Hi All,
Does anyone have any comparison information between Business Objects (version 5 or higher) and Oracle’s Discoverer?
Joe Szabo
Listserv Archives (BOB member since 2002-06-25)
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R.Mikke@pl.vwfsag.de rmikke@upr.org.pl
|On Tuesday, August 21, 2001 Joe.Szabo@CONSTELLATION.COM asked: |
| “Does anyone have any comparison information between Business
|Objects
| (version 5 or higher) and Oracle’s Discoverer?”
|
|Me:
|
|It’s been almost two years since we stopped using the product |so I can’t
|speak on updated versions since then but we replaced Oracle’s |Discoverer
|after less than a year because the Discoverer product was not powerful |enough to do what we needed it to do. It might have changed |since we used
|the tool but viewing SQL in Discoverer was too confusing |because the SQL
|used Discoverer ID numbers rather than actual table and |column names, the
|only person who could view a scheduled report was the person |who scheduled
|it, and reports had to be refreshed every time they were |opened to view data
|unless the report was scheduled. Although there will always |be bugs in
|reporting tools as complex as Discoverer and BusinessObjects, |I have found
|that at least the BusinessObjects full-client is robust |enough that there is
|usually a way any problems you might encounter. Hope this helps.
Now me:-) :
We are using both.
Discoverer has one advantage for me: It allows moving dimensions on display much more easily than BO. You just catch the column header, pull it - and voila, you’ve got it in rows or pages instead of headers.
But there are disadvantages that make me prefer BO much. First of all, there is practically no possibility to run more than one SQL query for a report. No UNION-like operations, no running separate queries and joining the results…
Also, every tab in a report is separate report in Discoverer i.e. it has its own set of prompts and is always refreshed separately - so that you can’t prepare a report, that runs one query and displays results in a few tabs, showing the same data in different ways (well, easyness of moving dimensions is usually a good workaround for this - but users prefer having to see another pre-fabricated view, than having to move columns, rows and pages).
Ryszard Mikke
Listserv Archives (BOB member since 2002-06-25)
The most difference between Disco and BO is the fact that Disco can’t do any page setup. For exemple you can’t have on the same page a crosstab and a graph, you can just define the header an footer page.
Disco is not as powerfull as BO for all typical report but I think it’s better for analyze the data. You can define your own hierarchies in Disco as template, in BO you must create a hierarchie for each object. The navigation in data with Disco (Drill) is very instinctive and easy because the user interface is most friendly (right click for drill).
For datawarehouse Disco can be a good choice if you use Oracle DBMS and Warehouse Builder to manage the alimentation of the DWH because you can reuse medatada in Disco without create new EUL (Universes in BO).
For a complete reporting project (with web acces) BO is the right choice but if you want a tool for analysis and made some basics report, Disco can be an alternative.
Listserv Archives (BOB member since 2002-06-25)
Thanks Julie, Mike and JP for the well balanced response’s. It’s just I was looking for.
Kind regards,
Joe Szabo
(yes Frank’s brother)
Listserv Archives (BOB member since 2002-06-25)
Joe,
We tried to evaluate BO 5i versus Discoverer 4i a few months ago. One thing I remember from a discussion with the Oracle consultant doing the presentation is the issue of scheduling reports, in particular reports with parameters.
I don’t remember all the details anymore, but the idea is that Discoverer cannot handle scheduled reports with parameters (not at all or at least not easily).
In fact, the Oracle consultant himself said that Discoverer is an end-user querying tool; if you want enterprise reporting (i.e. lots of complex scheduled reports) you should use Oracle Reports. This was a major consideration for us.
Discoverer has some good aspects: the way it’s integrated with the database in the area of query load estimation and control impressed us. On the other hand, it completely relies on database users and roles to handle security, which may or may not be the way you want to go.
HTH,
Gabriel Tanase
Database Modeler
GE Insurance Holdings
GEIS Shannon, Ireland
e-mail Gabriel.Tanase@gecapital.com
Opinions expressed in this message are my own and do not represent the opinions or policies of GE or GEI or any of its other employees, directors, officers, shareholders or affiliates.
Hi All,
Does anyone have any comparison information between Business Objects
(version 5 or higher) and Oracle’s Discoverer?
Joe Szabo
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Listserv Archives (BOB member since 2002-06-25)
Hi Scott,
You asked:
just wondered if anyone had any knowledge/experience with Oracle Discoverer. How does it compare to our BO software suite? One of our new state agencies is buying into Discoverer, probably based upon vendors’ say so.
Me:
I posted a similar question a few months ago and found these list serve responses below useful:
The most difference between Disco and BO is the fact that Disco can’t do any page setup. For exemple you can’t have on the same page a crosstab and a graph, you can just define the header an footer page.
Disco is not as powerfull as BO for all typical report but I think it’s better for analyze the data. You can define your own hierarchies in Disco as template, in BO you must create a hierarchie for each object. The navigation in data with Disco (Drill) is very instinctive and easy because the user interface is most friendly (right click for drill).
For datawarehouse Disco can be a good choice if you use Oracle DBMS and Warehouse Builder to manage the alimentation of the DWH because you can reuse medatada in Disco without create new EUL (Universes in BO).
For a complete reporting project (with web acces) BO is the right choice but if you want a tool for analysis and made some basics report, Disco can be an alternative.
Listserv Archives (BOB member since 2002-06-25)