In today’s data-driven business landscape, timely insights can make the difference between leading a market and lagging behind. SAP Lumira, a self-service data visualization tool, empowers business users to explore, visualize, and present data without relying heavily on IT support. Among its powerful capabilities, data slicers and filters stand out as essential tools for refining analyses and uncovering actionable insights.
This article explores how to effectively use slicers and filters in SAP Lumira to enhance your analytics workflow and derive deeper business intelligence.
Filters and slicers are tools that allow users to narrow down datasets to focus on specific dimensions, measures, or data segments. While both serve the purpose of data refinement, they differ slightly in their application:
Enhanced Focus
By narrowing down datasets, users can focus on specific time periods, geographies, product lines, or customer segments.
Improved Performance
Reducing the volume of data being visualized improves performance and responsiveness, especially for large datasets.
Customization and Interactivity
Slicers enable end-users to interact with visualizations directly, promoting a self-service approach to data exploration.
Comparative Analysis
With filters and slicers, comparing specific data subsets side-by-side becomes intuitive and efficient.
SAP Lumira supports multiple types of filters:
Applied at the data preparation stage, these filters limit the entire dataset imported into the Lumira document. Ideal for removing irrelevant data before analysis.
Use Case:
Filter out archived or legacy data during import to focus only on current-year transactions.
Applied directly to individual charts or graphs. They help tailor the insight displayed in a specific visualization without affecting the rest of the story.
Use Case:
A bar chart showing only top 10 performing sales regions while other charts remain unaffected.
These filters apply across all visualizations in a story or dashboard, ensuring consistent analysis and comparisons.
Use Case:
Filtering all visuals to show results for Q1 2025 only.
Input controls allow end-users to dynamically change the view of a visualization. Common input controls include:
How to Implement:
Example Scenario:
A sales manager uses a country dropdown slicer to switch between regional sales dashboards, comparing performance across markets without creating multiple reports.
Mastering data slicers and filters in SAP Lumira allows users to move from static reports to dynamic, interactive dashboards. These tools empower decision-makers to ask better questions, test hypotheses, and zero in on the data that matters most—all without complex programming or IT intervention.
By embedding best practices into your dashboard design, you ensure that SAP Lumira becomes not just a visualization tool, but a vital part of your enterprise decision-making process.
Keywords: SAP Lumira, data visualization, data filters, data slicers, input controls, business intelligence, interactive dashboards, SAP analytics.