Roadmap Q&A session on Analysis Office #SAPtd
The other week at SAP TechEd Las Vegas, I attended a Roadmap Q&A session on Analysis Office with SAP’s Alex Peter.
I attended a similar session last year, but the show floor was noisy and I couldn’t hear much. This year was much improved, as the Roadmap Q&A sessions were outside the show floor and the SAP University Alliance students helped by offering a microphone to those who had questions.
Here is the roadmap covered:
Figure 1: Source: SAP
In the middle, you can see “Excel formulas as local members”.
Alex demonstrated this by inserting new columns/rows inside the Analysis result set and then inserted an Excel formula. Today if you do this and refresh the formula goes away. In the demonstration for Analysis 2.2, the formula stays.
Future direction (typically past 18 months) indicates a convergence with Live Office and API improvements.
Figure 2
Here is a demo of the new anticipated feature. In the audience customers said they were looking forward to using this feature.
Other questions referred to lifecycle management on BI Platform (a work in progress).
Another meeting we had was with the ASUG Analysis Office Influence Council. We had about 20 or people show up. Some were knew to the product while others were more advanced, wanting best practices for API’s.
If you are attending SAP TechEd Barcelona, I recommend BA261 Analysis Clients in Microsoft Office because it offers something for both beginners and advanced. You won’t finish the exercises in 2 hours so be sure you are partnered with the right person – e.g. if you are advanced, sit with an advanced person.
Pictured is SAP’s Alex Peter at the Q&A pod at SAP TechEd Las Vegas
Upcoming ASUG BusinessObjects Analysis Influence Council Re-launch
Join ASUG January 14th, 2016 for the BusinessObjects Analysis Influence Council re-launch.
ASUG members who use or plan to use SAP Analysis Office are invited to join the ASUG BI Community in learning how they can influence the future direction of the software. This is a re-launch of the successful ASUG Analysis Influence Council and because Analysis for Office and the EPM Add-in for Microsoft Office are converging, we also welcome EPM users.
ASUG Influence Councils provide structured forums where members collaborate with peers and SAP solution managers to solve similar product challenges, share ideas, and influence specific SAP products and services. The participant profile includes both IT and business users. This is a unique ASUG benefit to you to influence SAP on future direction.
Thanks for the post, Tammy. Question for you. Do you know exactly when 2.2 will be released for general usage?
At TechEd they could only state generic information like "Q4" - so either this month or next month, Lynn (subject to change of course)- thank you for reading & commenting
You are quite welcome. Tammy. Thanks for all that you do for the community 🙂
OK, we will be on the lookout for the new release. If you happen to get the opportunity to beta test for them I would be very interested in hearing how the "Excel formulas as local members" functionality behaves. I know my user base will be thrilled with this new feature.
Have a good day,
Lynn
Hi Tammy.
Thank you very much for your post. I'm looking foward to use this new version where I'll be able to use these formulas functionality, I think it will help me a lot.
I have one question: As far as i know, with version 2.1 it is not possible to use the "Smart Copy" functionality when using formulas. Do you know if it will be possible in this next version?
Thank you once again,
Rodrigo Mourinho
Hello Rodrigo,
Do you mean copy an Excel formula? No, that won't work in 2.1; for 2.2 we'll have to wait and see
Hi Tammy,
Thank you for the reply.
I meant if I have a template with "SAPGetData" formulas and some formats, do you know if it will be possible to Smart Copy it to PPT, for example?
Hi Rodrigo - thank you for clarifying; I think we will have to wait and see or perhaps someone from SAP can address.
Hi Tammy,
Thank you for sharing this. Has Alex explained why he has used absolute adressing? Is this necessary? If e.g. an additional characteristic would be added dynamic adressing of the cells would be much more interesting.
Regards,
Torsten
Hi Torsten - I don't think we got into those details - if someone is attending SAP TechEd Barcelona next week please ask this! Great question
Absolute adressing seems to be normal concerning this feature. I have entered a formula like key figure a / key figure b and it was changed to absolute adressing automatically.
Torsten: I noticed this too; I thought I read this was so you could navigate and keep the formula. I will let you know if I learn more.