We’ll continue this conversation if and when someone comes up with a ‘Smart Car’
Although Star Trek Enterprise has ‘Auto-Pilot’ it still could not operate without the crew!
ColumbiaIT (BOB member since 2011-06-15)
(BOB member since 2002-08-08)The ribbon style SUCKS big time, an end user maybe needs 20% of all the functions offered in a MS Office product, but spends 80% of their time finding it hidden somewhere. The same holds true for the Ribbons in Webi 4.0. And do not get me started on the convoluted workflows & menues in the IDT. SAP HANA Studio in contrast works really well so far, even though it uses eclipse (same as IDT), but I am afraid what the future will hold for the GUI of SAP HANA Studio, when more features are added.
@Michael:I drove an Audi TT Roadster/Convertible with around 190 HP as a rental while they fixed my car, that was one sweet car!
Andreas 
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
Couldn’t agree more. There are times that I wish for Apple to had the monopoly in UI design. You need Ariadne’s thread in order to find your way in that mess they call ribbon styled interface and its not just a matter of time and familiarization.
jkanaks 
(BOB member since 2005-06-08)
There seems to be a belief in SAP development that if Microsoft does it, it must be right. But Microsoft made a huge mistake with the ribbons, and, unfortunately, SAP is following along blindly. It’s very unfortunate. And what’s worse, most users don’t have a voice to complain to SAP.
MichaelWelter 
(BOB member since 2002-08-08)
Just curious if anyone has a good alternative reporting tool. We use mostly Oracle DBs. I have recreated reports in SQL reporting, but it is not there yet as a full replacement. Doable with workarounds, especially for simple reports, but a pain. I am also trying BOBI4 at the same time.
I know all the arguments for Univ reports, and we could not live with them exclusively for reasons given by others. Without DeskI for design, BO is really nothing special. Converting from a deski report every time we make a change is not a sustainable strategy.
We went through a lot of pain getting BOXIR2 to work from our version 5.2 because of key issues with SAP (1 year of pain trying to get them to properly generate a working key), so we do not take this switch lightly. The silly granularity of the security alone was a real experience.
We are going to look at the new Oracle tool (OBI) which I think came from Hyperian, but if they only offer web based design for publishing reports I think we may have to go to SQL reporting. Not our first choice, but sadly the future does not look good for BO and now is the time for us to decide.
samtin (BOB member since 2012-04-09)
I agree that when SAP dropped DESKI they lost a major component to being the all-around BI OLAP product of choice.
That said, I don’t think Oracle’s OBIEE is the right path; especially with its estimated 10 million dollar pricetag for full range of use.
ColumbiaIT (BOB member since 2011-06-15)
Ouch. We will check the function vs price. We have other Oracle, so they may give us a deal though.
Like I said, now is the time for us to make a decision, and the slower web based reporting will not cut it for everything we do. Typical form over function.
samtin (BOB member since 2012-04-09)
Good Luck. I love Oracle but not much of a fan of OBIEE
FYI, I too have been asked to look around; that said a company and product called “arcplan” looks interesting.
toscajo (BOB member since 2002-09-04)
First off:
We know Sapphire has turned out to be more of a ‘Dog & Pony’ show rather than the great BOBJ event it used to be.
That said, STOP trying to push Crystal as a solution. Having a tool which was given out FREE for years hasn’t changed much and it is not at all user friendly and FAR FAR AWAY from being an OLAP solution.
It get tiring to talk with my superiors and letting them know over and over that Crystal is not a good application. This occurs everytime one of them attends an SAPBOBJ event.
You want to work on something; work on your knowledge of the industry. 1980s mentality is done, welcome to the 21st century.
Sorry All, but I needed to vent my frustrations with what SAP is NOT doing correctly.
Thanks for everyone here for all your continued support and assistance with all sorts of workarounds. You are the best!
ColumbiaIT (BOB member since 2011-06-15)
First post , quality forum… been using it for many years, as a lurker but this post did set me to share my frustrations with the Deski legion.
About 3 years ago I was present at bobj user community event in London, where a Webi Program Manager from SAP declared that the major gaps in fuctionality would be filled before DESKI EOL. Well not much has changed since. As a BOBJ user over 12 years and having worked with both tools, DESKI is certainly not replaced. There are still certain elementary functionality features that were available in BO Reporter V4.x and still not included in Webi XI 4.0 … i.e.
- use of VB macro and use of VB as data provider (which means it can integrate with other software components (end to end solution)
-formula editor in webi is still not intuitive as in Deski ; where in Deski the cursor shows you what parenthesis is expected next - where in the inclusion of an If then Else statement you can select values of a LOV and dont have to type it manually (error prone in Webi)
- where you can define a formula in its context (very useful for advanced Flag concept reporting)
- slice and dice
- Webi doesnt handle more advanced manipulations i.e.folding a break, hiding or deleting redundant data but using instead formula statements in the footers
…
Reading between the lines the Deski EOL was because of cutting dev costs (with the SAP integration) and / or not providing enough revenue via maintenance renewals / licencing…
I think most on here could live with it as long as Webi or Rich Client replaced it like for like…
wlfmfc (BOB member since 2012-05-28)
About ready to join this greatly frustrated list of BI developers.
But now its greatly impacted with the service or LACK-OF.
Not Three Strikes yet but,
Escalated a call to High on an issue I was having.
…response was: Attached please find our protocol of setting severity issues…
Are they Kidding… STRIKE 1
Escalated a ticket to High Priority on a go-live problem.
…response was: Attached is a document that will help you. When I said I already have it the reply was ‘Oh okay, what’s the problem?’
I’m talking and then … Sorry sir, but I am getting IM’d quite Frequently.
ARE…YOU…KIDDING …BIG BIG STRIKE 2.9999999
ColumbiaIT (BOB member since 2011-06-15)
I keep seeing jobs advertised on the net - mostly for SSIS, but many say experience of Business Objects “would be an advantage” as that is the system they are “moving away from”.
Debbie
Debbie 
(BOB member since 2005-03-01)
Unfortunately, this does seem to be increasingly the case, and the bottom appears to have fallen out of the U.K. contract market for core BO skills. The only organisations that seem to be advertising are the large financial institutions in the City (not commuteable for me, especially with The Olympics!). It seems that fewer and fewer small to medium sized enterprises are using BO products.
Oh God save me from being dragged back into the dark world of OBIEE! 
anorak 
(BOB member since 2002-09-13)
in my experience as a consultant it’s all about BusinessObjects on top of SAP BW or even SAP R/3 ERP ECC etc. systems. in other words: working for classic/native SAP customers.
Andreas 
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
Agreed.
anorak (BOB member since 2002-09-13)
Does that mean that the “original” BOBJ customers are disappearing? Going to other tools?
Dave Rathbun 
(BOB member since 2002-06-06)
If they are moving away that’s a shame.
Pricewize it shouldn’t be a issue, you’ve got your EDGE BusObj for les then 10.000$ (10 named users)
Tiny 
(BOB member since 2004-11-10)
I’ve had feedback several times recently that business users are getting the impression that SAP products are only for SAP data. I’ve been greeted with much scepticism when I’ve confirmed that WEBI and Data Services will quite happily use just about any data sources.
It seems that the competition are doing a better job than SAP when it comes to marketing messages.
Nemesis 
(BOB member since 2004-06-09)
Yes… Webi, Crystal, Dashboard Designer, Explorer, and DS pull from just about anything.
I keep hearing about people wanting to use VBA, and that’s their biggest hangup with Deski. This is really not a best practice. Post processing, aggregation, and ETL services need to reside on a server. Processing this kind of stuff on the client side decreases managebility, consistency, reliability, and performance. I wont even get in to security. 
Also, the argument about deski working with other applications is valid. However do you think that SAP is going to hold onto a legacy product, so that it would work with someone else’s (read competitor) client app?
I do agree, however, about the formula editor and some of the advanced manipulations. On the other hand, there’s nothing I cant do in Webi or Deski that I cant do in crystal. While it would take me an inordinate amount of time to figure out how to render certain things in webi/deski, I can crank out in crystal in a matter of seconds. Still, this is just my preference, but compared to crystal… deski (and by extension webi) have always been something of a child’s toy.
Ruune (BOB member since 2007-08-13)