by Dr. Marco Sisfontes-Monge, Arellius Enterprises Inc.

Introduction

For many years, the challenge when working and/or implementing SAP has been how to manage the multiple reports, charts, tables, and models into a single environment and with real-time data from multiple sources. Multiple tools such as SAP Lumira were designed to support these tasks to help business users identify trends and behaviors but failed to provide better integration. Recently, SAP SAC has been created natively on an SAP Cloud Platform, and it provides a unified and secure public cloud experience to maximize data-driven decision making. In this article a brief overview of SAP SAC capabilities, its limitations, and key functionality is reviewed to get you started. The most important fact about SAP SAC is most of its functionality is available for FREE for 90 days when using this link https://www.sapanalytics.cloud. Also, for better results it is recommended to either use Chrome or Microsoft Edge. Also, we will review the overall architecture, key features, and a brief review of the look-and-feel of SAP Analytics Cloud along with the types of data sources that can be connected using to this technology. Finally we will get familiar with the AI tools available in the SAP SAC using natural language processing that is simple enough that works like using “google” within the SAP environment to find and make the system to automatically create the information you are looking for.

Quick Overview of SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP Analytics Cloud without a doubt is one of the most exciting products delivered by SAP currently. As shown in Figure 1, there are four key areas that SAP SAC currently delivers to improve managerial decision making using a graphical and very flexible user interface: Big Data Ready, Analyze, Plan & Simulation, and Machine Learning. Figure 1—SAP SAC simplified (Source: https://www.sapanalytics.cloud/product/)   As shown in Figure 1, these areas can be defined as follows:

• Big Data Ready: an environment capable to manage large amounts of data fast connecting directly to your SAP S/4 HANA on-premises or in the Cloud instance. As a new product there are still issues, and upgrades are performed periodically with clear online guidelines of what is new, what is the new functionality, and what has been resolved. In overall the product can be stable and ready to deploy to end-users. To access these updates follow this link to review the top 5 updates in Q2 in 2020 https://help.sap.com/viewer/00f68c2e08b941f081002fd3691d86a7/release/en-US/5258d62004e0466eb750a439ab261d04.html
• Plan & Simulate: SAP is positioning SAC as a complement and possible substitute to SAP Planning and Consolidation. Similarly to the SAP S/4 HANA Group Reporting tool released to possibly substitute the Consolidation functionalities available in the SAP BPC, SAP SAC Planning capabilities allow to completely store planning data in the cloud and with the functionality to export it back to SAP BPC, SAP BW, and SAP S/4 HANA with its own interface. Also, it is possible to perform limited allocation and distribution functions like those from SAP BPC with some limitations. However, SAP SAC is already integrated with the SAP Cloud Platform ABAP Environment for customized developments and enhancements. The current limitation in comparison with SAP BW or SAP BPC, is that SAP SAC do not have an environment yet when the models being created and populated with data can be reviewed as a back-end similarly to the SAP BW T-code RSA1 to review the complete contents of a table and/or cube but we are hopeful some alternative will be implemented soon.
• Machine Learning (ML): as mentioned in my previous Artificial Intelligence Article https://www.sapinsideronline.com/using-artificial-intelligence-with-sap-for-dynamic-financial-environments/ SAP Smart Predict uses Artificial Intelligence on a limited basis to perform Classification, Regression, and Time Series Analysis. However, there are lots of limitations in SAP SAC since it does not allow the user to change the algorithms being utilized and with limited parameters. In summary, the functionality available with SAP Smart Predict is simple for business users but follows a predefined algorithm that cannot be changed.
• Analyze: here is where I personally believe is the big win for SAP Analytics Cloud environment, the look-and-feel is simply incredible! The flexibility, the colors, the charts, drag and drop, tables, deployment to mobile devices, integration with on-premise SAP BW, SAP BPC, and SAP S/4 HANA models and tables, and the innovative SAP Digital Boardroom makes it quite attractive since it runs directly on the web without the need of MS Office PowerPoint. There is other functionality such Smart Discovery that leverages natural language to provide fast outputs such as charts using a google-like approach to perform data discovery.

Figure 2—SAP SAC Applications running on top of the Analytic Models (Source: https://help.sap.com/viewer/2d7115b0e0aa4f78bfd9c06fdc1fe4f6/release/en-US)   As shown in Figure 2, SAP SAC has created an integrated environment to connect, collaborate, perform planning, and more with clearly define applications such as Digital Boardroom, SAP analytics Hub, Mobile Experience, and SAP App Center. To improve your customer experience, SAP SAC has these core capabilities:

• Smart Wrangling: helps you manipulate and fix data quality issues when you are preparing your data in the modeler, and you fix your data within the SAP SAC environment, and the system will identify the dimensions and the values that might require review or adjustments.
• Analytic Designer: this tool allows you to take the SAP SAC to the next level with customized Apps. To achieve this functionality, you can use scripting with JavaScript, APIs, and more functionality to create your customizations within the SAP SAC environment. Think of it as the VBA environment for MS Excel, it is the same equivalent for SAP SAC, it is a tool that you can use to customized your stories and take your system further with customized Apps. As shown in Figure 3, Applications share functionality and widgets with traditional Stories, however, they can be enhanced using scripting.

Figure 3—SAP SAC Analytic Designer to create your customized Applications vs the standard (Source: https://blogs.sap.com/2019/03/27/application-design-with-sap-analytics-cloud-overview-and-road-map-webcast-recap-qa/)  

• Augmented Analytics or Smart Discovery: leverage the power of AI using Search to Insight just write what you need, and SAP SAC will create it for you, providing the data exist in the model. However, remember the system cannot find information or data it does not have, so if you want products by Region, you need to have a Product and Region Dimension so the system can perform and display the results for the search. Figure 4 and Figure 5 provide examples of SAP Smart Discovery in action.

Figure 4—Working with Smart Discovery   For example, typing in the phrase “Bar Chart Gross Margin by Product by Region” will automatically create the chart accordingly to your needs using “google” like interface using AI Natural Language as shown in Figure 4. However, the Region is not available in the Chart since the Region dimension does not exist in the model and the story so you get the best approximation possible, and the system provides multiple suggestions related to the text you entered at the bottom of the window. As shown in Figure 5, if we select one of the options the system keeps creating additional information based on the requests identified at the bottom of the screen. As shown in Figure 5, the system provides the chart for the Gross Margin by Location based on the dimensions available in the Story/Model that we are working. Figure 5—Reviewing the AI suggestions using Natural Language  

Reviewing the SAP Analytics Cloud Data Interfaces/Connections

SAP Analytics Cloud allows the integration of multiple sources to the same model. Remember, the data is yours if you choose to have a Live Data connection, the system just replicates real-time the data and display it. Also, SAP SAC allows to upload data into the SAC and store it there either entering the data such as planning data, and/or flat file upload. As shown in Figure 6, SAP SAC is a platform that can consume data from multiple SAP data sources such as S/4 HANA, SAP BW, SAP BPC, SAP Universes, SAP Universes Datawarehouse Cloud, SAPCP Cloud connector, and more. In addition, the SAP Analytics Cloud allows to connect to systems such as Dow Jones, Google BigQuery, Google Drive, OData Services, Qualtrics, Amazon S3, SQL, flat files and so many other systems.  To have a better idea and picture of the connections possible with SAP SAC, please review this link https://help.sap.com/viewer/00f68c2e08b941f081002fd3691d86a7/release/en-US/ae88672a05b84ca18487cfcf411faea3.html Figure 6—SAP SAC available Data Connections (Source: https://www.sapanalytics.cloud/learning/data-connections/)

Working with SAP Analytics Cloud

So far we spoke a lot about how wonderful and modern SAP SAC is, however, we have not seeing the interface. Figure 7 provides this first look if you are not familiar with the SAP SAC environment already. Notice that this is a pre-delivered story created for you when you sign up for the SAP SAC trial at www.sapanalytics.cloud As shown in Figure 8, it is possible to see many menus that are almost self explanatory of the different objects possible to build using SAP SAC. The most important options available in the Create menu are Story, Model, Dimension, are the key ones to review in more detail. There are a lot of options available, and it is recommended to sign up and explore these options on your own, however, it is quite easy to use. From a security point of view, the architecture is quite similar to the previous versions of SAP BPC standard: User, Teams, Roles, Requests, Data Changes, Data Locking and Activities. Remember, to have full access to all functionality available in the SAP SAC you need to get your approval from SAP, however, remember you have 90 days available to you for free trial. Figure 7—SAP SAC Home Page   Figure 8—SAP SAC Basic menus  

Conclusion

We have briefly reviewed the functionality available in SAP SAC, and how this functionality can support and improve your business analytics requirements, and your customer experience. The most exciting of all is the possibility to have great charting capabilities without the need to store your data outside your corporation, you maintain ownership of the data, and the system just displays what is available in real-time connections. Yes, it is also possible to store data inside the SAP SAC using flat files or entering the data directly in SAP SAC.