In order to increase the value of business data and achieve true business intelligence, organisations are turning to a hybrid solution that combines the reporting power of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) suite and the augmented analytical power of SAP Analytics Cloud. Where the latest release of SAP BusinessObjects BI delivers mission-critical, on-premise enterprise reporting, SAP Analytics Cloud offers augmented BI, planning, and predictive use case innovations that take BI to new heights.
As the digital economy grows, BI use cases are becoming more complex, meaning organisations need a more customised, flexible workflow, and the ability to quickly and easily access critical information in simple, user-friendly applications. SAP Analytics Cloud expands the on-premise BI functionality of SAP BusinessObjects BI with agile innovation, rapid deployment and enhanced capabilities to achieve simple, self-service usability, enterprise scalability and future-ready business intelligence.
WHAT IS SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS BI?
The SAP BusinessObjects BI suite enables businesses to get deep insight from multiple data sources, accessible from a consolidated, flexible and scalable platform. Business users gain access to user-friendly BI tools for ad hoc queries, reporting and analysis in an environment that enables them to understand broad trends and specific root causes.
BENEFITS OF SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS BI
Through business intelligence dashboards and other data visualisation tools, including the ability to filter and manipulate data from within Microsoft Excel, users can:
- Assess risk and resolve performance issues
- Improve business process efficiencies
- Discover meaningful insights about business performance
- Identify opportunities for business optimisation and growth
BUSINESS USERS HAVE SIMPLE ACCESS TO DATA FOR ANYTIME INSIGHTS
Through SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence software, the central, touch-ready HTML client for web and desktop, business users are empowered with personalised, self-service access to data so they can discover insight anywhere, any time. This web-based interface provides simple data access and interactive analysis through a variety of customisable graphical reporting formats, including two- and three-dimensional charts and graphs.
Using natural language incorporating their own business terms, business users can ask iterative business questions involving multiple data sources to discover and display insights in a format that meets their analytics needs. With drag-and-drop report elements and drill-down capabilities, users are able to focus on high-level trends and granular details in the same view.
Moreover, the SAP BusinessObjects Mobile app extends access for any time, anywhere analytics from any device, giving users greater autonomy to discover insights, make data-driven decisions and be more productive without having to rely on the IT department.
BI MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION IS SIMPLIFIED
Business users are enabled to access all their business intelligence from a single, central platform that can be customised to suit user-specific needs. This means that users have access to all the BI tools, reports, notifications and applications they need from a single launchpad.
The BI launchpad offers a modern, user-friendly interface that includes the ability to launch SAP Analytics Cloud, providing full functionality and compatibility with existing content and authorisations. Launchpad views can be customised according to user groups or individual users based on the functionalities and capabilities specific to their job roles. The SAP BusinessObjects BI platform also saves administrators time through enhanced management capabilities that streamline and consolidate workflows. Further to this, a customization Web app simplifies the setup of the BI launchpad and makes it easier for users to modify, repair, and uninstall applications.
User onboarding to the cloud is easy with the ability to match multiple database credentials with a given workflow or client. Single-sign-on configuration and user replication and synchronization across on-premise and cloud applications make it simple for users to have the access they need across all systems.
The BI admin studio enables auditing, security and monitoring through detailed login and session tracking, deactivation alerts, and the ability to turn applications on or off, depending on user rights.
Additionally, the promotion management command-line interface includes rollback support and a promotion management wizard, with the ability to exclude specific content.
EXTENDING BUSINESSOBJECTS BI CAPABILITIES WITH SAP ANALYTICS CLOUD
As mentioned, the latest release of the SAP BusinessObjects BI suite enables businesses to extend and expand BI, predictive and planning capabilities with SAP Analytics Cloud – the strategic analytics platform for all SAP applications.
SAP Analytics Cloud delivers the integration of BI, enterprise planning, and augmented analytics in a single, simple analytics solution. It is provided as a software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud-based business intelligence, machine learning technology and embedded AI – including cutting-edge data modelling, smart data discovery, and enhanced reporting, data visualization, and dashboarding.
With augmented analytics at its core, SAP Analytics Cloud helps everyone in an organisation make decisions with a new level of confidence – without IT intervention or data science training. Everyday business users can harness newly accessible artificial intelligence and machine learning mechanisms to develop deeper insights than ever before.
Even users with no special data-mining or visualization skills can automatically discover and display patterns and trends previously hidden from view. Analytics takes a quantum leap toward the conversational, automated, and predictive, helping users arrive at smarter decisions faster.
With the live universe connector between the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform and SAP Analytics Cloud, users have access to all data on-premise and in the cloud. This live connectivity between the two solutions provides up-to-the-minute information for real-time insight and decisions while keeping data where it is – on premise and behind a firewall. Users can also continue to use current enterprise operational reporting, semantic layer, documents, and universes.
These enhanced hybrid capabilities enable organisations to continue to reap the benefits of on-premise BusinessObjects BI investments, with the added value of moving toward a cloud-based analytics model to extend analytics and business intelligence capabilities and self-service user analysis across the business.
BUSINESSOBJECTS BI AND ANALYTICS CLOUD CREATE FUTURE-READY, INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISES
There is no doubt that the future of business is in the cloud. Cloud technology is more flexible, scalable, and cost-effective, and makes it possible for enterprise-wide operations to take advantage of digital technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence for faster and easier business insights and more informed business decisions.
It is essential therefore, that businesses start making a move to the cloud as soon as they can, and the ability to integrate on-premise BusinessObjects BI with Analytics Cloud is a smart, cost-effective, flexible, scalable and simple solution to do just that.
SAP BusinessObjects BI will still enjoy maintenance support until at least 2027, giving businesses ample opportunity to expand and extend their technology landscape to the cloud, with a hybrid solution that leverages existing on-premise data and cloud analytics capabilities to achieve greater business agility, deeper insight, better outcomes and future-ready enablement.
Contact MDSap today for more information on how you can extend your business intelligence with SAP BusinessObjects BI and SAP Analytics Cloud.
