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Author's profile photo Cynthia Lee
Cynthia Lee
July 3, 2018 6 minute read

What’s New in SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Digital Boardroom Release 2018.12

This blog covers some of the latest new features and enhancements in SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Digital Boardroom release 2018.12. Please note that the Analytics Cloud Help documentation is updated at the same time as the upgrade to this release, so the links here may not yet reflect what is described below until after the upgrade is complete.

SAP Analytics Cloud agent version required for data acquisition with this release:

  • Version 1.0.109 for SAP Business Warehouse (BW)
  • Version 1.0.99 for SAP ERP / SQL databases
  • Version 1.0.91 for SAP Universe (UNX)
  • Version 1.0.75 for all other data source types
  • Note: Although it is not required, you can upgrade to the new agent version 1.0.109, no matter what data acquisition type you use. Do this to take advantage of updates made to SAP Analytics Cloud agent.

For more information, see System Requirements and Technical Prerequisites.

Highlights of this release:

Learn with our latest video tutorials

Planning

Currency as a dimension

You can now introduce a specific dimension to capture transaction currency. This allows you to plan distinct values for different input currencies (E.g. a portion of travel expenses could be planned in Euros, with the primary plan values in USD for the same Cost Center), allowing finer granularity in plan entry and tracking.

Structured allocation – enterprise scale rule editor support

It just became much easier to deal with large and complex allocation rule sets! Now, you can easily copy and paste rules between Excel and the SAP Analytics Cloud allocations rule editor. Also important to mention, rule validation and error highlighting will automatically occur upon being pasted into the rule editor.

Data Actions

Data Actions is an orchestration and execution engine for sequential batch operations. This enables automation of complex multi-step operations.

Initially, two types of steps are provided: data copy and advanced formula logic. You can chain and order as many of these steps together as necessary in a single Data Action. The Data Action is executed based on a trigger button inserted on the story canvas.

Advanced Formulas

Advanced Formulas are a specific sub-type of Data Action. This allows business operations with more flexible script-based formulas. Advanced Formulas combine SAP Analytics Cloud account formula language with more complex scripting like concepts (E.g. dataset scoping, looping, etc.) to provide a persistent multi-dimensional calculation paradigm. This significantly augments and expands the native calculation capabilities within the SAP Analytics Cloud modelling engine to substantially expand the types of calculations and use-cases which SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning can support.

Automatically resize tables columns and align columns

Big, small, long, or short—your column sizes matter! You can now select an option to automatically resize table columns on a canvas page. For responsive pages, you’ll be able to align columns for tables within the same responsive lane.

Data Integration

Import currency conversion rates from SAP BW

We’ve just made life easier for you. Now, you can import currency conversion rates from SAP BW and schedule your currency conversion table to automatically update from your BW source.

Digital Boardroom

Create meeting minutes

Who wouldn’t want to be more organized? With our new meeting minutes feature, you can take notes during Digital Boardroom presentations! If you hear anything interesting, you can also save your comments for future reference and follow-up.

Set topics as featured in Digital Boardroom

If you deal with Digital Boardrooms packed with content, you probably have experience working with multiple topics. Now, you can feature a specific topic so you’ll have quick access to all of your important topics repeatedly throughout a presentation without needing to navigate through the full topic list.

Administration & Infrastructure

Simplified user license assignment

Roles are now grouped based on the type of license that they are applicable to. Administrators can change this in the “Security and Roles” tab as well as use the “Save As” dialog for any permissions changes made to the predefined roles.

As an administrator, you can also base each new custom role off a specific license. SAP Analytics Cloud ensures that each user’s license consumption is determined solely by the role(s) that they’ve been assigned to.

Now, you don’t need to worry about creating a role that consumes two licenses!

Intelligent Enterprise

Condense hierarchy nodes

When using live data connections to SAP BW, SAP Analytics Cloud can now hide repetitive hierarchy nodes that only have one lower-level node if the “Nodes with Only One Lower-Level Node” option in the BEx Query Designer is set to “Hide”.

Please note: this feature only applies to live data connections because it’s a setting in the BEx Query Designer. SAP Analytics Cloud is rendering the intended result of a BW System based on the settings which could be made.

Data Visualizations

Top N improvements

We’ve made some performance improvements for Top N in our charts. Additionally, the Top N experience is now consistent for both tables and charts. Now, if your table has more than one flat dimension, users will have the option to enable Top N on each dimension.

Please note: hierarchical and category dimensions in a table will not allow the user to deselect the “Apply to Each Dimension” option and Top N for blended tables is not yet supported.


Smooth lines for line and timeseries charts

Our new story designer has an ability to smooth lines for Line charts, Timeseries charts, Combination Column & Line charts, Combination Stacked Column & Line charts.

Mobile

Set the default tab for your users

Do administrators know best or do business users? We’ll let you decide! While you debate, we have given administrators the ability to set the default tab that business users first see on the SAP Analytics Cloud mobile app.

Just by using the “Set Default Tab” feature, mobile users can be set-up to see the content most relevant for them once they open the app. Pretty sweet, right?

Additional resources:

Previous feature summary blogs:

**Legal disclaimer

SAP has no obligation to pursue any course of business outlined in this blog or any related presentation, or to develop or release any functionality mentioned therein. This blog, or any related presentation and SAP’s possible future developments, products and or platforms directions and functionality are all subject to change and may be changed by SAP at any time for any reason without notice. The information in this blog is not a commitment, promise or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality. This blog is provided without a warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. This blog is for informational purposes and may not be incorporated into a contract. SAP assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this document, except if such damages were caused by SAP’s willful misconduct or gross negligence.

All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.

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      2 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Lucas Costa
      Lucas Costa

      Hi Cynthia,

      Would you know where I can find the Advanced Formulas documentation?

      Thank you

      Author's profile photo Cristina Talmaciu
      Cristina Talmaciu

      Hi Cynthia,

      Is the Undo button in the roadmap?

      Thank you!