What's New – 2021 Releases

Administration & Infrastructure

• Change in SAP Analytics Cloud’s Catalog Filter Behavior

  In the past, the logic on filtering across categories was based on the OR operation. This meant that users could effectively utilize one filter category at a time. Now, the logic has been changed to AND, enabling users to drill down to more specific result sets.

  For example, let's say you have the following company departments:

  • Sales Canada

  • Sales Germany

  • Operations Canada

  • Operations India

  • Development India

  • Development France

  If you select Sales and Operations in the Department filter category, and you select India in the Region category, the filter will return:

  • Operations India

  In previous releases, the filter would return:

  • Sales Canada

  • Sales Germany

  • Operations Canada

  • Operations India

  • Development India

  With this enhancement, catalog filtering behavior is more aligned with common patterns for filtering, enabling users to find the right content faster.

• SAP Analytics Cloud Performance Analysis Tool

  Through the SAP Analytics Cloud Analysis Tool, performance statistics of stories and Analytic Applications are collected and stored in the tenant database, independent of live or import connectivity. This tool can be exposed through SAP Analytics Cloud live models and consumed in a preconfigured Analytic Application.

  As a result, you can not only analyze the performance of specific story and Analytic Application executions, but also compare historic runtimes of single users against your whole user community.

Analytics Designer

• Changes to the General Availability of Data Change Insights

  You can subscribe to data change insights from the toolbar menu if Data Change Insights is switched on in the details of an analytic application. Some subscription details can be set in the dialog, including name, subscription recurrence, global variables, and bookmarks. Now, users can also identify the importance of the Chart and the number of data change insights that can be configured!

  Furthermore, an email and a notification can be sent to multiple end users, and a “do not send notification” option can be set when no insights are found. You can also change the subscription “customize script variable” option to be turned off by default.

  Supported data connections include both live and import connections. These changes also support the ability to save snapshots in remote repository schemas while providing script APIs to configure the display of data change insights.

• Comment Widget Integration

  Hey Analytics Designer users! Meet the comment widget. Use the comment widget in analytic applications to save, edit, read, and delete table-cell comments to pave the way for ever clearer communication!

  Please note that comments entered through existing script APIs are synchronized with the new comment widget.

• Mobile Support for Custom Widgets

  Get excited! Custom widgets can now also be interacted with and consumed in the Safari browser on the iPad as well as in the SAP Analytics Cloud Mobile iOS App.

  Before using this feature, make sure the following prerequisites have been completed:

  • Set “supportsMobile” to true in the contribution json file.

  • Add MobileMode to the custom widget property to enable developers to add mobile-specific behaviors such as different CSS classes or different event listers.

• Script API Enhancement – Apply Explore Results Back to Table and Chart

  Did you hear? You can now enable tighter integration between Analytics Designer and the Explorer by applying Explorer results back to analytic applications. This means that, by leveraging script API, once you have finished analyzing in Explorer, you can take the analysis results back to charts or tables in analytic applications.

  Bonus: you can also bookmark the application to save the Explorer results!

• Script API Enhancement – Retrieve Member Information of a Data Source

  You can also use script APIs to retrieve member information from a data source:

  • DataSource.getMember as the new API

  • DataSource.getMembers Improvements

  • Extend MemberInfo:

  • ID

  • DimensionID

  • Description

  Furthermore, you can add new JSON object MemberOptions such as:

  • limit

  • accessMode: Master data or Booked data

  • hierachyId

• Sample Content – Generic Analysis Application

  Generic Analysis Application is delivered as sample content to cover flexible ad-hoc analysis scenarios for your SAP Analytics Cloud data models. With the Generic Analysis Application, you perform analysis on all your SAP Analytics Cloud models. Sample content can be used directly or as inspiration to further configure, change, or enhance your existing models.

  Functionalities of the Generic Analysis Application include:

  • All SAP Analytics Cloud models are supported as data sources

  • Use the data browser to select SAP Analytics Cloud models as the main data source

  • Dynamically set SAP Analytics Cloud model IDs via the URL parameter

  • Leverage tables for data visualization purposes

  • Add or remove dimensions or key figures via Navigation Panel

  • Configure a quick menu or a context menu for tables

  • Variable prompt dialog

  • Export tables as Excel or CSV files

  • Export the application as a PDF

  • Create global and personal bookmarks

  • Find filter information and variable information in the information panel

  • Explore the table setting panel (scaling, unit etc.)

  With this ready-to-run application, you can directly perform ad-hoc analysis based on all SAP Analytics Cloud models. Furthermore, you can leverage Analytics Designer capabilities to customize and modify this pre-defined application to create your own generic ad-hoc analysis.

Data Discovery

• Save an Insight in Data Analyzer

  The much-anticipated Data Analyzer capability from 2019 just got better! Now, Admin, BI Admin, and BI Content Creators can save an insight within the Data Analyzer. These saved insights can contain data source information such as:

  • Selected variable prompts,

  • Filters,

  • Text presentations (ID / Description), and

  • Drill-down levels in hierarchies

  SAP Analytics Cloud displays the insights you save in folders. After you have saved an insight, you can launch and manage it through Files, where you can perform operations such as:

  • View

  • List

  • Rename

  • Overwrite

  • Delete

  • Share

Data Integration

• New Custom Transformations in the Wrangling Expression Language (WEL)

  By accessing the WEL through the Custom Expression Editor, you can transform your data with new custom expressions and model your dataset based on your exact needs. The delivery of this new set of custom transformations is geared towards grouping values together and includes the following expressions:

  • Filter your values for further analysis using the "startsWith" and "endsWith" expression, which search for values starting or ending with a specific string value.

  • Count the number of words within the cells in a given column using "countWords".

  • Group the records based on numeric values into bins.

  • Use binByBinWidth to group records of a column into bins of equal width.

  • Use binByBinCount to specify the number of equal-width bins you need and distribute the data in those bins.

  • Use binByTileCount to distribute the data points equally by bins.

  • Use binByStandardDeviation to get bins based on standard deviation from the mean.

  This means that users who are familiar with the WEL can now segment specific columns regardless of whether variables are numeric or string (containing non-numeric values such as letters and other characters).

• Setting Scale for Measures in SAP Analytics Cloud

  For improved readability, new scale factors have been incorporated for measures in embedded and public datasets. Today, the scaling options available in Measure Properties are:

  • None

  • Percentage

  • Thousand

  • Million

  • Billion

Data Visualization

• Story Exploration and View Time Toolbar

  Great news! With Q1 2021’s enhancement to the Explorer, you can more easily explore your entire story while navigating between pages and widgets. You can also open a story in Explorer by default.

  What’s more? Now, you can bookmark, save, and enter full-screen within the Explorer and enable the Explorer for all charts and tables in your story.

  Furthermore, we are always working to ensure that our SAP Analytics Cloud features are easy to use and navigate to make for a seamless user experience. As a result, for one of our first updates of the 2021 year, we redesigned the view time toolbar for Stories and Analytical Applications:

  • So that you can quickly get to the most commonly used functions, we've grouped the functions into sections with quick access buttons – sparing you search time and helping you get the job done faster.

  • You can also move more easily through stories with a lot of pages, using the enhanced page navigation, making for a more streamlined consumption experience and equating to an enterprise-ready toolbar that scales to users' needs.

  • For Planning users, the new full-screen mode completely hides the toolbar so that you can focus more on your content. But, if you want to see a condensed version of the toolbar again, just hover over the top of the screen.

• BI Calculations – Standard Deviation

  With SAP Analytics Cloud Story calculations, you can create new measures based on your existing business data to gain more advanced insights.

  Thanks to this week’s feature enhancement, story designers are now able to create standard deviation calculations in the Exception aggregation list. For reference, standard deviation is a calculation used in statistics across finance, supply chain, operations, and marketing in many different forms.

  More specifically, a standard deviation formula can be used to understand customer distribution based on average spending! The standard deviation lets you know how close the data is or how much difference there is between pieces of data by showing how close to the average each data point is.

  What can you conclude from a high or low standard deviation result? A low standard deviation means that the data is closely related to the average and is thereby considered reliable. A high standard deviation, on the other hand, means that there is a large variance between the data and the statistical average, deeming it unreliable.

  Note that the Standard Deviation formula is supported for models based on acquired or live HANA connections only. Live HANA requires versions 2.00.024.0500 (EPMMDS 1.00.201815.00) or above.

• Canvas Pagination for Vertically Resizing Legacy and Beta Tables

  Tables are a great way to view and analyze data more clearly within a story. When changing existing features or adding new ones in tables, however, you run the risk of creating problems with your data. With beta tables, however, you can test new functionalities instead of replacing known behavior, mitigating risk.

  With the latest beta table enhancement, users can now benefit from the vertical resizing table property. That is, Story Designers can now configure report tables to vertically expand when more data needs to be displayed.

  This allows users in  view time to see all the data of a table in a report, paginated based on the canvas size at design-time.

  Note that these "pages" can also be exported.

• Replace an Analytic Account Model in a Story with a Planning Model

  This just in! You can now replace analytic account models with Planning models. That is, story editors can re-point an analytic account model to a “compatible” Planning model (and vice versa), as long as the target model contains all the measures and dimensions of the source model.

  As a result, the story editor can re-use Business Intelligence (BI) stories for planning purposes and Planning stories for BI purposes! Note that replacing the model preserves the configuration of all widgets in your story.

• Pagination Export to PDF/PPT

  With product update 2021.01, users can export all Pagination Pages from story view mode to PDF and PowerPoint (PPT) formats. Furthermore, users can export in Edit Mode to maintain old behavior.

  That’s not all, folks! Users can also perform regular exports, batch exports, sync exports, and async exports, based on what their situation requires. Note that there is also the option for users to disable pagination exports all together, if they wish to do so.

• Independent Rank and Sort

  Previously, our rank and sort features were dependent on one another and were performed simultaneously. That is, upon ranking data, our rank feature performed both a rank and a sort action when producing chart results. With update 2021.02, when ranking is applied, sorting is disabled and vice versa.

  As a result, ranking and sorting features are specified independently and are de-coupled such that you have full control of how your ranking is ordered. Furthermore, users are offered a greater degree of flexibility when ranking or sorting their data.

Mobile

• Voice Support in Search to Insight for iOS

  You may have heard about Search to Insight, a powerful feature that allows users to ask questions about their data using natural language queries. With this 2021 enhancement to the SAP Analytics Cloud mobile iOS app, you can leverage the power of Search to Insight from your mobile iOS device by commanding queries such as “show top five British Columbia sales by priority” out loud, and SAP Analytics Cloud will return your desired results.

  Note that some queries may require the use of a combination of voice commands and typing in order to prepare your query. Furthermore, suggested tokens require manual selection.

• Default File and Landing Tab for the Android App

  We are happy to announce that SAP Analytics Cloud can also run on Android 11. Furthermore, you can now specify which landing tab and story you would like to open by default when you initially launch and log in to the Android app.

  As a result, from now on, users can avoid the same steps required to navigate upon logging in – simply open the Android app, and you will instantly be brought to your desired page.

• Android App Now Supports Default Server URL Configuration Pushed through Microsoft InTune

  Great news! Our Android app now supports the default server URL configuration to be pushed through Microsoft InTune. This means that Administrators can preconfigure the tenant URL such that users no longer need to manually add it in, allowing for a more simplified user experience.

  Please note that the app currently only supports Microsoft InTune mobile device management (MDM) and that only single URLs can be preconfigured.

• Live Data Connection to SAP BW/HANA Using a Tunnel Connection and SSO – Android App

  SAP Analytics Cloud now supports the Tunnel Connection type with SAML SSO. Users that leverage this type of connection no longer need to be dependent on VPN and can connect to the backend seamlessly! Now that’s an enhancement we can get behind.

  Please note that currently the support is only for Stories in the Android App.

• Live Data Connection to SAP BW/HANA Using SAP Cloud Connector – Android App

  There’s more! The Android App now also supports the Cloud Connector based SSO as an Advanced feature on the current direct SAML connection. Users currently leveraging the Cloud Connector based SSO with the iOS app can use the same connection type with the Android, once again removing the need for VPN to access the backend connectivity.

• Saving Default Bookmarks with Optimized View – iOS and Android App

  Have no fear, Apple users, here’s an update for both the iOS and the Android App! Discover the added capability to save the current state of your story as a Default Personal bookmark in the SAP Analytics Cloud mobile app based on your choice of defaults.

  If you are an iOS user, please note that you must toggle iOS Optimized View in order to make use of this update.

• App Link Support – Android App

  With App Link support in SAP Analytics Cloud Android App, you can now directly jump to the app using copied links shared with you via email or through SAP Analytics Cloud’s Share functionality. Supported domains include .sapbusinessobjects.cloud and .sapanalytics.cloud.

  Please note that universal links are not yet supported in the iOS App, and additional domains are forecasted to be added in the near future.

  The ability to open stories directly in the Android App allows you to jump seamlessly from your email – or any other method of sharing links – to the app with ease.

• XCode 12 Support for SAP Analytics Cloud Mobile App SDK – iOS App

  SAP Analytics Cloud Mobile App SDK is now compatible with XCode 12! Please note that the new App SDK will now require XCode 12 to build and deploy Apps to internal App stores, and XCode 11 will no longer be supported.

  The introduction of XCode 12 support makes the app future-ready for upcoming iOS releases, fulfilling App store review guidelines and creating a base for leveraging new iOS features.

Modeling

• Overwrite Formulas Used in Public Account Dimensions

  With this next new update, you can now overwrite formulas located in models and used in public account dimensions without affecting other models that are based on those same public account dimensions.

  This means users can customize account members in one model without having to worry about making undetected changes to other models. In addition, the Modeler UI now indicates the differentiation between the non-model-specific formulas and the model-specific formulas so that users can detect the difference every time.

Planning

• Flexible Modeling of Calendar Tasks and Processes

  You can now use new task types in the SAP Analytics Cloud calendar: composite tasks, general tasks and review tasks. Your existing events are automatically migrated.

  Additional features let you set up your workflows in a flexible way:

  • Owners of a composite task can adjust the default time distribution between the assignees' and the reviewers' work.

  • When multiple assignees work on a task, not all of them need to submit it. The task is accomplished once one of them submits.

  • When multiple reviewers work in one review round, not all of them need to accept the task. The review round is accomplished once one of them accepts.

  • To fine-tune their workflow, owners can convert a composite task to a process that consists of a general task for the assignees and one review task for each review round.

  • To delegate their task to others, assignees can convert the composite task assigned to them to a process that consists of a child process and one review task for each review round.

  For more information, see What's New in the Calendar.

• Support the Conversion of Text Script to Visual Formula

  Through Visual Formulas, we aim to make advanced enterprise planning universal. With this new enhancement to our Visual Formulas feature, Planning users can convert text scripts into their visual counterparts within advanced formulas for Data Actions. As a result, users are able to quickly switch editing modes to fine tune calculations and leverage all the benefits from text scripts and visual formulas alike.

  Please note that some text script syntaxes are not supported by the visual tool and will thereby be displayed as ‘read-only.’ New text script syntaxes have also been introduced for Block comment (/* */) and Visual Formulas Annotation (/*! */).

• Support ELSE Statement in Advanced Formulas

  You may recall that, in the past, there was no way to automatically calculate the remaining scope of all previous conditions. As a result, you had to define the remaining scope directly with IF/ELSEIF statement. Well, now you can use the ELSE statement, instead!

  What does this mean, exactly? Now, users can define ELSE in an IF statement to take in the remaining scope of all previous conditions in advanced formulas step of data action.

  Note that you can calculate a larger scope due to ELSE statement, therefore a warning message might show up in certain conditions.

• Support Member Suggestion in Advanced Formulas

  In advanced formulas, if you only know part of a member ID or description, you can now simply type a double quotation (") to get a filtered list of valid members. As a result, you no longer need to know or type in full details.

Smart Assist

• Define the Context of Your Business Question in Smart Discovery

  Smart Discovery now helps you explore your data more effectively by letting you clearly define the context of the business question you want to ask. As well as choosing a measure or dimension as a target, you can now also select an entity, which consists of one or more dimensions.

  The entity defines the level at which Smart Discovery will aggregate your data so that it can be analyzed in relation to the target. For example, if you want to explore revenue by customer, you can select ‘Revenue’ as the target and ‘customer’ as the entity. In contrast, if you wanted to understand revenue by product, you could select ‘Product’ as the entity instead.

  To access a brief summary of the data selected prior to running Smart Discovery, users can open a Preview dialog. Here, you can find enhancements to the content and presentation of the analysis results generated by Smart Discovery through new heuristics that display charts that are more meaningful and easier to consume.

  Now, users are empowered to explore their data in relation to a specific context and entity without the need for any additional data preparation. This way, users can analyze the same target in relation to different entities and get different results that reflect the specific question being asked in a way that is easier to digest.

• Customize Smart Insights Top Contributor Results

  Gone are the days of sifting through Smart Insights results to find relevant dimensions. Now, through the Smart Insights panel, story designers can customize Smart Insights top contributor results by excluding unwanted dimensions. This way, if a user excludes a dimension, no dimension member for said dimension will be shown as a top contributor, ensuring that results are as relevant as possible to the business context.

  Excluded dimensions are then hidden from users’ top contributor results for the lifetime of their story or until they wish to undo the action and include them again.

• Use Latest Data to Fit Time Series Model

  Previously, several hypotheses (combination of trend, cycles, and fluctuations) were fitted on three quarters of the available data, and the best one was selected on the last quarter. In Smart Predict, for Time Series analysis and forecasting, the final model retained is now refitted on the whole available data.

  As a result, the Time Series model should be closer to the last part of the signal, providing response to recent changes in the data, with expectation of better forecasts!

• Improved Default Visualizations in Search to Insight and Explorer

  With this new enhancement, Search to Insight and Explorer present improved default chart types, which help users gain valuable insights quickly. The charts are also more readable and follow visualization best practices.

  Improvements include:

  • Auto Scaling

  • Auto Sorting (if applicable)

  • Formatted Data Labels

• Recommended Alternative Charts (Search to Insight)

  In certain scenarios, more than one chart type may be useful in presenting the data. Improvements in Search to Insight include recommending suitable alternative visualizations within Search to Insight, so users can choose the best way to gather valuable insights.

Add-in for Microsoft Office

• Get Help through the SAP Analytics Cloud Ribbon

  Within the SAP Analytics Cloud Ribbon in Microsoft Excel, users can benefit from a Help button, providing direct access to our SAP Help Portal. Here, users can find information related to what’s new in SAP Analytics Cloud, how to get started, FAQs related to troubleshooting, and more.

• Support for Automatic Mass Data Entry Mode

  Furthermore, Mass Data Entry Mode is now the default for SAP Analytics Cloud’s Microsoft Office add-in. This mode is Excel-optimized, making for a simpler, more intuitive user experience.

• Mass Data Entry Mode – Enhancement

  With SAP Analytics Cloud’s latest Add-in for Microsoft Office enhancement, you can now copy and paste several values into data entry cells – making for a more intuitive, Excel-like experience. Furthermore, with the latest enhanced error handling feature, incorrect cells are highlighted to improve the overall data entry process.

• Member Sorting

  But wait, that’s not all! You can now also sort member values such as flat lists and hierarchies by default, ascending, or descending order.

APIs and Extensions for Developers

• SCIM API – Remove Sensitive Data from URLs

  A new POST endpoint for searching users has been added to the SCIM API. This API allows consumers to pass in search data such as usernames and email addresses in the POST request body. This addresses privacy concerns where personal identifiable information was being passed in the URLs as query parameters.

  For more information on this topic, visit the SCIM section of our Help Portal.

General

• Renaming “External Content” to “Content Link”

  The object type “External Content” is used to provide URLs to content located outside of SAP Analytics Cloud. The term has now been renamed “Content Link” to remove the confusion surrounding the word “External,” especially while viewing filters in the Catalog.

• Improved Consumption Experience – Story & Analytics Designer

  We are always working to make sure that our SAP Analytics Cloud features are easy to use and navigate to make for a seamless user experience. As a result, for our first update of the 2021 year, we have redesigned the view time toolbar for Stories and Analytical Applications:

  • So that you can quickly get to the most commonly used functions, we've grouped the functions into sections with quick access buttons – sparing you search time and helping you get the job done faster.

  • You can also move more easily through stories with a lot of pages, using the enhanced page navigation, making for a more streamlined consumption experience and equating to an enterprise-ready toolbar that scales to users' needs.

  • For Planning users, the new full screen mode completely hides the toolbar, so you can focus more on your content. But, if you want to see a condensed version of the toolbar again, just hover over the top of the screen.