BusinessObjects

by SAP, Inc. | Founded 1972, Weinheim, Germany

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BusinessObjects

by SAP, Inc. | Founded 1972, Weinheim, Germany

What is BusinessObjects?

Industry Specialties: Serves all industries

BusinessObjects from SAP offers a variety of packages to fit businesses of all industries and sizes. It aims to reduce the cost of IT upkeep and increase responsiveness to business problems. It streamlines workloads and lets users share insights to make better business decisions.

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BusinessObjects Pricing

Based on our most recent analysis, BusinessObjects pricing and cost details are described here:

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Price: $
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$
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Starting From: Still gathering data
Pricing Model: Monthly
Free Trial: Still gathering data

BusinessObjects Benefits and Insights

Why use BusinessObjects?

Key differentiators & advantages of BusinessObjects

Real-Time Analysis: Connects to a range of data sources, including other SAP applications, to deliver real-time data and up-to-the-minute updates, so users are never behind the times.
High-Volume Delivery: Distributes content over a large organization to ensure all users have real-time access to data, visualizations and collaboration.
Extensive SAP Ecosystem: Integrates and connects seamlessly with other SAP tools through built-in APIs. This extends usability and draws data directly from a range of SAP systems.
Self Service: Users of all technical levels can manipulate data, explore trends, create visualizations and share them with others without waiting for a data scientist to deliver insights.
Enterprise-Grade: As one of the largest software providers in the world, it offers a robust solution that can handle the largest, most complex data sets for any size enterprise.
Intuitive Visualizations: Create a variety of intuitive visualizations from data, making patterns and trends more apparent and transferring information more efficiently than numbers or text reports.
Better Business Decisions: Historical patterns and data tracking helps identify trends and make accurate predictions for the future. Make data-driven business decisions and implement proven best practices.

Industry Expertise

SAP serves a huge and diverse customer base, but they specialize in energy, natural resources, financial services, consumer industries, public services, service industries and discrete industries.

BusinessObjects Reviews

Average customer reviews & user sentiment summary for BusinessObjects:

1869 reviews

81%

of users would recommend this product

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Based on an aggregate of BusinessObjects reviews taken from the sources above, the following pros & cons have been curated by a SelectHub Market Analyst.

Pros

Ease of Use: It is a straightforward and easy to use platform, as noted by over 65% of reviewers who mention ease of use.
Flexible Reporting: Around 84% of the reviewers who specify reporting state that it offers a flexible reporting feature to fit individual needs.
Integration: It enables integration with SAP products and third-party software, as observed by 89% of the users referring to integration.
Customization: It provides highly customizable tools and options, as noted by 88% of reviewers who specify customization.

Cons

Learning Curve: It involves a steep learning curve for beginners, as stated by 80% of the users mentioning the learning curve.
Implementation: Over 80% of reviewers who discussed implementation report that the process is cumbersome.
Pop-ups: Error messages and pop-ups are technical and hard to decipher, as observed by 100% of reviewers who refer to pop-ups.
Performance: Around 86% of the users who specify performance report that it becomes slow and crashes at times when multiple prompts are opening.

Researcher's Summary:

SAP BusinessObjects is a business intelligence suite that provides real-time insights for making informed decisions through a centralized and scalable platform. Its flexible reporting feature is designed to meet unique needs. It is highly customizable and offers comprehensive integration capabilities. It is a straightforward and easily understandable platform, but many reviewers have noted that it involves a steep learning curve for new users. Slow performance and frequent crashing have been reported when multiple prompts are opening. Also, the implementation process and technical error messages can be annoying to the users.

Key Features

Native Mobile Apps: Take visualization features like charts, reports and more on the go with native iOS and Android apps.
Pre-Built Data Connectors: Draw data from over 25 pre-set sources such as SAP HANA, Apache, Hadoop, Hive, Cloudera, Impala, Amazon, IBM and many more.
Integrations: Provides powerful integration capabilities with other applications such as CRM, ERP, web applications and more. Includes SAP tools and others like the Microsoft Suite.
Data Discovery: Collects, cleans and analyzes data from a variety of sources to help users identify trends and patterns.
Data Transformation: Converts data between formats and structures — organizes and structures unstructured data into usable information.
Visualizations: Generates graphical data visualizations such as bar charts, pie graphs, scattergrams, line plots, maps and more.
Secure Collaboration: Users can securely share visualizations with team members, clients and others through email, web embedding and other platforms.

Limitations

User feedback indicates the following limitations of SAP BusinessObjects, as of the time of this review:

Requires a large number of hardware resources
Recovery is not easy in case of failure
Less flexible with newer formats of MS Office
Requires a lot of internal IT support and maintenance
Not flexible with data input methods or formats
Limited data visualization capabilities

Suite Support

Email: To request an email back, users should fill out the web form on the “contact us” tab at the right side of the website. They can also live chat with a representative.

Phone: Users can call support at 1-800-872-1727. They can also request a call back by selecting the “call me now” option on the “contact us” tab.

Training: It offers a vast online learning and enablement program offering various training programs. Some of these include openSAP, a free training resource, a learning hub, global certification courses, an education and course directory, and a learning framework. Visit the training section of their website to get in-depth training information.

Tickets: To create and submit a ticket, users should go to the support portal page. Next, click on “view my launchpad” and select “find a solution/report an incident.” They should type in their query to see if the issue has been resolved somewhere in the knowledge base. If they cannot find a solution this way, they can click on “contact SAP support” to begin an incident report.

Users should enter their customer number and S-User ID. Make sure to include the following information in the request:

State the issue or problem
Provide the step by step explanation
Include examples
Identify Business Impact
Attach full screenshots, not cropped images

Top Competitors

Here are the other software most often considered with SAP BusinessObjects in actual selection project*

*Data derived from SelectHub's Jumpstart & Decision Platforms

Cost of Ownership

License/Subscription Cost	On-Premise: Pricing depends on business size and the CPU/roles/tools required. There is also option of Named User Licenses (a non-shareable license for a single person that provides guaranteed access to the software) and Concurrent User Licenses (a single log-on that can be used by anyone. This is limited by availability of free sessions in the session pool). The Named User license provides access to all desktop software. The Concurrent User Licenses are not supported for most desktop software, except for SAP BusinessObjects Analysis edition for Office. Cloud-based/SaaS: Depends on the number of users
Maintenance Cost	On-Premise: Support licenses are charges over and above the license cost Cloud-based/SaaS: Included in license/subscription cost
Installation/Implementation Cost	On-Premise: Included in the license cost Cloud-based/SaaS: No installation cost
Customization Cost	Will vary depending on the functional requirements such as configurable dashboards, type of data elements required for tracking, complexity of workflows, etc
Data Migration Cost/Change Management/Upfront Switching Cost	Dependent on your current software, amount of data to be migrated, availability of migration tools, complexity of data and gaps between the existing system and the new system
Recurring/Renewal Costs	On-Premise: Will depend on the type of license purchased – named user or concurrent user, Enterprise or Small Business Cloud-based/SaaS: Renewal cost is equivalent to the fees paid monthly or annually, based on number of users

Pricing Details

Category	Description	Price/Details
BusinessObjects Enterprise Premium – License (For large enterprises)	Dashboard layout capabilities Interactive visual analytics, including the added ease of displaying BusinessObjects Web Intelligence Crystal reports BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise visualizations through a dashboard view Full content creation and developer interfaces for reporting, query and analysis (using Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, BusinessObjects Voyager and BusinessObjects Desktop Intelligence)
BusinessObjects BI, Edge edition – License (For medium sized business)	5 concurrent sessions Comprehensive business intelligence (BI), information management and performance management
SAP Analytics Cloud: Business Plan	Business Intelligence functionality only Up to 20 users Basic data source connections (Excel, CSV and Google Sheets) Enterprise-level data source connections (SAP HANA,SQL, OData Services and more) 1-on-1 training with a product coach Team collaboration features 24/7 SAP Support	Billed quarterly or annually
SAP Analytics Cloud: Enterprise Plan	All Business Plan features Unlimited users Optional upgrade for planning and predictive analytics Personal customer success manager	Pricing available on request only
Deployment Options	What options are available for product deployment?	On-premise Cloud-based/SaaS
Pricing Model	What is the pricing model?	Licensing model Subscription-based
Minimum commitment	Is there a minimum monthly or yearly commitment required for purchase?	On-premise: Minimum 10users and 1 year commitment Cloud-based/SaaS: Minimum 20 users and quarterly payment
Custom Quote	Is there an option for requesting a custom quote?	Available
Free Trial	Does the solution provide a free product trial option?	Available (for 30 days)