Live access to SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud and SAP BW in SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office

[steffen_heine]

Until now, the SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office could be connected to native SAP Analytics Cloud models, SAP Datasphere and SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud (for more information, see SAP Help). With the QRC4 release on November 20, 2023, users will be able to access SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition (& OnPremise) and SAP BW (BW/4HANA, 7.50 SP14 or higher) within their Microsoft Excel workbooks.

To do this, SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office uses the live connection to the backend system defined in SAP Analytics Cloud. As a pre-requisite the Tunnel connection type is required for both connections to prevent cross domain problems. The tunnel connection standards - User / Password and SAML Single Sign-On - are supported as authentication methods.

SAC BW Live connection of type Tunnel

 

In the SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office the SAP S/4HANA and SAP BW connections are displayed in the Select Data Source dialog. After successful authentication, the user can search for the BW query or CDS view.

Select connection in the SAC Add-in

 

If variables are defined, the variable dialog is displayed for further selection. In addition, the variable types hierarchy, hierarchy node, formula and text variables are supported.

Specify variable values

 

The standard result set defined in the query is then displayed. An example of a query with 2 structures is shown below.

2 structure query

 

If ID and description are defined as default display for a dimension, the ID will be shown and the description is added as a property column for this dimension. The display of compounded keys is automatically derived from the backend. Other new features are available in the designer panel. Users can select the position of the totals and parent node, enable zero suppression and a compact display visualization (Universal Display Hierarchy) to show multiple dimension columns as a hierarchy.

Compact Display visualization

All existing features, such as filters, show/hide properties, custom functions, additional rows and columns, sort & rank, undo & redo are supported accordingly for the SAP S/4HANA and SAP BW connections and will be further extended in upcoming releases. Keep an eye on our roadmap for the SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office.

Existing features in combination with new connections

Note: There are no plans to support data entry for SAP BW as the recommended planning solution for the SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office remains SAP Analytics Cloud Planning.

[mfoeken]

Hi Steffen,

Are you referring to 20-nov for the roll-out of a new version of the add-in that supports these two new connections? Since the QRC 2023.04 for SAC was already deployed last weekend.

Quick question: are there plans to support the direct connection as well? Because not all customers like the idea that 'live' data will be transferred via the Cloud Connector. It's not even turned on by default and otherwise, you will not be able to create connections of type 'tunnel'.

Kind regards,

Martijn van Foeken | Interdobs

[steffen_heine]

Hi Martijn,

thanks for the feedback. The add-in still follows a monthly release schedule which 4 times a year overlaps with the SAC QRC release. Unfortunately we had a one week delay due to some public holidays and therefore we release on Nov 20.

We need to elaborate more on the direct connection together with the SAC team. Currently there are cross domain issues with certain Excel clients and that's why we focused on Tunnel for now.

Regards,

Steffen

[sabine_krueger1]

Hi Steffen,

When can we use the add-in for BW live reporting on direct connections?

Regards

Sabine

[steffen_heine]

Hello Sabine,

we will elaborate this topic if feasible. But this is not a short term solution and not on the roadmap so far.

Regards,

Steffen

[sabine_krueger1]

Hello Steffen,

I don't believe it. Our influence requests to fill the gaps for Afo SAC Repository (workbook variants, launcher file) have been set to NOT PLANNED with the reason that we should use the new addin.

But we cannot even test the new addin as it does not support direct connection. I will create an influence request for this as well.

Regards

Sabine

[deodutt_dwivedi]

Hi steffen.heine ,

Thanks for informative blog. We have established a tunnel connection to test it for our S/4HANA OP system. The Live Connection is working fine in SAC and we are able to create Live Models based on this tunnel connection. But unfortunately when using this connection in the excel ad-in we are getting below error. Do you know if there are any other pre-requisite steps in setting this up. Any help is welcomed.

SAC Excel Ad-In Snippet

Regards,

Deo