SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence has 3 different clients available:

  1. Web
  2. Java - Rich Internet Application
  3. Desktop - Desktop (Windows only)

Each of the Business Objects Web Intelligence clients have unique features that are not available in the other clients.

There isn’t a Business Objects Web Intelligence client that has all the features.

Feature

Web

Java

Desktop

File > New Document

NO

YES

YES

Report Element > Linking > Add Document Link

YES

NO

NO

Report Element > Linking > Edit Document Link

YES

NO

NO

Format > Numbers > Define Custom Number Format

NO

YES

YES

Format > Numbers > Apply Custom Number Format

NO

YES

YES

Data Access > Data Providers > New Data Provider

NO

YES

YES

Data Access > Data Providers > Edit Data Provider

NO

YES

YES

Analysis > Conditional > New Conditional Formatting Rule

NO

YES

YES

Web Service Publisher

NO

YES

YES

Data Mode

NO

YES

YES

Excel Data Provider

NO

NO

YES

Text Data Provider

NO

NO

YES

Web Service Data Provider

NO

NO

YES

The only difference between the Web Intelligence Rich Internet Application (Java) and the Web Intelligence Desktop client is that in the Windows Desktop client you can use excel, text, and web services as a data provider.  If you don’t need these data provider sources, the java client has all the functions you need. The Web client does not allow you to create new documents and data providers.  However there is one significant feature of the Web Intelligence web client in that it allows you to create document links between documents. This analysis is with Version 4.0 Support Package 2 Patch 13 of SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence. If you know of a feature difference that I missed, please leave a comment.