Cloud for Analytics – Some early observations – Part 2

You can find the previous blogs on Cloud f Analytics here:

Cloud for Analytics – Some early observations – Part 1

Getting Started – Data Connectivity

Getting Started – Using Google Sheets with Cloud for Analytics

Create your own hierarchy in Cloud for Analytics

After creating the first chart I explored some additional features and came across the context menu of the chart, which gives the business user a quick option to sort the chart and to rank the information in the chart – so I thought that was a pretty nice option for the charts.

I then noticed that the chart stated that the numbers are “in USD”…. (see top left corner), but I did not remember that I had configured the currency anywhere in my story or in my model.

I then went back to my model and I found the Preferences (on a model level) and there was the default Currency.

I then noticed that in the model there was no option to setup a currency per key figure / measure but instead the currency was only an option available in the preferences of the model itself.

Now this might just be me – but I think a single currency for a model will become an issue for a lot of customers and my wish here is that SAP will allow customers to import their models from SAP HANA and SAP BW with the option to have either a fixed Unit / Currency per measure or an actual separate dimension that will handle the currency for the selected measure.

So I went back to my chart and looked at the configuration options….

…. and noticed that I do have the option to assign a dimension for the color assignment. I didn’t have the data (yet) but this will basically allow you to have Actual and Budget values separated by color / color pattern or you could assign specific color to specific products – for example Silver for Mercedes and Black for BMW – assuming we are selling cars.

So that is something for sure to explore in the next steps.

One additional item I noticed is, that the charts did not have an option to choose if my chart should be created based on the description or the ID of the dimension, but instead the charts are going to use the description value when available and the ID as a fallback.

Somehow that was telling me that there is an issue.

So I went back to my model and made sure that my dimension Month as IDs and Descriptions.

(please remember the sorting !)

Then I created my chart in Cloud for Analytics.

… and as expected my chart is showing the description values for my dimension month, but the data was not sorted correct as it was just using the data how it was entered in the model. Somehow I expected it to be sorted accordingly to the ID of the assigned dimension.

So then I opened the context menu and decided to sort the data….

…and I think that images explains why (like in Design Studio) there needs to be an option to have the data sorted based on an ID and the descriptions are displayed accordingly as I am sure people do not want to see a 12 months chart sorted in an alphabetically order.

Then I noticed the “Advanced Sorting” option and thought that perhaps the option is “hidden” there, but that was the option to sort the data based on measure values.

So what is my “Wish list so far” ?

• Introduce an option to configure numeric scaling on a measure level per chart
• Introduce an option to configure a scaling unit that can be displayed
• Introduce the option to select what the basis for the chart should be – ID / Description
• Introduce the option to select what should be displayed in the chart – ID / Description
• Introduce the option to configure currency / unit per measure
• Currency / Unit configuration should be similar to HANA / BW – either a fixed Unit / Currency or a separate dimension

that’s it so far.