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SAP Analytics Cloud - Review 2022

SAP is something of a pioneer in Big Data, database, and now self-service business intelligence (BI) tools. It shows in the impressive SAP Analytics Cloud (which begins at $21 per user per month). This product is best suited for companies that have already standardized on other SAP enterprise products, but its a solid entry in its own correct considering of its affordable price, solid feature set, and strong information visualization functionality. With that said, we're rating information technology lower than our Editors' Choices IBM Watson Analytics, Microsoft Power BI, and Tableau Desktop due to its express data prep features and unintuitive toolbar.

This cloud application is primarily targeting SAP HANA shops and, for the well-nigh part, it still speaks in the linguistic communication of data science rather than talking like a human. That won't bother data professionals, but in the world of rank-and-file information democratization, information technology ways that the SAP Analytics Cloud isn't quite ready for prime time. The UI is not intuitive plenty for beginners and at that place'due south no mode to use tongue queries such every bit IBM Watson and Salesforce Analytics Deject exercise or fifty-fifty competitors Microsoft Skype and Sisense, no less.

Still, SAP has made some effort to reach non-data professionals with its "create a story" approach. While non slap-up, this still makes it arguably easier for business users to understand than either Chartio or Tableau Desktop, both of which have UIs that will brand start users think they're looking at Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Every bit stated before, SAP Analytics Cloud begins at $21 per user per month. It's therefore very competitive with the rest of the field, especially with high-priced, enterprise-oriented players such as Domo. Where SAP Analytics Deject shines brighter than high-end competitors IBM Watson and Tableau Desktop is in its immediate and easy additions of responsive pages for publishing to mobile devices, its real-time analytics with streaming data capabilities, and the same centralized user experience (UX). Your IT department can also get a centralized view of the company'south analytics assets via the new SAP Analytics Hub. Considering SAP's BI Suite is a flake fragmented beyond several products, that's a big plus for It users.

Amid its latest updates, SAP has added support for scripting with the R language, which is now practically mandatory for data professionals dealing with predictive analytics and machine learning (ML), though non so much for business organisation analysts and general users. There's also a new Apple tree iOS mobile app and alive connections to SAP'south BW/4HANA, S4/HANA, and Universes databases. However, SAP Analytics Cloud is capable of ingesting information from non-SAP sources, too, typically from hybrid environments. There are over 400 extensions and a huge partner and developer ecosystem that'due south constantly working to add more.

Getting Started

Uploading my test data was a breeze and took only seconds. This was the same CSV data fix that I used to exam all self-service BI apps from a business organisation analyst perspective, meaning it was big merely non huge.

As I mentioned, the app is setup in a story narrative fashion to help users progress through the process. My start movement, wearing my business concern analyst hat, was to click the "Create a New Story" button to import my data and create a model. Had I donned a data scientist hat or an avant-garde user lid (which I can rightfully claim equally mine), I could have skipped story way and gone straight to the modeler where I could add together all sorts of things, such as formulas, geo-enrichments, and hierarchies. I could besides brand fancier visualizations at the end of the drill, only alas, I'thousand getting ahead of my own story.

SAP Analytics Cloud - Data discovery

Story Manner is as like shooting fish in a barrel every bit SAP Analytics Cloud gets but there is a catch. The data should be clean before you upload information technology, pregnant no missing fields and no variances in the data of any field. So make sure all of the addresses are typed in the same manner, for example. Enter them in the verbal same mode considering there's no simple way to do any substantial prep piece of work after data is uploaded—something we'd dearest to see change in time to come versions. Yes, there is a "Validate Data" button that volition quickly return a short report on your information'due south hygiene based on a sample. But things become a fleck murky in that location.

At first glance, the system seemed to be belongings its virtual nose and merely hinting that my data needed to be sanitized. It told me there was one issue only not what that issue was. Since each of the report bar's fields had information in them, I causeless that was all it had to say on the thing. It wasn't until I clicked around that report that I discovered more information, and thus, that the problem was ultimately a mapping result. The box for "Fill empty ID cells with a default value" was checked by default. At that place'southward no clear way to indicate "use," or "ok," or "move along at present." Not an ideal data prep tool and its prompts are certainly lacking for business concern users.

SAP Analytics Cloud - Data upload and validation

The Discovery Process

On the bar at the top are several symbols and some text. The first one reading from the left is Data View. It turns out that this is the data manipulation view, which let me do some minor data moves like switching the designation of a column from dimension to measure out or vice versa. This is not something I would telephone call data prep, however it is indeed data manipulation, which isn't the same thing but a good characteristic still.

Measure columns contain quantitative numerical information whereas a dimension column is qualitative data and can exist in numbers or text. In other words, changing a column's designation tin can be useful, but it has its limits.

When I clicked on Data View, the organisation automatically practical everything I told it to exercise before when I hit "validate information" after importing, which wasn't much really. At that place's a save icon on the bar just you could easily overlook information technology while you're busy following the prompts.

The next prompt points to "Insert" on the top bar and urges yous to add charts and other things to the page. Turns out that's where you choose measures, dimensions, chart structures, and filters. Yeah, this means "Insert" is where you lot actually begin data discovery. Not intuitive.

I won't take y'all through each command, but suffice it to say that except for the universal save icon, the old familiar disk drawing, almost zilch on that bar made sense to me in terms of what functions lay beneath. For example, the wrench icon made me expect settings or a system tool merely instead I establish "Story Details" and "Preferences." But so you lot know, "Story Details" is where you give your document a title and a brief clarification, whereas "Preferences" is a hodgepodge of things like folio size and properties and tile settings. It all was a bit confusing and left me exploring the system more oft than the data.

SAP Anlytics Cloud - Story page templates

Data Visualizations

SAP Analytics Deject has basic visualizations and automatically suggests a format to fit the information you selected but you can change to another format if y'all prefer. Yous can and so copy and paste the visualization to an existing story folio or create a new story. This enables you to write a information story in pictures and then create new stories as needed, all of which are changeable at whatsoever time. The templates are helpful in telling your detail story in a coherent and cohesive way. Customizations are easy using the design panel and the builder tool. I really liked that whole story-telling arroyo considering bottom line that's what using data visualizations is all about: telling the business story.

For more options in visualizations, users might also want to cheque out SAP's new Lumira ii.0 tool, which combines Lumira visualizations with SAP Design Studios.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/sap-analytics-cloud/17113/sap-analytics-cloud

Posted by: ericksonstivider.blogspot.com

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