What's new with embedded analytics in SAP S/4HANA ...
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In this blog, I would like to present the key highlights in embedded analytics with the SAP S/4HANA 1702 Cloud Release. We are excited to share with you the progress we made with our embedded analytics portfolio as part of SAP S/4HANA, since we discussed how, you could get on boarded towards the digital transformation with embedded analytics (http://bit.ly/2m0UcJw).
Embedded analytics is the key capability which is driving the transformation of the core from a “system of records” to “system of intelligence”. Embedded analytics delivered with S/4HANA has 3 key principles - concept, content and toolset. With each release we develop tools which make it possible for our customers and partners to seamlessly adopt and enhance our concept and we provide best in class, ready to use, packaged, industry content for accelerating the journey towards digital transformation.
As can be seen from the picture below – we bring the most relevant and contextual information to the information worker, at the instance, in the same session, and enhance decision making through prediction and recommendation such that he/she can complete the transaction with the best insights, all as part of a single workflow.
S/4HANA embedded analytics combines the strength of traditional BI and ERP solutions. This ensures that we achieve a significant boost in the speed of execution, the decision quality and thus the personal productivity of today’s knowledge workers. We do this by running analytics and transactions within the same database, embedding analytics at the right place within business processes and by seamlessly combining analytical and transactional activities in the same user interface. Here you can find more details on the concept :http://bit.ly/2muITXH .
To this extent we bring significant number of new apps in each release to cater to the information worker across the lines of business. We have now close to 190+ apps available across roles and lines of business. Here is a snapshot of the amount of content we have been delivered and is available out of the box with each S/4HANA deployment.
Here is an example of the content we bring in with our 1702 release:
Here is the Event Based Revenue Recognition App. It is part of the Sales Controller Role and analyzes the recognized values for a project, based on IFRS or local GAAP. It shows the individual revenue recognition postings for the selected project and allows to directly adjust the recognized revenue and cost of sales if this is necessary, and the user has the appropriate authorization. Also, entering accruals can directly be triggered from within this app. From the granular transaction level data, a context-sensitive navigation is possible to a Work-In Progress Analysis, the P&L Plan / Actual Report and the P&L Plan data Import.
Next comes the Supervise Collections Worklist. As you can see, the pattern is very similar. This App is part of the Accounts Receivable Manager role. It monitors the status of groups, teams and collection specialists and allows to allocate and re-assign worklist items directly in the table. This is helpful to directly here assign collection specialists or temporary substitutes to new customers or in case of an unexpected absence of the regular collection specialist. Users can navigate from this App directly to the Process Receivables Fiori app.
Finally, while the available content accelerates your journey towards the digital transformation, we also provide a robust set of tools so that the customers and partners can very easily configure and create content for their differentiating business process.
In this release we introduced the Analytical List Page (abbreviated ALP). The ALP combines visual filters, a graphical representation of the data and the detailed data in a table on one page. Users can personalize their version of the ALP for example by adding or removing filters, changing chart types and hiding or showing charts or tables.
Of course our customers can create their own ALPs in S/4HANA. For that we are shipping a couple of Fiori apps that help the user to take the necessary configuration steps such as selecting the right data source, setting the appearance of the chart and finally publishing the newly created ALP to a user role in S/4HANA.
Embedded analytics in S/4HANA follows 3 principles:
A consistent User Experience across all analytics use cases, no matter if it is a simple list, multidimensional reporting, KPI-based reporting or others.
We make it easy to integrate with other SAP Analytics offerings such as SAP BusinessObjects Cloud or SAP Business Warehouse
Implementation of an “insight-to-action” workstyle by a seamless integration of analytical and transactional components on the user interface
These principles are the foundation for the continuous feature and functionality improvement for our tool set. Finally, here is our updated portfolio of the embedded analytics tool set available across the different category of the information worker.
I would like to end this blog with a link to a video from Thomas Fleckenstein, development VP at SAP and responsible for S/4HANA embedded analytics.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links: