SAP Analytics Cloud brings together analytics and planning with unique integration to SAP applications and seamless access to heterogenous data sources. It helps everyone in your organization make decisions without doubt with trusted insights and integrated plans.
This blog post introduces the features of the SAP Analytics Cloud 2023.20 release available for SAP Analytics Cloud FastTrack customers. For SAP Analytics Cloud Quarterly Release Cycle (QRC) customers, this release and its features will be available as part of the QRC Q4 2023 release. View the QRC release schedule here.
Although not required, you may upgrade to the latest SAP Analytics Cloud agent version 1.0.385 to take advantage of all data acquisition types.
The agent’s minimum version remains at 1.0.75, with the following exceptions:
For more information, see System Requirements and Technical Prerequisites.
Regarding supported features and required updates for the integration of SAP BW with SAP Analytics Cloud, refer to SAP Note 2541557 for further details.
Regarding supported features and required updates for live universe access through SAP BusinessObjects Live Data Connect with SAP Analytics Cloud, refer to SAP Note 2771921 for further details.
Please download the latest version of the Simple Deployment Kit from Service Marketplace.
Note: To avoid downloading older versions and potentially exposing users to a vulnerable bundling of the Cloud Connector with SAPJVM, or Apache Tomcat, only the three latest versions of the kits are available to download.
For Cloud agent version change management details, refer to SAP Note 3264839.
Advanced Drag and drop capabilities in the data analyzer now supported to allow users to drag objects from the builder panel and drop them into a table. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
The following objects are supported:
We are building upon the chart support for data analyzer released in Q3 QRC 2023:
In the table visualization in data analyzer users can now scroll horizontally if the table has a large number of columns. If there are more than 100 columns a warning message is displayed to use the filter function and restrict the number of columns.
We've made significant improvements to the scalability, resilience, and correctness of master data acquisition from SAP BW (SAP Analytics Cloud agent 1.0.385 or above required). These improvements apply to acquisition of non-hierarchical characteristics without query view conditions and hierarchy node filters on other characteristics.
We've greatly improved performance and increased data correctness for data acquisition from SAP HANA (SAP Analytics Cloud agent 1.0.383 or above required).
In IF statements of advanced formulas, users can now use "==" or "!==" to define a dimension combination filter that produces a scope of dimension member combinations based on whether or not dimension properties match. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Example in screenshot below:
It produces a scope of Entity and InterCompnay dimension member combination where Entity dimension’s ID property and InterCompany dimension’s Entity property match.
Entity of I_GERMANY: GERMANY
Entity of I_KOREA: KOREA
Date-type dimension can be used with PERIOD() function.
Example in screenshot below:
It produces a scope of Date and Product dimension member combination where Date dimension’s ID and PERIOD of Product dimension’s StartDate match.
StartDate of PRD001: 20210101
StartDate of PRD002: 20210317
In data actions, users can now select the checkbox "All Members" as a parameter property. Parameters with the checkbox selected be consumed in step source contexts and MEMBERSET/BASEMEMBER formulas. Such parameters can now consume story filters and input controls with All-member selections without any limitations, and new members will be included automatically. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
After a new line is inserted by “Add Member”, inner dimension members relative to the member where you trigger this functionality are now automatically replicated and filled into the new line. This enhancement is also available to tables built on SAP BPC live data models. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
In the screenshot below, you can see that a new line is inserted with replication of REVENUE, Canada, Marketing
When configuring the API step of multi actions, users can now select the “Require CSRF Token” checkbox and enter a CSRF token URL if a CSRF token is required by the external application used. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Users can now benefit from the features of Multi Actions Service API on the API Business Hub. More information here. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Users can now set week as the granularity for forecast type look back or look ahead for forecasts and rolling forecasts.
Additionally, we are introducing a new range concept for forecast type to limit table colours. The default value of range is related to the selected granularity. For quarter and month, it's set to year by default to keep the behavior aligned as before. And for week, the default range is quarter, which means if a user uses week as forecast granularity, all the weeks of that quarter will be displayed. The granularity of look back and look ahead is limited by the range. Only those granularities lower than range are allowed as look back or look ahead. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Planning area creation has been simplified thanks to a new option to automatically create a public version’s planning area on the table point-of-view (i.e.: story, page, widget filters) with the recommended planning area (data access control, data locking) automatically. This will help further restrict the size of the recommended planning area to improve performance, especially for large public versions.
To use this new feature, the ‘Optimize Recommended Planning Area’ toggle in the modeler and the ‘Auto-generate based on the table context’ checkbox in the table builder must be enabled. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Next to the planned start and end dates of calendar events, users can now see the actual dates of the events in the List workspace and in the Details panel of an event. Both planned and actual dates are visualized in the Gantt chart. Administrators can turn off the display of the actual dates under System > Administration. A time-related status filter is available to exclude delayed or overdue events. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
For more details, see Work in the List Workspace.
To better identify overdue and delayed events, users can now filter your calendar List workspace according to their time-related status (On Track, Delayed, or Overdue). For details, see Filter Calendar Events.
In validation rules created by combining dimension members, users can now copy or cut dimension member combinations from other applications like Microsoft Excel or from existing member combinations and paste them into the validation rule grid. Member combinations in existing files should be in ID format. This can be done by using dedicated buttons or via keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl + C, Ctrl + X, Ctrl + V). (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Introducing new Story APIs to customize the planning area:
Additionally, the copy API now supports the options to create a planning version from visible data and customized planning area. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
When creating story calculations based on data from the new model (Universal Model), you can now use MEMBERLOOKUP and ACCOUNTLOOKUP functions in the calculations.
ACCOUNTLOOKUP & MEASURELOOKUP formulas allow users to create restricted Calculated Measures using Accounts.
This feature is only available in the optimized story experience.
When using a restricted measure calculation that includes a Version dimension, you can now remove the version dimension from the chart axis.
It means that you can remove version at any time. It is up to you as a Story Designer to make sure that you satisfy one of the conditions:
This feature is only available in the optimized story experience.
Story Designers now have an option to determine which axis the tooltip (measure / account) should inherit
Inheriting the scale of the axis will update the tooltip as the scale updates via a script.
This feature is only available in the optimized story experience.
Story Designers now have more flexibility when version is bound to color. They now have an option to use the measures/account to set the color and pattern.
It is supported for Bar / Column, Combined Bar / Column & Line, Stacked Column & Line, Line, Histogram, and Area.
This feature is only available in the optimized story experience.
Story designers can create custom add-ons for built-in widgets. The custom add-ons can then be uploaded to SAP Analytics Cloud and added to widgets in optimized stories. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
The difference between a custom widget and a widget add-on is that custom widgets are built from scratch, whereas with a widget add-on, a customization is built on top of an existing chart. Widget add-ons will be helpful in cases where only a certain part of a widget needs to be customized such as tooltips and plot areas.
Supported Add-On Types and Chart Types
To close feature gaps and bring new functionality in the optimized story experience, story designers can now copy and paste widgets, scripting components, and individual story pages across stories or browser tabs. Copy and paste items across composites or between composites and optimized stories is also supported. This feature is supported in canvas, responsive, and reporting layout, with undo/redo.
Copying between optimized design mode and classic stories is not supported; a warning message will be displayed.
While managing scheduled publication, users can now see more details about the status of scheduled events from the workspace calendar. Users can view the detailed status of the publication generation and delivery for each individual view and user on every scheduled publication event.
This blog post only provides a high-level overview of the latest features and enhancements of SAP Analytics Cloud. You can find more details on these features in your In-App Help Guide for FastTrack customers and see this SAP Knowledge Base Article if you’d like to learn more about FastTrack and Quarterly Release Cycle releases.
If you have any questions regarding the content in this blog post, you can comment below. If you have product specific or technical questions, post a question to our SAP Analytics Cloud Questions & Answers forum. Visit our SAP Analytics Cloud Community pages to find more product information, best practices, and more. And check out our SAP Road Map Explorer to see more upcoming features of SAP Analytics Cloud
This blog post introduces the features of the SAP Analytics Cloud 2023.20 release available for SAP Analytics Cloud FastTrack customers. For SAP Analytics Cloud Quarterly Release Cycle (QRC) customers, this release and its features will be available as part of the QRC Q4 2023 release. View the QRC release schedule here.
System Administration and Technical Requirements
Although not required, you may upgrade to the latest SAP Analytics Cloud agent version 1.0.385 to take advantage of all data acquisition types.
The agent’s minimum version remains at 1.0.75, with the following exceptions:
- Version 1.0.99 for SAP ERP/SQL Database
- Version 1.0.365for SAP universe (UNX). The SAP Analytics Cloud agent requires additional setup steps, for more details see SAP Note 3262098
- Version 1.0.353 for SAP Business Warehouse (BW)
- Version 1.0.235 for SAP HANA View
- Version 1.0.248 for File Server
For more information, see System Requirements and Technical Prerequisites.
Regarding supported features and required updates for the integration of SAP BW with SAP Analytics Cloud, refer to SAP Note 2541557 for further details.
Regarding supported features and required updates for live universe access through SAP BusinessObjects Live Data Connect with SAP Analytics Cloud, refer to SAP Note 2771921 for further details.
Please download the latest version of the Simple Deployment Kit from Service Marketplace.
Note: To avoid downloading older versions and potentially exposing users to a vulnerable bundling of the Cloud Connector with SAPJVM, or Apache Tomcat, only the three latest versions of the kits are available to download.
For Cloud agent version change management details, refer to SAP Note 3264839.
Release Highlights
- Data Exploration
- Data Analyzer
- Drag and Drop from the Builder Panel into the Table | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Chart Updatesl
- Horizontal Scroll with Pagination for Table View
- Data Analyzer
- Data Integration
- Improvement of Master Data Acquisition from SAP BW
- Performance Improvements for Data Acquisition from SAP HANA
- Enterprise Planning
- Advanced Formulas – support of combination results in IF formulas | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Data Actions – Support Parameters with “All Member” Selection | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Data Entry – new line with prefilled members | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Multi Actions - CSRF support for API step | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Multi Actions – inclusion of the external rest API in SAP Business Accelerator Hub | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Plan Entry – forecast of layout support of weekly time | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Plan Entry – planning area based on story point of view | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Plan Process Management – track start and end dates/times, and task duration | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Validation Rules – copy and paste in configuration table | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Version Management – story API for planning area definition | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Story Design
- Story Calculation: Expose MEMBERSELECT for New model in story calculation
- Story Calculation: Restricted Calculation on Version (Primary Structure – Account for UAM / CAM and ...
- Chart Tooltip (Measure / Account) Scale Inheritance
- Color by Accounts / Measure and Pattern by Version
- Story Extensibility
- Widget Customization Add-On | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Copy Widgets between Different Browser Tabs in Design Time
- User Collaboration
Data Exploration
Data Analyzer
Drag and Drop from the Builder Panel into the Table
Advanced Drag and drop capabilities in the data analyzer now supported to allow users to drag objects from the builder panel and drop them into a table. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
The following objects are supported:
- Dimensions
- Attributes (connected with the associated dimension)
- Measures
- Structures
- Accounts
Chart Updates
We are building upon the chart support for data analyzer released in Q3 QRC 2023:
- Added support of vertical and horizonal stacked bar/column charts
- Acquired model is now supported for chart visualization
- User experience improvements in the builder panel for charts
Horizontal Scroll with Pagination for Table View
In the table visualization in data analyzer users can now scroll horizontally if the table has a large number of columns. If there are more than 100 columns a warning message is displayed to use the filter function and restrict the number of columns.
Data Integration
Improvement of Master Data Acquisition from SAP BW
We've made significant improvements to the scalability, resilience, and correctness of master data acquisition from SAP BW (SAP Analytics Cloud agent 1.0.385 or above required). These improvements apply to acquisition of non-hierarchical characteristics without query view conditions and hierarchy node filters on other characteristics.
Performance Improvements for Data Acquisition from SAP HANA
We've greatly improved performance and increased data correctness for data acquisition from SAP HANA (SAP Analytics Cloud agent 1.0.383 or above required).
Enterprise Planning
Advanced Formulas – support of combination results in IF formulas
In IF statements of advanced formulas, users can now use "==" or "!==" to define a dimension combination filter that produces a scope of dimension member combinations based on whether or not dimension properties match. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Example in screenshot below:
It produces a scope of Entity and InterCompnay dimension member combination where Entity dimension’s ID property and InterCompany dimension’s Entity property match.
Entity of I_GERMANY: GERMANY
Entity of I_KOREA: KOREA
Date-type dimension can be used with PERIOD() function.
Example in screenshot below:
It produces a scope of Date and Product dimension member combination where Date dimension’s ID and PERIOD of Product dimension’s StartDate match.
StartDate of PRD001: 20210101
StartDate of PRD002: 20210317
Data Actions – Support Parameters with “All Member” Selection
In data actions, users can now select the checkbox "All Members" as a parameter property. Parameters with the checkbox selected be consumed in step source contexts and MEMBERSET/BASEMEMBER formulas. Such parameters can now consume story filters and input controls with All-member selections without any limitations, and new members will be included automatically. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Data Entry – new line with prefilled members
After a new line is inserted by “Add Member”, inner dimension members relative to the member where you trigger this functionality are now automatically replicated and filled into the new line. This enhancement is also available to tables built on SAP BPC live data models. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
In the screenshot below, you can see that a new line is inserted with replication of REVENUE, Canada, Marketing
Multi Actions - CSRF support for API Step
When configuring the API step of multi actions, users can now select the “Require CSRF Token” checkbox and enter a CSRF token URL if a CSRF token is required by the external application used. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Multi Actions – inclusion of the external rest API in SAP Business Accelerator Hub
Users can now benefit from the features of Multi Actions Service API on the API Business Hub. More information here. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Plan Entry – forecast of layout support of weekly time
Users can now set week as the granularity for forecast type look back or look ahead for forecasts and rolling forecasts.
Additionally, we are introducing a new range concept for forecast type to limit table colours. The default value of range is related to the selected granularity. For quarter and month, it's set to year by default to keep the behavior aligned as before. And for week, the default range is quarter, which means if a user uses week as forecast granularity, all the weeks of that quarter will be displayed. The granularity of look back and look ahead is limited by the range. Only those granularities lower than range are allowed as look back or look ahead. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Plan Entry – planning area based on story point of view
Planning area creation has been simplified thanks to a new option to automatically create a public version’s planning area on the table point-of-view (i.e.: story, page, widget filters) with the recommended planning area (data access control, data locking) automatically. This will help further restrict the size of the recommended planning area to improve performance, especially for large public versions.
To use this new feature, the ‘Optimize Recommended Planning Area’ toggle in the modeler and the ‘Auto-generate based on the table context’ checkbox in the table builder must be enabled. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Plan Process Management - track start and end dates/times, and task duration
Next to the planned start and end dates of calendar events, users can now see the actual dates of the events in the List workspace and in the Details panel of an event. Both planned and actual dates are visualized in the Gantt chart. Administrators can turn off the display of the actual dates under System > Administration. A time-related status filter is available to exclude delayed or overdue events. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
For more details, see Work in the List Workspace.
To better identify overdue and delayed events, users can now filter your calendar List workspace according to their time-related status (On Track, Delayed, or Overdue). For details, see Filter Calendar Events.
Validation Rules – copy and paste in configuration table
In validation rules created by combining dimension members, users can now copy or cut dimension member combinations from other applications like Microsoft Excel or from existing member combinations and paste them into the validation rule grid. Member combinations in existing files should be in ID format. This can be done by using dedicated buttons or via keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl + C, Ctrl + X, Ctrl + V). (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Version Management – story API for planning area definition
Introducing new Story APIs to customize the planning area:
- New API startEditMode() to start edit mode on specific planning area in public versions. Users can specify the planning area with the PlanningPublicEditOption parameter
- New API getPlanningAreaInfo() to retrieve the filters applied to the selected table. Users can further use this in startEditMode and copy API to edit or copy the customize the planning area
Additionally, the copy API now supports the options to create a planning version from visible data and customized planning area. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Story Design
Story Calculation: Expose MEMBERSELECT for New Model
When creating story calculations based on data from the new model (Universal Model), you can now use MEMBERLOOKUP and ACCOUNTLOOKUP functions in the calculations.
ACCOUNTLOOKUP & MEASURELOOKUP formulas allow users to create restricted Calculated Measures using Accounts.
- ACCOUNTLOOKUP Returns a cell value based on a measure name, filtered by an account member.
- MEASURELOOKUP Returns a cell value based on an account member, filtered by a measure name.
This feature is only available in the optimized story experience.
Story Calculation: Restricted Calculation on Version (Primary Structure – Account for UAM / CAM and Measure for Key Figure) for charts
When using a restricted measure calculation that includes a Version dimension, you can now remove the version dimension from the chart axis.
It means that you can remove version at any time. It is up to you as a Story Designer to make sure that you satisfy one of the conditions:
- A single value filter on version (either local, story filter, page filter, or via linked analysis)
- Add version to the drill
- Primary Calculation with a single select restriction on version
This feature is only available in the optimized story experience.
Chart Tooltip (Measure / Account) Scale Inheritance
Story Designers now have an option to determine which axis the tooltip (measure / account) should inherit
- Default will preserve the existing behavior where the scale of the tooltip remains unchanged and preserve the default set as part of the modeler
- Inherit Axis Scale will inherit the scale of the axis that it is set to. For dual axis chart, there is an option to specify which axis you want to inherit
Inheriting the scale of the axis will update the tooltip as the scale updates via a script.
This feature is only available in the optimized story experience.
Color by Accounts / Measure and Pattern by Version
Story Designers now have more flexibility when version is bound to color. They now have an option to use the measures/account to set the color and pattern.
- Color by Accounts ON allows the color to be based on the Account and pattern to be based on Version
- Color by Accounts OFF allows the pattern and color to be based on Version
It is supported for Bar / Column, Combined Bar / Column & Line, Stacked Column & Line, Line, Histogram, and Area.
This feature is only available in the optimized story experience.
Story Extensibility
Widget Customization Add-On
Story designers can create custom add-ons for built-in widgets. The custom add-ons can then be uploaded to SAP Analytics Cloud and added to widgets in optimized stories. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
The difference between a custom widget and a widget add-on is that custom widgets are built from scratch, whereas with a widget add-on, a customization is built on top of an existing chart. Widget add-ons will be helpful in cases where only a certain part of a widget needs to be customized such as tooltips and plot areas.
Supported Add-On Types and Chart Types
- Tooltip: supported chart types exclude numeric point.
- Plot area (general): supported chart types are bar/column, stacked bar/column, stacked area and line
- Plot area (numeric point): supported chart type is numeric point.
Copy Widgets between Different Browser Tabs in Design Time
To close feature gaps and bring new functionality in the optimized story experience, story designers can now copy and paste widgets, scripting components, and individual story pages across stories or browser tabs. Copy and paste items across composites or between composites and optimized stories is also supported. This feature is supported in canvas, responsive, and reporting layout, with undo/redo.
Copying between optimized design mode and classic stories is not supported; a warning message will be displayed.
User Collaboration
Status of Scheduled Events from Workspace Calendar
While managing scheduled publication, users can now see more details about the status of scheduled events from the workspace calendar. Users can view the detailed status of the publication generation and delivery for each individual view and user on every scheduled publication event.
This blog post only provides a high-level overview of the latest features and enhancements of SAP Analytics Cloud. You can find more details on these features in your In-App Help Guide for FastTrack customers and see this SAP Knowledge Base Article if you’d like to learn more about FastTrack and Quarterly Release Cycle releases.
If you have any questions regarding the content in this blog post, you can comment below. If you have product specific or technical questions, post a question to our SAP Analytics Cloud Questions & Answers forum. Visit our SAP Analytics Cloud Community pages to find more product information, best practices, and more. And check out our SAP Road Map Explorer to see more upcoming features of SAP Analytics Cloud
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