#SAP Analytics Cloud Scheduling Publications #ASUG Webcast Summary

This was a popular ASUG webcast last week with Karthik Kanniyappan of SAP.  Special thanks to Ingo Hilgefort of SAP for arranging.

Figure 1 Source SAP

Figure 2 Source SAP

BI, Planning, Predictive, search to insight, smart discovery, etc.

Figure 3 Source SAP

Extending reporting capability, hybrid scenario, analytics catalog, WebI to SAC, Analysis for Office

Agile data prep – new modeling capabilities, where business users can make more of models

Life cycle management -import and export

Content in multiple different languages

Focus of webinar – scheduling

Mobile – android app

Q2 QRC covered above

Figure 4 Source SAP

Copy of PDF or Analytic app to your SAC recipient

Deliver to non-SAP users – users not registered as part of your tenant

Frequency – hourly, daily, weekly

Personalization – same story can go to different sets of users

Support all acquired and live BW/HANA models, coming S/4HANA live

Only on AWS based data centers; don’t have plans to schedule for NEO based tenants

Overview of terminology

Figure 5 Source SAP

Publication – Copy of story with its own set of data

Recipient – who receives publication – 2 kind – registered in SAC tenant, non-SAC users and can be external

• Restrictions – each publication can go to 3 non-SAC users

Frequency – can change pattern, e.g. once in 3 days

Use case – single pass, a story is scheduled, generated as PDF, recipient receives PDF in email – same data in place, first level

Figure 6 Source SAP

Multi pass per batch – generate different publications, each may have their own set of data, and can be filtered based on story or page filters

Data authorization – from schedule owner

Multi pass per recipient – each recipient receives as if they logged in system (BW authorization) – called “bursting” – look to support in future direction

Q2 QRC supports use case 1 & 2 shown in slide

Tenant admin needs to enable scheduling option

Figure 7 Source SAP

It is not on by default

“Allow schedule publication for NON-SAC users” – need to switch on, based on feedback from beta program

User roles needed to be assigned to users – who creates schedule

Figure 8 Source SAP

Figure 9 Source SAP

Once tenant is set up, one time, there are 2 ways to create a schedule from schedule owner

1. Browse files, under share icon
2. Open story, under share option

Enter details as shown above

Figure 10 Source SAP

Deeper into distribution, as personalization takes place

Leveraging concept of bookmarks; can create view of story based on different filter combinations, create context, then create bookmark – when access, user sees how envision

Figure 11 Source SAP

Once schedule is created, you can change it

See from calendar view

Figure 12 Source SAP

Scheduling is resource intensive

What you have depends on licenses

Have limited number of schedules

Based on number of licenses in SAC; see above

Minimum of 25 licenses per tenant to get started with scheduling, as SAP considers scheduling to be an “enterprise ready” feature

Do not differentiate between BI users, Planning users

Figure 13 Source SAP

High level overview of licenses for publications

Figure 14 Source SAP

Road map, Q3/Q4

Q3 – copy schedules, also support HANA 2.0 for live connectivity

Q4 – more items shown above

S/4HANA live support

Future direction – bursting, universe live support, monthly frequency, event based (instead of time based approach)

Q&A

Q: Only 3 non SAP user recipients? We currently send email to thousands of non-BOE users. How would we accomplish this with SAC publication please?

A: See blog https://blogs.sap.com/2020/03/12/schedule-publications-in-sap-analytics-cloud/

Q: Could you clarify again: Can external users receive publications from SAC schedule ?

A: Please see https://blogs.sap.com/2020/06/05/scheduling-publications-number-of-publications/ Every Publications can be sent to every other SAC users registered in the SAC Tenant and to Three Non-SAC users who are not a part of SAC Tenant – toggle feature

Q: Admin Issue: SSO enabled to SAC and Live BW system via Azure AD and SAC Live Data Sources on to allow data to leave network. User with BI Admin role (full control), including schedule publication checked schedules publication of simple BW Live story on standard BW Statistics data. Schedule runs story at correct time and sends email, but the output pdf only contains the below error. Sorry, we couldn’t access the datasource. Please contact your administrator. Error: Error [Application]:(#81) Server metadata was not a structure json Model:SSO BW TCT Test

A: This issue is under investigation by SAP Development – see https://apps.support.sap.com/sap/support/knowledge/public/en/2898179

Q: How can admin monitor publication status, run times, especially confirm delivery and that user received and viewed it? Most important, an admin and publication owner be alerted of publication failures?

A: admin cockpit is coming up

Q: So each PDF output is counted as a publication, not each schedule ?

A: correct, based on independent artifact

Q: Can you confirm what data sources are supported for bursting publications to multiple recipients? BW live connection?

A: bursting not available now

Thanks to Karthik for a great webcast