This blog post is part of a blog series where we explore how to leverage SAP BTP Data and Analytics capabilities to unlock the full potential of your data. In this series, we will take you on an end-to-end journey through a real-world scenario, demonstrating how SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, and SAP Data Intelligence Cloud can empower your data-driven solutions.  

The blog series consists of four blog posts:  

1. Unlocking Data Value #1: SAP BTP Data and Analytics overview: Learn about our objectives, SAP products, and real-world use case. 
2. Unlocking Data Value #2: Data Integration and Modeling with SAP Datasphere: Explore integration options and data modeling using Data Builder and Business Builder.
3. 3. Unlocking Data Value #3: Machine Learning with SAP: Discover SAP HANA ML and Data Intelligence for building and operationalizing machine learning models. 
4. Unlocking Data Value #4: Data visualization with SAP Analytics Cloud: Dive into Business Intelligence and Data Connectivity.

The full content of this series was delivered in live sessions to SAP Partners. It was built in cooperation with @Thiago, @Amine, @Cesare, @Mostafa, @daya, @Ashish and @Andrii. You can find complete sessions’ recordings here.

First, let’s recap our business scenario storyline: we have imagined that a SAP partner developed a solution for bookshop management for a bookshop that is active since many years already. This solution has been developed with CAP based on SAP HANA Cloud as the persistency layer and integrated with S/4HANA Cloud. We want to improve the existing solution and take advantage of customers’ data asset turning it into business value with actionable insights and intelligence and transform the bookshop into an intelligent bookshop including best-selling books, ABC classification, sales trending and forecast, a book recommendation engine based on sales data and book inventory optimization based on a book genre clustering.

We have also seen how we can prepare and model all the data we need in the second blog post of this series, in addition we have seen in the third blog post of this series the basic notions of AI and how we can infuse artificial intelligence in our bookshop solution. Now let’s put more focus on the last piece of this puzzle and understand how to leverage the SAP Cloud Analytics capabilities to visualize insights and empower users to take the proper actions as well make informed decisions!

Well! Looking at the architectural diagram below, we shall realize that SAP BTP is the unified platform of Data Management, Data Warehousing and Analytic Services. Indeed, SAP Analytics Cloud empowers us to present data effectively & efficiently providing valuable insight and help in making informed decisions.

What is SAP Analytics Cloud?

SAP Analytics Cloud is an end-to-end (E2E) cloud solution that brings together Business Intelligence, Augmented Analytics including Predictive Analytics & Enterprise Planning in a single system providing the analytic foundation to BTP. It can run on any web browser and additionally on the mobile app where you can access stories and analytic reports while on the move anytime on iOS or Android devices.

What are the main benefits of SAP Analytics Cloud?

The ease of viewing content, connectivity to trusted data, access to various visualization tools, augmented analytic capabilities, and financial planning features.

On top, users can avoid the hassle of data replication by setting up live data connections. Data is “live” when a user works on a story and the changes are reflected instantly in the source system. This is convenient since in certain cases data can’t be moved into the cloud due to security & privacy reasons.

With SAP Analytics Cloud you can simply analyze, ask, predict, plan, and report in a single cloud system!

Indeed, SAP Analytics Cloud empower users to:

• Drive agile decisions with integrated planning & analysis
• Derive unique insights from your most valuable data
• Create bleeding edge analytics with a complete solution

As shown in the diagram illustrated above, SAP Analytics Cloud offers different services, those services can be categorized into; 1) User Experience, 2) Analytics, 3) Platform.

The User Experience covers features like analytical sorties, digital boardroom & MS Office integration.

Analytics capabilities are all about Business Intelligence, Augmented Analytics and Enterprise Planning.

• Business Intelligence includes data exploration feature via the data analyzer, plus the dashboards & visualization tools, enterprise reporting and what-if-analysis scenarios as well.
• Augmented analytics comprises a set of features that enhance the analytics process using ML. It includes smart features like Smart Insights, Search to Insight, Smart Discovery, Smart Predict.
• Enterprise Planning covers features like events & workflows, sharing & simulation and predictive planning enriched with collaboration which provides end-to-end planning experience.

It is important to highlight here that when it comes to enterprise planning, SAP Analytics Cloud offers powerful financial & operational planning functionalities & abilities that include planning, budgeting, and forecasting, providing insight into analytic findings, applying predictions, performing scenario planning, leveraging collaboration and process management, scheduling tasks, building custom planning applications, carrying out data entry & version management, and writing powerful scripted calculations.

SAP also provided prebuilt planning content to be used to jump start planning process implementation.

SAP Analytics Cloud Platform offers a wide range of services, tools, and features such as Data Connectivity, Data Modeling, User Management, Auditing & Monitoring, Content Translation, Lifecycle management, Collaboration tools, Scheduling & publishing and finally APIs & SDK as well.

It is worth mentioning that SAP has delivered a more effective architecture stack called optimized stack. It Provides an improved story experience which enables great performance, ensures usability, and empowers different users with different requirements to work together in one unified, innovative and powerful story. This will significantly empower users to focus only on one central environment and work on one central artifact, that’s the so-called optimized story experience.

In relation to our use case for the bookshop management solution scenario, the following section offers three comprehensive demos to showcase SAP Analytics Cloud capabilities on how-to:

1. Configure live data connection towards Datasphere,
2. Develop a simple analytical story with unified experience, while leveraging the scripting feature to develop interactive dashboards,
3. Build a complete optimized analytical story.

 Demo – Config Live Data Connection with SAP Datasphere!

Demo – Build Unified Analytical Story Experience!

Demo – Build an Optimized Analytical Story!

To conclude, with the SAP Analytics Cloud, users can increase their work efficiency, easily find the information they require, and quickly browse and access the content they need for analysis and planning in a secure manner.

Indeed, data in SAP Analytics Cloud is trusted, ensuring the content is built from the right data since users can directly view the source, securely connect to data from various spreadsheets, databases, and other applications in the cloud or on-site to make accurate data-driven decisions.

Useful Learning resources:

1. SAP Discovery Center – SAP Analytics Cloud
2. SAP Help Guide: SAP Analytics Cloud
3. eLearning Journey – Learn How to use SAP Analytics Cloud
4. SAP Developer Tutorials: SAP Analytics Cloud
5. SAP Blog: Example for Maintenance Cost Budgeting & Sustainability Planning with SAP Analytics Cloud