It’s a new year and we have almost 40 new features available now for you to enjoy in SAP Analytics Cloud in QRC1 2022. In this blog we will highlight the features requested and voted for by you, our Customers via the Customer Influence Portal.

Administration and Service Management

Administration Cockpit

Not a surprise one of our Top 5 for this quarter is the general availability of the SAP Analytics Cloud Administration Cockpit. The new Cockpit provides fast and easy access to system usage information to help administrators proactively manage their SAP Analytics Cloud tenants. It enables easier identification and reporting of:

• Authorization assignments regarding user, team, roles, sharing settings of folder, analytic applications, stories and more
• Where-used models, data actions and questions related to housekeeping

Delivering so much rich functionality it is also no surprise that this new feature has 9 individual Customer Requests amassing an astounding 227 votes. These requests include:

• Where used for Live-Connection Models
• Add lineage / where used information to objects (stories, models, etc.)
• Display dependencies between connections and models in usage in models/stories
• Enrich SAP Analytics Cloud Usage Tracking Content by:objects’ sharing properties & user license type
• Current Logged in User session
• SAP__SAC_USAGE enhancement
• Enterprise Readiness: security overview users / teams / roles / privileges
• Where used list for Stories, Apps, Models, etc.
• Audit Reports needed for SAC Role to Teams\Users and Folders to Teams\Users w/ access level mapping

To learn more check out our Top 5 Video and Product Update videos. Alternatively you can find more details in this great blog by Thomas Fery

There is plenty more features for Administrators in this release including the ability to configure the default logo in the shell for SAP Analytics Cloud with another logo of the customer’s choice. This can be a PNG or GIF file  and it can be uploaded through the new Shell Configuration section in the administration area.

Customizing SAP Logo in SAP Analytics Cloud

Also should an Administrator wish  to include a hyperlink when creating a custom notification banner in a tenant this is now possible in Q1 2022.

We need ability to add hyperlinks to the SAP Analytics Cloud Banner messages

User Collaboration

Collaboration between users has never been more important and one of the requests we have received is the ability to trigger a notification if a user is mentioned in a comment.

When a user is tagged in a widget comment with the “@User” notation, delivery of an e-mail notification is sent that they have received a comment, providing both the comment details and a link to open the story where the comment was added

Mentions in comments should trigger notifications

Enterprise Planning & Augmented Analytics

Predictive Planning

Another one of our Top 5 picks for Q1 2022 combines two hugely popular topics for our Planning users Predictive Planning and the introduction of Multi Actions. We have added the ability to execute a predictive forecast within the planning workflow by adding a predictive step within a multi action.

Ability to schedule estimation of the Smart Predict model in the SAC Calendar

Predictive step is now available within the multi actions designer to retrain a predictive model based on the freshest state of your data and write time series forecasts into your planning.

Enterprise Planning

Continuing with Planning we had a lot of great new features in Q1 2022. Firstly a popular topic with more than 50 votes is the support of Multiple parent/child account hierarchies. This simplifies plan modeling and enables more flexibility to support management reporting requirements. This is valid for both Account and the New Model.

Have more than one hierarchy in the account dimension

Adding to the investments in Advanced Formulas within SAP Analytics Cloud Planning we introduce enhanced cross-model calculations & data referencing. With this new feature we can easily and flexibly define calculation scope and perform complex cross model calculations and data retrieval. This includes:

• New MODEL/ENDMODEL and MEMBERSET to define scope of reference models
• Use dimensions and attributes from a linked model in the IF or FOREACH scope
• Use the LINK function to return a certain range of data from a source model and redirect it by using attributes of dimensions from linked model in the DATA function

Make Cross-Model Copy Actions Functional

With the continued investment in both Plan Entry and Advanced Formula functionality we were also able to deliver the below 2 customer requests:

• SAC Copy Properties on Version Copy (Version Management)
• Revert data pop up – French possibilities

SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office

Another much requested topic is the ability to refresh single tables or data sources within a  workbook. By enabling this users won’t have to wait until ALL tables are refreshed in a workbook when analyzing data in an active worksheet.

Users will see a new option in Microsoft Excel to refresh data for a complete workbook or to select a particular data source to be refreshed. This consists of

• New “refresh data source” option within the add-in ribbon toolbar
• Replacement of the existing refresh button with a menu button that has two menu entries: “refresh all” and “refresh data source”
• Renaming of the existing refresh functionality to “refresh all”

To allow REFRESH button to have the option to refresh ALL worksheets or ONLY the active one

Customer Influence Portal

Finally, you can get the full list of all requests for SAP Analytics Cloud in the Customer Influence Portal. Here you can have your say by adding your own ideas and requests for new features in SAP Analytics Cloud.

Our customer requests Open for Voting have now over 2500 requests so get in raise your requests and cast your votes to have your say.

If there is an area that is of particular interest to you for example Data Exploration, you can narrow your search to just these requests using the filter bar.

We want to continue hearing from you so get voting!