Connecting SAP Analysis for Office to External Data Systems
Subject: SAP-Analysis-for-Office
SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office (AO) is a powerful Excel-based tool that allows business users to perform multidimensional analysis of OLAP data sources within a familiar Microsoft Office environment. While its primary strength lies in integrating with SAP BW and SAP HANA systems, many enterprises also rely on external data sources—such as SQL databases, cloud platforms, and flat files—for business intelligence. Connecting SAP Analysis for Office to these external data systems extends its value, enabling more comprehensive analytics and decision-making.
This article explores how to establish connections between SAP Analysis for Office and external data systems, and how to leverage these integrations for advanced reporting and analysis.
Modern enterprises operate in hybrid environments where data is spread across on-premises systems, cloud applications, and third-party platforms. Connecting AO to these data sources allows users to:
SAP Analysis for Office can integrate with external systems using several methods:
SAP HANA SDA allows real-time access to remote data sources as if they were local HANA tables. By configuring virtual tables in HANA, AO users can analyze data from:
Setup Steps:
Open Hub Services can extract SAP BW data to external targets like databases or files. While this is more of an outbound process, the extracted data can be reimported into AO reports.
AO allows importing external Excel files as flat data sources for simple analysis:
While not dynamic or real-time, this method is helpful for quick prototyping and ad-hoc analysis.
Datasphere offers a unified view of distributed data. By integrating it with AO:
AO can connect to any OLAP-compliant data provider via ODBO, though this requires careful configuration and testing.
Imagine a company where internal sales are managed in SAP BW, but e-commerce data resides in an Amazon Redshift database. By using HANA SDA to expose Redshift data in HANA and creating a CompositeProvider that blends SAP and Redshift data, AO can be used to create unified dashboards tracking both revenue streams.
Connecting SAP Analysis for Office to external data systems dramatically enhances its reporting capabilities by enabling integrated, real-time analytics across diverse platforms. Whether through HANA SDA, Excel imports, or Datasphere, these integrations empower users to derive more meaningful insights and foster data-driven decision-making in complex business environments.
By strategically bridging these systems, organizations can break down data silos and achieve a holistic view of operations—all from within the familiar Excel interface of SAP Analysis for Office.
Keywords: SAP Analysis for Office, AO, external data, SAP HANA SDA, data integration, SAP Datasphere, Microsoft Excel, OLAP, hybrid analytics.