SAP Analytics Cloud: Analytics Designer Hackathon – Making Consulting an Intelligent Enterprise

This is part of a series of blogs that all detail the 2019 SAP Analytics Cloud Analytics Designer Hackathon submissions (more information for which can be found here).

The purpose of Analytics Designer is to create easy-to-use applications to elevate end users’ insights for a more intelligent enterprise. The average user won’t know every tip or trick that can show them the correct filter, or partition of information that is needed to make an informed business decision.  The application I created is one that allows for full interaction among all its charts and tables in an intuitive manner. This application is targeted for mid-level managers in any given company (in my case consulting) and can tell all the relevant information about hours worked, revenue vs. expenses, our technologies, how our salespeople are doing and what is in the pipeline for future business.

One of the main SAC features that would be missed in an Analytics Designer application is the concept of multiple tabs or pages, something commonplace in most corporate reporting.  By using panels combined with the ability to script and an improvised toggle button, I can simulate tabs (as seen in the images above).

Additionally, using the same scripting capabilities I created a “guided filter” that would allow users to pick from a specified series of time filters.  This is really cool because I made it so that everything in the field of view can interact with each other.

That doesn’t just include buttons, I wanted to ensure that any selection made would allow drilling into the data, thus providing many more insights. Unlike SAC stories which have “Linked Analysis” the user has to know how to enable it and use it within the story. Let’s face it, many “C” level users do not want to do ad-hoc analysis, they just want the answers.  The SAC Analytics Designer lets me create applications that take the work out of doing this from the user and allows for a seamless, interactive experience.

If the application you created provides insight, it should raise additional questions! In this case Analytics Designer’s scripting API allows access to SAP’s Data Explorer, Smart Discovery and Search to Insight. Any of these tools can be used to answer any question your user may have. Additionally, the popup interface of the tool allows for a cleaner and more focused look for SAP’s data exploration tools.

Knowing the past can help users to understand what has been happening with their business but most businesses need to know what will be happening in the future. SAP offers multiple built-in forecasting models for time series and the application interface offers the ability to create their own R-visualization, which they can load with their own models and forecasts. Any business that can make informed decisions regarding its future is likely to be around for the future, and with SAP’s forecasting abilities this easily becomes a reality.

SAP Analytics Cloud is a very powerful tool for analysts and ad-hoc users, but it may be too complicated for some users. Analytics Designer gives developers the ability to use the power of SAC to provide applications with guided navigation, thus simplifying the experience.