SAP PI).

Now the customer is thinking about migration to Dynamics and evaluating this scenario in different aspects. An upgrade of the old SAP version means total reimplementation of the SAP to S4. Now SAP offers a very wide range of retail and logistic functionality especially in S4 but to buy all retail and logistic modules, customers evaluate as very expensive and are afraid about the ability to implement.

This is not the only example. A very similar situation was with another customer with an older SAP version. Especially for production companies, SAP is evaluated as a system that is very difficult to implement within the production environment. Implementation with MES generates lot of analytical effort (technical part is not a problem but way of data enquiry by SAP).

From my experience in SAP implementation, I am often irritated by very selective knowledge of SAP implementation consultants and it’s not only from my company but generally taking into consideration SAP services market. Usually, a consultant knows one module, sometimes 2 or 3 but to cover business area eg. retail and logistic you need a few of them and this is the reason that very often customers implement system functions (within every module) not implement process flow (cross modules view).

In the case of analytics, SAP offers great tools (especially HANA gives very powerful tools) but many customers decide to use SAP BW but chose BI from other technologies taking into consideration ratio functionality, flexibility, and price.

This is my personal opinion, mainly based on my experience with SAP customers and real SAP implementation. SAP is a best in class system but requires a very good implementation team (which is expensive) and a reasonable time frame (time is expensive too), to maximize its potential but in other cases, implementation can be unsuccessful regardless of technological system abilities.

I think the technical support is good enough. 

Initial setup is rather complex. SAP Analytics requires integration with the rest of SAP models. We are the final link in the chain of implementation of SAP technology so some customers could do with external assistance. It really depends on the client's internal culture and skills. It helps to have a consultant and in some cases it's crucial. 

Many customers want to apply additional tools that are connected and integrated with SAP Analytics. It gives them more flexibility in building some reports. In some cases, we would still require an additional appliance, some additional tools to fulfill the needs of our customers.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.