Business intelligence businessobjects vs tableau
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Business intelligence software platforms are necessary for organizations to gain valuable insights from their data. These products can be used for generating data visualizations, business intelligence processing and data analysis. This article will dive into the features and capabilities of two BI platforms, BusinessObjects and Tableau, so that you may determine the best option for your data analysis needs.

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What is BusinessObjects?

SAP BusinessObjects is an enterprise software solution that helps users analyze data. The centralized suite offers many useful reporting and analytics-based applications to process data and generate reports for gaining and sharing real-time insights.

What is Tableau?

Tableau is a visual analytics platform that organizations use to query their data sources and generate data visualizations.

Head-to-head comparison: BusinessObjects vs. Tableau

Data analysis features

The BusinessObjects business suite can generate visualizations, applications and role-based dashboards. Its self-service features enable organizations to combine and analyze data through its intuitive visualization tools. Users can also analyze large datasets for insights and forecasting by using the platform with Microsoft Excel.

Tableau’s integrated platform provides users with self-service analytics and end-to-end analysis features, like data storytelling, visual analytics and AI-driven statistical modeling. The Tableau Catalog is a native analytics catalog that provides users with complete visibility over their data and sources as well as how their data is connected to the analytics. The system includes lineage and impact analysis and automated data flows into Tableau for new data analysis.

With the Tableau platform’s governance and security features, users can feel safe about their data use. The software has Salesforce Einstein built-in, but it supports other integrations for more analysis functionality. Additionally, Tableau users can generate embedded analytics within their products to help share information with their customers and drive their engagement.

Reporting capabilities

In order to create reports and data visualizations with BusinessObjects, many of the reporting capabilities require connections with other SAP or third-party BI products and reporting tools. For example, reporting and analysis can occur through the use of data from SAP BW and SAP HANA. Tools for generating reports include SAP Lumira, SAP Design Studio and SAP Crystal Reports.

Tableau’s reporting tool enables users to transform their data into visuals that can help them efficiently communicate analytics insights  with greater transparency. Additionally, users can filter and visualize data over time to identify trends and changes.

By connecting to data sources, users may also access their data within Tableau to generate reports in many formats for advanced visualizations, including maps, tables, charts, cartograms, bubble clouds and graphs. The reports can be customized, scheduled and automated to fit the user’s needs.

Integrations

BusinessObjects supports a wide array of integration and connection options. For example, for data analysis, these BI solutions may be used with BusinessObjects: SAP Analytics Cloud, Predictive Analytics, SAP Business Intelligence, Collaborative Enterprise Planning and SAP Crystal Solutions. Additionally, the suite can be integrated with third-party applications through their APIs, including MS Office products. Integrating the product with other SAP tools can enable users to access multidimensional data analysis capabilities to filter and manipulate their data and identify significant data trends.

Tableau also integrates with several third-party applications and solutions, including native connectors for various file types and relational databases. Their integration partners can help users with data storage, processing, preparation, transformation, cataloging and queries.

Analytics extensions can help extend Tableau’s data capabilities with data science programming languages. For example, users can gain insights from predictive analytics with Tableau’s connection to R for statistical computing, Python for machine learning and vendors like DataRobot and RapidMiner to support sophisticated predictive modeling.

BusinessObjects vs. Tableau: Which is the better BI tool?

BusinessObjects has many features through its SAP tools and programs that may contain the capabilities you are looking for to transform your data into actionable insights. On the other hand, you may prefer to work with a software product that contains more in-house analysis and reporting tools, in which case Tableau may be right for you. By examining the aspects and features provided by each of these BI products, you can determine how well the software would suit your needs and identify the ideal choice for your organization.

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