Business Objects Software

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Business Objects Software is an American software corporation. It creates, develops, markets and supports software for business intelligence (BI), data management (DM) (Oracle’s acquired Business Objects) and performance management (PM). Business Objects is also the corporate brand used for Business Objects software products. Formerly owned by France-based Capgemini Group, the company was purchased by Oracle Corporation in 2007.

Business Objects software? Does that name sound familiar? What is Business Objects software? Well, they’re the same people who brought us Crystal Reports. The suite of tools they offer is wide enough to address most needs. Their flagship product is called Crystal which allows users to create custom reports and dashboards.

usinessObjects (One Word)
Business Objects’ products were always branded as one word and fall under the SAP BusinessObjects umbrella. Its flagship software is a suite of query, reporting and analysis tools that runs under Windows and Unix. It provides access to a wide variety of databases, including Oracle, INFORMIX and DB2. As data are extracted from the database, they are stored as multidimensional OLAP cubes that can be easily sliced and diced into different views. See OLAP.

The Semantic Layer
BusinessObjects uses a patented semantic layer that shields users from the complexities of table names and relationships. Once the semantic layer has been defined, users work with familiar “business objects” such as product, customer and revenue.

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A BusinessObjects QueryTo perform a query, users drag and drop the object icons into the “Results” and “Conditions” windows. (Image courtesy of SAP.)

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Slicing and DicingThe Slice and Dice Panel can rearrange the view. After dragging and dropping different icons, BusinessObjects displays the new perspective. “Section” shows the sequence and report titles, and “Block Structure” shows the data wanted in the report. (Image courtesy of SAP.)

SAP BusinessObjects BI

Jim O'Donnell

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SAP BusinessObjects BI (SAP BO) is a centralized suite of reporting and analytics tools for business intelligence (BI) platforms. SAP BO is aimed at business users. It consists of a number of reporting applications that allow users to discover data, perform analysis to derive insights and create reports that visualize the insights.

SAP BO is intended to make reporting and analysis simple for business users so they can create reports and perform processes such as predictive analytics without needing the input of data analysts. To accomplish this, SAP BO uses a collection of BI tools.

SAP BusinessObjects BI uses drag-and-drop functions and allows users to search and analyze data from a wide variety of sources. SAP BO is a front-end BI platform, so the data is not stored at the application level, but is integrated from the various back-end sources.

SAP BusinessObjects BI applications

SAP BO is comprised of a number of reporting and analysis applications that all have their own identity, purpose and function. These applications include:

  • Web Intelligence (Webi), which is a web browser tool that allows users to perform analysis, produce formatted reports and distribute the reports on SAP BO or export them to PDF or Excel.
  • Crystal Reports, which is a data analytics and reporting tool aimed at individual users or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Users can create dynamic reports from a variety of data sources and deliver them to different formats. The reports can be accessed online or offline, from applications, portals or mobile devices.
  • SAP Business Objects Dashboards, which is a data visualization tool that allows users to create custom dashboards from reports. These can include interactive charts, gauges and widgets.
  • Query as a Web Service (QaaWS), which is a tool that allows users to create and publish web services that can be consumed in Crystal Reports and SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, as well as other software applications.
  • SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, which is a self-service data exploration tool that enables users to search through large volumes of data from various sources and then create data visualizations that can be shared across organizations.
  • SAP Lumira, which is a self-service data discovery and visualization tool that allows users to find and analyze relevant business data and create custom interactive dashboards and analytics applications.

SAP BusinessObjects BI can also integrate with functions from SAP HANA.

SAP BusinessObjects Universe

The core of SAP BO is the SAP BusinessObjects Universe, which are layers of metadata that integrate the back-end data with the front-end application layer.

A universe allows users to interact with data without having to know what database it comes from, the database structure or where the data is stored. The universe does not store any data itself; it is a metadata layer that contains information about the objects in the data source, which is used to generate SQL queries that retrieve the actual data.

Origins of SAP BusinessObjects

The company known as BusinessObjects was founded in 1990, in Paris. It became a large and respected BI software seller. In 2007, SAP acquired BusinessObjects for $6.78 billion, the largest acquisition SAP had ever made at the time. Initially, the former company operated independently, but BusinessObjects became a division of SAP in 2009, and the products came under the SAP BusinessObjects brand.

The purchase of BusinessObjects increased SAP’s foothold in the BI market, which, in hindsight, was an important move in SAP’s growth in the decade that followed.

Businesses should invest sufficient time in researching the detailed tools related to these platforms. A good BI platform can cut down on the time it takes to gather, sort and analyze disparate data streams. Also, it can give your end-users more time to focus on high-yield activities instead of combing through data and creating reports using inefficient methods. When considering platforms, think about these factors – ideally, from different end-user perspectives:

  • Which features are necessities?
  • Which are “nice to have”?
  • Which platform is best for your company’s size?
  • How complex is the corresponding backend administration, product tech support and overall ease of use?
  • How much time do you and your colleagues have to devote to reporting?

Conclusions

Business Objects is a software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company specializes in developing business intelligence software for online analytical processing with most of its clients concentrated in the financial industry.

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