¶ Building Stories and Dashboards in SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) for SAP HANA Live
As enterprises strive to leverage real-time data for faster and smarter decision-making, SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) emerges as a unified analytics platform that integrates seamlessly with SAP HANA Live. SAC enables users to create interactive stories and dashboards that visualize live business data without the need for replication or batch processing. This article provides an overview and best practices for building impactful stories and dashboards in SAC using SAP HANA Live data.
¶ Understanding SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP HANA Live Integration
SAP HANA Live offers a real-time data modeling framework via CDS views and calculation views on SAP HANA databases. SAC connects directly to these views through live data connections, enabling dynamic querying of fresh data.
Key Benefits:
- Real-time Insights: No data duplication; queries run directly on SAP HANA Live views.
- Single Source of Truth: Consistent metrics and KPIs across the organization.
- Flexible Visualization: Rich story-building tools for dashboards, charts, and reports.
Before building stories, you must connect SAC to your SAP HANA Live system:
- Log into SAP Analytics Cloud.
- Navigate to Connection under System.
- Create a new SAP HANA Live Connection by entering the SAP HANA system details.
- Use single sign-on (SSO) or secure credentials for authentication.
- Validate and save the connection.
Once connected, SAC can consume calculation views and CDS views directly from SAP HANA Live.
Unlike imported models, live models do not store data in SAC. Instead, they provide a semantic layer over the SAP HANA Live views.
- Select the live connection you created.
- Choose the calculation views or CDS views you want to use.
- Define any input parameters or filters.
- Create a semantic model with dimensions and measures exposed by the SAP HANA Live views.
A story in SAC is an interactive report composed of pages, charts, tables, and filters that bring data to life.
- Pages: Organize your content by theme or business area.
- Charts and Tables: Choose from bar charts, pie charts, line charts, heat maps, crosstabs, and more.
- Filters and Input Controls: Enable users to slice and dice data dynamically.
- Geo Maps: Visualize spatial data if applicable.
- Use Live Data Sources: Maximize real-time capabilities by leveraging SAP HANA Live views.
- Design for User Experience: Keep stories intuitive with clear navigation and logical layout.
- Leverage Hierarchies: Use hierarchies in CDS views for drill-down analysis.
- Apply Input Controls: Empower end-users with interactive filters.
- Performance Optimization: Minimize the number of charts per page and limit complex calculations in SAC to avoid latency.
Dashboards aggregate multiple story pages or visualizations into a single, executive summary view.
- Combine KPIs, charts, and tables into a cohesive layout.
- Use responsive design so dashboards adapt to different devices.
- Embed dynamic text and widgets for context and interaction.
- Utilize thresholds and alerts to highlight exceptions.
¶ Step 5: Share and Collaborate
SAC enables collaboration across teams:
- Share stories and dashboards with users or user groups.
- Enable commenting and annotations for discussions.
- Schedule story refreshes or alert notifications.
- Embed SAC stories into SAP Fiori Launchpad or other portals.
- No Data Replication: Direct live connection ensures always-fresh data.
- Unified Analytics Platform: Combines BI, planning, and predictive analytics.
- Cloud-based Accessibility: Access anywhere on any device.
- Simplified IT Management: Reduced overhead for data warehousing and extraction.
Building stories and dashboards in SAP Analytics Cloud powered by SAP HANA Live enables organizations to unlock real-time, actionable insights with ease. By following best practices—establishing secure live connections, designing intuitive visualizations, and leveraging SAC’s powerful features—business users can make smarter decisions faster. As SAP continues to enhance integration between HANA and SAC, enterprises will gain even more agile analytics capabilities supporting their digital transformation journey.
Keywords: SAP Analytics Cloud, SAC, SAP HANA Live, Stories, Dashboards, Real-time Analytics, CDS Views, Calculation Views, Live Data Connection, Business Intelligence.