Get Around SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP Analytics Cloud offers fast and simple ways to navigate to your tools and applications. Take a tour of the one-click menu navigation, the quick access product-wide features, and learn how to use common shortcuts to increase your productivity and do your work efficiently.

Getting to Know SAP Analytics Cloud

After signing into SAP Analytics Cloud, you'll be able to see tools and applications that you can use to increase your work efficiency and productivity. These tools and applications are divided into three main parts.

  1. The side navigation is the leftmost section and is made up of single-click entry points, allowing you access to features such as viewing and creating content. You can collapse or expand the navigation menu, or enter full-screen display for viewing certain content.

  2. The shell bar is the uppermost horizontal section and consists of a breadcrumb navigation, allowing you to know where you are in your workspace and let’s you easily navigate to any part of the folder path for your current file, and universal actions such as search and notifications.

  3. The single-entry start pages lets you browse your recent files or create new ones, providing a consistent experience across all content creation applications. You can flexibly move through the product as you're creating content, without breaking your flow during tasks.

Using the Side Navigation

The side navigation lets you easily move around and interact with different features, so you can be productive and maintain focus on your tasks. In this section, we'll focus on three key side navigation features that will help you use SAP Analytics Cloud efficiently.

Simple Access

The side navigation is a flattened list on the left side of the product, making it quick and easy for you to switch between different applications.

So for example, whether you want to create a new story or continue working on an existing story, in either case click on Stories to get working.

The options that you see in your side navigation are dependent on your standard application role and permission access. For example, an administrator or content creator who builds models and stories will have different side navigation options from a content viewer who only consumes stories and dashboards.

Flexible Display Options

You can collapse menu options to gain more screen space to work with and expand the menu options when you want to see all the menu options.

Click the main menu to see the full menu option name

If you want to present stories, agendas, or Digital Boardroom dashboards, the side navigation will be hidden for a full-screen experience.

Use full-screen mode to increase the amount of screen space for presentations and personal viewings

Easily Move Between Applications

The side navigation lets you easily move between applications, allowing you to navigate between product applications quickly.

Tip

You can right-click an application to open it in a new browser tab.

Application Pages
Page Description
Home (screen) Access your recent stories and visualizations as tiles. See Customize Your Home Screen.
Files Browse and organize stories, input forms, boardroom agendas, analytic applications, and other content such as uploaded files. See Files and Folders.
Product Applications
Application Description
Stories Create stories using charts, visualizations, text, images, and pictograms to describe data. See Data Visualization (Stories).
Analytic Applications Design and create highly customized analytic and planning applications. See Analytic Application Design (Analytics Designer).
Data Analyzer Analyze your data based on SAP BW queries, SAP HANA live views and SAP Analytics Cloud models. See Data Analyzer.
Digital Boardroom Design a real-time, interactive boardroom presentation. See Digital Boardroom Presentation.
Datasets Access your raw datasets, which are used for presenting data in stories. See About Datasets and Dataset Types.
Modeler Create, maintain, and load data into models. See Learn About Models.
Data Actions Create a sequence of data actions for making structured changes to model data. See Get Started with Data Actions for Planning.
Allocations Set up driver-based allocations that take data from source dimensions and split it among the members of target dimensions based on a driver value. See Learn About Allocations.
Value Driver Trees Use value driver trees (VDTs) to visualize the entire value chain of your business, instead of looking at isolated KPIs. See Set Up Value Driver Trees for Planning.
Predictive Scenarios Create and compare predictive models to find the best one to bring the best predictions to address the business question. See Smart Predict – Using Predictive Scenarios.
Multi Actions Create multi actions that link together a sequence of steps such as data actions, version management steps, and predictive steps, which all run from a single planning trigger. See Automate a Planning and Predictive Workflow Using Multi Actions.
Calendar Organize your workflows with calendar events. See Workflow Organization (Calendar).
Administration Tools
Tool Description
Workspace Management Share, manage, and collaborate on content within a workspace. See Configure Workspaces.
Content Network Get SAP business content, 3rd party business content, and samples to add to your system from within SAP Analytics Cloud. See Get Business Content and Samples from the Content Network.
Translation View the source and the translated text. See Learn About the Translation Process.
Security Set up authentication for your users, and how to securely manage access to SAP Analytics Cloud using licenses, roles, and teams. You can also view auditing activity for requests, data changes, and user activities. See Security Administration.
Transport Move content privately and share it with other systems through SAP Analytics Cloud. See Transport Your Private Content Through Content Network Storage and Transport Your Private Content Through File System.
  • Export
  • Import
Connections View live data connections from on-premise and cloud data sources to SAP Analytics Cloud. See Data Connections.
System Understand system requirements and learn how to configure and monitor your SAP Analytics Cloud tenant. See System Administration.

Using the Shell Bar

The shell bar lets you see the breadcrumb navigation and actions relating to the active screen. It also contains universal features including search notifications, discussions, help, user profile settings, and the product switch. With the shell bar, you'll have a consistent experience across all SAP Analytics Cloud products.

The Shell Bar
Shell Bar Functionalities
Number Feature Description
1 Back button Lets you navigate to the previous screen you were in.
2a Application or Tool Name Lets you see where you are when working on your data, content, or configurations.
2b File Name and Folder Path Lets you see file details, including the description of the file, and the folder path.
Tip

Click any folder in the breadcrumb to jump directly to that file location in the Files area.
3a and 3b File Actions
Note

If you see different file actions, it's because file actions are dependent on the file you're in.

Lets you use the shortcuts in the Actions menu to create something new based on the file that's currently opened. The Close button lets you close the current file that's opened and returns you to the appropriate start page.
Note

Additional actions will appear for different file types, such as marking the current file as a favorite.
4 Search Lets you search for content across the whole product.
5 Search to Insight Lets you ask questions about your data and immediately see your answers as visualizations.
6 Notifications Lets you see your notifications such as system messages informing you of files that have been shared with you, comments added to your story, when you've been added to a discussion, calendar tasks and processes, and other administrative reminders.
7 Discussion Lets you send messages and collaborate with other users
8 Help Lets you find contextual help articles, and links to videos and additional learning resources.
9 Profile Lets you change your user profile preferences, customize your Home Screen appearance, request additional roles, and sign out.
10 Product Switch Lets you quickly navigate between your SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, and SAP Analytics Hub tenants.

Navigating the Start Page

The start pages optimize your workflow through a frictionless experience for multi-application scenarios. With the start pages, you'll be able to seamlessly create new content, view recent files, and filter results in your recent files table.

The Start Page
Central Start Page Functionalities
Number Feature Description
1 Welcome Message Lets you see a welcome message stating the purpose and value of each tool. You can select Learn More... to open the help and ask questions and access additional learning materials.
2 Create New Options Lets you create new content, from a new blank file, or from other starting options.
Note

Analytic Applications, Digital Boardroom, Datasets, Modeler, Data Actions, Allocations, Value Driver Trees, and Smart Predict have their own unique create new options displayed in the same design.
3 Recent Files Lets you easily re-open previous files so you can continue with your work.
Note

You can only see the last 25 files you recently worked on.
4 Search Filter Lets you filter the results in the Recent Files table.

Optimizing Your Workflow

In this section, we'll focus on two key features that will optimize how you use SAP Analytics Cloud.

Suggested Shortcuts for Content Creation

When creating content, you might want to jump between different content creation workflows. For example, you may want to edit a model and then go to the story designer to consume that model in a new story. There are different sets of contextual file actions accessible from the shell bar.

File actions are placed next to the file name in the Actions menu and allow you to directly jump to other workflows based on the selected file.

Create new content based on your currently opened file, then jump directly to it and continue working.

These shortcuts allow you to open or create a new file in another application quickly without breaking flow.

Faster Access to Your Files

The Files area preserves the state of where you left off, by showing you the folder path you had, when you navigate away to another part of the product.

1. Open the Files area.
2 Navigate to a specific folder to open a file.
3. After doing some work, return to the Files area.
4. Return right where you left off.
Your files and folders can be accessed directly from several places, including the new start pages and the new breadcrumb in the shell bar.
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