Preface

SAP Analytics Cloud is a business intelligence, planning, and predictive cloud-based application that helps users blend data from different sources, create compelling data visualizations, run ad hoc reporting, and more. This book will demonstrate how SAP Analytics Cloud can help transform the way you discover, plan, predict, collaborate, visualize, and extend all in one solution. You will begin by being introduced to the SAP Analytics Cloud environment. From here, you will learn about the different models and understand the different capabilities with SAP Analytics Cloud, such as Predictive Analysis, BI, and Planning. Going further, you will learn how to create geomaps, charts, tables, and other objects. Using SAP Analytics Cloud, you will learn how to connect to SAP and non-SAP data sources. You will also learn how to analyze and blend small and big data on premise and in the cloud.

The book starts with the basics of SAP Analytics Cloud and exposes almost every significant feature that is necessary for a beginner. Packed with illustrations short descriptions, the book provides a unique learning experience.

Your exploration journey starts with the most basic introduction to SAP Analytics Cloud. In this introduction, you are briefed about the segments of the product, such as model, stories, Digital Boardroom. Then you are acquainted with the interface of the product (Home screen, Main Menu, and more). You then go to the hands-on side of the book, which starts with model creation. Next, you are guided on how to utilize a model to prepare different types of stories (reports) with the help of charts, tables, geomaps, and more. In the final chapters of this book, you will learn about Digital Boardroom, collaboration, and administration.

These are the objectives of this book:

• The first is self learning. The easy-to-follow visual instructions provided in this book help business users and report developers to create simple and complex stories quickly, all by themselves.
• The main objective of this book is to equip you with a solid understanding of what SAP Analytics Cloud contains so that you can effectively utilize the product.
• After completing the exercises provided in this book, you will have a clear understanding of the SAP Analytics Cloud platform. You will be able to create data models using different data sources, including Excel and text files, and will be in a position to present professional analyses using different types of charts, tables, and geomaps. You can share your stories with other team members or compile them in the SAP Digital Boardroom agenda for presentation to major stakeholders.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with SAP Analytics Cloud, provides a brief introduction to SAP Analytics Cloud platform and exposes its anatomy. In this chapter, you will get an overview of different SAP Analytics Cloud segments (models, stories, Digital Boardroom, and more), which are discussed in detail in subsequent chapters.

Chapter 2, Models, provides some basic conceptual stuff about models, such as analytics and planning models, measures, and dimensions. Models are the foundation of every analysis you create in SAP Analytics Cloud. You will create an analytics model in this chapter to get hands-on exposure to this segment of the application.

Chapter 3, Planning Models, provides details about planning models, which are models in which you work with planning features. A planning model is called a full-featured model because it is preconfigured with the time and categories dimensions for actual, budget, planning, forecast, and rolling forecast. It also supports multicurrency and offers security at both model and dimension levels to restrict access to specific values in the report to privileged users. It also comes with auditing features for traceability.

Chapter 4, Creating Stories Using Charts, discusses stories, which are used in SAP Analytics Cloud to present data graphically using charts, tables, geomaps, text, images, and shapes. In this chapter, there are some hands-on exercises to help you explore this significant segment of the application.

Chapter 5, Extending Stories with KPI, Filters, and Other Handy Objects, also relates to stories. Here, you will learn about key performance indicators (KPIs), add different types of filters to narrow the scope of you analysis, add reference lines, create linked analysis, add dynamic and static text, and a lot more.

Chapter 6, Analyzing Data Using Geo Maps and Other Objects, discusses the models that include latitude and longitude information and can be used in stories to visualize data in geomaps. By adding multiple layers of different types of data, you can show different geographic features and points of interest, enabling you to perform sophisticated geographic analysis. You will also learn how to add, delete, copy, and duplicate pages in your stories and how to provide them with expressive names. Adding comments, creating linked dimensions, predictive forecasting, and time calculation are also discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 7, Working with Tables and Grids, discusses tables and grids in detail. A table is a spreadsheet-like object that can be used to view and analyze text data. You will also learn about grid page, which is a type of page used to create analysis comprising text and formulas. Applying ranking to charts, applying filters to tables, setting visibility filters, using KPIs in tables, and creating blended tables are some of the topics covered in this chapter.

Chapter 8, Collaboration, highlights the collaboration features in SAP Analytics Cloud using which users can discuss business content and share information. These features include creating events and assigning tasks, commenting on a chart's data points, commenting on a story page, saving and sharing a story as a PDF, discussions, and sharing files and stories.

Chapter 9, Digital Boardroom, discusses the SAP Digital Boardroom, which is changing the landscape of board meetings. In addition to supporting traditional presentation methods, it goes beyond the corporate boardroom and allows remote members to join and participate in the meeting online. These remote participants can actively engage in the meeting and can play with live data using their own devices. The chapter will demonstrate how to create boardroom agenda and set up online meetings.

Chapter 10, System Administration, discusses how to make your SAP Analytics Cloud environment secure by creating users and setting their passwords, setting up teams, creating roles and setting permissions, monitoring users activities, data changes, and system performance. In the final section of this book, you will learn about system deployment in which you export and import system components.

What you need for this book

The most significant advantage of this platform is that you do not need to install or configure any software on your machine. A compatible web browser and a moderate Internet connection is all you need to access this application to create interactive dashboards in the cloud.

Who this book is for

This book targets IT professionals, business analysts, BI developers, managers, newcomers to SAP Analytics Cloud, and anyone who wants to learn from self-paced, professional guidance and needs a solid foundation in SAP Analytics Cloud.

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New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "select Live Data Connection | SAP HANA."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Note

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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