SAP BusinessObjects Cloud – What’s in it for us?
SAP Cloud for analytics is a new generation of software-as-a-service that provides all the analytics capabilities for all users in one single product. It is built on hana_cloud_platform . It has a simple access to public_cloud experience that customers can trust.
Its All Analytics. All users. One Product!
This post has been written as part of the assignment for bco6181; studied at victoria_university . Getting the practical hands-on experience of sap products in this university has always been the best part of learning experience. We are very grateful to Tony De Thomasis and Paul Hawking who helped in understanding the value and scope of cloud_for_analytics.
In a recent KeyInsights2016 Conference by Complete Stream, Chetan Khimjee and Alexandra Carvalho demonstrated live demo’s and understanding of cloud_for_analytics. This was a great opportunity for us to learn from the experts.
c4a was released officially in October 2015 by Tech-Ed Las Vegas.
The best part c4a is that it is available as saas in public_cloud. Simplified by plug and use feature in a multitenant environment. There is also an additional option to host it in a privatecloud within sap_data_centers. The data can be imported easily from other cloud_platforms (SAP and Non-SAP) and on-premise products.
Integrated Analytics saves time as you don’t have to jump between analytical products to generate insights. The errors are reduced as integrating multiple point solution is not necessary. Cloud for Analytics also delivers best of breed analytics for the mashed up data sourced from different cloud applications. In terms of internet-of-things and bigdataanalytics, it can grasp the benefits of SAP HANA in the cloud. Apart from that, it has the ability to extract data from hadoop sources.
Core capabilities includes collaborate analysis and planning, data connectivity to cloud and on-premise sources, visualizations and story telling, Administration, Location Analytics, combine geo-spatial and business data.
digital_boardroom by SAP can be influenced with c4a by providing total transparency, instant and simplified data-driven insights. The overview screen in SAP Digital Boardroom can be drilled down to access the more insightful story powered by the real-time data in c4a. No matter what landscape you are into, Cloud for Analytics would have answers to all the business questions in real-time with high quality experience.
Apart from the real-time user based analytical experience, Cloud for Analytics offers fiori like interface for the consumers that have the ability to make expeditious transitions with lightening fast in-memory hana_cloud_platform
In our opinion, this tool has varied applications in any business field as it helps the users to do their job more efficiently without jumping into different products. This tool would be a good use for a financial planning and analysis professional as they will be doing all their job duties like access data, analyse, create reports and run predictive functions on one product. In terms of cost, it is available as part of the HCP but it is not free. On the brighter side, it compliments on-premise offerings and SaaS makes it ready for action – plug and use.
Special regards to Nash Gajic Timo ELLIOTT for the inspiration from their work.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to drop in your comments and ratings!
Pranav Gulati and Neha Sachdeva
My concern is by trying to be all and for all in one product, C4A may have lost its focus on its targeted customers...
When stating "all analytics, all users, one product", I am afraid it is about one product and see how much developers can pack into it....what about users and user experience?
Isn't this why SAP moved away from SAP GUI which packed transactions for all users and all steps, into Fiori launchpad listing individual streamlined tile that does one thing well ?
Other than being a cloud product, which user segment is C4A targeing?
At least we were very clear that BI platform is targeting enterprise BI, and Lumira is targeting casual users For information discovery...
In modeling for example, C4A borrowed a lot of concepts and procedures from BPC. It would have been fine for the predecessor Cloud for Planning tool, since it was targeting the BPC community onto the cloud.
I wonder whether C4A would be a good business self service tool with the kind of juggernauts it carries.....the complexities of menus and canvas work flow may be fine for somebody, who are BI experts combined with healthy BW and BPC exposure....for casual users?
SAP's marketing slogan had been simple or simplify.....Lumira appears to be a step in that direction...even though it was missing functionalities as a young product....
C4A seems to be a reverse into a jack-of-all-trade and complexity-in-chief direction again.....
Sincerely hope I am wrong.....
Thank you for your feedback. I somewhat agree to you but it all depends on what you are using it for and in which areas of business. However, this product compliments lot of functionalities but who knows what's coming in the future.
Thanks
You had a great blog...My comments were on the product, not your writing. Thanks for the great work.
Hi Peter,
I have spent a considerable amount of time in this product and the target audience for it are the business users. It does carry a lot of functionality for one product, but its interface and user experience are quite simple and have a small learning curve. The goal is to empower both the casual business user and those with more technical knowledge to build data visualizations easily. You can check out my blogs for how they are executed and some of my impressions on the tool as well.
I agree with Darius, C4A is a business user focused platform and in my view is complement any IT/centralised BI platforms. I wrote about this concept in the following blog post Cloud for Analytics: a business led BI platform to deliver information at speed
I have spent considerable time in BOBJ, Lumira and C4A. Comparing the UI, I can't say C4A is more streamlined and user friendly than Lumira.
Had an experienced BOBJ developer setup in C4A last week, after meeting with the C4A development team got him fired up...he got lost until after watching the video tutorials. Lumira was designed to have users skip manuals...
The modeling of C4A borrowed from BPC, which again is a step back from Lumira for BI consumption. Why does universe data need to be modeled again in C4A ? I know C4A needs it....but a casual user would expect to use it right away, like it is the case in Lumira at least...
Lumira is by no means a perfect casual BI tool...But in terms of business user experience, C4A is apparently a step back, even if C4A has robust functionalities...perhaps exactly because C4A is so much focused on being planning, BI and eventually predictive all in one...
Conceptually, technical foundation and challenges aside, I am not sure it is a terrible idea to put a Webi equivalent in cloud....
I am not even going to things like C4A performance, which has not been very impressive...
When SAP talks about how important Ux and Simplification are, I agree and all users agree...All we need is to go to a tableau product release workshop to prove it....
Time will tell......I hope C4A will finally arrive in 2-3 years...not in the same fate as Lumira for cloud...Real customers can't afford these short life cycles...
Good Insights!
c4a_related
Thank you so much 😀
Great blog, I have developed some visualizations through this.
Seems like easy-to -use.
Looking for some tutorials on this though.
Thank you for your comment.
You might be able to get some more information on : SAP Cloud for Analytics
Hi Ahmed,
I have a step-by-step tutorial on how to build a data visualization in SAP Cloud Analytics here - 10 Steps: How I Built my first SAP Cloud for Analytics Data Visualization
I also have a free online course where I walk through the process with you from beginning to end here - FREE BI Dashboard Design Training: 3-Part Video Series — BIDF
Hi Ahmed, check this out as well: Implementation of SAP Cloud for Analytics - Mark P Burke and Sreedhar Muthuramalingam
Thank you for your insight. It is increasingly important for us to implement this in our business processes. Looking forward to reading more blog posts from you!
Good Luck!
Good work Pranav, nice POV
Thank you so much Nash Gajic, your blogs have inspired me to generate my POV.
Do you recommend any topics of interest for my next blog ?