SAP Operational Reporting: Embedded Analytics or HANA Live?

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In the last two weeks, several customers and colleagues have come around with questions regarding this topic (Operational Reporting) and these solutions (Embedded Analytics and HANA Live). Let’s throw some light into basic information.

 

What Operational reporting solutions are?

This kind of solutions are very close to transactional user. They are supposed to give users data to perform their day-to-day activities better (higher productivity and higher effectivity). These real-time reports are not very aggregated, but highly detailed and filtered.

These solutions are a combination of: (1) a set of views and, (2) a set of tools. The first point is the answer to why SAP has two different solution. They are views, so they are depending on the underlying data model. ECC has its own data model, then it has its own set of views for operational reporting. S/4HANA has a new, different and smaller data model, so it has its own set of views for operational reporting.

What tools are part of these solutions? basically they are (1) a Browser, to access a list of views and their definition; (2) a Data Viewer, to visualize data (not for final user consumption); and (3) a View creator.

This tools allow user to access data, key users or Developers to create or modify views to better support final users.

 

What Operational Reporting Tools SAP provides?

SAP ECC (on HANA) and SAP S/4HANA are two different ERP products, thus they have different Operational Reporting solutions. Let’s compare:

	ECC on HANA	S/4HANA
Operational reporting solution name	SAP HANA Live	SAP S/4HANA Embedded Analytics
Base technology: what technology the views are built on	SAP HANA Information views (Analytical and Calculated views)	CDS Views Fully integrated to ABAP lifecycle development framework
ERP NetWeaver Security integration	None. Security is HANA DB level	Full. CDS is ABAP technology
Interaction mode: How do developers work with the solution	SAP HANA Studio	·   SAP Fiori ·   SAP HANA Studio with ABAP for Eclipse
Data Access	SAP HANA DB user needed.	SAP S/4HANA user needed.
Tools	·   SAP HANA Studio ·   Browser ·   Authorization assistant ·   Extension Assistant Link	·   Query Browser ·   Query Designer ·   KPI Designer ·   Smart Business Cockpit Link

 

Final Ideas

Our current recommendation for implementation projects is to include this topics and tools in every LoB (every Key User should be expert on this topic and tools), and in final users training curriculums.

For customers already in production our recommendation is to start exploring these tools.

HANA Live must be mixed with a consumption tool, current recommendations are Lumira, Analysis for Office or another BO Tool like WebIntelligence. Embedded Analytics it is used with Fiori tools, but it is highly recommended to use more powerful visualization tools like those mentioned for HANA Live.

BWonHANA and BW/4HANA can consume both HANA Live Views and Embedded Analytics CDS Views, with different uses cases and functionalities. That’s for another blog.

 

Let me see your comments or questions.

 

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