Customer Satisfaction

★★★★★★★★★★ 1.8/10

1.8

User Experience

★★★★★★★★★★ 1.9/10

1.9

Functionality

★★★★★★★★★★ 3.3/10

3.3

Business Value

★★★★★★★★★★ 2.1/10

2.1

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO)

What is SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO)?

BI suite consisting of Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence and Analysis with a focus on reporting, analysis and dashboards, among others

BI, Analytics & CPM

●● Reporting / Dashboards

●● Analysis

– Advanced Analytics

● Planning

– Financial Consolidation

● = Function covered, ●● = Functional focus

● = Function covered
●● = Functional focus

About SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO)

Self-description of the vendor

No vendor self-description available

References

No data available

Partners

No data available

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO) BARC Review & Rating

Provider and product description

SAP was founded in Germany in 1972 as a business applications company. The vendor now employs more than 105,000 people worldwide and has a turnover of €31.2 billion, making it one of the largest business software vendors in the world.

The vendor’s data and analytics portfolio is based on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), which provides cloud-based data, analytics, application integration and extension services across all SAP products. The platform is built on SAP HANA Cloud, a modernized cloud-based version of SAP HANA, the vendor’s in-memory database.

SAP’s strategic direction for analytics centers around SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC). The product brings BI, augmented and predictive analytics, and planning into one integrated platform. SAC is continuously becoming richer in features such as application and dashboard design, planning and predictive functionality as well as prebuilt business content (e.g., solutions for finance, sales and marketing, HR and various industries).

The SAP BusinessObjects (BO) Business Intelligence (BI) Suite (SAP BO BI) is part of SAP’s on-premises and managed cloud BI portfolio, which incorporates various end-user business intelligence tools with a moderate level of integration. The suite contains some strong individual products for reporting as well as several clients for various types of analysis. It also offers good capabilities for building customized guided BI applications that can be published to the web or mobile devices.

SAP had set BusinessObjects BI – including all related components (SAP Crystal Reports, SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office and SAP Lumira) – on maintenance by ensuring support (for version 4.3) until 2027 (or extended support until 2030). However, in 2022, SAP published a new statement of direction that shed a slightly confusing light on the future of the suite. While confirming the maintenance dates above, SAP also announced plans to release a SAP BO BI 2024 platform but canceled this later. In April 2023, in a new statement of direction, SAP announced a new “2025” version to be delivered in Q4 2024, which will be supported until at least the end of 2029 for mainstream maintenance, and 2031 for priority 1 support.

Strengths and challenges of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO)

BARC’s viewpoint on the product’s strengths and challenges.

Strengths

Suite of several mature tools with functionality ranging from formatted reporting to analysis
Mature functions for report distribution
Several business-user-oriented modules in Web Intelligence and Analysis for Office
Mobile deployment using mobile clients and HTML5 output
Experience in large installations

Challenges

Integration between the tools in the suite is mostly at data level only
Very long release cycles and not much innovation in the suite
Not a very strategic BI and analytics offering going forward. While the statement of direction is still unambitious and not reliable, it is clear that SAP Analytics Cloud is the future.

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SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO) User Reviews & Experiences

The information contained in this section is based on user feedback and actual experience with SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO).

The information and figures are largely drawn from BARC’s The BI & Analytics Survey, The Planning Survey, The Financial Consolidation Survey and The Data Management Survey. You can find out more about these surveys by clicking on the relevant links.

Who uses SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO) in a BI & analytics context and how

Why users buy SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO) and what problems they have using it

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Full user reviews and KPI results for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO)

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Individual user reviews for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO)

Role

Head of Applications

Number of employees

100 - 2.500

Industry

Manufacturing

Source

BARC Marketing, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024

What do you like best?

Gute Werkzeuge für die Data Analysten.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Performance. Support durch SAP.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Das System würde ich zur Einführung nicht empfehlen. Produktstrategie des Herstellers ist unklar.

How would you sum up your experience?

Für einfaches Reporting gut geeignet.

Role

Employee of a cross-departmental BI/analytics team

Number of employees

More than 2.500

Industry

Real estate

Source

BARC Marketing, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024

What do you like best?

Integration in Excel. Man kann sich flexibel selbst Abfragen bauen oder Sichten zurecht ziehen.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Nicht mehr State-of-the-Art. Wenig grafische Möglichkeiten. Dashboards müssen in Excel erstellt werden und werden aufwändig verknüpft.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Analysis for Office ist alt und sollte heute nicht mehr eingeführt werden, stattdessen SAP Analytics Cloud oder wenn man sich von SAP lösen kann, lieber Power BI einsetzen.

How would you sum up your experience?

Die Datenmodelle im Hintergrund sind entscheidend, aber ansonsten kann man mit dem Tool schon sehr viel, sehr schnell analysieren.

Role

Head of a separate BI/analytics organization unit

Number of employees

100 - 2.500

Industry

Transportation and logistics

Source

Invited by the vendor, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 04/2024

What do you like best?

Die Modellierung im BO-Universum.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Fortschrittliche Anlaysefunktionen.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Bindet die Endanwender möglichst früh in die Prozesse ein und stellt sicher, dass die Prozesse in allen Abteilungen und Gesellschaften einheitlich sind.

How would you sum up your experience?

Im Großen und Ganzen sehr gut.

Role

IT employee

Number of employees

More than 2.500

Industry

Manufacturing

Source

BARC Marketing, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024

What do you like best?

Flexibilität in Verbindung mit Excel-Funktionalitäten.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Teilweise instabil bei größeren Arbeitsmappen mit vielen Queries.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Analysis sollte hauptsächlich nur von Experten genutzt werden. Andere User sollten eher auf Dashboardlösungen wie der SAP Analytics Cloud ausweichen.

How would you sum up your experience?

Analysis for Office lädt Enduser dazu ein, Ihre eigenen Berichte aufzubauen, was leider auch zu Wildwuchs und Problemen geführt hatte, da teilweise ganze Dashboards dort gebaut wurden, obwohl es für diese Anforderungen bessere Tools gibt.

Role

Employee of a cross-departmental BI/analytics team

Number of employees

More than 2.500

Industry

Banking and finance

Source

BARC Marketing, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024

What do you like best?

Intuitive Benutzeroberfläche.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Noch geringere Fehlerquote/weniger Bugs beim Release neuer BO Softwareversionen.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Wenn viele SAP-Datenquellen im Einsatz sind, macht die Einführung von SAP BO Produkten Sinn, um einen großen Benefit zu generieren.

How would you sum up your experience?

Schon seit über 15 Jahren solide im Einsatz, weshalb es sich bewährt hat.

Role

Consultant

Number of employees

100 - 2.500

Industry

Consulting

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024

What do you like best?

Gute Meta-Daten via IDT erstellbar, universelle Datenanbindungsmöglichkeiten, praktische jede OLAP-Datebank oder relationale Datenbank.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Man kann nur bei OLAP-Datenbanken mit dem Pluszeichen in Berichten drillen, bei relationalen Quellen geht das in den Berichten nicht. Drill-Through ist veraltet gelöst, keine Produktweiterentwicklung durch SAP, keine Updates von SAP, Zwang, eine neue Lösung zu finden, keine K1-Option. Wir suchen nach einer kostenadequaten Lösung im EDGE-Bereich, haben jedoch noch keine überzeugende gefunden.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

SAP BO war in der Vergangenheit eine gute Lösung für große und mittelständische Unternehmen, auch überraschenderweise für EDGE-Unternehmen, die SAP BO-KnowHow im Hause hatten. Leider wird die Lösung nun von SAP nicht mehr weiterentwickelt, das Partnergeschäft wurde von SAP, die Business Objects 2008 übernommen hatten, abgewürgt. Es gibt nicht mehr viel Freiberufler, die diese Lösung supporten, da von SAP viele Zertifizierungen für Partner gefordert werden und natürlich das Produkt komplizierter geworden ist. Gut ist aber nach wie vor die architektonische Aufteilung in diverse technische Dienste sowie die feine administrierbare Security. Für ein neues Projekt mit Standardreporting, Dashboarding und K1-Wunsch müssen neue Produkte geprüft werden.

How would you sum up your experience?

Ein robustes, skalierbares Produkt für Standardreporting, allerdings ohne tiefe interaktive Drill-Down-Optionen und Analysemöglichkeiten. Es fehlt allerding Forcasting, Planung, Prognose und K1

Role

Head of a separate BI/analytics organization unit

Number of employees

100 - 2.500

Industry

Insurance

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 04/2024

What do you like best?

Fiabilité.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Tres versatile couvrant tant l'operationnel que le decisionnel.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Choisissez le bon sponsor.

How would you sum up your experience?

Très bonne. La version visuelle 4.3 est une régression par rapport à la 4.2.

Role

Project manager for BI/analytics from IT

Number of employees

100 - 2.500

Industry

Transportation and logistics

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 04/2024

What do you like best?

It has a very easy to use template which provides immediate exposure of all BW/4 queries in a visual way.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

That SAP had originally planned to decommission the product. But now they are going to continue it in BOBJ-BI 2025 and support for a few more years.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

I would suggest moving directly to SAP Analytics Cloud, that is the new direction product from SAP to replace Lumira.

How would you sum up your experience?

It has been a very good and useful tool. We know it is no longer SAP's strategic direction and will have to migrate from it, which is disappointing because it has worked so well.

Role

Project manager for BI/analytics from IT

Number of employees

More than 2.500

Industry

Retail

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 04/2024

What do you like best?

Web Intelligence allows reporting over multiple data sources. Merging data from several sources into one report has been incredibly useful. Also, the ability to secure metadata layer at object and row allows users from multiple store chains to access the data without seeing other stores data. SAP keeps the versions fresh and the new version is very user friendly with lots of support on SAP site as well as user supported sites.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

IDT is super powerful, but also can cause a lot of problems if simple things are missed in the design of the metadata. The addition of a table, for example, needs to be carefully reviewed across all contexts to make sure that production reports are not effected by the addition of the table.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

The best thing to do is to train the users. I would say that sending users to the SAP training has been a big success when it comes to acceptance of Web Intelligence as a product.

How would you sum up your experience?

It has been a key component of our business for many years. WebI has been the solution to many reporting requirements that even the software vendors of other software were unable to produce.

Role

IT employee

Number of employees

More than 2.500

Industry

Telecommunications

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 03/2024

What do you like best?

Interaktion mit SAP-Datenbank.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

VBA-Macros mit hohen Datenladungen bringen MS-Office/Excel zum Absturz.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Vorab testen.

How would you sum up your experience?

Gute Möglichkeit für interaktiven Datenreports aus bestehenden Tabellen.

Role

Project manager for BI/analytics from business department

Number of employees

More than 2.500

Industry

Banking and finance

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024

What do you like best?

Die Zuverlässigkeit und Stabilität.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Die Ausführungszeiten könnten besser werden.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Intensive Evaluierung der gängigen Tools. Abwägungen und ausgiebige Tests. Zeit nehmen.

How would you sum up your experience?

Ordentliches Tool mit wenigen Schwächen.

Role

Consultant

Number of employees

100 - 2.500

Industry

Consulting

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 04/2024

What do you like best?

Ce n'est pas l'outil en tant que tel mais l'accès à la data qu'il offre.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Une fois extraite pour l'analyse des données souvent export.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Accorder beaucoup d'attention à la construction des Univers, à la performance (rapidité d'accès aux données) et à la qualité des données.

How would you sum up your experience?

Plutôt bonne même si les versions historiques de BusinessObjects étaient plus facile d'utilisation que la version Web.

Role

Consultant

Number of employees

More than 2.500

Industry

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 03/2024

What do you like best?

For quick ad-hoc analysis it works well.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Software is not stable - seems to have a lot of issues with Microsoft Office Integration.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Rather look at the SAP Analytics Cloud Add-in for Microsoft Excel and SAP DataSphere.

How would you sum up your experience?

Overall does what it is designed to do.

Role

Head of a separate BI/analytics organization unit

Number of employees

More than 2.500

Industry

Transportation and logistics

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024

What do you like best?

Ability to handle volume. Good integration with SAP ERP and SAP BW. Ability to schedule reports. Cross functional module reporting ability.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

Format flexibility. Not as appealing as Power BI.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Extremely useful if you are on SAP ERP. Under rated because of tight integration only with SAP.

How would you sum up your experience?

Great reporting tool. Lot of potential. Product should get more attention of product vendor (SAP) as well as those using SAP as their ERP.

Role

Project manager for BI/analytics from IT

Number of employees

More than 2.500

Industry

Utilities

Source

BARC Panel, The BI & Analytics Survey 25, 05/2024

What do you like best?

Good integration to SAP ERP and good embedding into Microsoft Excel.

What do you like least/what could be improved?

It lack data modelling capabilities for end users. It does not live up to current standards to support dashboards, graphics and usability.

What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?

Consider SAP Analytics Cloud.

How would you sum up your experience?

Good but needs to be replaced with a cloud BI product.

Survey Information

Number of reviews for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BO)

Reviewed versions

43% SAP Analysis for Office, 41% SAP BO Web Intelligence, 10% SAP Lumira, 6% SAP Crystal Reports

Peer groups in the survey

Large/Enterprise-Wide Implementations, Report & Dashboard Focus, Analysis Focus, International BI Giants

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