Microsoft Office Integration + Scheduling Analysis for Office Reports in SAP Analytics Cloud

[TomWoodhead]

Microsoft Office integration with SAP Analytics Cloud is a hot topic, especially now that it is possible to schedule and broadcast Analysis for Office reports in SAP Analytics Cloud.

SAP Product Manager Jeanne Bigonnet joined the APOS team recently in a webinar to provide an update on SAP Analytics Cloud Microsoft Office integration. The APOS team detailed new scheduling and broadcasting capabilities in their Publisher for Cloud solution.

You can watch this webinar on demand and download the slide deck here.

Agenda

Jeanne started by summarizing SAP’s MS integration offerings, including:

• SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Excel, which is delivered through the Microsoft Store and is built on an entirely different, Cloud-based code base from the older Analysis for Office offerings
• SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office, also known as AfO, a mature product which continues to be an important add-in for data sources such as SAP BW, HANA, BPC, S/4 and Group Reporting

Jeanne told us that AfO has a user base of 1,000,000 users, which SAP will continue to support, but as per the most recent statement of direction, the add-in for Microsoft Excel constitutes the road ahead. As such, there is no roadmap for future AfO development, meaning that no new AfO capabilities will be developed by SAP. Jeanne clarified that this is why  the collaboration between SAP and APOS regarding AfO scheduling and broadcasting is so important.

AfO Statement of Direction

As mentioned, the add-in for Microsoft Excel is a Cloud product, which means it is fully integrated with SAC and Microsoft’s Office 365. Although the product was initially designed for Office 365, it is also compatible with Office 2021.

SAP Analytics Cloud Add-in for Microsoft Office XLS

Jeanne then went on to describe what new functionality has been delivered recently, including:

• Support for Live SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW/Tunnel) and SAP HANA Cloud in Microsoft Excel
• Member Selector improvements: range
• Conditional formatting
• Repository / catalog integration

New connectivity for SAP BW and SAP HANA are great new additions.

As we will see later in the presentation, Repository/catalog integration is key for AfO scheduling and broadcasting.

AfO Recent Deliveries

Jeanne then told us about upcoming feature releases, including:

• Advanced Flexible reporting – Asymmetric reporting: the new custom function SAP.ASYMMETRICFILTER lets customers build asymmetric reports; for example, a report showing Actual data for Q1 and only Forecast data for Q2 and Q3
• Planning – Add Comments: customers can insert/retrieve data point comments entered from the web or from Excel.
• Story Integration – Jump-off from Story: customers can easily jump off from the web to Excel Workbooks without any re-design action needed.

SAP Analytics Cloud Add-in for Microsoft XLS

Jeanne provided useful links for further exploration:

• SAP Analytics Cloud add in for MS Excel – Community page & blogs & FAQ
• SAP Analytics Cloud add in for MS Excel – Road Map
• SAP Analytics Cloud add in for MS Excel –Deploying the add-in
• SAP Analytics Cloud add in for MS Excel – See it in action!

Jeanne also provided useful links for the SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office PPT:

• Video
• Blog
• SAP Help
• Microsoft AppSource
• Road Map Explorer

Scheduling AfO Reports in SAP Analytics Cloud

The conversation then turned to the topic of scheduling AfO reports in SAP Analytics Cloud. As you may know, SAP Analytics Cloud does not support AfO report scheduling, but APOS and SAP have collaborated to offer AfO report scheduling from SAP Analytics Cloud using the APOS Publisher for Cloud  solution. (Available on the SAP Store.)

Allan Pym of APOS asked Jeanne what she had heard from customers about the importance of AfO report scheduling and broadcasting. Jeanne answered that customers say they use scheduling to:

• Schedule reports that normally take a long time to refresh. The benefit of scheduling is that the reports are ready for use when the user wants to work with them.
• Automate their auditing. For example, they may schedule a report to refresh every day or every month and they can store them offline to record historical data.
• Improve load balancing on their system. They schedule reports to refresh during the night when fewer users are on the system.

Allan then delivered an overview of Publisher for Cloud.

APOS Publisher for Cloud - AfO

Allan summarized APOS Publisher for Cloud’s capabilities and benefits:

• High-volume publications of SAC Stories, SAC Applications, and Analysis for Office reports
  Reach a wide range of information consumers with PDF, XLS, CSV, PPT, DOC formats published to multiple destinations such as email, network file locations, and SFTP/FTP, and schedule pre-processing of Analysis for Office reports.
• An alternative for SAP BusinessObjects scheduling & broadcasting use cases
  Remove barriers to SAP Analytics Cloud adoption, leverage SAC-based reports in the SAC Repository, and shift AfO scheduling away from BusinessObjects.
• A path to modernization of BEx Broadcaster use cases
  Adopt Analysis for Office or SAP Analytics Cloud reports to fulfill current BEx reporting objectives, and remove S/4HANA and Datasphere deployment obstacles
• Centralization and govern of Analysis for Office scheduling
  Monitor, manage and control Analysis for Office scheduling activities, understand and optimize AfO scheduling patterns, and reduce unnecessary scheduling and query activity.
• The ability to push analytics to casual S/4HANA Users
  Remove information barriers related to casual S/4HANA users with infrequent needs for reports, improving SAP Analytis Cloud adoption, and supporting the broader user community information needs within S/4HANA modernization projects.

APOS Solution Consulting Manager Alan Golding then joined the discussion with a description of the solution’s architecture and use cases showing how it serves Analysis for Office report scheduling and broadcasting needs.

APOS Publisher for Cloud Architecture

Again, you can view the webinar and download the slide deck here, and I recommend doing so if you want to see Alan Golding’s demonstration of the personalization, scheduling, and broadcasting of Analysis for Office reports

APOS will take a deeper dive into this functionality in an upcoming webinar .

Q&A

The presentation ended with a lively Q&A on both the Microsoft Office integration update and the new Analysis for Office scheduling and broadcasting capabilities.