This year, SAP introduced the first AI-related feature into SAP Analytics Cloud with Just Ask. Based on the model, Just Ask can answer predefined questions through different widgets. The next step of implementing AI into SAP Analytics Cloud will be Joule. In a Story, you can ask Joule any question that you want, and it will answer it and create widgets based on the request, too. Make it possible for you as a user to create your own dashboard or report by asking just a few questions to Joule. During the TechEd, SAP mentioned that they are aiming to release this feature in 2025. However, looking at the Roadmap for SAP Analytics Cloud, there is no set release period yet. Instead, their current focus is on further improving Just Ask. Regardless of a release date, the implementation of Joule into SAP Analytics Cloud is a very promising feature, which would tremendously increase the business’s ability to create their own reports and dashboards. Making us, as developers, very excited and interested in its actual usability.
Another interesting feature is the Seamless Planning functionality. With this functionality, you can create new models in SAP Analytics Cloud and store them directly in SAP Datasphere. These models can also be changed/updated directly in SAP Datasphere if needed. This is not only the case for the Analytical Models but also for all Master Data dimensions. If you’re using the planning functionality of SAP Analytics Cloud, you can store the data in SAP Datasphere instead of SAP Analytics Cloud. The dashboards in SAP Analytics Cloud consume the data from SAP Datasphere through a live connection so there is no data replication needed. By doing this, users are able to increase performance due to data being stored in a data warehouse, SAP Datasphere, instead of the front-end tool. Furthermore, calculations can also be pushed back to the backend, further increasing performance. This feature will become available in Q1 2025 and will be something very interesting, bringing SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Datasphere even closer together as the unified cloud solution of SAP.
The third interesting feature is also a planning function, which is SAP Analytics Cloud Compass. This functionality makes it possible to create simulations of your planning data. This allows users to simulate uncertainties in critical drivers and see the probable impact, thereby empowering non-technical users to perform real-time risk analysis using stochastic simulations. So, these simulations can enhance your planning data and improve your planning outcome. The functionality will be added to SAP Analytics Cloud in Q1 2025.
Finally, there are some features that are less relevant for us as developers but that we do want to mention. The first one is the new SQL live connection access from Google BigQuery. In the previous scenario, it was only possible to create an import connection to obtain data from Google BigQuery, but with this enhancement, a live connection will be possible, too. Secondly, following up on recent improvements, such as the Performance Insight Tool (Gantt) and the Performance OnePager (both released in Q3 2024) is the Detailed Page Performance Analysis. This feature will most likely be interesting for and used by the SAP Analytics Cloud Administrators. Both features are expected to become available Q1 2025.
In conclusion, you could say that there are some new features if you’re using the planning functionality within SAP Analytics Cloud. If you aren’t using these functionalities, you should wait for Joule to be made available to users. On top of that, seamless planning would then only be useful for customers who also have SAP Datasphere. While Joule is potentially something huge, it still needs to be further clarified, and time will tell us if it will work as intended in practical (business) situations. We had hoped for more new interesting functionalities to catch up with other analytics tools like Microsoft Power BI, but unfortunately there are no (visible) big steps coming up any time soon in this regard (yet).
Credits
This blog about the highlights of SAP TechEd 2024 was written by our experts Dick Hermeling and Max Tuinman.
About the author
Dick is a SAP BI Consultant at Expertum.
Read more articles by Dick Hermeling