SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards is an extremely flexible tool. It supports a wide range of different data sources and offers the integrated spreadsheet to tie everything together. Also, there is a very wide range of components (standard and third-party) available, which have detailed property settings to make specific adjustments.
Design Studio, on the other hand, has a more robust setup. The spreadsheet layer is gone and only datasources via SAP systems are supported. Also, web standards such as JavaScript and CSS are incorporated. The export functionality to create standalone SWF files is also gone and the deployment of Design Studio apps is only available through SAP environments.
The following table lists some key differences and similarities between SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards and Design Studio:
|
Design Studio |
Dashboards | |
|---|---|---|
|
Platform |
SAP BW JAVA Portal SAP BusinessObjects BI Launchpad SAP HANA |
SAP BW JAVA Portal SAP BusinessObjects BI Launchpad SWF (Flash) file (standalone or embedded in MS Office / PDF) |
|
Output format |
HTML5 |
SWF (Flash) HTML5 (limited number of components and connection types) |
|
Mobile |
100 percent compatible through the SAP BusinessObjects Mobile app or through the direct URL in a browser |
Limited compatibility through the SAP BusinessObjects Mobile app |
|
Components |
High number of chart and table components Limited number of buttons, selection (sliders), and miscellaneous graphical components (gauges) |
Very high number of chart, table, buttons, selection, and miscellaneous graphical components |
|
Development flexibility |
High flexibility; drag and drop supported, including relative positioning of components Interactivity enabled through JavaScript and CSS can be used for visual adjustments |
High flexibility; drag and drop supported Integrated spreadsheet can be used to set up interactivity |
|
Connectivity |
SAP NetWeaver BW SAP HANA SAP BusinessObjects Universes (UNX) |
SAP NetWeaver BW SAP BusinessObjects Universes (UNX) Web Service Query XML SAP BusinessObjects Live Office |
|
Data input |
Not supported | |
|
SDK |
Eclipse IDE |
Adobe Flex |