The Highlights of Analytics Designer in SAP Analytics Cloud

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This is a blog post following a webinar presented by Jie Deng – “Introducing the Highlights of Analytics Designer in SAP Analytics Cloud”

This blog will provide an overview of Analytics Designer by:

• Introducing Analytics Designer


• Discussing the typical use cases of Analytics Designer that support your business needs


• Providing product highlights and a live demonstration

What is Analytics Designer?

Analytics Designer is a capability that you can use to build Analytical Applications within SAP Analytics Cloud. In Analytics Designer you can use scripting, extensions, old data, and visual widgets to build Enterprise Dashboards, Planning Applications, and Predictive Applications. Analytics Designer leverages all the platform services already built into SAP Analytics Cloud such as, Data Connectivity, Data Preparation, Scheduling and Lifecycle Management to name a few. Analytics Designer also integrates with Business Intelligence, Augmented Analytics, and Enterprise Planning. By using Analytics Designer to leverage all the existing services provided by SAP Analytics Cloud, you can integrate different capabilities into your Analytics Application to implement your business scenario and support your business needs. With Analytics Designer you have more flexibility to build sophisticated and interactive dashboards as well as Planning and Enterprise Analytical Applications within your company. Refer to the image below to learn about the platform services and features that can be integrated with Analytics Designer.

Analytics Designer completes SAP Analytics Cloud:

Analytics Designer sits on one analytics platform by bringing together Business Intelligence, Planning, and Predictive capabilities. Analytics Designer also has a dedicated development environment for Analytics Applications. Here you can customize your application by using capabilities such as scripting to do the integration and extension work. You can also enhance the user experience by adjusting widget behaviour based on your user’s expectations. With this feature you have the flexibility to enhance the user interface and cater your application to your users needs.

Some key features of Analytics Designer includes the abilities to:

• Customize actions between different analytical applications


• Integrate the Analytical Application into third-party solutions


• Embed third-party web pages into your Analytical Application


• Use custom widgets to create your own visualizations


• Create templates to reuse in other modules (this feature will be provided in future releases of SAP Analytics Cloud)


• Provide your Analytical Application through the use of a content network


• Deploy your Analytical Application through a mobile device or through integration with the SAP Analytics Cloud iOS mobile application

To learn more about the key features of Analytics Designer visit 6:20 of webinar.

Typical use cases of Analytics Designer:

• Generic Applications. You can use Generic Applications to analyse different models in SAP Analytics Cloud. Using this you can perform table-centric slide-dice analysis and use the navigation panel to easily add or remove dimensions in your table or chart and add hierarchies. Visit 10:15 to learn more about Generic Applications.


• Guided Analytic Applications. In some cases, you don’t want to give your user too many options but rather, you want to give them guidance about how to analyse data and find a solution to the issue. With Analytics Designer you have full control of what you’d like to provide to the user. You can build buttons, alerts, and notifications which provide a visual aid to help them with a business problem. In the image below you can see an alert popping up prompting users to open the application, provide them with a simulation, and take action. Go to 13:35 to learn more about Guided Analytic Applications and closed loop scenarios.

• Dashboarding. Dashboarding includes flexible interactions between widgets and layout. You can adjust the layout and decide which parts of the screen should be fixed or responsive. You can also use the scripting capability for complex navigation. Learn more about Dashboarding by visiting 17:00 of the webinar.

• Planning Applications. You can integrate planning capabilities and use Analytics Designer to customize the planning workflow. You can customize your application to give your users more guidance and enhance the experience by including pop-ups and sliders. Refer to 18:25 to learn more about Planning Applications.


• Embedding/Extending Applications. Using this you can embed your applications into third-party web pages and exchange information using post message API. Extending Applications allow for more customization by using custom widgets to create different visualizations. Go to 21:00 to learn more.

• Template/Composite. By creating templates or composites, you can develop reusable parts of an application which reduces change management in the future. This feature is currently not available and will be released soon with updates to SAP Analytics Cloud. Learn more by visiting 23:00.

Feature highlights:

To discover all of the highlights in Analytics Designer visit the webinar. To learn about the newest updates to Analytics Designer read this blog which outlines the latest innovations for Q3 in SAP Analytics Cloud.

• Learn more about the integration of Analytics Designer with the iOS mobile application by visiting 25:30 of the webinar.


• Loading invisible widgets in the background is a new feature that accelerates the start up performance of Analytics Designer. To see how the behaviour differs from the default view to the new view loading invisible widgets in the background, visit 28:30.

To see a live demonstration of how you can use Analytics Designer, visit 34:00 of the webinar.

To see a demonstration focusing on custom extensions go to 41:00.

For a detailed roadmap focusing on the future investments in Analytics Designer, go to 53:30 of the webinar.

For a comprehensive presentation of all the topics discussed here, please watch this webinar.