What’s New in SAP Analytics Cloud Release 2023.02

SAP Analytics Cloud brings together analytics and planning with unique integration to SAP applications and seamless access to heterogenous data sources. It helps everyone in your organization make decisions without doubt with trusted insights and integrated plans.

This blog post introduces the features of the SAP Analytics Cloud 2023.02 release available for SAP Analytics Cloud FastTrack customers. For SAP Analytics Cloud Quarterly Release Cycle (QRC) customers, this release and its features will be available as part of the QRC Q1 2023 release.

System Administration and Technical Requirements

Although not required, you may upgrade to the latest SAP Analytics Cloud agent version 1.0.369 to take advantage of all data acquisition types.

The agent’s minimum version remains at 1.0.75, with the following exceptions:

Version 1.0.99 for SAP ERP/SQL Database
Version 1.0.91 for SAP universe (UNX)
Version 1.0.353 for SAP Business Warehouse (BW)
Version 1.0.235 for SAP HANA View
Version 1.0.248 for File Server

For more information, see System Requirements and Technical Prerequisites

Release Highlights

• Dashboard & Story Design
  • Optimized Story Experience Update
    • Flexible Time Dimension in New Model Type (UAM/UMM)
• Data Integration
  • Live SAP BW – Ability to Calculate the Difference Between Two Time Periods
• Enterprise Planning
  • Assignees of Review Tasks Can No Longer Add Work Files to the Task

Dashboard & Story Design

Optimized Story Experience Update

Flexible Time Dimension in New Model Type

Flexible Time Dimensions are now supported in the New Model Type Universal Account Models (UAM) and Universal Measure Models (UMM) to ensure feature parity and close gaps in the Optimized Design Experience:

• It provides more flexibility for users to visualize their data using different time dimensions
  (i.e., seasons)
• In the Builder Panel, users can add a time calculation using a Flexible Time Dimension to display data from a previous time interval
• Within Link Dimensions, all time attributes are now exposed, which allows users to link on attributes to enable server-side filtering across model
• Flexible Time Dimensions can be consumed within Calculations, Input Controls, Variance, and more

Data Integration

Live SAP BW – Ability to Calculate the Difference Between Two Time Periods

The “difference from” calculation is now supported for models based on a live connection to SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW). The Difference From aggregation shows the difference in the value of an account between a starting date and a target date that is calculated from a specified number of time periods before or after the starting date. For example, you can compare the sales on February 2015, with the sales from the previous 6 months.

This feature enhances story calculations by bringing new functionality and closes existing feature gap between models based on SAP HANA live and SAP BW live data sources. (SAP Roadmap Explorer)

Please consider the SAP BW version dependencies of SAP Analytics Cloud features when using the live connection. For more details on feature support, see SAP Note 2715030.

Enterprise Planning

Assignees of Review Tasks Can No Longer Add Work Files to the Task

Assignees of review tasks can no longer add any work files to the task. With this change, reviewers have the same experience regardless if they work in composite tasks or review tasks.

This blog post only provides a high-level overview of the latest features and enhancements of SAP Analytics Cloud. You can find more details on these features in your In-App Help Guide for FastTrack customers and see this SAP Knowledge Base Article if you’d like to learn more about FastTrack and Quarterly Release Cycle releases. 

If you have any questions, you can comment below or post a question to our SAP Analytics Cloud Questions & Answers forum. Visit our SAP Analytics Cloud Community pages to find more product information, best practices, and more. And check out our SAP Road Map Explorer to see more upcoming features of SAP Analytics Cloud.