My current client is reviewing their BI needs, and is considering implementing ‘in-memory’ products such as Qlikview. A BO reseller has advised them that they should also consider SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, as it is a comparable tool.
I have been asked to comment on the suitability of Explorer, but as nearly all of my experience has been with the core BO products, I would welcome comments on the following assumptions / questions which are based upon one hour’s research:
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer is the new name for Polestar.
There are 2 versions, an accelerated one for use with SAP BW, and an unaccelerated one for use with other data sources.
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer can be used against Excel spreadsheets, but when used against a database, it requires a Universe to be created.
If a Universe is indeed needed, then what is the advantage of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer against the other BO tools? Just speed of querying and visualisation?
My very limited understanding of Qlikview is that one of its major selling points is that it doesn’t need the likes of a Universe to be created, and set up is extremely rapid.
Given the above statement, are SAP BusinessObjects Explorer and Qlikview truly comparable?
Is SAP BusinessObjects Explorer seen as a replacement for Xcelsius (again which I know very little about) and Dashboard Builder or are they seen as complementary products?
I’m already doing this, but never having seen Qlikview I don’t know how comparable the products are. I believe that there’s also a free trial version of Qlikview available, so when I get time I’ll try to look at that as well.
An interesting ‘feature’ that I’ve found in Explorer is that it assumes that some of my measures are actually dimensions. I can’t find anywhere to change it, but it must use some kind of algorithm to decide which is which.
No, SAP BOE Explorer had been positioned as a data analyzer on top of the BOE Xi R2/3.1, you can’t compare it versus QlikView. I would say that Xcelsius + Crystal Reports is a perfect match in this case.
And yes, you can download free version of Qlikview (version 9th) from theirs web page
Free version of QlikView versus Full version?
Free version means that you’re allowed to use the report file only within local pc where you had installed it, you can’t send the report file to another pc or export to QlikView web portal, at the same time you can convert free version to Full version, full version costs approx. 1000 Eur (EMEA).
Besides, the customer will have to buy additional license if the scheduling functionality is necessary, the price was approx. 10k or 15k Euros
Hi,
Sorry for bumping in post.
I am looking for a difference between Qlickview and BO(Reportnig++Dashboard)-
Can you provide me some difference and provide your personal opinion which one is good?
Qlik\SAP BO actually does not have anything in common.
If your customer is looking for Ad-Hoc reporting, then SAP Bo will deliver the reporting solution much better, on the other hand if you’re looking for single page dashboard/report/chart solution, then Qlikview will suits you better. Honestly I do not think that it makes sense to compare SAP BO to Qlikview, Xcelsius/Crystal reports is more close to Qlikview approach.
If you’re willing to report off SAP BW then additional license is needed (quite expensive one), besides the Web part of Qlikview is horrible
We installed Qlikview 9 on a couple of high-end servers and rolled it out to our marketing & sales departments, primarily because the end-users on both lcoations just wanted click & filter dashboards in order for them to analyze data relavent to them.
Qlikview is an excellent tool for users who don’t mind having queries built for them and turned into dashboards for them to have some fun with; whereas with XI2 (and 4.0 at some point), is used by our power-users primarily in finance where they need to be able to create their own queries with far more subtle data analysis.
It’s true to say Qlikview looks far more sexier than XI, epsecially since all the functionaity & datasets are held in-memory, and therefore making changes to a dashboard are instantaneous and quite easy to manipulate.
XI, on the other hand, looks a bit basic & clunky in comparrison, but has the adavantage of being far more flexible in terms of what the end-user wants to do with the data.
In summary, if you plan to deploy your BI tool to end-users that don’t want to be messing about with buiilding queries, but just want instant results, then Qlikview is definitely ahead of the field in this respect. But if you’re planning to roll out a BI tool to power-users that require a little more flexibility, autonomy & far more intensive data analysis then XI would be the best bet
I’ve some QV 10 experience, and the company I work for is platinum reselling partner. My own opinion is - based on what I’ve seen in the projects we’ve done - that it’s a good dashboard tool, much more like xcelsius in the front end, you can’t compare explorer with that.
The back-end is an in-memory solution, which works fine for let’s say up to 10 milion rows (depending on hardware, data model, etc.). I’ve no experience with SAP HANA, but that will beat the back-end of QV, as far as I can consider.
I have seen QV projects failed on flexability, for instance something like authorisation must be scripted in QV. Therefore most companies use it as a single solution product, not as an enterprise solution. That’s backwards in time, isn’t it?
So no, in my opinion explorer can’t be compared with QV. If you want to do some dashboarding, I would advise to look at BOXI 4. Either the new function in WebI, Xcelsius ehhh Dashboard Builder or Crystal will do the job for most of the business needs, now that they have much more enhanced visualisations.
(BOB member since 2002-09-13)
(BOB member since 2002-08-15)
(BOB member since 2011-12-13)