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SAP User Experience Q1/2025 Update – Part 6: SAP Analytics Cloud & SAP Business Technology Platform

ThomasReiss
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
‎2025 Feb 28 5:00 AM
2,142

This sixth post in my series gives an overview of latest user experience (UX) innovations in SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). The highlights for SAP Analytics Cloud are the support for the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon, giving users an experience consistent with other products; the Compass for business users to easily do Monte-Carlo simulations; Video Data Stories, and enhancements to the just ask natural language query capability. For SAP BTP, have a look at the new UX for the SAP Integration Suite, SAP BTP Kyma runtime, and SAP Build Apps.

 

SAP Analytics Cloud

In addition to full support for the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon, the Q1/2025 release of SAP Analytics Cloud released on February 26th brings some great new experiences for users. I’ll focus here on these three:

  • The new Compass for easy Monte Carlo simulations by business users.
  • Video Data Stories, enabling business users to easily create videos to present their stories.
  • Just Ask enhancements.

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Support for SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon

SAP Analytics Cloud now also supports the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon – not only for embedded uses cases as before, but now stand-alone too. As a result, users of our cloud applications can have a consistent experience when switching to SAP Analytics Cloud. Figure 1 shows an example.

Figure 1: SAP Analytics Cloud with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon. ALT Text: An example screenshot showing what chart, table, input control and widgets look like with the Horizon visual theme.Figure 1: SAP Analytics Cloud with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon. ALT Text: An example screenshot showing what chart, table, input control and widgets look like with the Horizon visual theme.

Find out more in this blog post:

SAP Analytics Cloud Compass for Monte Carlo Simulation

Non-technical users can now easily perform real-time multivariant analysis without prior IT setup or advanced statistic skills. You can trigger a new compass simulation via the toolbar or directly from a dashboard. If things are not going as planned, for example the gross revenue in the current quarter, you can trigger a simulation which will automatically detect the drivers and display probability distributions for gross revenue.

You can choose between low, medium or high precision, which uses 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 iterations respectively. As you can see in Figure 2, this is visualized interactively, showing the probability for the current value. This is visualized by showing how likely the operating income will be exceeded (23% in the example) and how likely it will not be achieved (77%). At the bottom, you can see ranges for the pessimistic, realistic and optimistic cases (lower 5%, middle 90% and upper 5%). Since it is interactive, you can change the planned value and directly see how likely you are to exceed or not achieve it – as you can see in Figure 2.

Figure 2: SAP Analytics Cloud Compass for Monte Carlo Simulation by business users. ALT Text: This short embedded GIF video shows a screen with a header “Target: Operating Income / Amount GC – Million USD”. Below that, a chart showing a probability distribution for Operating Income, looking similar to a normal distribution. It has a vertical line at 87.51, indicating that the probability of less income is 5% (labelled “Pessimistic Case”, and a vertical line at 175.20, indicating the probability of more income is 5% (labelled “Optimistic Case”). The 90% band in between is labelled “Realistic Case”, with a slider at 151.67 (shown in a box above the slider), with 77% shown on the left and 23% on the right (the probability of income being lower or higher). The user moves the slider to the left with the mouse to the value 106.10, and the two values to the left and right change to 16% and 84%. Then the user types in a value of 100, resulting in 12% and 88%.Figure 2: SAP Analytics Cloud Compass for Monte Carlo Simulation by business users. ALT Text: This short embedded GIF video shows a screen with a header “Target: Operating Income / Amount GC – Million USD”. Below that, a chart showing a probability distribution for Operating Income, looking similar to a normal distribution. It has a vertical line at 87.51, indicating that the probability of less income is 5% (labelled “Pessimistic Case”, and a vertical line at 175.20, indicating the probability of more income is 5% (labelled “Optimistic Case”). The 90% band in between is labelled “Realistic Case”, with a slider at 151.67 (shown in a box above the slider), with 77% shown on the left and 23% on the right (the probability of income being lower or higher). The user moves the slider to the left with the mouse to the value 106.10, and the two values to the left and right change to 16% and 84%. Then the user types in a value of 100, resulting in 12% and 88%.

Find out more about this, and watch it in action in this video:

Video Data Stories

Another great user experience innovation with the latest release is the ability for business users to directly create short videos to present their data stories out of SAP Analytics Cloud – Figure 3 shows an example.

Figure 3: Part of a Video Data Story created from SAP Analytics Cloud. ALT Text: A short video with animated text and charts in a mobile phone vertical format. It starts with the title “Sep 2024, results”, followed by “Gross Margin”. Then the text “$8.66 million” glides in, followed by “delta 2024 Aug +37.45%”. Next, these disappear and “Gross Margin per Location” appears, above a horizontal bar chart with three bars for California ($6.78 M), Nevada ($0,52 M) and Oregon ($1.36 M). This chart then morphs into a new horizontal bar chart with five bars for Los Angeles ($2.45 M), Oakland ($1.22 M), San Diego ($1.62 M), San Francisco ($0.29 M), and San Jose ($1.21 M).Figure 3: Part of a Video Data Story created from SAP Analytics Cloud. ALT Text: A short video with animated text and charts in a mobile phone vertical format. It starts with the title “Sep 2024, results”, followed by “Gross Margin”. Then the text “$8.66 million” glides in, followed by “delta 2024 Aug +37.45%”. Next, these disappear and “Gross Margin per Location” appears, above a horizontal bar chart with three bars for California ($6.78 M), Nevada ($0,52 M) and Oregon ($1.36 M). This chart then morphs into a new horizontal bar chart with five bars for Los Angeles ($2.45 M), Oakland ($1.22 M), San Diego ($1.62 M), San Francisco ($0.29 M), and San Jose ($1.21 M).

It is really easy to create video data stories: you can select which data you want to show, how you want to display it (Figure 4), and select a background image and background music. We provide a selection of images and music out of the box for you to choose from.

Figure 4: Creating Video Data Stories in SAP Analytics Cloud. ALT Text: The image shows part of a screenshot showing an SAP Analytics Cloud page with bar charts and a pie chart, partly covered by a section below which shows five views of the video data story, containing (from the left) the title, a horizontal bar chart with three bars, a pie chart, a line chart, and a KPI as a number.Figure 4: Creating Video Data Stories in SAP Analytics Cloud. ALT Text: The image shows part of a screenshot showing an SAP Analytics Cloud page with bar charts and a pie chart, partly covered by a section below which shows five views of the video data story, containing (from the left) the title, a horizontal bar chart with three bars, a pie chart, a line chart, and a KPI as a number.

Find out more in this blog post, these videos and the documentation:

Just Ask Enhancements

The popular just ask feature enables you to use natural language to query SAP Analytics Cloud. It was introduced with this blog post:

With the Q1/2025 release, we improve just ask by supporting currency conversion in acquired data models. We also allow users to limit the number of data points in bar charts, as well as leveraging SAP HANA Cloud vector engine.

Currency conversion means that, if you have data with multiple currencies, you can change the currency used to summarize all the values using natural language. Also, you can choose to show all the results in the respective local currency, so that for example the mouse-over shows the details and the currency for that country, as shown in Figure 5, where the user has asked “sales in local currency actual compared to forecast”.

Figure 5: SAP Analytics Cloud just ask now supports currency conversion – here you see a visualization in local currency per country. ALT Text: The image shows a screenshot with Just Ask at the top left, with a text entry field containing “sales in local currency actual compared to forecast”. Below that, a horizontal bar chart showing “Top 10 Sales in Local Currency per Country”, with countries Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, France etc. Wherever the actual is higher than forecast the difference is marked with a green bar, where it is lower with a red bar. The user has placed the mouse over the green bar for Sweden, showing a popover containing the text “Sales in Local Currency, SEK909.2 k, Country Sweden, in green: Actual – Forecast SEK168.7K”.Figure 5: SAP Analytics Cloud just ask now supports currency conversion – here you see a visualization in local currency per country. ALT Text: The image shows a screenshot with Just Ask at the top left, with a text entry field containing “sales in local currency actual compared to forecast”. Below that, a horizontal bar chart showing “Top 10 Sales in Local Currency per Country”, with countries Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, France etc. Wherever the actual is higher than forecast the difference is marked with a green bar, where it is lower with a red bar. The user has placed the mouse over the green bar for Sweden, showing a popover containing the text “Sales in Local Currency, SEK909.2 k, Country Sweden, in green: Actual – Forecast SEK168.7K”.

Watch it in action here:

Further Innovations and Outlook on Joule Analytical Pattern

You can see the above three innovations, plus “Seamless Planning” and “Job Monitor – Multi-Action support” in this video:

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series, we plan to make the new analytical pattern for Joule available in Q2/2025, which will be powered by this latest release of SAP Analytics Cloud (as usual for forward-looking statements, our plans are subject to change). This means users of products that support Joule, such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud or SAP SuccessFactors, will be able to use Joule to query SAP Analytics Cloud and get analytical insights directly within Joule (the Joule Analytical Pattern). It will be powered by SAP Analytics Cloud, with data from models that are indexed by the Just Ask feature of SAP Analytics Cloud.

 

SAP Business Technology Platform

SAP Integration Suite

The SAP Integration Suite now also supports the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon, as you can see below in Figure 6.

Figure 6: SAP Integration Suite with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon. ALT Text: The image shows three overlapping screenshots: at the left, back, “Employee Service” with buttons for triggering GET, POST, GET, PATCH URLs. Next, in the middle, the Capabilities page showing three rows of four columns of cards such as “Build Integration Scenarios”, “Manage APIs”, “Manage Business Events”, each with two to three lines description. On the right a page showing details of “SAP S/4HANA Cloud Integration with Workday”. The “Artifacts” tab has been selected, showing a list of artifacts with columns Name, Type, Version and Actions. The first entry has a name “Integrate Workday employee information”, the second one “Replicate Cost Centers from SAP S/4HANA Cloud to Workday”.Figure 6: SAP Integration Suite with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon. ALT Text: The image shows three overlapping screenshots: at the left, back, “Employee Service” with buttons for triggering GET, POST, GET, PATCH URLs. Next, in the middle, the Capabilities page showing three rows of four columns of cards such as “Build Integration Scenarios”, “Manage APIs”, “Manage Business Events”, each with two to three lines description. On the right a page showing details of “SAP S/4HANA Cloud Integration with Workday”. The “Artifacts” tab has been selected, showing a list of artifacts with columns Name, Type, Version and Actions. The first entry has a name “Integrate Workday employee information”, the second one “Replicate Cost Centers from SAP S/4HANA Cloud to Workday”.

SAP BTP Cockpit

Customers can now get an easy to understand overview of their costs and usage of SAP Business Technology Platform with the new costs and usage application (Figure 7).

Figure 7: SAP BTP Cockpit – Costs and Usage. ALT Text: The image shows an example screenshot. The header reads “Global Account: Automotive Rentals, Inc. – Costs and Usage”, below that a small card “Global Account Info” with Account ID, Account Type “Customer”, Contract Currency “USD” and a wide card “Cloud Platform Enterprise Agreement” with a chart showing Cloud Credit Usage, a KPI value for the Monthly Cloud Credit Usage and a vertical bar chart for Monthly Cloud Credit Usage Trend. Below that the majority of the screen shows the Billing tab, with the text “This view displays the monthly billable service charges for your global account”. Below that a flexible column layout with a list of Service Plans on the left, with “Business Application Studio – standard-edition” selected, and on the right a hierarchical table showing Directories and Subaccounts. At the bottom a filled line chart showing the cumulative list prices per month over the last 12 months.Figure 7: SAP BTP Cockpit – Costs and Usage. ALT Text: The image shows an example screenshot. The header reads “Global Account: Automotive Rentals, Inc. – Costs and Usage”, below that a small card “Global Account Info” with Account ID, Account Type “Customer”, Contract Currency “USD” and a wide card “Cloud Platform Enterprise Agreement” with a chart showing Cloud Credit Usage, a KPI value for the Monthly Cloud Credit Usage and a vertical bar chart for Monthly Cloud Credit Usage Trend. Below that the majority of the screen shows the Billing tab, with the text “This view displays the monthly billable service charges for your global account”. Below that a flexible column layout with a list of Service Plans on the left, with “Business Application Studio – standard-edition” selected, and on the right a hierarchical table showing Directories and Subaccounts. At the bottom a filled line chart showing the cumulative list prices per month over the last 12 months.

SAP BTP, Kyma Runtime

Kyma now supports modules, for adding functionalities to your cluster. To manage these, the Kyma dashboard has been redesigned, with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon, as you can see in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Kyma dashboard with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon, now supporting modules. ALT Text: The image shows a screenshot with the “Cluster Overview” selected in the left side navigation bar. The screen has a large header card “Introducing Modules” with buttons for “Add Modules” and “Learn More”. Below that a section “Resource Details” containing one card, followed by a section “Monitoring and Health” containing further cards (“Memory Usage”, “CPU Usage”). A further smaller screenshot covers the bottom right of the other one, showing a Modules column in the middle, and a wider “Add Modules” panel on the right, containing four cards “SAP BTP Operator”, “Keda”, “Serverless”, “Telemetry”.Figure 8: Kyma dashboard with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon, now supporting modules. ALT Text: The image shows a screenshot with the “Cluster Overview” selected in the left side navigation bar. The screen has a large header card “Introducing Modules” with buttons for “Add Modules” and “Learn More”. Below that a section “Resource Details” containing one card, followed by a section “Monitoring and Health” containing further cards (“Memory Usage”, “CPU Usage”). A further smaller screenshot covers the bottom right of the other one, showing a Modules column in the middle, and a wider “Add Modules” panel on the right, containing four cards “SAP BTP Operator”, “Keda”, “Serverless”, “Telemetry”.

SAP Build Apps

SAP Build Apps enable business users to define their own simple applications without having to go to their IT teams to find developers. For these users, an intuitive user experience is paramount, and hence we continuously look to see where we can make it even better. One aspect of intuitiveness is providing a consistent experience across various products – hence SAP Build Apps also runs with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon.

Figure 9: SAP Build Apps with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon. ALT Text: The image shows a screenshot with a heading “Choose Configuration to Build” above six square cards “Android (AAB)”, “Android (APK)”, “iOS (Ad hoc)”, “Web (MTAR)”, “Web (ZIP)”, “workzone build”. Below that a table “Build History” showing two lines for “iOS (Ad hoc)”.Figure 9: SAP Build Apps with the SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon. ALT Text: The image shows a screenshot with a heading “Choose Configuration to Build” above six square cards “Android (AAB)”, “Android (APK)”, “iOS (Ad hoc)”, “Web (MTAR)”, “Web (ZIP)”, “workzone build”. Below that a table “Build History” showing two lines for “iOS (Ad hoc)”.

Here are some of the recent improvements:

  • You can create a project version directly now by releasing the project
  • Discover, integrate, and use any preconfigured action that is published in the SAP Build Library: you can now easily discover published Actions in SAP Build Apps via the SAP Build Library and install them into your Build Apps project, consume and trigger them as part of your application’s business logic via the Trigger Action flow function.
  • In the History tab, you can now see all previously saved states of the app. Using the Restore button, you can restore the application to the respective saved state.
  • You can duplicate pages in the page preview header.
  • You can use the updated Build service, which comes with a better look and feel, and an improved user experience:
  • The details matter with UX! To improve the user experience, we have updated the navigation menu in the global toolbar (Figure 10). App developers now have access to the Variables directly from the menu. The previous UI Canvas and Data tabs are now renamed respectively to User Interface and Integrations. To save space, the less frequently used Theme, Navigation, Authentication and Help options are now grouped under the App Settings drop-down menu. In the upper right corner, you can access the Preview button. Next to it is the Publish button, which enables you either to Create a Release Version or to Build and Deploy.

Figure 10: The new navigation menu in the SAP Build Apps global toolbar. ALT Text: A screenshot showing the header of SAP Build Apps, which contains tabs “User Interface”, “Variables”, “Integrations”, and “App Settings” with a drop-down menu with entries “Navigation”, “Authentication”, “Theme”, and “Help”.Figure 10: The new navigation menu in the SAP Build Apps global toolbar. ALT Text: A screenshot showing the header of SAP Build Apps, which contains tabs “User Interface”, “Variables”, “Integrations”, and “App Settings” with a drop-down menu with entries “Navigation”, “Authentication”, “Theme”, and “Help”.

Continue Reading

I hope you enjoyed this sixth part, covering SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Business Technology Platform.

The final part seven is available now, covering latest innovations for UI developers, for both web and mobile:

Part 1 of the series lists all the parts, and links to those parts that have already been published:

Do keep posting your experiences and recommendations yourself in the SAP Community, with the SAP Fiori and/or the User Experience tag! In case you are wondering how to get a list of the most recent blog posts on SAP Fiori and User Experience in our new SAP Community, use these links:

For general information on design at SAP and SAP Fiori, check out:

1 Comment
arnoldtob
Explorer
‎2025 Feb 28 8:44 AM
0 Kudos

Hi,

Thank you for the great news!

I am very interested in the SAC Horizon Theme - how can i change that for the Tenant?

br Tobias

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