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Author's profile photo Klaus-Peter Sauer

A perfect couple: SAP Data Warehouse Cloud & SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for MS Office

With SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, you already use a highly flexible state-of-the-art data warehousing solution. When it comes to reporting, you can use SAP Analytics Cloud with its powerful stories or application design.

However, power users still love the flexibility and the freedom Microsoft Excel provides. We have good news: there is a solution for you. You can now use the SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office on top of your SAP Data Warehouse Cloud data. The add-in has been released in July 2020 and has focused mainly on planning scenarios, i.e. models with data replication and planning background.

We are now happy to announce that SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is the first live connection for the new add-in.

 

What’s so great about SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office?

The add-in is a client with no installation. You can get it via Microsoft Store and it requires – like all cloud products – little to no attention from IT. Once deployed, all updates to the manifest (i.e., the buttons in the ribbon tab) and updated functionality are automatically delivered under the hood. Fixes and new features will be available at least once a month.
The add-in runs on Excel desktop apps (MacOS and Windows) as well as in Excel Online.

Find more information here.

Prerequisites

Next to the add-in itself, you need an SAP Analytics Cloud, an SAP Data Warehouse Cloud tenant with a working live connection between both and a valid user in both these tenants.

How do you setup the connection between the add-in and SAP Data Warehouse Cloud?

As the add-in is part of SAP Analytics Cloud it uses an existing live connection to SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. Hence, when you log on with the add-in (figure 1) you are asked to log on to your SAP Analytics Cloud tenant.

In case the live connection is not yet established please follow the instructions in the documentation.

Figure%201%3A%20Log%20on%20to%20SAP%20Analytics%20Cloud

Figure 1: Log on to SAP Analytics Cloud

Enter the URL and hit “Go!”. In the next step logon using your credentials.

After a successful logon you will see the welcome screen in the SAP Analytics Cloud pane (figure 2).

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Figure 2: Successful logon

How to use it with the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud Sample Content?

We also just released SAP Data Warehouse Cloud Sample Content. Therefore, let us create the first report using the sample data provided by that content.

Use the “Add Table” button (figure 2) and select the existing live connection in the subsequent screen (figure 3).

Figure%203%3A%20Select%20the%20live%20connection

Figure 3: Select the live connection

After connecting to SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, you will get a list of all spaces accessible to your user. For this example, we select the “SAP & Partner Content” space (figure 4).

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Figure 4: Select a space

Then select your analytical dataset, here the Sales Orders with Products view (figure 5).

Note: the breadcrumb navigation facilitates switching back to connections and spaces within the single dialog.

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Figure 5: Select analytical dataset

You can now select the dimensions and measures you want to see in rows and columns. In addition, you can use sorting, ranking, totals (above or below), repetitive members, dimension filters and lots of more features (figure 6).

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Figure 6: Create your report

As the add-in has been released about a year ago, there are lots of exciting features to come.
See the product roadmap for more information.

Many thanks to Alexander Peter and his team for supporting this blog and enabling the access to SAP Data Warehouse Cloud as the first live connection of the add-in.

More information

You can find more information about the SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office with blogs, videos, and best practices in the Community.

Find further information to get started with SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and check out the Best Practices on the Community for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud

Learn about the upcoming events and webinars for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

 

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      12 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Vadim Polyak
      Vadim Polyak

      Very promising! No one can beat Excel in data analysis.

      Author's profile photo Barnaby Richards
      Barnaby Richards

      The tricky part is that if you are already using SAC together with AO (with SAC models based on live and imported data) then users may be quite familiar with the "full version of AO.  Since DWC doesn't provide an SAC model AO can't see the live data.  While this new version is helpful, it means many customers would need to have a separate version of AO for DWC and non-DWC data.  This still seems like a big gap.

      Author's profile photo Vibhav Nallan
      Vibhav Nallan

      Great write-up. Does this add-in support models in DWC with Input Parameters? Appreciate any light you could shed on this.

      Author's profile photo Alexander Peter
      Alexander Peter

      Hi Vibhav,

      this is one of the biggest gaps we currently have. We currently plan to support prompts/input parameters with SAC add-in in Q1 2022.

      Best,

      Alex

      Author's profile photo Syam Srikanth
      Syam Srikanth

      Nice explanation Klaus-Peter Sauer...

      But it does not support all SAC environments. Because i am facing this below error.

      "The SAP Analytics Cloud tenants must be based on SAP Business Technology Platform (CloudFoundry). Your current tenant is based on SAP BTP (Neo)."

      How to achieve in my environment?

      Author's profile photo Alexander Peter
      Alexander Peter

      Hi Syam,

      this is true. As stated in the documentation, the add-in requires an environment on Cloud Foundry: https://help.sap.com/viewer/2b73edbc8f8f4189a36bc7a2e038185c/cloud/en-US/ddbdfe77a32c424ba4bc98704e9ba3f3.html

      There are some issues with authentication in Neo environments ... some teams are working on this and maybe we can get a solution in the upcoming weeks/months - but for the time being, there's no workaround.

      Best,

      Alex

      Author's profile photo Jef Baeyens
      Jef Baeyens

      Hi Klaus-Peter Sauer ,

      Are there plans for other live connections (not requiring customer to purchase DWC)?
      The roadmap also looks pretty empty after Q1 2022.

      Author's profile photo Alexander Peter
      Alexander Peter

      Hi Jef,

      finally, SAC add-in needs to support all data sources SAC also supports.

      As this is a iterative approach - combined with adding new features in SAC add-in - the next step will be enabling S4HANA Cloud. Tentatively planned for Q2 2022. Other live connections to follow, but no timeline yet.

      Best,

      Alex

      Author's profile photo Jef Baeyens
      Jef Baeyens

      Thanks for the update Alexander!
      Would be great to see such planned features reflected in the roadmap.
      (We were particularly hoping for a Hana Cloud live connection - without DWC)

      Author's profile photo Jeanne BIGONNET
      Jeanne BIGONNET

      Hi Jef,

      we update the Road map in Road map Explorer tool on a quarterly basis for pending QRC deliveries.

      So, for now,   only planned items for Q1 2022 are visible (and items that we have postponed from Q1 to Q2 as already "at risk " to be late).

      That's why the S4HANA Cloud support is not visible here, as  Q2 is not updated yet .

      Nevertheless you can see below   our planned road map for Q1/Q2 2022 in PDF format.

      Best

      Jeanne

      Author's profile photo Jef Baeyens
      Jef Baeyens

      Thank you Jeanne BIGONNET !
      I thought the roadmap was always showing latest plans.
      Can customers find that PDF somewhere on regular basis with a re-usable link?

      Author's profile photo Jeanne BIGONNET
      Jeanne BIGONNET

      Hi Jef,

      This is publicly available here .

      Best

      Jeanne