SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence vs. Yellowfin

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
Yellowfin
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Yellowfin is a cloud-based business intelligence and dashboarding platform.N/A
Pricing
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceYellowfin
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceYellowfin
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceYellowfin
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. …
Yellowfin
Chose Yellowfin
Alteryx Platform, Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Tableau Desktop
Chose Yellowfin
Tableau Online, Google Analytics and Amazon QuickSight
Chose Yellowfin
Yellow Fin platform is browser agnostic and is accessible from desktops as well as mobile devices. It is very simple and fast, it is integrated with Big Data, clients do not require a great training. It just works. But it’s easier to have things on the cloud, especially if you …
Chose Yellowfin
Yellowfin is much improved over this product, making the process much more simple and faster.
Chose Yellowfin
Yellowfin is no doubt, a stronger, more eloquent and polished tool compared to Microsoft's Power BI. The issue with our company specifically is that we are a big Microsoft shop, and pay for Power BI more or less in our bundle esp w/ O365. While the Yellowfin tool is a more …
Chose Yellowfin
I feel like it is not as good as powerslides, basically does the same thing but not as well. The team basically found that it was using up more time and wasn't as easy to figure out as powerslide. We ended up switching programs after a while and still looking for a much better …
Chose Yellowfin
The Yellowfin product technologies are superior and offers more flexibility in application. The Yellowfin product can be used in several different areas such a report engine over and above being a solid business intelligence tool. It further needs significant IT overhead to be …
Chose Yellowfin
We ran a full procurement project to select Yellowfin and started with a long list of over 20 BI products. Key reasons for choice were ease of use, visual looks, product integrations and cost (both licence purchase and development of content).
Chose Yellowfin
Yellowfin BI has a strong focus on a clear structured and easy to use user interface. Furthermore, the licence model was adequate for a BI system with a lot of end users.
Chose Yellowfin
Our reporting group uses Tableau extensively and compared to Yellowfin, Tableau is much easier to use (partially because more time was invested in setting it up properly, but also the design and features).
Chose Yellowfin
My selection of Yellowfin based on following criteria for the Indian market:

  • Availability in Linux platform to process high volume of transaction with CAL (concurrent user access license) model to use multiple server with high concurrent users
Features
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceYellowfin
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
Yellowfin
6.1
Ratings
29% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.60 Ratings5.80 Ratings
Customizable dashboards7.70 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.20 Ratings6.40 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
Yellowfin
6.6
Ratings
20% below category average
Drill-down analysis7.10 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.20 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.20 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.60 Ratings6.50 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
Yellowfin
5.9
Ratings
34% below category average
Publish to Web9.00 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Publish to PDF7.40 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Report Versioning6.70 Ratings5.80 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.40 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers7.70 Ratings5.50 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
Yellowfin
5.8
Ratings
32% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)6.80 Ratings5.90 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization6.80 Ratings5.70 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.80 Ratings5.80 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
Yellowfin
6.2
Ratings
31% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.00 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.60 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)9.00 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control9.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)9.00 Ratings5.90 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
Yellowfin
6.7
Ratings
16% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access6.70 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Mobile Application3.90 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile3.90 Ratings6.20 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
Yellowfin
6.1
Ratings
24% below category average
REST API6.70 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Javascript API7.20 Ratings5.40 Ratings
iFrames7.20 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Java API7.10 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.20 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)6.70 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceYellowfin
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
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Score 9.1 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceYellowfin
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(0 ratings)
6.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.6
(0 ratings)
6.3
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
5.6
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(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)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SAP BusinessObjects Business IntelligenceYellowfin
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.
Read full review
We can recommend this software without hesitation, as it has the ability to generate reports and data analysis, as well as process the data automatically, which saves time. It is ideal for small and medium-sized companies that wish to improve their services in the business world
Read full review
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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  • The Yellowfin user interface fits seamlessly into our own web software as it too is designed in the latest web technologies making it easy to use and easily accessible to our client base.
  • The Yellowfin user interface is intuitive and easy to use, elevating VSV clients from needing in-depth training on the product before true value can be realised.
  • The Yellowfin architecture supports the Pintl architecture 100% due to a similar design strategy and as such no real overhead is added to the Pintl system for the addition of the Yellowfin product nor does it add any additional IT overhead to be used.
  • The Yellowfin product is quick and simple to develop reports and dashboards in cutting turn-around-time at the VSV development team and when new/custom reports are required by VSV clients.
Read full review
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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  • The ability to predefine a colour for a specific graph as a selection option dynamically.
  • The ability to customise the label of a chart, especially with respect to performance related reporting graphs we need an increase in dynamic charting options to meet our more specialised requirements.
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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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No answers on this topic
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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Yellowfin has large promises that did not meet our expectations after we got it installed. We tried to configure it but things did not go as planned. After 1 year of trying - we still cannot get it working. Be very careful when signing up with them - everything is not what it seems.
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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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99.9% availability
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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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No answers on this topic
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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Anytime I needed a report, I ran into issues with this software. We used Yellowfin for a period of months, having switched from Salesforce. I found the reports were difficult to produce, and the data management was okay at best.
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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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Yellowfin provides 3 levels of training to support consumers, business analytics, developers and Administrations :
  1. Yellowfin BI Training - Level 1 (Exploration)
  2. Yellowfin BI Training - Level 2 (Advanced)
  3. Yellowfin BI Training - Level 3(Expert)
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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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Web-based training for large audiences for Level 1 and Level 2 I would suggest
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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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Design the data model and views for each dashboard is very important and it is the success factor Configuration of cluster for large 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
Yellowfin is no doubt, a stronger, more eloquent and polished tool compared to Microsoft's Power BI. The issue with our company specifically is that we are a big Microsoft shop, and pay for Power BI more or less in our bundle esp w/ O365. While the Yellowfin tool is a more sleek tool, the cost to our company is something that we have to weight against a negligible cost with Power BI.
Read full review
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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- Tested 500 con-current users in Linux platform with 4 cores systems - Tested with cloud based VM - Tested with 1000 reads per minutes
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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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  • made our org more data centric
  • Decisions are made based on data vs opinion
  • has created a single source of truth for the bulk of the organization
Read full review
ScreenShots

Yellowfin Screenshots

Screenshot of Location IntelligenceScreenshot of Yellowfin DashboardScreenshot of Yellowfin SignalsScreenshot of Yellowfin MobileScreenshot of Yellowfin Sales KPIs