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Purpose
Hello SAP Community Colleagues!
This blog describes how to convert standard units of measurement and how to create and manage your own custom Units using the Standard Unit & Unit Description Tables within SAP Analytics Cloud.
Overview
In QRC3 2024, Standard Unit Conversion was introduced into SAP Analytics Cloud, within a Cloud Foundry environment.
Using the Standard Unit Table, Modelers and Planners can create measures and conversion measures of type Unit, to perform standard unit conversion against unit types, such as length, mass and volume.
Check out our interactive Standard Unit Conversion Tutorial to learn how to create a unit conversion measure in SAP Analytics Cloud.
In QRC2 2025, further enhancements have been made to Unit Conversion to allow units and unit groups to be created, edited and deleted.
The following overview outlines these enhancements:
- The Standard Unit Table
- Unit Description Table
- How to add a new unit and unit group to the Standard Unit Table
- How to update and delete unit and unit groups
- How to add units to the Unit Description Table
- How to Add Language Translation to Units
- How to create a measure and conversion measure of type unit
- How to consume units in a story
- How SAP Analytics Cloud Unit Conversion is handled within SAP Datasphere
Let’s first look at the Standard Unit and Unit Description tables in greater detail.
Standard Unit Table
In SAP Analytics Cloud, open the Modeler, click the Conversions tab and select the Standard Unit Table tile.
The table contains unique Unit IDs that may be assigned to a unit group, such as LENGTH, ENERGY or DENSITY.
The Unit ID contains up to 3 unique alpha-numeric values.
The Symbol and Description columns are read-only columns and inherit values from the Unit Description Table, which is described in the next section.
Group contains up to 6 unique alpha-numeric values.
Base Unit represents the unit of measurement that other units within the same group are based. For example, Meter (M) is the base unit of the LENGTH group. When converting CM to KM, conversion is calculated by converting CM units to the base unit, M, then to KM.
Numerator represents the number of selected parts and Denominator represents total number of equal parts that form the unit. These are numeric values.
Offset represents the difference measured from a given position and is often used with Temperature values.
Exponent values denote the power to which the unit value is to be raised by.
Unit Description Table
The Unit Description Table enables units to be displayed in a more meaningful way, when consumed in other areas of SAP Analytics Cloud, such as in charts and tables. It also supports unit language translation.
Unit ID can store up to 3 unique alpha-numeric values. Symbol can store up to 6 unique alpha-numeric values. Description can store up to 30 alpha-numeric values.
Up to 40 languages can be selected in the Language drop-down menu. See SAP Note 3531711 - Supported languages for Standard Unit Conversion in SAP Analytics Cloud for further details on supported languages for Unit Conversion.
How to add a new unit and unit group to the Standard Unit Table
In the Standard Unit Table, select the + button to add a new unit.
Enter a unique 3 alpha-numeric character value. The Symbol & Description columns are read-only and are inherited values from the Unit Description table. See the section How to add units to the Unit Description table section for further details.
In the Group column, select the drop-down menu and select the group. Create a new group here by entering a unique value.
It is also possible to not assign a unit to a group, in which case, choose No Group in the drop-down menu.
New groups that are created will automatically assign the unique unit as the base unit and pre-populate the remaining column values. A tick mark in the base unit column indicates that this Unit ID is the unique base unit of measurement for that group.
Subsequent non-base units added to the same group must have they values manually populated. Note that new units are case sensitive. For example a new unit 'BOX' is different to a new unit 'box'.
How to update and delete unit and unit groups
Updating existing units
It is possible to make changes to non-base unit values by double-clicking the cell and changing the value. Be mindful that this can impact measure and conversion measure values that are defined in models and consumed elsewhere within SAP Analytics Cloud. A warning dialog appears to confirm changes.
Deleting existing units
Before deleting a unit or unit group, it is also very important to be mindful that this can impact measures and conversion measures that are defined in models and consumed elsewhere within SAP Analytics Cloud. Only delete units and unit groups when there is certainty that they are not in use.
A unit can be deleted by selecting a non-base unit and choosing the delete button in the toolbar. A warning dialog appears to confirm deletion.
A unit group can be deleted by selecting all units in a group and choosing the delete button in the toolbar. It is recommended to filter the group column to ensure all units within the group are selected. A warning dialog appears to confirm deletion of the unit group.
How to add units to the Unit Description Table
Populating the Unit Description Table is optional for customers. It is designed to help provide further descriptive meaning to Unit IDs and can also be used to translate units to another language.
Select the Unit Description Table tile in the Conversions tab to open the table.
Choose the + button in the toolbar to add a new unit. The remaining columns are pre-populated with values. These can be changed by entering up to 6 alpha-numeric values inside the Symbol column.
Up to 30 alpha-numeric values can also be entered into the Description column.
New units that are added and saved in the Unit Description table are inherited into the read-only Symbol and Description columns of the Standard Unit Table when the corresponding Unit ID is also created here.
How To Add Language Translation to Units
In the Unit Description Table, when a unique Unit ID is added, choose the preferred language in the drop-down menu of the language column. The default value is English. Refer to SAP Note 3531711 - Supported languages for Standard Unit Conversion in SAP Analytics Cloud for further details on supported languages for Unit Conversion.
Use the undo, redo, copy and delete buttons to apply further changes.
Choosing the save button triggers the Data Import API to persist changes to the Unit Description Table.
When the corresponding Unit ID is created in the Standard Unit Table and saved, the values in the Symbol and Description columns are inherited from the Unit Description table.
The entries above show Unit ID entries using English language settings that match the profile settings of the user.
When the profile settings of the user are changed to French, the Unit values defined in the Unit Description table using French are seen in the Standard Unit Table.
In the model, open model preferences and in the Conversion tab, to see the Enable Unit Translation toggle. This is enabled by default to ensure that Unit IDs are translated to their corresponding unit symbol, using the preferred language setting, when consuming measures and conversion measures of type unit. Turn off the toggle if the translation of unit symbols does not apply to your business requirement.
How to create a measure and conversion measure of type unit
Unit conversion is enabled by default on models in a Cloud Foundry environment. It is not supported in Classic Account models.
A unit can be configured as Fixed, in which case, units are read from the Standard Unit Table, using the Data Export API, or a unit can be configured from a dimension.
- If required, create one or more, unit properties on a dimension. This step is optional and suitable when you wish to apply mixed units to specific members, such as, defining different weight types for different countries.
- Enable Unit on the source measure by selecting Unit in the Unit & Currencies section in the properties section. Here the modeler may choose a Fixed unit from the drop down or From Dimension unit property.
- In the Calculations Workspace, create a Unit Conversion measure. Choose the source measure containing the source unit and choose Fixed unit as the target or From Dimension unit property.
- Conversion applies to standard or custom units that exist in the Standard Unit Table and belong to the same unit group. For units that are not part of the same unit group, no conversion is applied. No conversion will take place for custom units that are added to a measure of conversion measure that do not exist in the Standard Unit Table.
You can also add calculated measures based on the conversion, or work with the converted values in your stories and for planning purposes.
How to consume units in a story
Create an Optimized Design Experience story by choosing Stories from the SAP Analytics Cloud side panel.
Drag a chart or table onto the dashboard and add the model containing the unit conversion measures.
For a table, add a dimension to rows and add the units of measure and conversion measures to columns.
The cells are editable to allow for planning activities to be applied.
How SAP Analytics Cloud Unit Conversion is handled within SAP Datasphere
The workflows of creating, editing and deleting units and unit groups from the Standard Unit and Unit Description tables for SAP Analytics Cloud customers who use a SAP Datasphere workspace are the same.
Changes are applied to the table(s) and replicated to all workspaces across the tenant. The following toast and notification message appears during this process:
Toast message: "The Standard Unit and Unit Description Conversion data are being updated in models deployed to SAP Datasphere in the background. You will receive a notification once the operation has completed."
Notification string: "All the latest changes to the Standard Unit and Unit Description tables have been applied to models deployed in SAP Datasphere.”
Conclusion
As of QRC2 2025 it is now possible to create, edit and delete units and unit groups in the Standard Unit Table.
The Unit Description table is designed to help provide descriptive meaning to Unit IDs and is also used to translate unit symbols to another language. Up to 40 languages are supported, as outlined in SAP Note 3531711 - Supported languages for Standard Unit Conversion in SAP Analytics Cloud
Data Management workflows for the Standard Unit and Unit Description tables to permit import of unit data from external sources are planned.
If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or post a question to our SAP Analytics Cloud Questions & Answers forum.
Thanks for reading!
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