Overwrite Versus Append Data Action in SAP Analytics Cloud

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Hello fellow SAC Fanatics,

This Blog Post was written by Sebastian Rodriguez and coauthored by Filippo Naggi from NIMBL Finance Practice, SAP Analytics Cloud F1 channel.

 

We’d like to display the differences between the Overwrite and Append Data Action Option in SAP Analytics Cloud.

To do this we have created a copy Data Action. The goal of this data action is to copy data from a source version to a target version by date.

This is done using parameters and options within the data action tool.

The parameters created can be seen below:

The DateCopyFrom and the Source_Version parameter are used as filters for the copy data action and can be seen circled in red below.

The Options tab (in blue below) gives users the option to select either Append or Overwrite.

Both will be discussed in this blog post.

When the Append Option is selected the data that is copied from the source version is added to members which already contained data. As you can see in the screenshots below, the Actuals data only contains data for Q1 and Q2. It contains no data for Q3 and Q4. In the Append Results, only the Q1 and Q2 data is copied to the target version. The Q3 and Q4 data is left as is.

On the other hand, when the Overwrite option is selected, the data that is copied from the source version will overwrite ALL data in the target version. Source Version members with no data will overwrite anything in target version members. In the Overwrite Data Action Results the Q1 – Q3 data is replaced with the source version data, even though there is no Q3 data in the source version.

Original Data

Data Action Parameter specifications:

 Data Action Results with Append Option

Data Action Results with Overwrite Option

The Financial Analyst can choose which option is more appropriate according to the business scenario he/she is working on.

These options demonstrate the power behind the data action tool in SAP Analytics Cloud. Specifically, the option to append vs. overwrite when using a copy Data Action. The append option, which is the default option, adds the copied data to the existing data for the target members. The overwrite option takes the copied data and replaces the existing data for the target members.

If you enjoyed this blog post please give it a like! If you have questions feel free to comment. The more we learn about the power of SAP Analytics Cloud, the better.

Stay tuned for hot off the press tutorials!

 

Sebastian and Filippo