Figure 1: Source: SAP

This was the quarterly askSAP community call this week.

Figure 2: Source: SAP

Anything in the future is subject to change

Poll results

Figure 4: Source: SAP

Single destination – SAC

Machine intelligence

Artificial insights

Bring together, make more confident decisions

SAC is strategic direction for analytics

In market for 4 years – BI, planning and predictive

Analytics is a significant focus of SAP’s strategy

Commitment to embed into SAP’s cloud suite – S/4HANA Cloud, Concur, SF, Fieldglass and more

It does not mean ceasing to invest in BusinessObjects; continue to invest in BusinessObjects – release BI4.3 next year, in beta today

Invest in interop between products (SAC and BusinessObjects) – evolve to include reporting and distribution

Figure 5: Source: SAP

Confusion, uncertainty, how get to destination; keep as a living document, do not expect to change often.  Link to Statement of Direction is here

Figure 6: Source: SAP

Simplicity, offer as SaaS, combine use cases, full suite of what is required to run on one platform

What is happening, why happening

Tell users why things are happening using automated insight techniques and what do next

Combine planning and BI – workflows, simulations, what if analysis – make data as interactive as possible; with predictive, where business goes next

Powering intelligent enterprise suite is a big investment – connect the data, out of the box, consistent experience, already connect to critical systems; S/4HANA/SF in slow roll out for the rest of the year

Augmented analytics – SAC offers automated insights, powerful dashboard creation, prediction, key influencers to understand business better; not have full understanding of analytics – investing in conversational AI – everyone to have access to information

Enterprise BI platform – expanded to Analytics Design, Mobile, Digital Boardroom – more enterprise BI platform – beta for scheduling PDF’s to email, so users can distribute more effectively (next year)

Invest in reporting, security, lifecycle management – ensure that SAC is “enterprise ready”

Building on hybrid analytics; not all data is in cloud – SAC connects live to variety of different sources to take advantage of existing investments – universe, BW, S/4HANA, HANA

Figure 7: Source: SAP

Continue to invest in BusinessObjects

Timeline, updating BI4.2, working BI4.3 (GA next year)

SAP policy – commitment of time – when release BI4.3, extend maintenance timeline until at least 2027 – create a plan around the timeline

Figure 8: source: SAP

Invest in modern user experience

Reduce total cost

Invest hybrid capability – BI with SAC

Figure 9: Source: SAP

Make admin easy; using 2 different products  – synchronize users and content

Take advantage of innovations with existing investments – Live Universe Connector, available today

Use conversational AI on top of BusinessObjects install

Figure 10: Source: SAP

Extension policy; SAP wants feedback

Other pricing and package options

Q&A

Q: Have several customers BI4.2 – heavy users of WebI and Explorer – what are the options?

A: Explorer – end of maintenance for Flash is soon; recommendation to move exploration use cases to SAC; Explorer interface – consistent look and feel

WebI – offers diverse set of use cases – continue use WebI – evaluate some of the predictive and augmented use cases, and use them together

Q: appreciate SOD, when have feature parity between SAC and BOBJ?

A: Today look at use case parity – look to fulfill those needs first

Features relevant to you now

Not expect 100% feature parity; aggressive offering more features over the next few years

Q: Is SAP planning to release versions beyond BI4.3?

A: Have not decided – TBD

Dependent on feedback

Encourage everyone to upgrade to BI4.2 and check BI4.3 beta

BI4.3

Figure 11: Source: SAP

Areas of BI4.3

Figure 12: Source: SAP

BI4.3 releases new launchpad

Figure 13: Source: SAP

Consume Web Intelligence data models in SAP Analytics Cloud and re-use existing documents (Source:SAP)

 

Figure 14: Source: SAP

Reports HTML5 – compatible with mobile app

Figure 15: Source: SAP

With BI4.3 – build stories in SAC using WebI data model

“With Live Universe connector 3.0, your data never leaves your network” – Source: SAP

Figure 16: Source: SAP

BI4.3 – beta call December 17

1500+ BI4.3 customers are planning GA in 2020 (source: SAP)

Q&A

Q: Will existing WebI reports have to go through some conversion?

A: BI4.3 is an update of BI4.2

Q: What about Fiori user interface – has it been dropped from the product?

A: Launchpad will have only the Fiori

Figure 17: Source: SAP

Enable hybrid environment using SAC + BusinessObjects; researched with partners

Figure 18: source: SAP

New on-premise licenses with reduced functionality; how to adopt hybrid analytics in 3 steps

WebI only has more price reductions so you pay for only the maintenance need

Right size both on premise functionality and quantity to core products in use, then down covert to free up maintenance and redirect to SAC (source: SAP)

Apply cloud extension policy to allow partial termination of on premise maintenance when replaced by cloud subscription (source: SAP).  More details are in the slides here.

Q&A (Analytics Designer)

Q: Analytics Designer samples?

A: Yes, analytics designer samples is available within content network under Samples.

In this demo the bookmark feature is used. If you use the global bookmark, then a group of people’s view can be affected. If you save that as private bookmark, then only user specific view will be saved. So it depends on how you implement it.

Q: Is Data Analyzer same as Bex Analyzer behind the scenes?

A: Yes

Q: Is Script in Design mode close to what is available in Lumira?

A: yes, subset of JavaScript language

Q: Dashboard alternatives?

A: New version of Lumira will be available after BI4.3 release

Q: When will App Design support BW live variable API support?

A: Planned for Q1/2020

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This was the last askSAP call of the year

The slides are here.  Register for the replay here

Final poll: