We are well in to 2023 and in QRC1 we delivered a variety of new features for our SAP Analytics Cloud users to enjoy and in the process fulfilled 15 requests from our Customer Influence Portal amassing more than 300 votes. Let’s dive in and see what they are:

Enterprise Planning

Another big quarter for our Planning users with a number of exciting features delivered and as always Data Actions being top of the list.

Debug tool for Data Actions:

We start with the most voted for item this quarter with a whopping 165 votes which is the ability to debug Data Actions. In QRC1 2023 we have added a new tracing or  “Debugging” feature to simplify development and testing process. These features include the ability to:

• Define trace points and see visual cues indicating number and location of trace points
• Execute tracing in-line with script construction including parameter passing
• Watch Area and ability to display table to see results for trace points
• View run history for script tracing
• Consume trace version within stories

Calendar Admin role to manage Data Action Calendar Tasks

Sticking with Data Actions one of the other big requests we received was to enable System Owners to see and manage Data Actions

To achieve this we have introduced the calendar administration role, which can be enabled or granted to any administration roles within SAP Analytics Cloud. This gives the Administrator the ability to see and manage all calendar tasks and processes regardless of ownership and involvement.

Calendar Administrators now have:

• Ability to toggle on display for all calendar events regardless (even those for which the user has no involvement)
• Visual cues to explicitly indicate that the user is in administration mode
• Ability to modify any calendar events while in administration mode
• Enabled via a role base privilege which can be granted to specific roles (auto-enable for Planning Administrators)

Hierarchy selection in Data Actions

Hierarchy support is important for all aspects of BI & Planning and as requested we have added the support for Hierarchies in Data Actions, functions include:

• Ability to select specific source and target hierarchies for mapped dimensions during cross model copy step
• Automatic mapping of members based on match elements from specifically selected source and target hierarchies
• Detailed display of individual automapping rules

Multi Actions – master data import

Moving from Data Actions to Multi Actions another request has been the ability to import Master Data within a Multi Action. In this quarter the data import step of multi actions, users can now choose whether to import model data or master data. With this enhancement, multi actions offers a complete end-to-end workflow to orchestrate master data import, fact data import, planning calculation (data action) and the ability to publish the data to version in one multi action.

Augmented Analytics

Predictive planning and multi-actions: save forecast values for past periods

Moving on to Augmented Analytics with sticking with Multi Actions a long requested and very useful feature is the ability to look back and review how accurate those forecasts were compared to what actually happened. In QRC 1 2023 with the use of Multi Actions we can now save forecast values for past periods.

As a user of the predictive step in multi actions, I can generate the forecasts for past periods so that I can implement my own performance metric in stories.

This will further improve automation for predictive planning. Using the forecasted values for past periods to ease the generation of ad hoc accuracy measures to evaluate the performance of previous predicted forecasts.

Data Exploration

Data Analyzer

A big topic for QRC1 2023 was the many many user experience with functional updates we delivered. These features are covered in detail by Bettina Denonville in this great blog.

Two of these features originating from our Customer Influence Portal:

Integration with Story:

Tight integration of our Analysis capabilities is important and gives the end user the ability to look behind the curtain and understand the data behind the charts. In this quarter we are providing the ability to jump to the Data Analyzer from a table widget by concurrently passing the existing table state (such as filters, variables, and current drill-down actions) is a big step towards this vision.

Paste Functionality in Data Analyzer:

With the new Dimension Member Dialog, you can display and search by attributes, select all member with one click and copy paste filter values. This harmonizes the member selector of the filter and the variable prompt.

Data Modeling

With the New Model we continue to add new functionality every quarter. This quarter we bring many new features, 2 of which were specifically requested by our customers:

• Threshold support for models with account dimensions
• Possibility to sort measures in tables

Data Integration

SQL Server 2019 and PostgreSQL 10-13 Support

As requested by our customers we now support the following SQL Server databases by import data connections:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2019
• PostgreSQL 10
• PostgreSQL 11
• PostgreSQL 12
• PostgreSQL 13

Microsoft Office Integration

Improving the “get data” formula in a Microsoft Excel workbook

The get data formula was a popular addition to our Microsoft Integration and we have added some new features in this quarter including the ability to Show Zero instead of minus/hyphen sign for blank data members.

Dashboard & Story Design

Table Widget: New Keyboard Shortcuts

Another popular request has been to enable keyboard shortcuts for navigating within a table, including drilling into hierarchies, and opening hyperlinks from table cells.

Here is a list and overview of the new keyboard shortcuts:

• Horizontal Scrolling
  • Page by Page
    • ALT/OPT + Page Up/Down (Windows/MAC)
  • Right End / Left end
    • ALT/OPT + End/First (Windows/MAC)
• CTR + SHIFT + SPACE – Select all cells
• F6, SHIFT + F6 – Next/Previous tab group
• Hierarchy Drill
  • +/- to expand/collapse hierarchy
  • F4
• Space triggers hyperlink
  • If the focused cell contains a link, indicate “active” (pressed) state on key down. Trigger the link on release of the Space key. ESC or Shift will cancel the pressed state and a subsequent release of the Space key has no effect.

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 3200+ 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!