Connecting SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) with SAP Business One
The Case for BI
When SMB wants to gain further insight into the company’s data with ease one of the more powerful options is SAP Analytics Cloud especially when looking into the gained value compare to the low monthly user license costs.
SAP Analytics helps companies make better decisions. We believe that digital transformation is changing the nature of decision making in the enterprise.
The evolution in decision-making mirrors an evolution in data and analytics. Democratization and visualization made it possible to decentralize decision-making. But companies are now finding that access and simplicity aren’t enough to support mission-critical business processes. They need to be able to analyze the past while planning and predicting the future, moment by moment in the present.
SAP’s BI strategy update, announced in February, means that all future innovation for data discovery use cases will be made in SAP Analytics Cloud. The following FAQ will provide further insight.
SAP Analytics Cloud is a single experience for decision making that allows users to discover, visualize, plan and predict, all in one place. Giving everyone, whether in front of the customer or in the boardroom, the power to find new insights and take action.
SAP Analytics Cloud for Business Intelligence
Connect and prepare your data
- Prepare and model cloud and on-premise data from your browser
- Data connectors from SAP (BW, HANA, SAP Cloud Platform, Universes) and non-SAP sources
- Linking aggregated data
- Cross dataset calculations
Visualize and build your views
- Design, visualize, and create your stories live
- Add simple location analytics into your visualizations
- Personalize your own dashboard views
Share with your team
- Simply collaborate with your team
- Take action on your data
- Use permissions to control who can view and edit your analytics
SAP Business One out-of-the-box Analytics vs. SAP Analytics Cloud
| SAP Business One Analytics | SAP Analytics Cloud |
| Operational/Tactical Analytics | Strategic Analytics |
| BI and some Predictive capabilities | BI, Predictive & Planning capabilities |
| Empowers Key User, Facilitates End User | Empowers the End User |
| Limited self-service & flexibility | Self-service & flexibility for everyone |
| Analytics within the context of B1 | Agnostic platform open to all applications & data |
| On-premise or Managed cloud | Pure Cloud solution (public or private) |
| No built-in geospacial support | Built-in Geospacial visualization included (Esri)) |
Connecting SAP Analytics Cloud to SAP Business One
The following illustrates all the possible options of live data connection for connecting SAC to other systems (SAP Business One connection will be via SAP HANA)
There are 2 main options for Live Data Connections to SAP HANA (more can be found here):
- Direct Connection (using CORS)
- You don’t want to set up a reverse proxy on your local network and put SAP Analytics Cloud behind it.
- You are not connecting to an SAP Cloud Platform system.
- Path Connection (using Reverse Proxy to map into the HANA app framework / XS engine)
- You already have a reverse proxy set up on your local network and must access SAP Analytics Cloud through it.
- You do not want to enable CORS support on your SAP HANA system.
- You do not want to configure CORS on multiple systems. You can add multiple systems as paths instead of enabling CORS on every system.
- You are not connecting to an SAP Cloud Platform system.
Connecting SAP Analytics Cloud to SAP Business One using a reverse proxy
Configure the reverse proxy
SAP Analytics Cloud connection configuration
Please Note: There are few limitations when using a live data connection between SAC and SAP HANA and they are outlined in the following link:
Thanks for this Moty! very insightful. I know of some UK partners who are B1 specialists who will be enthused to see this. thanks again.
Quick q. from my side, as i’m not familiar with BusinessOne – I take it your architecture will be accessing the HANA DB views directly from SAC side, rather than through B1's application layer (my assumption).
so what licensing does this need from our downstream-client perspective? I mean does the customer need more than (what i would have assumed to be) a HANA runtime license used in B1, but actually a ‘full use’ one to enable (+ possibly adjust/modify?) these views for SAC consumption?
Kind regards, H
Thanks Henry, I have the same question here. @Moty Moshin, could you please help to clarify?