SAP Analytics Cloud FAQ

Have a question about SAP Analytics Cloud? You're in the right place! Start here to find answers to some of our most frequently asked questions.

Page Contents

Page Contents

On this page, you will find frequently asked questions around:

General Questions

What is SAP Analytics Cloud?

SAP Analytics Cloud is a single solution for business intelligence, augmented and predictive analytics, and enterprise planning with the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. It is embedded in SAP's cloud enterprise applications delivering analytics in the context of business processes and has unique, direct connectivity to SAP data sources, and provides data integration, management, and analysis capabilities on a common, enterprise-grade infrastructure in the cloud for all data (SAP and non-SAP).

What makes SAP Analytics Cloud different from other analytics solutions?

There are a few reasons why SAP Analytics Cloud is different from other analytics solutions. For starters, SAP Analytics Cloud is 100% accessible in the cloud. This means you’ll only need your web browser to access your account, no desktop application setup is required.

Thanks to the SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP has unique, direct connectivity to SAP data sources and provides data integration, management, and analysis capabilities on a common, enterprise-grade infrastructure in the cloud for all data (SAP and non-SAP).

What makes SAP Analytics Cloud truly stand out from other solutions is our integrated planning capabilities. Bringing planning and business intelligence together allows you to analyze, report, budget, and forecast within a single solution. And, with SAP Digital Boardroom, you can extends SAP Analytics Cloud to provide a 360° view across all Lines of Business and operations to transform the modern boardroom experience on large touchscreen displays.

SAP Analytics Cloud also has augmented and predictive analytics features powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning technology.

As well, SAP Analytics Cloud offers a mobile app for iOS devices, so you can access your dashboards anywhere, anytime. You can download it for free from the app store.

For more information, please check out our product page

Is SAP Analytics Cloud right for my business?

There’s a reason we’re recognized for leading customer experience and analytics. SAP Analytics Cloud is designed to scale for businesses of any size, from a sole proprietorship to large enterprises. And for more details, check out our plans and options page.

Is it easy to collaborate using SAP Analytics Cloud?

Collaborating is super easy with SAP Analytics Cloud. You can easily export dashboards as PDF, PowerPoint, or Google Slides files. Scheduling publications also allows you to share a dashboard on a regular cadence to your stakeholders through email. With the calendar, you can create tasks, assign tasks to other users, and set due dates. You can also chat with your team, in real-time or through notifications!

What types of data sources can I connect to with SAP Analytics Cloud?

SAP Analytics Cloud can connect to various on-premise and cloud data sources including SAP HANA, SAP BW, SAP BPC, OData, Google BigQuery, SQL, SAP Universes and more. Check out our Data Connections page for more information and help on setting up your connections.

Trial users can work with data by importing local files (.csv, .xlsx) or by connecting to Google Drive.

Can I share stories outside my organization?

You can’t share stories outside your organization, but this is for your own protection.

Stories can only be shared with users on the same Analytics Cloud system, and cannot be accessed without logging in. This is to protect your private information from getting into the wrong hands.

Is SAP Analytics Cloud available in different languages?

Yes, it is! You can change your language preferences in your profile to update SAP Analytics Cloud to one of the available translations.

How often is SAP Analytics Cloud updated?

As a cloud solution, SAP Analytics Cloud is updated frequently. Visit  Product Updates for the latest release notes and roadmap information.

Free Trial

What is the difference between SAP Analytics Cloud Free Trials?

SAP Analytics Cloud offer 2 types of trials:

  1. Free Trial (Low Touch): Personal trial for any individual users. There are some features not available on the trial.
  2. High-Touch Trial (POC): Trial with full functionality to help evaluate SAC before a final buying decision. It is for enterprise customers and requires approval from presales. Nevertheless, note that the scheduling will be activated only if you have requested at least 25 users.
  3. Guided Experience: SAP Analytics Cloud e-learning epxerience on a pre-loaded data set.
Who can register for a free trial?

Everybody can request a SAP Analytics Cloud Free Trial with a generic email (outlook, gmail). SAP Partners and SAP Employees are not eligible.

Note that:

  • SAP Partners and SAP Employee are not allowed to request free trial on SAP.COM.
  • Partners can subscribe to Non-commercial licenses here.
What are the Conditions of the SAP Analytics Cloud Free Trial?

Transferring Content from the Free Trial Tenant

  • Transport from the Free Trial environment to the production tenant is not allowed. Please inform your customer before the Free Trial with work created on the trial becomes unusable after their trial has expired.
  • When a user purchases licenses, the customer cannot upgrade their free trial tenant to a productive tenant.

60 Day Expiration

  • Free Trial tenants run for a maximum of 60 Days.
  • The trial period will end after 30 days. Starting on day 20, the user will see the option to extend his trial for another 30 days from within his/her trial.

How do I register for the SAP Analytics Cloud free trial?

To access the trial, you need to register an account on SAP.com. Then, visit the SAP Analytics Cloud Trial page and start your free trial.

You will then be sent an email to activate your SAP Analytics Trial account. Once activated, you will be re-directed to the SAP Analytics Cloud Trial tenant.

Can I extend my trial past 30 days?

Yes, you can extend your trial. You will get an offer within your SAP Analytics Cloud trial application to offer you a trial extension for an additional 30 days (60-day total access). 

Once you click “Extend Trial”, your trial has been extended to 60-days.

You will also receive an email when you have 1 week left, 3 days, and one last day in your trial offering you to extend to this 60-day trial.

As a reminder, you can see how many remaining days you have in your trial at the top right-hand corner of your screen within SAP Analytics Cloud.

Please note the trial cannot be extended once expired and cannot be extended beyond 60 days.

What happens to my data when the trial expires?

The SAP Analytics Cloud trial becomes unusable once your trial has expired. This means that:

  • The Free Trial tenant is automatically decommissioned, and the data is deleted.
  • The trial tenant content cannot be transferred to another tenant.
  • The trial period cannot be extended past 60 days.
  • The same email can be used to request a new trial tenant (delay of one week)


When a user purchases licenses, they cannot upgrade their trial tenant to a productive tenant.

Which free trial is best for me?
  1. The Free Trial allows users to register Free, and tenants are provisioned immediately. Typically, this is the best choice to get hands on experience quickly with your own business data.
  2. The High-Touch (POC) Trial is for customers with qualified opportunities and require an approval process. This trial provides full functionality to set up customer connection and support all use cases.
  3. The Guided Experience is aimed at all users who want to discover and practice SAP Analytics Cloud through an online learning experience on a pre-loaded dataset.
What is included in the free trial?

During your free trial, you will have access to a single user license to try both SAP Analytics Cloud for business intelligence, augmented analytics, and planning features.

See all the features available in the paid plans on our trials and paid plans on our pricing page–this includes both business intelligence and planning versions. 

SAP Analytics Cloud add-ins, such as SAP Analytis for Office, add-in are not available.


The following features & capabilities are supported in the SAP Analytics Cloud free trial:

  1. Create
    1. Story
    2. Analytic Application
    3. External Content
    4. Model
    5. Datasets
    6. Process - Allocations, Value Driver Trees, Data Action
    7. DImensions
    8. Currency
    9. Points of Interest
    10. Predictive Scenario
  2. Browse
    1. Files
    2. Dimensions
    3. Processes
    4. Custom Widgets
    5. Currencies
    6. Predictive Scenarios
    7. Analytics App Bookmarks
  3. Calendar
  4. The Account menu is enabled
  5. Conenctions - (Schedule Status and PAi Connections are enabled)

Are there any limitations of the Free Trial?

Importation is limited to basic usage and default storage is limited to 200 MB.

Features NOT supported in the Free Trial:

  • Export Content Pages
  • Collaboration (only 1 user per trial tenant)
  • Add-in for Microsoft Office
  • Security & System Settings


SAP Analytics Cloud add-ins, such as SAP Analysis for Office, are not available.


List of all restricted capabilities of the Free Trial:


The following features are not supported:

  • Digital Boardroom
  • Security >> Users
  • Security >> Teams
  • Security >> Roles
  • Security >> Requests
  • Security >> Data Changes
  • Security >> Activities
  • Deployment >> Import & Export
  • Collaboration (one user per trial tenant)
  • System >> Monitor
  • System >> Administration
  • Story >> Share
  • Story >> Schedule Publication
  • Story >> Publish Data
  • Analytic Application >> Scheduling Publication and Notifications
  • SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Office

The following Live Connections are not supported:

  • SAP BPC
  • SAP S/4HANA
  • SAP Universe

The following Acquired Connections are not supported:

  • SAP BPC
  • SAP Business Warehouse (including BW/4HANA)
  • SAP ERP
  • SAP Universe
  • Amazon S3
  • Autotask CRM
  • Box
  • Close.io
  • ConnectWise CRM Rest
  • Dropbox
  • Egnyte
  • Infusionsoft REsT
  • Insightly
  • Microsoft Dynamic CRM
  • Microsoft OneDrive
  • Microsoft OneDrive for Business
  • NetSuite CRM 2018 Release 1
  • SFTP Element
  • SharePoint
  • SQL Databases
What data sources can I use during my trial?

The following Live Connections are supported:

  • SAP Business Warehouse
  • SAP Datasphere
  • SAP HANA Cloud

The following Import / Acquired Data Connections are supported:

  • SAP Business ByDesign Analytics
  • SAP Cloud for Customer
  • SAP Cloud for Customer Analytics
  • SAP HANA
  • SAP Integrated Business Planning
  • SAP S/4HANA
  • SAP SuccessFactors
  • Dow Jones
  • Google Big Query
  • Google Drive
  • OData Services
  • Qualtrics

What do I do if I have not recieved the Free Trial Activation Email?
  • The generated system emails may be filtered by the users e-mail spam settings.
  • Please note that the activation email may arrive with a delay of up to 24 hours.

Your Account

How do I sign up for an SAP Analytics Cloud account?

You can start by signing up for our free trial or subscribe to SAP Analytics Cloud for Business Intelligence for more data source connections, the ability to add more users, and in-app collaboration features.

Can I change the email address associated with my account?

If you’re on a free trial, you won’t be able to update the email associated with your account until you upgrade to a Business Plan.

If you’re already subscribed to SAP Analytics Cloud for business intelligence or SAP Analytics Cloud for planning, your System Administrator can update your email address for you.

I signed up for an account, but I still didn’t receive an email. Now what?

If you still don’t have an email, check your junk mail just to make sure that our email didn’t get misplaced. If you don’t see anything from us, visit the login page and click the “Forgot Password” link. Enter the appropriate email address and follow the instructions in the email to setup a new password. 

Still having trouble? It might be time to contact support.

I’m having trouble logging in to my unique URL

If you’re having trouble logging in, check your email for a direct link to your login page or contact your system administrator.

Which browser should I use for my SAP Analytics Cloud trial?

We recommend the latest versions Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, which are fully supported by SAP Analytics Cloud. 

Please check our system requirements and technical prerequisites for all requirements.

Product Updates and Quarterly Release Cycle

How often does SAP Analytics Cloud receive updates?
SAP Analytics Cloud receives updates on a Quarterly Release Cycle. This means that your SAP cloud applications will update on a quarterly cadence (every 3 months).
Why is SAP Analytics Cloud on a Quarterly Release Cycle?

With a Quarterly Release Cycle, you can expect a new version once every 3 months, which is consistent with SAP's global strategy for cloud application releases.

When will the next Quarterly Release Cycle update for SAP Analytics Cloud take place?

Quarterly updates are usually planned for February, May, August, and November of each year. For more information, read this article for detailed release dates.


When are the maintenance windows for SAP Analytics Cloud?

SAP Analytics Cloud has a weekly maintenance window and it will be unavailable during the times and duration listed in the following location: Maintenance Windows and Major Upgrade Windows for SAP Cloud Services. The mentioned duration defines the maximum scheduled downtime. The actual downtime during these windows can vary (partial consumption). Unless otherwise stated, all times are specified in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Once I've been updated to the Quarterly Release Cycle, is it possible to switch back to bi-weekly releases?

No. Over time, all subscriptions will be transitioned to the Quarterly Release Cycle.

Is it possible to preview the features coming in the next Quarterly Release?
You can purchase a test edition tenant to preview new features before your quarterly update. Preview releases are updated on your test edition tenant weeks in advance of general availability. Contact your SAP Analytics Cloud representative to learn more.
If I have a test edition subscription, will it be on the Quarterly Release Cycle?

Yes. Once you've moved to the Quarterly Release Cycle, all of your subscriptions (with the exception of your test subscription) will also be on the Quarterly Release Cycle.

How do I know when SAP Analytics Cloud has been updated?

When you log in to SAP Analytics Cloud after an update, you’ll see a prominent notification banner with a link to our “What’s New” help content.

What is the version numbering convention for the Quarterly Release Cycle?
Each version number of SAP Analytics Cloud starts with the year, followed by the number of that release. For example, the version number of the first release of 2020 is 2020.01.

You may notice the Quarterly Release Cycle versions appear to skip certain numbers. This is because Fast-Track customers receive updates every 2 weeks, and these releases are considered in the version numbering process.


You can find the latest release notes for SAP Analytics Cloud here. Don’t worry! The Quarterly Release Cycle receives all of the features that the Fast-Track Cycle receives.

How do I know what version number of SAP Analytics Cloud I’m on?
To check which version of SAP Analytics Cloud you’re on, navigate to System > About from the main menu.
Where can I find the release notes and help documentation for the version I'm on?

When accessing documentation from within SAP Analytics Cloud, simply click the “Help” icon. All documentation is versioned to your particular release schedule.