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 2024.07 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 Q2 2024 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 1.0.399 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 1.0.365 for 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
- Administration and Service Management
- Enforce Purpose and Grant type by OAuth Client
- Augmented Analytics
- Just Ask
- Just Ask administrators can now assign Labels to searchable models
- Just Ask
- Data Exploration
- Calculations dialog: Syntax highlighting
- Filter in the filter line on calculated measures
- Embedded Dialog Story Filter Panel
- Builder panel enhancements
- Enterprise Planning
- Data Actions – Select 'Show Only Leaves' in Tracing table | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Global Settings for Calendar Notifications | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Multi Action Predictive step support prediction interval | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Dynamic extension of planning area during data entry
- Microsoft Office Integration
- Prompt Enhancements
- Refresh Selected Functions
- Story Design
- Filter by member dialog – improved value selection experience | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Rank with Others for Charts | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Support dynamic font size scaling | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Enable batch export when exporting your story to PDF or PPTX | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Totals as an anchor or operand for client calculations.
- Numeric Values full precision
- Warn Customers on Deprecation of Classic Design Experience
- Story Extensibility
- Composites: Data source Repointing | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Custom Widget Support for Universal Model | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Section Widget Feature Gaps
- CSV and Excel Export Support for UQM Table
- Story Presentation
- Unified Story Presentation Mode | (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Administration and Service Management
Enforce Purpose and Grant type by OAuth Client
When adding a new OAuth client to a tenant hosted on a non-SAP data center, the dialog now provides separate options for Interactive Access and API Access. The authorization grant type must be configured, and will be enforced by the OAuth client.
Augmented Analytics
Just Ask
Assign Labels to searchable models
Just Ask administrators can now assign Labels to searchable models. In addition to model names, users will be able to see the category, such as marketing, sales, forecasting and more. This additional information will provide users with a more comprehensive overview, making it easier to select the models that best suit their needs.
Data Exploration
Calculations dialog: Syntax highlighting
As a user of the Calculated Measures dialog in data analyzer you can now find syntax highlighting in the formula editor. This adds clarity to the formula you create by differentiating objects like measures and functions, etc.
Filter in the filter line on calculated measures
In data analyzer you can now filter in the filter line on calculated measures you’ve created. After having created the calculated measures, they appear instantly in the list of measure options in the filter line.
Embedded Dialog Story Filter Panel
We have made enhancements to the accessibility, functionality, and layout of the embedded dialog story filter panel.
- The new UI5 component – Multi Input is used for the multi select.
- The single select now appears as editable text in the input field.
- Variable header title removed as duplication.
- Error handling added for mandatory variables. Asterisk indicator no longer displayed as header title removed.
Builder panel enhancements
We’ve made the following builder panel enhancements:
- The builder panel in table now displays the hierarchy structure (available objects list)
- The sort context menu in available objects is now available for each individual structure
- We introduced a splitter in builder panel for user to adjust its panel area
Enterprise Planning
Data Actions – Select 'Show Only Leaves' in Tracing table
When checking data changes in the analytic window during data action tracing, users can now enable ‘Show Only Leaves’ from the context menu of each dimension to show only its leaf members. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Global Settings for Calendar Notifications
Administrators can now configure which in-app notifications or emails are sent to users who are involved in calendar events. Settings can be defined depending on the users’ roles (owners, assignees/reviewers, or viewers). (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Multi Action Predictive step support prediction interval
In the predictive step of multi actions, when you choose either the Train & Forecast or Apply predictive action, you can now save a prediction interval by choosing a prediction interval minimum and a prediction interval maximum. Using this feature allows you to visualize the prediction quality. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Dynamic extension of planning area during data entry
When you auto-generate a planning area based on table context, the planning area will now dynamically expand as you work on a version that’s in public edit mode. This will minimize the size of the planning area and only extend it when needed. Additionally, we’ve made an enhancement to allow for undo/redo extension actions in the version management history.
Microsoft Office Integration
SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Excel
Prompt Enhancements
Users can now search for variables in the set variables dialog. Additionally, there are two new settings to specify the display of the variables in the dialog:
- Show mandatory variables only to show only the variables in the dialog that are mandatory to be set.
- Show variable technical names to show the technical names / IDs of the variables in the dialog.
This feature is available to all customers as of March 27, 2024.
Refresh Selected Functions
Users now have the option to refresh a subset of the functions available in your workbook. To do so, select the functions you want to refresh and choose Refresh > Refresh Selected Functions in the ribbon.
This feature is available to all customers as of March 27, 2024.
Story Design
Filter by member dialog – improved value selection experience
The filter by member dialog has been re-designed and provides the following updates: (SAP Road Map Explorer).
User interface enhancements:
- Improved UI architecture: The UI layout of the member selector provides direct access to the essential actions & settings, such as the search field and the hierarchy selection. Other settings, like read mode or text presentation, have been moved into a settings panel that can be opened on demand. The multi-column presentation of the selectable members allows for better readability.
- Increased scrolling: The new member selector implements a lazy loading mechanism based on the UX pattern "infinite scrolling" which applies to the list of selectable members as well as the list of member selections: as you scroll down, members are automatically and continuously loaded at the bottom.
- Increased flexibility: The dialog box can now be resized, and can be dragged to a different position. The panels are also resizable, and the content of the panels are fully responsive.
- Search hits highlighting: The new member selector bolds each part of a member label that matches the search criteria.
New functional capabilities:
- Enhanced member exclusion paradigm: The new member selector introduces an advanced paradigm for member exclusion: it allows you to deselect one or more descendants of a selected node. For example, select the country “USA” but explicitly exclude the state “Florida”. This selection is dynamic, which means that if, in the data source, a new state is registered under the country “USA”, it is implicitly part of the selection.
- Enhanced search capabilities: The new member selector supports the wildcard search, specifically the wildcard character “*” which replaces zero or more characters.
Read more about the improved filter member experience in this blog post by @arnoklein.
Rank with Others for Charts
We will support an option for the Story Designer and Story Viewer to define a rank with others. It will be supported for: (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Charts with Flat Dimension(s)
- Charts with Measures with Base Aggregation
- Define a Rank with Others on Multiple Axes
Others can be placed last (Top N) or first (Bottom N):
- It can be renamed
- We will NOT allow you to expand the others node or interact with it (i.e. Linked Analysis, Filter, Exclude, and so on)
Support dynamic font size scaling
As a story designer in Optimized Story Experience, you can select Font Scaling under Tools in the toolbar to set font scale for responsive pages or individual widgets for specific devices, so that the font sizes in your story are dynamically adapted to different devices. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
Enable batch export when exporting your story to PDF or PPTX
In the optimized story experience, it is now possible to enable batch export when exporting a story to PDF or PPTX, so that the story can be exported based on each selected dimension member filter value. Only dimension filter is supported. And the settings of Batch Export aren't available unless the story has a compatible story filter. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
As a story developer, you can use APIs to configure, enable batch export:
- Add the settings of Batch Export in both "Export to PDF" and "Export to PowerPoint" technical components in design time;
- Add APIs for both "Export to PDF" and "Export to PowerPoint" technical components with value helper support to set batch export properties (incl. batch export enablement, story filter selection, filter value selection).
Allow using Totals as an anchor and operand of FECs
In tables, the designer (and with limitations the viewer) can create client calculations aka frontend calculations (FEC). The new feature allows:
- Using an existing ‘Totals’ cell as an anchor
- Using an existing ‘Totals’ cells as an operand in the calculation
This allows for example to calculate fractions one member contributes to totals. In the case of BW comments, it also allows showing the comments on a total value.
Numeric Values full precision
In the optimized story experience, the displayed numeric values (and decimal places) will be based on the full precision (non-rounded) source value: this improves the precision of planning workflow using these numbers. Some numbers may not be displayed as expected and will require additional formatting.
Client processing is limited to the Java Script standard precision of decimals which is around 15.
Warn Customers on Deprecation of Classic Design Experience
There is now a banner to warn Story and App Designers (it is not exposed in View Mode) that the Classic Experience is going away, and it is recommended to move content to the Optimized Experience.
There will be no impact to existing workflows. Users can still create, edit, duplication, and import Stories and Analytic Applications in the Classic Experience.
Story Extensibility
Composites: Data source Repointing
As a story designer in Optimized Story Experience, after adding a composite to your story, you can replace its model or objects in use without replacing the model, such as dimensions and measures. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
In Story design time, add a Composite data source panel which is opened via a context menu item to:
- List all data sources used in this composite widget in tokens
- Replace or update a specific data source by clicking the token
Custom Widget Support for Universal Model
As a story designer in Optimized Story Experience, your custom widget can now consume Universal Account Model. There is support for models with measures and an account dimension, and Model with measures and no account dimension. (SAP Road Map Explorer)
When a model includes both measures and an account dimension, the API DataBinding.getMembers, DataBinding.addMemberToFeed and DataBinding.removeMember functions only apply to the account dimension. Therefore, it's impossible to manipulate measure feeding with the Custom Builder Panel.
Section Widget Feature Gaps
As a story designer in Optimized Story Experience, you can now use Section widget to improve the layout of your stories and break down your analysis per dimension member.
This closes feature gaps with the classic story. Restrictions in the classic story are still application in the optimized story experience.
CSV and Excel Export Support for UQM Table
In the lite viewer of the optimized story experience, in addition to Point of View, you can now select All as the scope to export all the data of a table to an XLSX or CSV file.
Story Presentation
Unified Story Presentation Mode
The Presentation Mode aims to bring the main features that are available with the traditional Digital Boardroom directly into the Optimized Experience. These include: (SAP Road Map Explorer)
- Import of Story Pages: it allows a Designer to re-use content as their own. There is an option to re-import the page when we detect there has been an update
- Building a Presentation Structure: it can be flat (by default) or configure a tree structure with Topics and Subtopics
- Customizing the Presentation Mode Experience: option to configure the Toolbar, Default Viewer, and Navigation Panel State
- Present Mode: brand new Present Mode with a simplified toolbar (if configured) and side panel navigation
Lite Viewer for Present Mode is supported for Flat Presentations. NOTE the same limitations for Lite Viewer still apply and will cause a re-direct to the Full Viewer.
Learn more about Unified Story Presentation Mode in this blog post by @Tunir.
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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