Enable Content Discoverability with the Analytics Catalog

You can enable the analytics catalog so that users can view published content on the Catalog tab on their Home screen.

Who does this apply to?

  • Users who publish content to the catalog are assigned a role with the Execute permission for Publish Content and the Manage permission for Public Files and Private Files
  • System administrators who change the settings for the Catalog tab are assigned a role with the Manage permission for Catalog Administration and the Read and Update permissions for System Information.
  • Users who are assigned a custom role based on the Admin or BI Admin standard application roles.

What is the Analytics Catalog?

Your organization may have hundreds or thousands of saved content files that were carefully created, such as stories, analytic applications, and more. However, among the mass amount of content, there might be files that contain outdated information or be the result of users experimenting with various features. How do users know which files they can trust?

They can use the catalog!

The catalog is a single access point within SAP Analytics Cloud where users and teams can find content. Content creators can publish content to the catalog, and users will be able to discover that content on the Catalog tab of their Home screen. Because a special permission is needed to publish content to the catalog, users will know that the catalog content has been vetted by a reliable person.

Each item published to the catalog is displayed as a card that users can open to access the underlying content. The following content types can be published and displayed in the catalog:
  • Stories
  • Analytic Applications
  • Digital Boardroom presentations
  • Models
  • Datasets
  • Uploaded SAP Analytics Cloud files
  • Content Links
  • Insights

By default, the Catalog tab is available.

Note

For users to be able to publish content to the catalog, a system administrator must enable the Catalog tab.

Enabling or Disabling the Catalog

Context

For new SAP Analytics Cloud systems, the Catalog tab is enabled by default. As a system administrator, you can choose to disable it based on your organization’s needs.

Procedure

  1. From the side navigation, choose (System), select (Administration), and then select the Catalog tab.
  2. Go to the Settings section.
  3. Under Home Screen Tabs, go to the Catalog Tab and switch on the Enable Catalog Tab and publishing to the Catalog option. If you want to disable the catalog, switch this option off.
  4. Select the default sort order for the tab: recently added, most viewed, alphabetical, or reverse alphabetical.
  5. You can also switch on or off the Favorites and Shared With Me tabs for your users, and set the default sort order.
  6. Save your changes.

    To be able to see the changes, you must refresh the Home screen.

Results

Only the tabs that you turned on will appear on the Home screen. For users who have not yet used the Catalog, Favorites, or Shared With Me tabs, the published cards are in the default sort order. The default sort order does not affect users who regularly use the tabs.

Setting Up Filters in the Catalog

Context

Users who publish content to the catalog can apply filters to the content. When other users search for files in the catalog, they can use the filters to help them find what they need.

You can set up filters, which are like a property of the content and add values (members) for each filter. For example, you can set up a filter for Color and add these members: Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. You can also translate the content filters into other languages.

Procedure

  1. From the side navigation, choose (System), select (Administration), and then select the Catalog tab.
  2. In the Content Filters section, select Add a new filter.
  3. Type a name and optional description for the filter.
  4. Under Members, type different name values to add to the filter.

    For example, you can create a filter named Line of business with several members, such as Overview, Sales, and Finance.

  5. (Optional) Select the Default checkbox if you want the member to be automatically selected in the Filter panel. This option affects new users who have not yet used the catalog and does not affect existing users who regularly filter content.
  6. Select Create.
  7. (Optional) Arrange the content filters so that they appear in the order that you want on the Filter panel. You can drag and drop the filters or select a filter and use the arrow buttons.
  8. (Optional) Under Type Filters, select whether to show the Type filter in the Filter panel:
    1. Switch on or off Show Type Filters. By default this option is switched on.
    2. With the option on, choose which content type filters are to be automatically selected. This option only affects users who have not yet used the catalog.
    3. Select Save.
  9. If you want to translate the content filters and the card layout text into other languages, choose a source language (the language that you typed the content filter names and member names in).
    1. Go to the Setting section and under Translation, select the source language.
      The translation service will then translate the content filters and text on the card layout to the supported languages. For more information, see Learn About the Translation Process. To see the content filter translations, from the side navigation, choose Translation, and edit the Content Filters.

Results

The filters that have been created can be used to help users find content in the catalog.

  • User who publish content to the catalog can apply filters to the content they are publishing. For more information, see Publish and Share Content to the Catalog.

  • Users who are using the catalog for the first time can open the Filter panel and select filters so that only the cards that match the default selected filters are visible. Users who regularly use the catalog, can open the Filter panel and select filters. For more information, see Find and Access Content in the Catalog.

Adding Tabs to the Catalog Overview Dialog

Context

When users publish content to the catalog and select Edit details to open the catalog card overview dialog, just one tab (Overview tab) is available by default. If needed, you can add up to 10 additional tabs to the catalog card overview dialog. The tabs that you add can be mandatory or optional. Mandatory tabs require information and will always appear in the dialog. Users can't remove them. If a tab isn't mandatory, users can add or remove the tabs.

Procedure

  1. From the side navigation, choose Start of the navigation path System Next navigation step  AdministrationEnd of the navigation path.
  2. Select the Catalog tab and go to the Layout section.
  3. (Optional) Under Card Layout, you can select if you want the latest date that the file was updated to appear on the catalog card. This option is selected by default.
  4. Under Overview Dialog Layout, select Open the dialog editor.
  5. In the editor, select Add a New Tab.
  6. Type a tab title and select whether you want to make the tab mandatory.

    • In the card overview dialog, mandatory tabs always appear, have an asterisk (*) beside their name, and can’t be removed by users. Users must enter information in these tabs before the content can be published.

    • Tabs that are not mandatory, can be added or removed by the user in the card overview dialog.

  7. (Optional) You can edit or delete the tabs as needed:

    • Rename a tab by double-clicking the tab name and typing a new name.

    • Rearrange the order of the tabs by dragging and dropping them.

    • Delete a tab by hovering your mouse pointer over it and deleting it.

    Tip

    You can rename the Overview tab, but you can’t change its order or delete it.

  8. Select Save.
  9. If you want to translate the card layout text into other languages, choose a source language (the language that you typed the content filter names and member names in). For more information, see the last step when you add filters.

Results

When a user publishes content to the catalog, and opens the catalog card overview dialog, all mandatory tabs appear. Users can select Add a New Tab to add any of the non-mandatory tabs. For information on publishing content, see Publish and Share Content to the Catalog.

Recommending Catalog Items

Context

Sometimes it is helpful when certain content items appear with a higher priority or recommendation than other items. These recommended items appear at the top of the Catalog tab.

Note
All Admin users can recommend content or remove the recommendation. Non-Admin users must have the Execute permission for Publish Content.

Procedure

  1. From the side navigation, go to the Home page and select the Catalog tab.
  2. Search for the content your organization wants to recommend.
  3. Select the card to see the details, select Recommend, and then close the card.

    The Recommend button changes to Recommended, which can be used if your organization no longer wants to recommend the content.

Results

A pushpin appears on the upper left corner of the card, and the card is moved to the top of the view. The sort order is applied to the recommended items separately from the unrecommended items. Users can see the recommended items based on their access permission for the content.

If you are a system administrator or a Non-Admin user with the appropriate permission, you can see the Manage Recommended button, which lets you remove several items or all items from being recommended. Removing items from being recommended does not remove them from being published in the catalog. These items will no longer appear at the top of the Catalog tab and will appear with the other published items arranged based on the sort order applied. To remove items from being published, see Publish and Share Content to the Catalog.

Requests for Content Published to the Catalog

When someone publishes content to the Catalog, they can choose whether or not to grant Read access. If they don't grant access, users will need to request access to the content before they can open it. .

Those access requests will be sent to you and other system administrators, who are notified via email and the shell bar notifications. From the file requests toolbar you can approve or deny those requests.

Note
“System administrators” includes the default BI Admin and Admin roles, and users who have the Manage permission for Public Files and Private Files.

When a user requests access to content, you'll receive an email from the system, and see a notification in the shell bar:

A row will also be added to the file request list. To access the list, from the side navigation choose Start of the navigation path Security Next navigation step  Requests Next navigation step File RequestsEnd of the navigation path. From here, you can select one or more requests, and then select the Approve or Deny icons. You can update the list by selecting the Refresh icon:

Note
When the maximum number of queued file requests is reached (10,000), a warning message is displayed, and the system will block any further file-access requests.

Content with dependent files (dependencies)

Often, content requested by users depends on other files (dependencies), such as stories, digital boardroom presentations, analytic applications, content links, and models and datasets. When a user requests access to such content, access is automatically requested for the dependencies, in the background.

For example, if a user requests access to a story in the catalog, access requests for that story and any underlying dependencies, such as the models, are sent to administrators, to allow the user full access to the story and its data. Users don't see the access requests for those dependencies, but you will see them in the File Requests list.

Note

Access requests for file dependencies where the file dependencies are from different workspaces that you don't have access to are not automatically generated, and no automated notification is provided. The only way to know that you don’t have access to these file dependencies is to open the content (for example, the story). If you see a message that you don’t have access to the file dependencies after you open the content, you must independently and manually request access to the workspaces and the specific file dependencies from the content owner. Depending on the content owner’s role, the content owner might need to ask other users for assistance with granting access permission to workspaces and file dependencies.

For example, Story A is published to the catalog. Story A is saved in Workspace A and is dependent on files from different workspaces. User B is a team member for Workspace A but does not have access to the other workspaces. User B can request access to Story A. However, for User B to get access to the file dependencies, User B must ask (for example, by email) the owner of Story A for access to the other workspaces and ask for access to the specific file dependencies.

Disabling notifications

Context

If your SAP Analytics Cloud organization has more than one administrator, all of you will receive these file-request notifications and emails. Some admins might want to disable the notifications and emails:

Procedure

  1. Select your user avatar in the upper-right corner, and choose Profile Settings.

  2. In the User Preferences section, select the Edit icon and change the settings.

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