Working with SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP HANA Cloud (Step by Step)

Hello Everyone!

In this blog post, I want to share how we can work with SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP HANA Cloud to consume HANA Calculation Views with a Step by Step approach.

Since the SAP Analytics Cloud, version 2020.20, SAP announced a very straight forward way to connect live in SAP HANA Cloud. We can establish this live connection with a few clicks.

I will split this blog post into two sections:

• Creating a Live connection between SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP HANA Cloud.
• Consuming Calculation Views from SAP HANA Cloud.

I hope you enjoy it!

Creating a Live connection between SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP HANA Cloud

Let’s see how to create a SAP HANA Cloud live Connection on SAP Analytica Cloud.

Under SAP Analytics Cloud Main Menu, click on the Connection:

In the connection page click on Add Icon:

Under Connect to Live Data group select SAP HANA:

Now, I need to provide SAP HANA Cloud information.

1 – Connection Name: Fill in with the name and the description of your connection.

2- Connection Type: Choose SAP HANA Cloud.

3- Host: Fill in with SAP HANA Cloud endpoint. You can copy the endpoint URL from your SAP Cloud Platform Cockpit. PS. Don´t forget to remove the port 443 from the final of the URL.

4- Authentication Method: In this example, we will connect using the Username and Password from SAP HANA Cloud. But it´s also possible to connect using a single sign-on.

5- Username and Password: Fill in with user credentials.

After the click in OK. Now we have our connection ready to use.

Consuming Calculation Views from SAP HANA Cloud

But now what to do? How can I consume data from SAP HANA Cloud using SAP Analytics Cloud? Let´s use the connection created to create a data model and consume a calculations view.

Just to let you know, at the SAP HANA Cloud side.I have an HDI container with a Calculation view created called cv_orders. And I will use it in this example.

The first step to consume this calculation view is to create a SAP Analytics Cloud Model. To do this under the main SAP Analytics Cloud Menu, click on Create > Model:

On the Model Page, click on Get Data from a data source and after on Live Connection:

Now it´s time to use the connection we create in the first part of this blog post:

Under System Type, select SAP HANA.

Under Connection, select the connection created, in my case is ConnHC.

And finally, under Data Source, click to browse SAP HANA Cloud Objects.

We will see all calculation views available to consume on the SAP HANA Cloud. I will choose cv_orders and click OK.

See the structures of the calculation view (measures and dimensions) and Click on the Save icon to save this model.

Give a name for the model and save it in one of the SAP Analytics Cloud Folders, clicking in OK.

Now the model was saved and is ready to consume. Let´s create a Story to explore the data. To do this under the main SAP Analytics Cloud Menu, click on Create > Story.

Click on Add canvas Page:

Let´s add a chart to explore the data. Click in Chart:

Go and select the model created, in my case is Model_HC_Orders.

Well Done!

Now you can explore the data coming from SAP HANA Cloud and create your own stories.

PS. If you have any permission issues at this part please see this article (see the section: Grant a privilege or role in the HDI container to the database user).

I hope you enjoyed this blog post! If you want me to continue this series or have any questions. Let me know in the comments 🙂