Product Information
SAP S/4HANA embedded analytics – User Roles
Author: Thomas Fleckenstein, Chief Product Expert for SAP S/4HANA Analytics.
In the first blog of this series, the general idea of embedded analytics and enterprise analytics in the context of SAP S/4HANA was introduced. Now we will look at the user roles of the Business User and the Analytics Specialist and the tools and features they can expect in SAP S/4HANA embedded analytics.
Business Users:
This type of user works with SAP S/4HANA embedded analytics in the context of a business process or line-of-business departmental activities and has typically no IT background. Examples of this user-type are mentioned in the first blog of this series, like the Material Planner (SAP_BR_MD_AUTHMAT), the Collections Specialist (SAP_BR_COLL_SPECIALIST_FICA) and the Internal Sales Representative (SAP_BR_INTERNAL_SALES_REP). All these roles (and many, many more) do exist as technical objects in an SAP S/4HANA cloud service or on-premise system and come to the customer with a predefined set of analytical and transactional apps.
I can highly recommend the public SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library in which you will find every SAP Fiori app ever shipped. In addition, the library can be filtered e.g. by role and thus make it easy to get all the details of such a role.
In terms of analytical features and functions, there are mainly 6 types of apps that provide embedded analytics to the Business User. Which ones those are, and for what purpose they work best, can be seen in the picture below.
In future posts of this blog series, we will dive deeper into most of them.
Analytics Specialist:
In contrast to the Business User which is a user type, the Analytics Specialist is an own single user role in all SAP S/4HANA systems, technical ID: SAP_BR_ANALYTICS_SPECIALIST. The main ideas behind this role are:
- Uses tools provided through role Analytics Specialist to create and deploy new queries, reports, KPIs, dashboards.
- Skill profile is rather business-focused, not IT-focused.
- Examples of typical tasks:
- Create new data sources
- Create new queries
- Define and deploy KPIs to business catalogs
- Design and deploy embedded SAC dashboards to business catalogs
- Create new Date Functions for usage in all sorts of reports
- Transport KPIs, reports, etc. from Dev- to Q- and P-System
Thus, the Analytics Specialist is the main role for providing Analytics Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA, a process that is depicted in the picture below:
The role of the Analytics Specialist comes with a comprehensive set of predefined SAP Fiori Apps, which support each step of the Analytics extensibility process:
| Process Step | Task | SAP Fiori Apps |
| Identify data source | 1. Search VDM View | View Browser (F2170) |
| Custom VDM views | 2. Create VDM view, publish | Custom CDS Views (F1866A) |
| Analytical query | 3. Copy or create query, publish | Custom Analytical Queries (F1572) |
| KPI/report creation |
4.1.1. Create Report 4.1.2. Create KPI 4.1.3. Create embedded SAP Analytics Cloud dashboard 4.1.4. Create Fiori App and Publish report |
Manage KPIs and Reports (F2814) |
| Multidimensional Report | 4.2. Create a multidimensional report application (analytical query app) | View Browser (F2170) |
| Publish | 5.1. Add app to SAP Fiori catalog, publish | Custom Catalog Extensions (F1950) |
| 5.2. Create custom communication scenario and arrangement | Custom Communication Scenarios (F2177) | |
| Transport | 6.1. Transport to production system |
Not part of the Analytics Specialist role: Export Software Collection (F1433) |
In this blog series, we will explain the essential parts of this process in more detail.
Already now, you can find extensive details on how Business Users and the Analytics Specialists work with the tools mentioned above in this publication: https://www.sap-press.com/sap-s4hana-embedded-analytics_5226/
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for sharing the information on Business & Analytics users.
Question -> Could Analytics user do the below activities in a production system with the role SAP_BR_ANALYTICS_SPECIALIST, using "Custom CDS views" and "Custom Analytical Queries" apps,
KR,
Manesh
Hi Manesh,
unfortunatley not. The activities you mention would all be performed in the Q-System.
Best regards
Thomas
Thanks Thomas for the prompt reply.
That means, Analytical Experts, have to make changes in Development environment and transport it to further systems.
Right!