SAP BusinessObjects BI

SAP BusinessObjects BI is SAP's Business Intelligence suite. At the core of this comprehensive platform is a metadata-driven Business Intelligence environment based on relational models (ROLAP approach), the 'Universes' of BO.

These are the main tools that make up the SAP BI suite:

• SAP Crystal Reports, the software for the creation of operational and detailed reports.
• SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio, the development software for IT to develop dashboards and analytical applications.
• SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence provides web-based access to an analytical environment based on the BI model, designed for the business analyst user.

Optionally, SAP Business Objects has other tools that complete the platform:

• SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office, software to integrate BusinessObjects with Office, and thus be able to include BO reports in Excel, Word or Powerpoint documents, or perform analysis processes by 'browsing' the data from MS Office.
• SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, for dashboard creation
• SAP BusinessObjects Explorer provides an intuitive interface for the business user to explore and navigate the corporate data modelled in the universes. It includes a keyword-based search engine on BO metadata.
• SAP BusinessObjects Lumira is SAP's software that offers self-service BI, data discovery and predictive capabilities for the business user, with data loading and data preparation capabilities to work independently, but integrated with SAP BO models in order to maintain good data governance practices.

SAP Business Objects BI is traditionally installed and licensed in a client/server model, but can also be used as a service, on a subscription basis, on SAP's cloud platform, SAP Hana Cloud Platform, under the product name SAP Business Objects Cloud. With the latter option, the provider also offers pre-configured data models in SAP Hana for verticals such as banking, insurance, etc.