Making Sense of SAP BusinessObjects Reporting Options – Two Views from the Field

Recently I served as the lead analyst on a “PAC on SAP” report entitled “Opportunities around BusinessObjects Services.” (Here’s a link to a webinar replay where Peter Russo and I review the highlights from the report. If you’re not registered with PAC, you can do so from the same link and obtain a free copy of the webinar).

We gathered a lot of interesting market data for this report, not all of which we could print in full. One high point of my research - the conversations I had with SAP BI services experts Peter Scott and Arthur “Pat” Pesa. Both of them had some useful insights into the SAP BusinessObjects reporting products (Xcelsius, Webi, Crystal Reports, and Voyager) that are now getting a close evaluation by the SAP user base.

In this blog entry, I’ll share quotes from Peter and Pat on all four of these reporting products. Peter is the Managing Partner of Traxion Consulting, and Pat is a Chief Architect – DW/BI Solution Delivery. Both are trusted sources with deep experience in SAP’s Business Warehouse that I turn to when I want a fair evaluation of the trends in the SAP BI services market.

So, what follows is their comments on each of these products in turn. At the end, I’ll close with a few thoughts of my own.

Xcelsius

“There has been some real interest and consequent work that has grown around the new version of Xcelsius 2008. In terms of dashboard development and presentation work, Xcelsius seems to have been chosen by several large companies as the platform of choice for graphical display of BI analytic information that resides within Excel. It is also seen in conjunction with Crystal Reports and has established a foothold in customers where Excel and Crystal Reports has been the standard reporting framework.” – Pat Pesa

“I think Xcelsius is a really great visualization tool that existing SAP customers should look at first. It fills a gap in the BEx portfolio and it provides a “wow” factor to end users that promotes usage and adoption. Its ease of use also makes it simple for users to
become proficient with. There are a few different options for IT to read up
on - Xcelsius Engage, Xcelsius Engage Server or Crystal Reports Visual Advantage.” – Peter Scott


Web Intelligence (Webi)

“I have not seen any real interest in Web Intelligence recently. I feel that the current WAD environment, combined with BO/Crystal-Xcelsius, has brought an entirely new reporting environment into the picture. This means that companies have to begin to understand what is out there, and more importantly, how to effectively develop and deploy what will be in their best interest. There does seem to be some movement towards
integrating Webi with Xcelsius and BO in general, but I have not seen any real work in these areas.” – Pat Pesa

“Webi is an adhoc web browser reporting environment and it’s popular with traditional BO customers. It does have some easy integration features, such as incorporating plan data from Excel. However, SAP customers have their own version of this called BEx Web which can play the part for this area of reporting. It comes down to individual preference on which tool someone will favor. Short Answer: Keep the one you've already deployed and are comfortable with.” – Peter Scott


Crystal Reports

“Crystal Reports has been a leader within the BI space for years and has been bolstered by its inclusion into the SAP BI/BO suite of tools, further justifying its position within the SAP NetWeaver space. Currently there has been renewed interest in Crystal and Xcelsius as a combination reporting and development environment for graphical and non-graphical reporting and BI Analytics. Having a single development environment that gives the customers a single place to develop, deploy and manage BI analytics is central to mainstream adoption, and Crystal seems to have done just that.” – Pat Pesa

“Again, like Xcelsius, Crystal Reports seems like an obvious starting point for SAP customers to focus in on. Designing and generating formatted reports from a wide range of data sources is an easy assignment for this tool. The BEx Report Designer was added to the BEx suite to handle this need, however because it's new, it lacks many capabilities needed to compete with the incumbent champion in this formatted reporting category.” – Peter Scott

Voyager

“While SAP BO has done a great job developing and integrating a great tool set for reporting, I have not seen a real push towards Voyager as yet. I think the SAP customer base is just getting their arms around the new non-Excel Web-based reporting front in NetWeaver and will need some time to digest just how to incorporate what is needed within an organization.” – Pat Pesa

“There is an interesting roadmap for this product, as it’s going to be rubbed up with the BEx Web Analyzer and BEx Excel Analyzer into a new tool called Pioneer. It should provide a superset of capabilities which makes it interesting for OLAP analysis. Too early to get excited about in practical terms, so I’d put it on my calendar for 2010 and use the tools that I’ve already invested in as an SAP customer.” – Peter Scott

The sum of the research I did on this report convinced me that for most SAP users, the biggest questions on ramping up BusinessObjects products had less to do with functionality and more to do with pricing and roadmap compatibility. Most SAP users are evaluating each of these reporting products individually, which is why I found it helpful to get different takes on each one from experts like Peter and Pat who acquire their knowledge in the field.

For the most part, their observations gelled with my own research, though I did hear from others who would have ranked Webi a bit higher in the pecking order of “products to look at now.” Of the four products discussed here, clearly all are on the table for consideration except Voyager, which is not likely to make much headway in the SAP market until the plans for the combined BEx/Voyager product, currently called Pioneer, become clearer.

Of course, reporting products are only one piece of the combined SAP BO product offering. For a broader view of the research, I’d suggest checking out the webinar or the full report.