SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence vs. Sigma Computing

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Sigma
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Sigma Computing headquartered in San Francisco provides a suite of data services such as code free data modeling, data search and explorating, and related BI and data visualization services.N/A
Pricing
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceSigma Computing
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceSigma
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsContact us for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceSigma Computing
Considered Both Products
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
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.
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
We are using SAC as well but the Schedule part of SAC cannot be compared to SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence schedule.
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Microsoft's Power BI has certainly gained a lot of attention and became a leader in Gartner's magic quadrant. This is certainly a good product for average data volume which can be handled in the cloud, however, SAP BI is capable of handling much more data with complex reporting …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
SAP Business Objects have better security model than Tableau. One can setup a lot of security permissions as compared to a tool like Tableau. Tableau is good for creating visualizations/dashboards but not very great for operational reporting. Scheduling features are much better …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Other offering include PowerBI and Tableau. Both alternatives have different licensing options to consider, in terms of capabilities, they increase in conjunction with the license price.
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
When we get the installation of the SAP BO BI Platform done on one of the BO servers, we get a whole of stacks of SAP BO BI suite tools installed. This is a package that has reporting tools inside it. For instance, web intelligence-rich clients, sap crystal reports, etc. We can …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Board is a great ERP software. Business Objects is more nimble and flexible. Board is good if the Dash Boards and screens are relatively static and have selection/filter options. Business Objects is if you do lots of ad-hoc analysis and reporting on the fly.
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
I'd say they are on a par with each other. AppD definitely provides very technical insights, whereas BI provides better business reports.
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
MicroStrategy Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics is costlier compared to SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform stacks. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform stacks is user friendly, easy to adapt, easy to train resources and get them …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Even though all these tools are very similar to each other, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform does have better integration with the database than other competitors such as Microsoft Power BI. On the side of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
SQL Server Integration Services, Tableau Prep and Tableau Desktop
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
SAP BO BI is very similar to Microsoft Power BI. However, SAP BO BI is much stronger in terms of analytics and document management while Power bI is stronger in data visualization and big data integration. SAP BO BI is a great tool within its ally, which is performance analysis …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
There is no special differentiation point. My companies were using SAP as their main ERP and therefore using the SAP BO BI for reporting and analysis purposes. Some reports were defined to be released periodically but these reports were needed for day to day information. We …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Earlier, I used SAP BW's BEx tools for reporting, but it was challenging to format the report data and export to different formats. SAP BEx tools can access data from limited sources where as SAP BO can access data from most of the datasources which is why I prefer using BO …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
An upgrade to SAP BW/4HANA could be considered to get better performance. But if performance is not a huge problem, SAP BusinessObjects BI is a good solution on-premise.
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
We tried YellowFin BI but it did not work for our business model. It was nice and the user-experience was good but ultimate we sided with SAP Business Objects BI Platform because the visual reports that were produced were simple and easy to understand. We need that level of …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Crystal was part of the platform prior to my tenure. Explorer has always had a limited use case. I helped drive the conversation for Visual Intelligence and by the time we acted, it turned into Lumira which can't hold a candle to Tableau or Power BI.
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform is an on premise solution that allows you to display information hosted on an SAP BW / 4 HANA server.
SAP Analytics Cloud is SAP's business intelligence solution that works in the cloud and is complemented by SAP …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
As we have been using SAP ERP, having SAP BI was one of the key factors in our choice. Also design efficiency, variety of data sources' integration and document versioning gave better advantages to SAP BI over others. Also adding SAP BI during the SAP ERP rollout provided …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Crystal Reports has the most features that we need for our custom and purpose built reports.
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
We selected SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) based on price. It can stack up against others in terms of price and honestly, that's about it. Salesforce Commerce does a hell of a better job at handling it. However, in the space of Business Intelligence, SAP can do …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Sometimes configuration is challenging (unless you are also very familiar with setting up Java VMs). I like the meta-data layer design tool. I like that there are thick and thin versions of the tools users use. Users at this point try to build a report themselves rather than …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
We currently have implementations of both Microsoft BI and SAP Business Objects so our enterprise has found reasons for both. Some users prefer BI over SAP and it depends on the department they are working for. SAP was chosen for the more complex tasks that require large data …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
I use the platform as it is all that is available to me. I have no ability to query the warehouse directly probably for good reason. I have been using PowerBI and I know it can connect to the warehouse and do the query and visualization in real time. However, our admins will …
Chose SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
That was the best alternative that could connect to our ERP instances. The availability of SAP Rapid Marts that could be leveraged to pull data models for specific SAP areas such as Sales tables, Production, Maintenance, and others was also a very important differentiation. …
Sigma
Chose Sigma
I am not an expert in any of these, though from my brief exposure to Looker it felt like a steeper learning curve, more appropriate to companies with dedicated and skilled BI engineers, whereas Sigma (and Tableau, and Looker Studio) offer a quicker and more intuitive interface …
Chose Sigma
Ease of use, access for teams, adhoc and iterative data analyses, from non-technical users, to experience data analysis teams.
Chose Sigma
Sigma Computing exclusively uses Snowflake as its data source, which enhances data security by not caching or extracting data locally. Tableau, on the other hand, allows a broader range of internal databases and files like SQL Server, Postgres, etc., and supports extracted …
Chose Sigma
Microsoft Power BI, Qlik Analytics Platform and Microsoft Excel
Chose Sigma
maintianed is very user friendly. Its various ways of embedding helped us in various aspects. The usage of control ids of the filters as parameters helped us in optimizing very longSQL queries. The live Support team every weekday is a very great intiative that helped in quick …
Chose Sigma
I'd rate Sigma to be extremely similar to Sisense except it looks not as nice. I would say that as a tool, Sigma is more user-friendly than Tableau, Power BI, Trevor, and Metabase.

I do feel that Looker is far more powerful and looks great, but I also recognize that Looker does …
Chose Sigma
Sigma computing has better pricing than the competitors. We're always looking for what is good for the price but also gives us all we need to complete our reporting. It also brings about a lot of updates that are nice to see. The embedding helps other BI tools sometimes.
Chose Sigma
We did not have any similar reporting system like Sigma.
Chose Sigma
Sigma has a better view of tables and it is much easier to create new data sets/aggregations. Tableau is better in some visual aspects because there is more customization available, albeit more confusing than Sigma to do. Sigma is very intuitive and did not take long to learn …
Chose Sigma
Sigma Computing had better functionality and is beginner friendly. While Tableau is a more well known product, Sigma Computing has a better user interface that is easier to comprehend for those without a non-technical background. This makes it easier to showcase dashboards to …
Chose Sigma
Sigma is better than Tableau in my opinion because Sigma has the connection to live data, rather than stale csv files.
Chose Sigma
Sigma is the easiest to use from a workbook developer perspective, and from a non-technical end user perspective. Everything from administration, semantic layer setup, to creating dashboards is easier in Sigma than these other tools. Developing content in Sigma is enjoyable, …
Chose Sigma
Sigma has the capabilities of the other BI tools. I think it's pretty user friendly and easy to learn. Many of our stakeholders are used to using Excel so it's nice that it is a smooth onboarding process for them. We haven't looked into much of the visualization capabilities so …
Chose Sigma
I have found that Tableau can be used to create a greater variety of custom and complex visuals, though these visuals are far more difficult to create in a quick turnaround. While Sigma may be more limited in terms of what types of visuals can be create or how customized they …
Chose Sigma
With Looker, to be effective, a substantial amount of coding & modeling needs to happen in LookML. Being another language to learn, users have to context switch again from at a minimum either SQL or Python into LookML. The concept of being able to source control, code review, …
Chose Sigma
Less visually appealing. Feels like fewer pixels. Harder to make graphs and visuals. Really good integration with snowflake and intuitive usage for custom equations and filters.
Chose Sigma
2 biggest reasons for Sigma were easy of use for power users, and cost of having a large amount of viewers of the data.
Chose Sigma
Much more customizable than Looker Studio
Some features are way better than Cluvio. But Cluvio search bar was better.
Chose Sigma
I was not involved in the buying and decision-making process.
Chose Sigma
Not even a comparison, Sigma is a far superior BI and data visualization tool
Chose Sigma
sorta in the middle.
One thing that differs than domo or power bi, is that those softwares bring in the data into the platform, instead of how sigma runs a query against our data warehouse each time a user interacts with the dashboard (there is some small caching, so not always)
Chose Sigma
Sigma is by far the best. It is easiest to learn and easiest to use on a day to day basis. I never have to wait for dashboards to load and it's very easy to understand the variables that are going into my visualizations. Best of all I can manipulate the data within Sigma …
Chose Sigma
flexibility, works really well with snowflake, export capability, level of support, the fact that Sigma Computing is a start up and improving so quickly. Web based software
Features
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceSigma Computing
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
8.2
Ratings
1% above category average
Sigma Computing
8.9
Ratings
9% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.60 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Customizable dashboards7.70 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.20 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.8
Ratings
3% below category average
Sigma Computing
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
Drill-down analysis7.10 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.20 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.20 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.60 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.8
Ratings
6% below category average
Sigma Computing
9.1
Ratings
9% above category average
Publish to Web9.00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Publish to PDF7.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Versioning6.70 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.40 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers7.70 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.2
Ratings
10% below category average
Sigma Computing
6.6
Ratings
19% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)6.80 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization6.80 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.80 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9.2
Ratings
8% above category average
Sigma Computing
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control9.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5.8
Ratings
30% below category average
Sigma Computing
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application3.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile3.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.0
Ratings
11% below category average
Sigma Computing
-
Ratings
REST API6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Javascript API7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
iFrames7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Java API7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
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SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceSigma Computing
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User Ratings
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceSigma Computing
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.3
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.6
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.0
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceSigma Computing
Likelihood to Recommend
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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Scenarios where Sigma Computing is well suited: - Data Reporting and Visualisation : It is suitable for dashboards that integrate data from multiple back-office systems - Search and Filtering Capabilities: It provides a robust platform for searching through datasets and visualisations. Scenarios where Sigma Computing is less appropriate: Handling of null values and dynamic table adjustments
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Pros
  • 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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  • Allows end users to easily dive into the data without having direct access to the table in our database management software.
  • Can easily turnaround dashboards that are detailed and visually pleasing.
  • Sigma is intuitive and as new features are rolled out it is easy to adopt and incorporate them into new and existing dashboards.
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Cons
  • 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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  • Viewer level license is quite limited. These users can't download data or even add filters on datasets. Something to keep in mind.
  • Directly querying the underlying data warehouse will lead to increased usage. Not a big deal on something like Redshift, but your Snowflake consumption will increase, potentially by a lot.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Because we are very satisfied with the product and would most likely renew because of the services it provides. It is a tool that you bring into your organization and let it change the way you analyze your data, present your data and share you date within the Respective teams
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Usability
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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It has a clean and modern interface. However, it is not completely intuitive. I think it would be better and easier to navigate with more Windows style drop down menus and/or tabls. There is a significant learning curve, but that may be due in part to the technical nature of this type of software tool.
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Reliability and Availability
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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Yes, as long as you don’t conduct user error sigma is always up and running and waiting for you to complete your dashboards
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Performance
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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It depends, it loads quickly for smaller dashboards but when loading larger amounts of data it takes more time to do so
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Support Rating
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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They are very friendly and informative. They are quick in resolving our queries and help us understand very minute things as well. They are quick in creating feature tickets based on our custom requirements, and they would also create a bug ticket if there is any discrepancy and get that checked on time.
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In-Person Training
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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No answers on this topic
Online Training
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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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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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Was not involved in implementation
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Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
I am not an expert in any of these, though from my brief exposure to Looker it felt like a steeper learning curve, more appropriate to companies with dedicated and skilled BI engineers, whereas Sigma (and Tableau, and Looker Studio) offer a quicker and more intuitive interface for smaller companies like ours without dedicated BI resources on staff.
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Scalability
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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It is a cloud service offering that is able to expand based on your usage
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Return on Investment
  • 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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  • Monitoring health of cloud platform has allowed the company to anticipate issues before they affect customers – Sigma prompted us building a canary monitoring process that provides customer container health.
  • Customer success has used an activity report to discover customers running runaway processes that they were unaware of, creating an alert to contact the customer and prevent an embarrassing situation.
  • Customer success uses the activity report to prompt conversations regarding increases or declines in behavior that led to increasing contract limits or addressing churn concerns.
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ScreenShots