Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Objects Developer

🎯 Role Definition

The Business Objects Developer is a BI specialist responsible for designing, developing, deploying and supporting reporting solutions and analytics platforms using the SAP BusinessObjects suite. This role translates business intelligence requirements into technical specifications, builds universes, creates reports and dashboards, optimises performance, ensures data integrity and maintains the solution in production. You will partner with business stakeholders, data architects, data warehouse teams and QA resources to deliver accurate, timely insights that support decision‑making and organisational strategy.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Junior BI Developer (Reporting/Analytics)
Data Warehouse Developer (ETL/Reporting)
Business Intelligence Analyst

Advancement To:

Senior Business Objects Developer / Lead BI Developer
BI Solution Architect (BusinessObjects + BI platform)
Head of Reporting & Analytics / BI Manager

Lateral Moves:

BI Developer – Multi‑platform (Tableau, Power BI)
Data Integration Developer / ETL‑Reporting Specialist
Analytics Engineer (Data + Reporting)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Design, develop and maintain SAP BusinessObjects universes (classes, objects, contexts, aliases) to model enterprise data and support reporting requirements.
Create complex reports, dashboards and ad‑hoc queries using BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, Information Design Tool (IDT) or Universe Designer, tailored to business user needs.
Engage with business analysts and stakeholders to gather reporting requirements, define acceptance criteria, and translate them into technical design and development tasks.
Develop and optimise SQL queries, stored procedures, views and derived tables underpinning BusinessObjects universes and reports to ensure high performance.
Conduct data analysis, data profiling and reconciliation to validate data accuracy, consistency and integrity across source systems and reports.
Tune performance of BusinessObjects reports, universes and queries—identify bottlenecks, optimise execution times, re‑architect report logic and implement best‑practices.
Manage the full life‑cycle of BI solutions: development, testing, deployment, scheduling, monitoring and maintenance of reports and universes in production environments.
Maintain and administer the BusinessObjects environment: Central Management Console (CMC), Central Configuration Manager (CCM), server configuration, security settings, scheduling, migrations and backups.
Implement and maintain row‑level, object‑level and universe security models, manage user groups, privileges, connections and access within BusinessObjects platform.
Participate in the deployment of upgrades, patches and service packs for BusinessObjects platform, coordinate testing and migration activities across environments.
Create and maintain technical documentation including universe design specifications, report design documents, change logs, data lineage, deployment guides and user manuals.
Provide production support and troubleshooting for BusinessObjects solutions: respond to incidents, root‑cause analyse issues, implement fixes and preventive actions.
Mentor junior BI/BusinessObjects developers: conduct code and report reviews, share best practices, support knowledge transfer and uplift team capability.
Contribute to the BI architecture and reporting strategy: recommend tooling, integration patterns, data modelling approaches and optimisation initiatives for the BusinessObjects platform.
Collaborate with data engineers, ETL developers and data warehouse teams to ensure data delivery, transformation and availability align with reporting requirements.
Support migration efforts: convert legacy reports/universes, consolidate duplicate assets, retire outdated objects and ensure alignment with enterprise standards.
Perform testing of developed universes and reports: unit tests, integration testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), performance validation, report accuracy verification.
Stay current with new versions of SAP BusinessObjects, BI technologies, data visualisation trends and emerging best practices to continuously enhance standards and capabilities.
Work within agile development processes: attend sprint planning, stand‑ups, retrospectives and collaborate in iterative delivery of BI solutions.
Align BI deliverables with business outcomes: partner with product owners and business units to prioritise reporting features, define KPIs, monitor usage and ensure value delivery.

Secondary Functions

Support ad‑hoc data requests, exploratory reporting tasks, or quick turn‑around analytics for business stakeholders.
Contribute to the organisation’s BI roadmap and data strategy by recommending improvements, modularisation of universes, report rationalisation and cost‑optimisation.
Collaborate with business units to translate domain or organisational needs into BI deliverables, reporting tasks and backlog items for the BI/Analytics team.
Participate in agile ceremonies, sprint retrospectives and continuous improvement initiatives to refine BI delivery processes.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expertise with SAP BusinessObjects suite: Web Intelligence (WebI), Crystal Reports, Universe Designer, Information Design Tool (IDT), Live Office etc.
Depth in UNIVERSE design and development: classes, objects, contexts, aliases for multi‑data source modelling.
Strong proficiency in SQL and relational databases (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2), query writing, stored procedures and performance tuning.
Experience in data modelling, data warehousing and BI solution architecture to support reporting layers.
Skilled in report development and visualisation: report formats, dashboards, cross tab, drill‑down, alerts, ranking, filters.
Familiarity with BO platform administration: CMC/CCM, user/groups security, scheduling, server configuration, deployments.
Performance optimisation skills: tuning universes, reports and queries for speed, concurrency and scalability.
Experience in migration/upgrade of SAP BusinessObjects platforms, converting reports/universes and retiring legacy assets.
Ability to use version control, metadata documentation, logging and monitoring for BI assets.
Knowledge of ETL/integration with BI platform: connecting to data warehouse, staging, OLAP/OLTP systems, understanding data flows.

Soft Skills

Excellent analytical and problem‑solving mindset: able to interpret business reporting needs, root‑cause data/report issues and propose effective solutions.
Strong communication skills: able to interact with business stakeholders, translate their reporting requirements into technical tasks and convey complex BI concepts clearly.
Team collaboration: works well with data engineers, analysts, product owners, QA and infrastructure teams to deliver end‑to‑end BI solutions.
Detail‑oriented and disciplined: ensures accuracy of report outputs, data integrity, version control and documentation.
Time management and prioritisation: efficiently handles multiple reporting requests, sprints and deadlines in a fast‑paced environment.
Adaptability and continuous learning: keeps up with evolving BI tools, BusinessObjects versions and data analytics trends.
Mentoring and influence: supports junior developers, shares best practices, leads by example in BI/reporting standards.
Business‑centric mindset: understands how reporting outputs support decision‑making and drives business value through data insight.
Quality and ownership mindset: takes responsibility for deliverables, supports production stability and maintains high service levels.
Agile mindset: participates in agile ceremonies, iterative delivery of features and continuous improvement of BI development processes.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Data Analytics, or related technical discipline.

Preferred Education:
Master’s degree in Business Intelligence, Data Engineering, Analytics or equivalent professional certification in BI/BusinessObjects.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science / Software Engineering
Information Systems / Data Management
Business Intelligence / Data Analytics
Data Warehousing & Reporting

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:
3‑5 years of experience in SAP BusinessObjects development, universe design, report building and BI solution delivery.

Preferred:
5+ years of hands‑on experience building and supporting enterprise‑scale BusinessObjects solutions, mentoring others and contributing to BI strategy and platforms.

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Objects Developer