InfoSol We're passionate about inspired business intelligence
When I first started raving about BusinessObjects in 1992, I would never have thought that I would still be raving about it 30 years later, let alone writing a blog on it on New Year’s Eve!
But why not? 2022 turned out to be another massive year for the most popular Business Intelligence suite on the planet. BusinessObjects is like the legendary Phoenix that keeps coming back to life and the June announcement by SAP of a 10 year+ roadmap (see previous blog BusinessObjects Solid for the Next Decade and Beyond) sees it rising from the flames again in all its splendor.
The current version, BI 4.3, delivers an all new HTML5 user interface for Web Intelligence that, once you get used to, improves the productivity and usability immensely. Each of the annual service packs delivered with Bi 4.3 has been packed with new functionality and the latest one, SP03, is no exception. One of the major new features is to allow users to go beyond merging queries and actually allows Web Intelligence users to left-outer/right-outer join data provider cubes – so cool!
While around 3,000 BusinessObjects customers have already upgraded to BI 4.3, we expect tens of thousands more to upgrade in 2023. This is because BI 4.2 moves into Priority 1 support (no more patches or fixes to the code although support will continue for 2 years) as of Jan. 1 this year.
The upgrade from BI 4.2 to 4.3 is relatively straightforward although we do recommend installing on new servers/VM’s and arranging for training on Web Intelligence differences for anyone creating Webi reports. If you’re planning to upgrade to BI 4.3 in the first quarter of 2023, I would advise going with Service Pack 2 (SP2) patch 800 and above. If you are looking to upgrade after April 2023, then SP03 should be at its second patch level by then and more vetted.
The BusinessObjects community has an exciting year ahead with a ton of events.
Lets SpeakBO Webinars
The monthly Lets SpeakBO webinars will be focused a lot on new features and functions, and be sure not to miss the February 7 session on the BI 4.3 SP4 Roadmap presented by SAP France as they discuss what is coming in the next releases and the timeline and priorities for 4.3 SP4 and the BI 2024.
IBIS / In-Person Events
InfoSol will also be sponsoring in-person regional BusinessObjects User Group Meetings again with the first being in Arizona on February 9, as well as IBIS 2023 to be held at the breath-taking Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain Resort, AZ from June 25-28 (Call for Papers is open now). IBIS 2023 will focus on both the new BusinessObjects functionality as well as co-existence and integration with PowerBI and Tableau.
New Service / Training Offerings and Add-ons
InfoSol is also planning to launch both new service/training offerings and exciting new add-ons to BusinessObjects. One of these offerings (that I will write a blog about soon) is the integration of Webi (BusinessObjects Web Intelligence) with InfoBurst Squirrel. By using the Custom Elements capability in Web Intelligence, InfoSol has integrated the incredibly powerful InfoBurst Squirrel application that enables you to bake in value calculators with sliders, amazing visualizations and write back to databases directly into Webi reports – now, that is mind-blowing!
So, 2023 is looking to be yet another massive year for BusinessObjects and the BusinessObjects community. It will be busy for sure. Happy New Year everyone!
