SAP PaPM Cloud UM: Exploring Innovative Approaches to Dynamic Report Management

[Milica]

Hello again! Are you eager for another insightful content about SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud - Universal Model (SAP PaPM Cloud UM)? If you are, you're about to discover something fascinating. Today we’ll discuss Report Management, a cornerstone of effective data utilization. Let’s start exploring its capabilities and unlock the potential it holds. 

Once you’ve completed your modeling work, you can create a detailed report encompassing all your data using the Manage Reports feature. If you need to create multiple pages within your report, the Manage Pages application allows you to seamlessly add and organize them, ensuring your report is thorough and well-structured.  

In the SAP PaPM Cloud UM, you can find “Manage Reports” and “Manage Pages” under the Report section in the Home page. 

A prerequisite for creation of reports and pages is an activated environment. You can find more information about activation of environment in the blogpost: Introduction to Important Action Buttons.

Now that you know where to find “Manage Reports” and “Manage Pages” applications and its prerequisite, let’s start our journey with Reports and Pages in continuation of this blogpost.

1.      Manage Reports

Creation of Report

Imagine this: you're sitting at your desk, ready to compile all your insights into a report. You open the application and go to Manage Reports, and there it is – the "Create" button. You click it eagerly, and a popup window appears, prompting you to select an environment in the Runtime Environment field.

Once you select a Runtime Environment and press the Continue button in popup window, you will be redirected to the General Information page where you have freedom to start maintaining the attributes of your report such as the report name and description.

Also, if you’ve created a report but might need to use it in another tenant, you can effortlessly transport it by simply enabling the “Transport Report” checkbox. With this enabled, the report and all its contents will be smoothly transferred together with the environment without worries on your end.

If you are interested on how to transfer an environment from one tenant to another, you can refer to a previous blogpost Deploy your Environment via Manage Containers created by our colleague.

You can also find more details about creation of Reports in our Application Help: Manage Reports.

Show Report

Once the report is created, you can now view it using the Show Report button. In the report page, you can further manage its context and allow you to display, add, and update the created page.

You may refer to the actions available in the report page in our Application Help: Show Report

With our report created, it’s time to take the next step: crafting a dedicated page and connecting it to our report. Let's bring our data to life!

2.      Manage Page

Creation of page

In the Manage Pages application, choose Create from the toolbar. A pop-up window will appear where you will choose your Runtime Environment. Also, if your page is destined to be showcased in a specific report, select Report as well. In case you don’t want to connect page to Report, no problem! You can leave this field empty and create a standalone page.

Same as report, you will have the freedom to start customizing your page. Name of page can be up to 29 characters and description up to 200 characters.

Spoiler

IMPORTANT

You may notice that in Page, the Transport button is not available. No worries! Page will be automatically transported with all its content together with the report it’s connected to that has “Transport Report” enabled.

More information about creation of page you may find in our detailed documentation for Manage Pages.

Show Page

Once you finish configuring the general information of your page, go to the interface where you can add and refine its context. Going to this new screen is very simple, you can just click on Show Page in General Information, and you will be redirected to a new window.

Like the Show Report screen, the user can also display, add, and update the page by utilizing different actions available upon choosing “Edit Page” button in Show Page.

User can embed elements and consume the data from the environment to the report page using the following options:

• Insert Show Element - allows you to embed an interactive grid on the page to configure the view, including the creation of charts and filters.
• Insert Data Element - allows you to create tabular or dimension value records.
• Insert Application Element - allows you to display data from the activities, processes, and event logs applications and to perform certain actions on them directly on the report page.

Now that you’ve got a grip on the elements, let’s dive into how they work their magic.

Elements in screens

All three types of elements can be found in both Show Report and Show Page.

Spoiler

IMPORTANT

Only the activated runtime functions with Active API State can be used for elements.

Insert Show Element

When you pick a spot in the editor’s area and hit, a dialog will pop up, offering a choice of functions from the environment. Upon confirmation, an embedded grid, will appear in the content. This interactive table will allow you to tweak the view, charts and even save and restore their set up.

If you need to switch to the Show Screen, no problem! Just click the icon in the top right corner of the Show Element, and you will be taken there instantly.

Spoiler

IMPORTANT

The Show screen, accessible from the Show Element, is editable only if the function has no restrictions. Any changes made and saved in the Show Screen will be reflected in the Show Element, and the same applies in reverse.

If you prefer not to filter your records directly from the grid, you can easily do so using page filters from General section in reports screen.

Spoiler

IMPORTANT

• In Page filters, only fields that have master data can be filtered.
• Page filters can be used for Insert Show Element and Insert Data Element.

Insert Data Element

The Data Element lets you transform your records into different views.  Just pick the Tabular version and you will see it as table. In Tabular version option, both characteristic and key fields can be included.

And if you would rather see just the key figure fields displayed in rows, simply choose the Numeric Value option for a streamlined view. You can set if you want to see it as summation of values, or minimum/maximum/average values.

Dimension value option can be used if you would like to display characteristic fields in rows. You can also choose if you would like to present your master data fields as description, ID (desc), desc (ID) or just ID.

The Rows Count view looks just like the Tabular version but adds an extra column to show the number of rows, giving you a clear count alongside your data. For this version, you can choose both characteristic and key figure fields.

Application Element

With the Application Element, you can show off data from activities, processes, and event logs, and even perform actions right from the Show Report screen.

Spoiler

IMPORTANT

If you would like to perform actions from Activity and Processes such as Run, Confirm, Reject, etc. from Show report, you must enable them first from Manage Activity and Manage Processes application.

For more information, please refer to our documentation in SAP Help Portal --> Manage Activities | SAP Help Portal and Manage Processes | SAP Help Portal.

If you choose Activity or Process option, you will be able to see all runtime environments that include created activity of process, and you can easily filter them from Filter section inside of grid.

Event logs option can be chosen if you would like to see all event logs from runtime environment and you can as well filter logs by your need.

If you would like to know more about these three elements, please see documentation on our SAP Help Portal --> Show Report | SAP Help Portal.

Comments in Report screen

On the report screen, you can add comments either directly inline or through comment pane – so you can write down your thoughts wherever it’s most convenient or even upload files.

For an inline comment, you can simply highlight your text and choose Add comment icon. With Inline comments, you don’t have to navigate to the comment pane manually. Just click the icon above the highlighted text, and you will be whisked away to the comments pane instantly!

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Important

• Inline comment can be added only if edit mode is enabled in tab.
• Comments which will be added through Comment pane does not require Edit mode enabled.

To dive into comments and make some moves, you will need the right roles - ‘COMMENT’ and ‘COMMENT_READ’. If you want to check out more on these roles, please see SAP Help Portal --> Roles | SAP Help Portal.

On more information about Comments pane, please refer to --> Show Report | SAP Help Portal.

Artificial Intelligence in Show Reports – Joule

Meet Joule, our cutting-edge AI that handles your personal chats, enters prompts, and delivers responses based on your reports. You can easily access Joule through the properties panel in your reports, keeping all the essential information right at your fingertips!

Spoiler

Important

Prerequisite for Joule is that AI Core Service type of connection is created.

For more information, please refer to SAP Help Portal --> AI Core Service | SAP Help Portal

If you are curious to learn more about Joule, check out our blogpost on Artificial Intelligence in SAP PaPM Cloud UM --> Artificial Intelligence in PaPM Cloud UM or dive into the details in our SAP Help Portal documentation --> Show Report | SAP Help Portal.

Keep an eye out – exciting advancements are on the way! We are only at the start of an exhilarating journey into business AI with SAP Cloud PaPM UM!