Analysis Office Roadmap Webcast Notes

Today I attended this webcast provided by SAP’s Alexander Peter.

Please note the usual SAP disclaimer applies:

Figure 1: Source: SAP

Figure 2: Source: SAP

Figure 2 shows the familiar consolidation of tools slide.  Alex said the name will stay Analysis Office, even with converging the two clients

Figure 3: Source: SAP

Analysis Office works with  BW/HANA

EPM add-on came from acquisitions of Outlooksoft / Cartesis

Live Office covers the universes (only UNV today) – UNX support is in the pipeline

Figure 4: Source: SAP

The plan is to add UNX to Live office very soon

Discussions have started on Live Office convergence but no long term strategy defined

Figure 5: Source: SAP

Figure 5 shows the Unified model; at “the end of day” they want “one single client”

Today you cannot run both clients in parallel

Figure 6: Source: SAP

The plan is to have a single license for one tool

Those with an EPM license can use the Analysis tool but this is only true for frontend piece

The will still expose as separate ribbon tabs with a common refresh all

They plan to release in 1 month in ramp-up

Analysis Office

Figure 7: Source: SAP

Figure 7 shows you can deploy to BI platform or NetWeaver; note that variants are supported only in a NetWeaver deployment

Figure 8: Source: SAP

Analysis 2.0 went GA last week

SAP worked on architecture for convergence of add in, making configuration files changes without additional authorizations

The new table design feature allows the adding of empty lines/rows in crosstab

There is a new enhanced side panel to change properties/measures

SAP changed the SAP HANA connection that used to be ODBC SQL to HTTP – don’t have to set up an ODBC driver on each client and limitations with hierarchy handling and SSO – all replaced with HTTP protocol

The quick ribbon delays the load of the add-in

Smart Copy & paste views within Analysis allows you to copy a datasource from 1 workbook to another one or to Analysis for PowerPoint

You can save query views

Figure 9: Source: SAP

The main theme for next release (ramp up end of May) is convergence with EPM add-on

A

nalysis Office 2.1 will contain EPM add-on

Formula editor will be enhanced; today it offers only quick calculations

It contains more complex formulas – coming is a state of the art formula editor

The next release will allow you to define restrictions on HANA

Complete API will be available for table design – when you want to read specific formatting of crosstab

Coming also is the notation concept for charts/table (Prof Hichert) with actuals in black, planned in lighter – use table design API to format a column / row based on name of measure

Precalculation couldn’t be covered in 2.0; will close gap in 2.x worksbooks on BI Platform

Plan to schedule workbooks that contain HANA content; not possible before due to missing SSO

Message handling (bottom left corner) – controlled by API

Logon / Logoff will be in 2.1; this was heavily asked in Idea Place

System remap will allow you to change the system from test system to production system – change connections

For the future they plan to add HANA as a platform when get right services to store in HANA

The future will look at enhancing the Comments framework and closing the gaps in PowerPoint framework (formatting options)

Table design to have more flexibility – define in an empty column to create your own calculated measure in Excel

Question & Answer

Q: Scheduling – limitation – can’t do that without BIP- any plans on NW platform?

A: Yes, heard that; no short-term plan to do it

Variants not available on BIP; still need BW platform for that

Q: Will version 2.1 will allow scheduling with prompts?

A: scheduling in 2.0 need to save as 1.4 – in 2.1 yes

Q: See any performance between BIP/BW?

A: Constantly working – can downport opening from BIP (20 callbacks) – have improved, continuing improve

Q: Timeline for UNX in Live Office?

A: doing enhancements for Live Office – no plan to offer UNX for Analysis Office as it doesn’t fit relational sources

Looking at moving Live Office into the converged client – evaluating now – no clear timing

Q: NonSAP OLAP sources – any plans?

A: EPM add-on allows MDX and MS Analysis Services – no plan to go beyond that

Q: Since 2.1 rampup is starting end of May, when do we expect it to be GA? Still Q2?

A: I can’t give timing for end of ramp-up- guess GA in 3 months

ASUG Annual Conference Resources:

ASUG BI/BW/HANA Schedule with session links

Add these sessions to your schedule

Meet Alex in person at his session BI70 Analysis Office Convergence