BusinessObjects vs Einstein Analytics

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Our analysts compared BusinessObjects vs Einstein Analytics based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Business Intelligence Tools, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

BusinessObjects Software Tool
Einstein Analytics Software Tool

Product Basics

BusinessObjects is a suite of business intelligence (BI) tools that helps organizations collect, analyze, and visualize data to make better decisions. It's most suited for large enterprises with complex data needs, as it offers a wide range of features and capabilities. Key benefits include improved data visibility, enhanced decision-making, and increased productivity. Popular features include data modeling, reporting, ad hoc querying, and dashboards. User experiences highlight its ease of use, robust functionality, and scalability, though some note its potential for complexity and higher learning curve. Compared to similar products, BusinessObjects often stands out for its comprehensiveness and integration capabilities. Pricing is typically based on a per-user or per-named-user basis, with annual subscription fees.

Pros
  • Easy to use
  • Robust features
  • Scalable
  • Comprehensive
  • Integrates well
Cons
  • Can be complex
  • Steeper learning curve
  • Costly
  • May require training
  • Can be resource-intensive
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Einstein Analytics is a suite of analytics applications that use artificial intelligence to supply insights. With predictive, tailored analytics, it can build AI data visualizations and deliver recommendations to help companies accomplish their business goals. Developed by Salesforce, it integrates natively with their CRM to boost understanding of sales pipelines and customer satisfaction.

It offers three editions: Predictions, Analytics Growth and Analytics Plus. Until 2017, it was known as Salesforce Analytics Cloud or Wave.
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$5,000 Annual
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$75/User, Monthly
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Product Assistance

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Product Insights

  • Real-Time Analysis: Connects to a range of data sources, including other SAP applications, to deliver real-time data and up-to-the-minute updates, so users are never behind the times. 
  • High-Volume Delivery: Distributes content over a large organization to ensure all users have real-time access to data, visualizations and collaboration. 
  • Extensive SAP Ecosystem: Integrates and connects seamlessly with other SAP tools through built-in APIs. This extends usability and draws data directly from a range of SAP systems. 
  • Self Service: Users of all technical levels can manipulate data, explore trends, create visualizations and share them with others without waiting for a data scientist to deliver insights. 
  • Enterprise-Grade: As one of the largest software providers in the world, it offers a robust solution that can handle the largest, most complex data sets for any size enterprise. 
  • Intuitive Visualizations: Create a variety of intuitive visualizations from data, making patterns and trends more apparent and transferring information more efficiently than numbers or text reports. 
  • Better Business Decisions: Historical patterns and data tracking helps identify trends and make accurate predictions for the future. Make data-driven business decisions and implement proven best practices. 
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  • Predictive Analytics: Automatically generates models and precise recommendations based on insights gleaned from relevant data, with the power of artificial intelligence.
  • Achieve Faster ROI: Spend less time cleaning up data and more time selling products and converting leads.
  • Native Salesforce Integration: Connects seamlessly with Salesforce, supplementing the CRM platform with crucial BI.
  • Unify Your Systems: Bring all data onto one screen to get the complete picture with data connectors to any platform, including external systems.
  • Simplicity of Use: Create data visualizations that make sense with ready-to-use customizable templates that eliminate the need to have coding knowledge.
  • Free Trial: Sign up for a free 30-day trial on the vendor’s website.
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  • Native Mobile Apps: Take visualization features like charts, reports and more on the go with native iOS and Android apps. 
  • Pre-Built Data Connectors: Draw data from over 25 pre-set sources such as SAP HANA, Apache, Hadoop, Hive, Cloudera, Impala, Amazon, IBM and many more. 
  • Integrations: Provides powerful integration capabilities with other applications such as CRM, ERP, web applications and more. Includes SAP tools and others like the Microsoft Suite. 
  • Data Discovery: Collects, cleans and analyzes data from a variety of sources to help users identify trends and patterns. 
  • Data Transformation: Converts data between formats and structures — organizes and structures unstructured data into usable information. 
  • Visualizations: Generates graphical data visualizations such as bar charts, pie graphs, scattergrams, line plots, maps and more. 
  • Secure Collaboration: Users can securely share visualizations with team members, clients and others through email, web embedding and other platforms. 
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  • Role-Specific Analytics: Leverage its prebuilt templates and native apps designed to maximize insights with customizable best-practice KPIs in specific industries, including sales, customer service, financial advising, B2B marketing, fundraising and more.
  • Actionable AI: Build AI-powered applications and models that explore millions of data combinations and trends in minutes, even without knowing code. Generate predictions and what-if scenarios for the business. 
  • Self-Service BI: Customize the queries and looks of analytics applications to target the information needed for specific decisions. 
  • All-Around Insights: Gather all information in one place by connecting to any external data source, including AWS Redshift, Salesforce CRM, Microsoft Dynamics, Google BigQuery and more.  
  • Team Collaboration: Quickly share assets and take action together with colleagues with smart notifications, annotations, presentation mode, downloadable analytics, updates via email subscription and native integration with Salesforce Chatter.  
  • Mobile Ready: Download apps compatible with iOS and Android platforms that support many of the available analytics features.  
  • Continuous Upgrades: Avail new features and enhancements released by the Salesforce platform three times a year in winter, spring and summer.  
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Product Ranking

#14

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Business Intelligence Tools

#168

among all
Business Intelligence Tools

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 1869 reviews
Great User Sentiment 1161 reviews
81%
of users recommend this product

BusinessObjects has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 81% when considering 1869 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

83%
of users recommend this product

Einstein Analytics has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 83% when considering 1161 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

3.8 (237)
4.2 (302)
4.2 (158)
4.3 (60)
4.2 (722)
4.3 (169)
3.9 (752)
4.1 (630)

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Ease of Use: It is a straightforward and easy to use platform, as noted by over 65% of reviewers who mention ease of use.
Flexible Reporting: Around 84% of the reviewers who specify reporting state that it offers a flexible reporting feature to fit individual needs.
Integration: It enables integration with SAP products and third-party software, as observed by 89% of the users referring to integration.
Customization: It provides highly customizable tools and options, as noted by 88% of reviewers who specify customization.
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Data Analysis: Citing its strong AI and machine learning features, all users who discussed the platform’s analytical capabilities said that it helps deliver business intelligence insights.
Data Visualization: Reviewing visualization capabilities, approximately 79% of users said that its clear and custom dashboards make business data easy to understand from a KPI point of view.
Data Integration: Around 76% of users who discussed data connectivity said that the platform connects easily to a wide range of data sources for advanced analytics.
Functionality: Reviewing functionality, around 65% of users said that, supported by regular updates that address user requests, the tool is feature-rich and stable.
Ease of Use: Discussing the interface, approximately 61% of users said the software is easy to use and aesthetically elegant.
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Learning Curve: It involves a steep learning curve for beginners, as stated by 80% of the users mentioning the learning curve.
Implementation: Over 80% of reviewers who discussed implementation report that the process is cumbersome.
Pop-ups: Error messages and pop-ups are technical and hard to decipher, as observed by 100% of reviewers who refer to pop-ups.
Performance: Around 86% of the users who specify performance report that it becomes slow and crashes at times when multiple prompts are opening.
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Cost: Citing per-user licensing plans and additional fees for on-premise installation, maintenance and add-ons, around 80% of users said that costs can quickly add up.
Performance: Around 78% of users who reviewed the solution for performance said that it is slow and prone to infrequent crashes, especially when uploading large amounts of data.
Setup: Approximately 67% of users who reviewed ease of deployment said that configuring the platform can be difficult if done without professional support.
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User reviews for BusinessObjects paint a picture of a powerful BI tool with both strengths and weaknesses. On the positive side, users praise its comprehensive features, enabling them to tackle complex data challenges. "It's like a Swiss Army knife for data analysis," one user says, "from basic reports to advanced modeling, it's got it all." This feature depth is often contrasted with simpler competitors, with users appreciating the ability to handle diverse needs without needing multiple tools. However, the learning curve can be steep, especially for non-technical users. "It's not exactly drag-and-drop for beginners," another user admits. This complexity can lead to frustration and require investment in training, which some users find less intuitive compared to competitors. Despite the learning hurdle, many users highlight BusinessObjects' scalability and integration capabilities as its main differentiators. "It seamlessly connects with our existing systems," one user notes, "saving us time and effort." This smooth integration is often lacking in competitors, making BusinessObjects a preferred choice for organizations with complex data ecosystems. Overall, user reviews suggest BusinessObjects is a powerful and versatile BI tool best suited for organizations with complex data needs and the resources to support its learning curve. Its comprehensive features and integration capabilities set it apart, making it a strong contender for those seeking a robust BI solution despite the initial investment required.

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Einstein Analytics from Salesforce is a predictive analytics BI tool that uses the power of AI and machine learning to glean insights and create visualizations and reports to drive business decisions. All users who reviewed its analytics capabilities said that it excels at augmented analytics. Many users who reviewed data visualization said that templates and dashboards are easy to customize for deep-dive data exploration. With a range of reporting options and intuitive drag-and-drop functionality, the platform empowers business users to create their own reports without needing to code. Being part of the Salesforce suite, the platform integrates well with other SF offerings, as expected, as well as with external data sources. As for the tool’s data management capabilities, some users said that ETL functions are self-contained in that they replace the need to write code, however others said that data needs to be cleansed before the ETL engine can consume it for data analysis. Commenting on the software’s functionality, around 68% of users said that it is easy to drill down into KPIs with little training in analytics, whereas some users said that the platform is sparse in terms of features and does not have the same reporting capabilities as other Salesforce tools. Mentioning the interface, a majority of users said that it is clean and interactive, though quite a few users said that they preferred the classic version to the new one. A majority of the users who reviewed pricing said that, in addition to expensive per-user licenses, other costs can quickly add up, since implementation is not easy and often requires professional vendor support. Many users who discussed setup said that the platform struggles when processing large amounts of data, and plugins are needed to process heavier data sets, which further compounds costs. Quite a few users said that the platform performs well within the Salesforce ecosystem; however, it does not have the robustness and flexibility of Tableau. Overall, Einstein Analytics is a BI tool with strong out of the box ETL and data visualization capabilities that glean deeper insights into business metrics and seems to be suited for organizations with lightweight data analysis needs or those that already implement Salesforce solutions.

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