Looker vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Looker is a BI application with an analytics-oriented application server that sits on top of relational data stores. It includes an end-user interface for exploring data, a reusable development paradigm for data discovery, and an API for supporting data in other systems.N/A
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Score 6.5 out of 10
N/A
The SAP® BusinessObjects™ Business Intelligence Platform provides users with ad hoc queries, reporting, data visualizations, and analysis tools. Its integrated, unified infrastructure aims to offer scalability from one-to-many tools and interfaces on-premise, in the cloud, or as a hybrid approach.N/A
Pricing
LookerSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Features
LookerSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.5
Ratings
4% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
8.1
Ratings
1% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.50 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.90 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.20 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.4
Ratings
4% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.8
Ratings
3% below category average
Drill-down analysis8.10 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.70 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.60 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.10 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.7
Ratings
5% above category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.8
Ratings
6% below category average
Publish to Web8.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Report Versioning8.50 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.10 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.9
Ratings
14% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.1
Ratings
12% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.00 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.00 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.60 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.2
Ratings
3% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9.2
Ratings
8% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.00 Ratings9.60 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.10 Ratings9.60 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.1
Ratings
25% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5.8
Ratings
30% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.30 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Mobile Application5.00 Ratings3.90 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.20 Ratings3.90 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.0
Ratings
11% below category average
REST API00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
User Ratings
LookerSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
7.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LookerSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Likelihood to Recommend
When you need to create a centralised dashboard for multiple stakeholders that blends cross-channel reporting. As an SEO agency reporting for clients - Looker is a great solution. It's less appropriate depending on the intended users. For instance, in my experience Looker reports have been under-utilised because they're not accessed regularly, provide too much noise or often simple PDF reports are preferred
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The proper management of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards requires an expert on the team to manage and build reports. If an organization does not have the proper expertise on board to build and deploy reports it will fail. Data analytics, dropping into excel, and broadcasting of information are major bonuses for the use of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards.
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Pros
  • It is very easy to start a new dashboard and configure what you want to display by just selecting/dragging from the list of available columns.
  • It is intuitive, mainly if you use other Google services like Google Sheets.
  • The look and feel is modern and nice.
  • It it very useful to have an immediate visual overview of the data in a spreadsheet.
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  • This software is easy to initially learn, and very powerful in producing reusable reports.
  • It is much faster than my company's internal manual queries. The ability to build off of a saved query and share queries to other users is a great positive.
  • My favorite part is that you can run queries in the background and it does not interfere with your current work or slow your computer down.
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Cons
  • I wish I could get more granular in the Google ad data, such as down to the campaign type, instead of having to see only all campaigns.
  • The setup can be time-consuming if you're not using the product regularly.
  • Editing the dashboard requires a few logins; I wish it was more seamless.
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  • The installation can be very complex and time-consuming, it requires a lot of planning and foresight as to what role the software will play in the organization.
  • The software has a relatively large learning curve that takes dedicated users months to get comfortable with, the UI is a bit intimidating for new users.
  • SAP could organize their help better, it can be difficult to find dependable solutions to issues via their website and support channels.
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Likelihood to Renew
We are very haooy with Looker, it provides us with all the funciomalities we need for both the day to day oerformance tracking and longer periods reporting. It is easy to use for account managers, configurable and customizable for soecialists and what is most imoortant, our clinets generally really love it
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The institution has decided to move in a different direction, and will be using MSBI for reporting. I have been very happy with the Business Objects suite of tools, and will continue to use them heavily until we make the transition.
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Usability
Looker is relatively easy to use, even as it is set up. The customers for the front-end only have issues with the initial setup for looker ml creations. Other "looks" are relatively easy to set up, depending on the ETL and the data which is coming into Looker on a regular basis.
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SAP Business Objects is a great tool for operational reporting. It provides a lot of capabilities for scheduling the reports for end users as well as for Adhoc data analysis by business users. One can easily format a report in SAP BO. The tool is not very difficult to learn for both End users and Developers.
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Reliability and Availability
No objections
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When we implemented 3.1, we had a tough time managing the system: It took almost a year to stabilize.

With 4.0, we want to roll out to more users, and are holding back because of fears about the performance issue
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Performance
Somehow resources heavy, both on server and client. I recommned at least 50Mbs data rate and high performance desktop comouter to be abke to run comolex tasks and configure larger amount of data. On the other hand, the client does not need to worry when viewing, the performance is usually ok
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Overall, the tool (Web Intelligence 4.2) is fast and solid. One issue is a dependability on JAVA for a full feature report creation/edit capabilities (as opposed to limited HTML option). Second, planned end of JAVA support by major browsers (Chrome is already not supporting JAVA applet).
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Support Rating
Never had to work with support for issues. Any questions we had, they would respond promptly and clearly. The one-time setup was easy, by reading documentation. If the feature is not supported, they will add a feature request. In this case, LDAP support was requested over OKTA. They are looking into it.
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We are getting the BI support from our SAP support company. Although they are good at some basic staff, they are unable to answer our questions for some complex structures. Sometimes we got the feedback that our request was not possible to implement, however later we found there were some methods available.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
This is more a function of the training I received from the systems experts in my organization, not training from Business Objects/SAP. The training was rushed, without an agenda, and didn’t meet my needs as a user.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
I haven't used it or got feedback from the end user.

Content looks to be pretty detailed. Focused on SQL but not BW.
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Implementation Rating
Very satisfied, easy to implement
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Hire specialists and experienced staff. Mix some beginners so that everyone is not a leader but a learner too. Plan well; architect well; break down implementation in small steps and move towards larger steps. Create a centralized and authorized SAP Business Objects implementation team.
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Alternatives Considered
In my opinion, Looker is no Power BI. It is good, but I think Power BI is amazing. That said, in my experience, Power BI is nowhere near as easy to setup and report on Google services as Looker is. We plan to continue using Power BI for c-suite and corporate reporting, especially for internal databases, but will gladly use Looker for our marketing information for AdWords, Analytics, Search Console, and YouTube.
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This has the biggest drawback of handling the large data volume which I feel is needed as this is time-consuming and making decisions at the right time is getting harder and we have decided to move to this platform considering the time taken to process the data.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform supports SOA Service Oriented Architecture. You can start/restart/enable/disable all the servers. You can seamless do load balancing and clustering. It supports all leading application and web server. Supports LDAP SSO integration. People who can work on excel with training they can work on SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence, dashboard, Lumira, Information design tool product suite. Tool is very user friendly and easy to learn and implement
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Return on Investment
  • Other than some people not liking the numbers, I don't see any negative impacts; we haven't experienced that.
  • The reports help us unravel the story of our users and how they are sifting through our pages.
  • Our clients enjoy seeing the numbers to understand better what stands out on their sites.
  • The reports have helped us see what campaigns are working and where we need to tweak things.
  • The reports have enabled us to have better conversations with stakeholders about how their web pages should be modified, edited, etc., to reflect the data.
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  • SAP BO BI Platform has a good positive impact on the overall business of any organization. It helps in important decision making, planning, and analyzing the growth of the particular organization
  • Another positive impact is that users get hold of data very easily and in a user-friendly manner. users can even interact with reports to get the meaningful data filtered out of that.
  • The negative impact can be on licensing costs and buying this software box. This in turn will add to the cost of expenses of a particular organization
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ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.