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SAP BusinessObjects Cloud Tutorial Walkthrough

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If you don’t have a demo account, you can sign up here.

 

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Scenario:

As a Business analyst of the Pacifica Company, I want to analyze online sales data for Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York State to understand:

  • How the company is growing
  • Discover similarities or differences between product families and regions
  • Understand the reason for any discrepancies

 

In this demo session, you will perform the following exercises within SAP BusinessObjects Cloud

  1. Create New Charts
  2. Data Blending
  3. Top Sales Manager
  4. Plan Your Business – Grid Functionality


* Disclaimer:

  • For the best experience, please use Google Chrome and refrain from using the “Upload File” functionality
  • At this time, there is no geo enabled dimension in this demo. To experience the geospatial functionality please see this demo.
  • When logging in for the first time and choosing a new password, the password must have at least eight characters and contain the following character types: at least one uppercase, at least one digit, and lowercase.

 

Let’s get started!

 

Log on to SAP Business Objects Cloud with the log in information you were provided.

If you don’t have the log in information, you can request an invite here.

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The application provides you with additional tool tips to get started easily. You can choose to keep this turned on or turn it off at any point of the demo. /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/02_868564.png

Get familiar with the home screen. It gives you an overview of the actions you can take

 

Note : Based on the account permission setting only a limited set of actions might be available. 

Screen Shot 2016-01-15 at 4.28.54 PM.png
You like to continue the analysis you started last time. Navigate to the menu on the top left corner and select “Stories” /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2_868566.png
Open the “Pacifica Sales Demo” story under the “All” tab. /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/05_868567.png

The story will open.

As you only have read rights, use the “Save As” option to create your own copy of the document.

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Please include your name in the new story title – Example: Pacifica Sales Demo – YourName.

Click “OK” to save the story.

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Adding a new chart. Let’s add a few more visualizations that show the “Sales Revenue” and “Gross Margin %” per product. /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/08_868570.png
Select the “Pacific_Sales” model for the chart /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2_868566.png

A blank chart will be added to the story dashboard.

Note: Depending on space, the blank chart will pop up anywhere on the dashboard. You can later position it as needed.

 

The Builder menu should be visible on the right side.

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Under Axis 1, select “Sales Revenue as the measure.

Under Categories, select “Product” as the dimension.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/12_868573.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/12_868573.png

In the “BUILDER” option, select color to add the desired palette.

Note: for this demo, there is only one choice.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/13_868575.png
Currently the chart is hard to read. Resize it to make it fit about half of the bottom page. /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/4_898085.png

Now, let’s filter the chart to only show the 2015 data.

 

Go back to “BUILDER”. Under Filters, add Time filter to filter the objects.

 

Data can be filtered for a specific time range (Filter by Range) or for a specific Year (Filter by Member).

As we want to see only the 2015 data let’s filter by member.

Untitled.png
Under “(all)” Select “2015” and click “Ok”. /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/17_868578.png

You like to create another chart showing the Gross Margin % per product.

 

As the chart is similar to the one just created, we can copy and paste to create the same chart and change the measure.

 

Select the chart and use Ctrl+C to copy and then Ctrl+V to paste the chart. Resize as needed.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/5_898086.png

Select the chart.

Under Axis 1, remove “Sales Revenue” and then add “Gross Margin %”.

 

Note: The category still remains the same as we want to see Gross Margin % per product.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/17_868578.png

You like to make sure that when the bottom two charts (which you just created) are filtered, that filter is also applied to the entire page, instead of just the selected chart.

 

Go back to menu in the top right corner and in the drop down select “Linked Analysis.

Then select “Entire story + This chart” under “Chart interactions apply to:”

 

Note: Change the settings for “Sales Revenue per Product” chart, which is the one we will be working on

B.png

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Click on the “Sales Revenue per Product” chart.

Single click on the “Accessories” bar will give you the filter options.

Select “Drill Down” from the options.

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See how a story filter token was applied and the bottom right chart was drilled down to just “Accessories” and all other charts are also filtered down. /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/6_898087.png

After viewing the data, remove the “Product” filter.

 

Click on the “Filter” icon at the top and deselect the “Product” filter.

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Furthermore, you would like to add a visualization that shows you the “Sales Revenue” and Gross Margin % per Location.

 

Add a new page and select “Canvas”.

 

Add a new chart.

 

Select the “Pacifica_Sales” model for the chart and click “Ok”.

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/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/25_868587.png

A.png

A blank chart is dropped.

Select “Gross Margin %” and “Location” to create a default chart.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/19_868589.png

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You can also change the chart type. Under “BUILDER” panel, select “CHART TYPE”

You would like to see the data in a tabular view.

 

From the drop down select the chart type as table.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/28_868591.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/29_868592.png

Re-size the chart to fit the table. /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/21_868841.png

Ohio is having the lowest Gross Margin %.

You know that discounts have an effect on the Gross Margin %, hence you would like to add Discount % to the table.

 

Use the side panel (click “Add Another Measure”) to add Discount % to the chart.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/22_868583.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/23_856095.png

You can see that Ohio has the highest Discount %. You wonder how many coupons are being accepted at this location.

Your data-set does not have this information.

Hence you would like to blend the data from a different data-set into this one.

 

Open the “Link Dimensions” in the top left corner.

 

Add the “Coupon_Usage” model.

 

Link “Location” under both models.

Click “SET”.

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Select the chart and add a new measure.

 

Now in addition to the measures from the sales data-set, you also have the measures from the Coupon_Usage data-set available.

 

Select Coupon_usage dataset under Data Source. Now you can see additional values from the Coupon_Usage dataset.

 

Add “No of Used Coupon” to the chart.

 

The chart now has the “No. of used Coupon” value from the three areas.

 

From the table you can see that New York State has the highest usage of coupons but Ohio has the highest Discount % which effects the Gross Margin %.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/1_898079.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2_868566.png

 

A7.png

The same information regarding coupon usage can be seen in another way.

 

 

 

Add a visualization from the Coupon_Usage data-set to find out how coupons have been used.

 

Add a new chart.

Select the “Coupon_Usage” model for the chart.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/38_837511.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/39_837518.png

A blank chart was created. Add No of Coupons and Coupon Type to the chart.

 

Re size the chart to fit the canvas.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/40_837524.png

So far, we can still view the table that we have created on this page. This time you want to focus on the chart that you just created. Select the “Zoom in” option  to enlarge the chart.

 

You want to focus in on 40%, 50%, and 60% coupons. Select these values by clicking on them.

 

Then use the filter option to focus just on these discount values.

A5.png/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/41_837526.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/42_837530.png

Next, add location to the categories to see the distribution of the high discount coupons.

 

This very basic analysis shows that most of the High Discount coupons are being used in the Ohio state

A6.png

Next you would also like to see who the top Sales Managers are in your region. As this task is not related to the one you were working on till now, you would like to see this on a new page.

Create a new canvas page.

 

Add a new chart.

 

Select the “Pacifica_Sales” model for the chart.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/43_837531.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/44_837532.png

 

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/45_837536.png

A new chart was placed.

 

Add “Sales Revenue” under Axis 1 and “Sales Manager” under Categories.

Expand the chart to fit the canvas.

 

You like to sort the chart.

Select the sorting icon on the right side of the chart and sort by “Highest to Lowest”.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/26_856116.png

D.png

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The Sales Manager performance chart is of interest to you, hence you would like to pin it onto your homepage. A8.png

You like to rename the new pages. Go to “Settings” menu and open “Maintain Pages”.

 

Rename page 2 to “Location” and page 3 to “Sales Managers”.

Click “Ok”.

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Save the story. /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/53_837569.png

 

Plan Your Business – Grid Functionality

 

In this section, you will find out another way to explore the dataset further.

 

Add a new page and select Grid (beta).

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Add a Dynamic Table to the Grid.

 

Select Pacifica_Sales as the data model.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/28_868591.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/29_868592.png

A table is added to the grid with Actual and Forecast categories.

Under Accounts, you can see all the measures within the Pacifica_Sales dataset.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/01_868563.png

You would like to know what the Sales Revenue per Location is.

Click on Designer tab in the top right corner to bring up the Builder panel

 

With the table selected, within the Builder panel, click on the icon to add a dimension.

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/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/31_856152.png

Drag the dimension Location from the Dimensions column to the Rows column

 

Click OK.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/32_856153.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/33_868842.png

Depending on how you placed Location relative to Account, you can get two different Table views.

 

For this walkthrough, we went with the second view where Location was placed under Account.

This way you can see Sales Revenue for each region.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/03_868556.png

Select the Actual Sales Revenue for each region and then click on Examine to create a chart.

 

A default chart is show based on your data selection and data visualization best practices.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/04_868557.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/05_868567.png

You can change the default chart to other chart types.

 

Click on Bar/Column in the top right corner within the chart to view a drop down of all available charts.

A2.pngA2.png
If you are happy with the chart you have created, you can copy it to the new page.

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/37_856174.png

/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/38_837511.png

 

Thank you!

Assigned Tags

      18 Comments
      You must be Logged on to comment or reply to a post.
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thank you Jane. I just finished the tutorial and acquire familiarity with the demo. 😉

      Author's profile photo Kris Stono
      Kris Stono

      Hi Jane,

      Is there a plan for letting us import our own sample data to play with? I am able to import a file but not authorised to use it in a story.

      Thanks

      Kris

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Kris, currently this tutorial environment is only a preview to Cloud for Analytics and you won't be able to upload your own data to try. In order to do that at this moment you will need a POC account. Let me know if you are interested and I can forward you to the right contact within SAP that can help you out!

      Thanks,

      Jane

      Author's profile photo Ronald Konijnenburg
      Ronald Konijnenburg

      Hi,

      could you point me to the right contact?

      Author's profile photo John Leggio
      John Leggio

      Hi Ronald,

      Can you fill out this form: Cloud Based Analytics

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Ronald, you can contact your SAP account executive and they will be able to help you with a PoC for Cloud for Analytics

      Author's profile photo Ronald Konijnenburg
      Ronald Konijnenburg

      I have an account executive? I'm a partner.

      Tx, but I'll wait for the public environment (assuming there will be on)

      Author's profile photo JEAN CLAUDE PIZZI
      JEAN CLAUDE PIZZI

      Hello Ronald,

      at this link you can purchase a demo tenant:

      https://partneredge.sap.com/en/partnership/sales/demo/cloud.html


      Best Regards,

      Jean-Claude

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks Jean

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      My apologies I thought you are a customer. PartnerEdger is where you can order a Test & Demo License!

      Author's profile photo Kris Stono
      Kris Stono

      Thanks Jane, I will investigate the POC option.

      Having said that, it would be useful to have the ability to link the trial C4A environment to the HANA Trial Cloud environments. I can load my own sample data into HANA trial and can consume/report against the views with Lumira (on premise) or HTML5. To be able to consume via C4A would be even better and showcase the product even more :-)...fully cloud based.

      Cheers

      Kris

      Author's profile photo Oliver Pellaton
      Oliver Pellaton

      Hi Jane,

      thx for this tutorial, unfortunately, when I try to link the dimension "Location" of the models "Pacifica_Sales" and "Coupon Usage", first the screen freezes, then Chrome crashes ...

      Any suggestion?

      Chrome is on version 48.0.2564.116 m

      Regards

      Oliver

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Oliver! Can you email support.cloudforanalytics@sap.com with your inquiry? I have let the Cloud for Analytics support team know of your issue and they are looking forward to helping you resolve the technical issue!

      Thanks,

      Jane

      Author's profile photo Oliver Pellaton
      Oliver Pellaton

      Hi Jane, thanks for your feedback. I sent an email with a print screen to the support. Btw: I was not able to upload an image here due to missing authorizations ... 🙁

      Kind regards

      Oliver

      Author's profile photo Balaji Vivekanandan
      Balaji Vivekanandan

      Hi Jane,

      Thanks for the Excellent Beginners Walk-through, as per my Understanding, in the current version(1.0.36) of C4A dynamic tables(beta) are replaced with Crosstab, so kindly add the note in your in the specific steps or update the latest snap-shot where ever applicable, so that if anyone trying to follow your tutorial and trying to workout then it would be helpful for them,(Earlier i got struck and then noticed this changes)

      Regards,

      Balaji

      Author's profile photo John Leggio
      John Leggio

      Thanks Balaji!  Read Thomas' excellent blog regarding Cross Tabs in Stories replace Reports

      Author's profile photo Balaji Vivekanandan
      Balaji Vivekanandan

      hi John,

      Noticed the mentioned blog, trying to understand the different options, let me try and share my comments, Thanks

      Regards,

      Balaji

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

       

      Hey experts! I hope you are fine !!

      I have a doubt:
      For users to create models by hana calculations views (BOC only) is it necessary to register the user's P-USER (or S-USER) also in HCP or just in the BOC ???

      I believe it is only in the BOC, but I would like the opinion of our specialists. Can someone fix me?

      Thank you very much in advance.