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This blog post is based on a webinar presented by Katryn Cheng and Jie Deng – “Dashboards and Applications with SAP Analytics Cloud”.

This blog will provide an overview of SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite with a focus on Dashboards and Analytic Applications. For a more detailed overview and to see live demonstrations, please watch this webinar.

The purpose for this webinar: In December 2020, Adobe Flash will be reaching its end of life. Our dashboards are based on Flash and thus, will no longer be supported. Our recommendation is to move your SAP Dashboards over to SAP Analytics Cloud. This blog post contains the key takeaways of the webinar and will provide you with time stamps to watch the comprehensive live demonstrations on-demand.

The SAP BI Portfolio:

We have two solutions in the SAP BI Portfolio: SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite. SAP Analytics Cloud is a modern analytical platform in the cloud with key capabilities such as Business Intelligence, Enterprise Planning, and Augmented Analytics. We then have SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite which many customers still use for their machine critical BI. This solution leverages the powerful semantic layer and provides robust business reporting with Web Intelligence.

 

Dashboards:

SAP Dashboard:

  • Use Cases: With SAP Dashboard (formerly known as Xcelsius), you can design pixel-perfect dashboards with custom application-like interactivity through the use of buttons and widgets.

  • The architecture: SAP Dashboard is based on Adobe Flash. It has a built-in excel modelling layer which is used to define data inputs as well as interactivity within the dashboard. Additionally, majority of the data connectivity is done via web services.


SAP Analytics Cloud Architecture:

  • Where SAP BusinessObjects is more focused on content types, in SAP Analytics Cloud, we have our core features Business Intelligence, Augmented Analytics, and Enterprise Planning which can all be leveraged in our dedicated user experiences such as Digital Boardroom, Stories, Analytic Applications, and MS Office Integration. To learn more, go to this blog.


Example:

See below for an example of an SAP Analytics Cloud Dashboard. On the very left we have a Value Driver Tree which allows you to do What-if simulations with an account hierarchy. You can change a value and see how it flows throughout the hierarchy in real-time. Within one user Story, you can leverage all 3 of the core capabilities (Business Intelligence, Augmented Analytics, and Enterprise Planning). To learn more about the capabilities and functionalities of Dashboards in SAP Analytics Cloud, please go to 9:30 of the webinar.


For a thorough demonstration on how to create dashboards in SAP Analytics Cloud, please visit 11:00 of the webinar.

 

There are two types of data connections in SAP Analytics Cloud:

  • Live Data Connectivity: Using Live Data Connectivity you can connect to your SAP HANA, BW, S/4HANA and BI Universe data sources. This method leverages all the semantics already present in your data source. With Live Data Connectivity, you have limited ability to customize the semantics on SAP Analytics Cloud because we need to leverage the metadata from its source.

  • Acquired Data Connectivity: With Acquired Data Connectivity, you can import data into SAP Analytics Cloud such as personal spreadsheets, SQL data and more.


Learn more about data connections in SAP Analytics Cloud in this blog.


SAP Analytics Cloud also comes with many free content packages including industry and Line of Business content packages. Once you subscribe to SAP Analytics Cloud you can leverage this packages yourself.

 

Analytic Applications:

With Analytics Designer you have more advanced capabilities that will help you create more sophisticated enterprise Dashboards or Analytic Applications. With Analytics Designer we leverage the whole SAP Analytics Cloud infrastructure meaning you can leverage various Live Data Connections, as well as the integration with Planning and Smart Insights. Additionally, you can access Analytics Designer features such as scripting and events which allows you to create comprehensive and interactive Analytic Applications to meet your end user’s needs.


You can also access your Analytic Applications on our mobile ready platform on iOS devices. To read more about the iOS app and to learn about typical access – read this blog.

You can also check out our guided learning material about Analytics Designer here.

To see a demonstration of how you can create an Analytic Application in SAP Analytics Cloud, please go to 39:15 of the webinar.

To learn more about how you can extend and enhance your current SAP BusinessObjects BI solution with SAP Analytics Cloud, register for our upcoming webinars here.