Model Preferences

When you're designing a new model, you can set preferences for features such as security, auditing, and currency conversion. These settings are available from the (Model Preferences) dialog. (Dimension-specific settings are available from the Dimension Settings panel.)

Note

Not all preferences apply to analytics-type models, and models based on HANA views have different options, as described in this topic: Options for HANA Models.

General Settings

Use the optional Description field to provide some details or a summary of the model.

The Search to Insight section allows users with rights to the model to index HANA live models for use with the Search to Insight functionality in stories. To enable indexing for an SAP HANA, SAP BW, SAP Universe, or SAP S/4HANA live model, after saving the model, select Create Index. After the indexing process is completed, a timestamped entry will appear under the Search to Insight section. See Live Data Limitations for Search to Insight for more information on working with live data. You have the option to update or delete the index entry. Any user working with a story that includes the indexed model can access quick insights based on the model through Search to Insight.

You have the option to specify which dimensions to include or exclude in the indexed live data model. This is useful when you want to exclude dimensions that may contain sensitive data. Select the text button under Search to Insight. In the image above the button is labelled 27/27 dimensions indexed. The Dimension Configuration for Index dialog lists all the available dimensions. Select or unselect dimensions as required. All the selected dimensions will be searchable by Search to Insight queries.

By default, data models that do not have Model Privacy enabled, or any dimensions that do not have Data Access control activated are not indexed. You can choose to index or unindex a (local) acquired model using the ON/OFF toggle button.

Note

Do not refresh or close your browser window before the indexing process is completed. Also, you should index only one live model at a time.

Best practices for indexing live data:

Systems need optimal access to memory and CPU resources for successful indexing.
Use Variable settings to limit the amount of indexed members.

If you change the data source for an existing model used by Search to Insight, any index will be deleted when you save the updated model. For more information on using Search to Insight, see Search to Insight.

Note

Only HANA live models based on SAP HANA 1.0 SPS12 rev 122.14 or higher can work with the Search to Insight feature. When a HANA live model is indexed, metadata such as dimension and measure names, and dimension members, is stored on SAP servers.

Language

Switch on model translation to have the model metadata (descriptions and other user-specified text) translated by a translation service.

For more information, see:

Access and Privacy

Data Audit

Auditing within SAP Analytics Cloud is available at either of two levels: high-level auditing or transactional-level Data Changes auditing. If Data Audit is switched on, all changes for this model will be logged.

The audit logs are available from the Users menu ( Start of the navigation path Users Next navigation step Data Changes End of the navigation path ).

Validation Rule

For planning models, validation rules let you define the allowed member combinations across dimensions to prevent improper data entry and planning operations in stories. Turn this switch on to validate the data in the model according to the validation rules you define for this model. For more information, see Validation Rules.

Data Locking

For planning models, data locking lets you set up locks on the model data, which prevent the locked values from being changed by data entry and other planning operations in stories.

Turn this switch on to enable data locking, and set the Default Lock State for the model. This state will apply to all data in the model's public versions, unless otherwise specified in the Data Locking page:

Open: Data entry is enabled for all members by default.
Locked: Data entry is disabled by default.

For more information, see Configuring Data Locking.

Restricted Export

This setting lets you disable the export of model data to a CSV file. For details, see Exporting Data.

Model Data Privacy

This setting determines whether the model is visible to users other than the owner. Note that this setting can also be changed later after the model has been saved.

If you switch on Model Data Privacy, only the owner of the model and user roles that have specifically been granted access can see the data. Disable this switch if you want the model and data to be public.

Data Access Control in Dimensions

This setting lets you specify in the dimension settings which users will have access to each member in the dimension.

Fiscal Time

If your business fiscal year isn't the same as the calendar year, switch Fiscal Year on, and then select the other parameters as follows:

Choose the starting month of your fiscal year.
Choose whether you denote your fiscal year by the calendar year when it starts, or the calendar year when it ends.
Choose whether to display fiscal periods or calendar months in stories. For example, quarterly reports cover a fiscal period of three months, while annual reports cover a fiscal period of one year.

Planning & Time Range

If you want to use this model for planning, switch Planning Capabilities on, and then choose start and end dates for the timeline for the data.

You can use the Delete private versions button to delete private versions belonging to a model. An example of when you might want to do this is when you need to remove model dependencies so that users can upload and delete model data.

Note

You can switch Planning Capabilities on and off, but not after the model has been saved.
If the Planning Capabilities switch is disabled, a tooltip explains why.
If planning is enabled in the Data Integration step after importing data (see Preparing Data), Planning Capabilities is automatically switched on, and can't be switched off.
Planning Capabilities can be switched on only if there are no facts in the model.
When you switch Planning Capabilities on, if the model contains multiple date dimensions, the first one is used by default for planning, but you can choose a different one:
Only users who have the Delete permission for the model will be able to access the Delete private versions button.
You can't change the date granularity, planning date range, default date hierarchy, or the Fiscal Year setting, after configuring an allocation process, allocation step, value driver tree, planning sequence, or data locking for the model.

Currency

For information about different currency scenarios, see Currency.

Currency settings without conversion

If your model doesn't use currency conversion, set one of the following options:

Default Currency: The currency for all monetary values. For example, if your model only contains monetary values in US Dollars, you can set the default currency to USD.
Currency Dimension: The dimension that separates model data into different currencies. Model data will not be aggregated across the different currencies. For more information about adding a Currency column to a dimension, see Dimension Settings.

Currency settings with conversion

Enabling currency conversion allows model data from different source currencies to be converted into a single target currency and then aggregated.

To enable currency conversion, activate the Currency Conversion switch (note that you won't be able to turn it off after saving the model). Then, specify the following settings::

Default Currency: Type the three-character code for the default currency. Monetary data will be converted to this currency by default.
Currency Dimension: Select the dimension that separates model data into different currencies. For more information about adding a Currency column to a dimension, see Dimension Settings.
Currency Rates Table: Select a currency conversion table. The drop-down list shows all tables that have already been created on the Currency Conversion tab of the Modeler.
Preconverted Actuals: When this setting is on, both source currency data and preconverted currency data can be imported. For more information, see Preconverted Currency Data.
Maximum number of Currency Conversions: This setting determines how many different currency conversions can be simultaneously displayed in a table based on this model. For example, if you want to enable users to view side-by-side figures for USD at the Budget rate, USD at the Forecast rate, and USD at rates defined for three different fixed dates, you can set the limit to five.
Note
- You can increase this limit after creating the model, but it cannot be decreased.
- When you increase the limit after creating the model, the new limit does not apply to existing stories. Each story keeps the limit that was valid when the story was created.
- Displaying data in its source currency does not count towards the Maximum Currency Conversion Limit.
- If the model uses currency conversion, each Account member has to have Currency set for the Units & Currencies attribute (column) of the Account dimension.

Data and Performance

Optimize Story Building Performance

Switch on this option to stop the automatic update that happens when changes are made in a chart or table. This reduces the load on the system and improves performance.