Getting Familiar with Cloud for Analytics Tutorial

SAP’s Jane Fu provides a nice tutorial here SAP BusinessObjects Cloud Tutorial Walkthrough

I asked SAP if I could share my experience, and the response was I could.

Below is my own experience, after having followed the tutorial a few times.  The trial environment is Chrome only, as Jane states, and you can’t use geo-enabled dimensions.  The trial offers two models (which means you cannot connect your own data).

What I liked best:

No installation on my desktop; this is nice and you cannot underestimate this.

You can create a discussion (such as the one below) but with the trial it will be only with yourself.

There is an option to Share stories, but again, since it is only yourself in the tutorial, you will be sharing with yourself.

Below is the result of sharing one of the stories, on Chrome only:

You can also interact with the shared stories, as shown below – top 5, bottom 5, etc.

When I went searching for something, I happened upon the “Modeler”, as shown below:

Reports provide an “Excel” like pivot interface where you can add or remove dimensions and measures to the display.

You can also add charts to the Reports, as shown below

It was fairly easy to “build my own story” as shown below.

You can also export the story to a PDF:

Here is the view of the PDF:

You can also upload your pictograms and your own images

Recommendations when trying the product

I recommend following Jane’s tutorial a few times.  At least this is what helped me the most.

Based on ASUG webcasts I have attended, there is a new release every 2 weeks (and you don’t have to patch it yourself) so hopefully there will be a fast turn around on suggestions.

What I am looking forward to

I am looking forward to the capability of connecting my own data, especially to the SAP back ends.

I am also looking forward to trying it on a mobile device.

I expect more chart types to be added in the future; I was looking for a funnel type chart and couldn’t locate it.

Here’s what happens when you try it on a non-Chrome environment:

If you haven’t applied for the trial you can apply at http://sapcloudanalytics.com/