SAP Analytics Cloud Reviews

My VP asked me to work with my plan number to figure out how to increase and support our sales region. On the planning admin, I created a model and then imported actual and forecasted data. From that, I was able to determine the variance. We managed to plan this with small amounts of data. 

We created a planning model and enabled it to make a planning checkmark that works with the time category in the tab dimension, in order to bring it down to the lowest granularity, by month, start date, and end date. 

We created an organization dimension. A responsible person to monitor each region is required. Then you can drag and drop the region hierarchy from the parent.

Then, we worked on the calculated numbers, for example, the gross margin, which was the total revenue minus COGS. We then divided that number by total revenue times one hundred. From there, we could pull the data from the file and select source actuality to validate it. 

We performed all of this using SAP Analytics Cloud.

In the most recent release, the schedule publication was officially updated and it's been added on MS Office 365. I like how we had an EPM for B to C perspective; it's a great enhancement. Also, I believe the B to B connectivity has been improved. Android support for mobile is really good also. Power BI has always had android support in place, so manual support for SAP Analytics Cloud is also a very good feature.

Smart Insights have also been enhanced, especially in regards to the Stories.

Apart from that, I would like to see more data-handling enhancement. Smart planning can give us immediate results.  When we come to analytics, If we could get more enhancement, we could probably completely skip the data warehousing concepts. This would be a big improvement.

With all of the new updates, now we can combine different types of data together and give our customers a full picture. 

I am happy with the new release that is coming out. It's comparatively a little slower than the version we had from 2019-2020; however, the enhancements they have added are much better than previous versions.

The most valuable feature is that we can allocate, spread, and distribute the actual figures.

The cost is an area that could be improved. I also think that Ofice 365 should be incorporated. People would find it to be more user-friendly with Office 365 integrated. Flat file integration can be a distinguishing factor.

Custom visuals is another area of improvement. There are also some mobile features that are missing. There are features that aren't available on the mobile. 

There should also be better connectivity tools for HANA and Success Factors. They have minimal visualization relations and they have the third-party add-ins.

I have been using this solution for the past six months.

We have 300-plus Stories that we already had in the system, that we had to do performance tuning. I brought it down to 267, to be exact. We had over 302 dashboards and then we brought it down to 111 stories on 267 visualizations. When we have too many pages, the performance gets impacted a little on the initialization part. When we open the story, it takes a little bit of time because it's not on-premise. Because our clients are based in the Netherlands and we are based in Bangalore, we had to manage the different time zones, and the business hours are different. We had to find out during the peak business hour how the SSE behaves.

We found that in the peak business hours it does slow down a little bit, considering the internet speed and everything. We did take everything into account. Then we checked the performance and the data also. In order to be competitive with the other software in the market, a little enhancement in this part also would give the upper hand compared to other BI tools.

We used to go in a cognitive window wherein we don't have any caches in place, so that we could get an accurate picture of the performance. But we also want to reduce the number of filters, and then we want to do more slicing and dicing across the data and try to see how it improves. In the near future, we would try to test the data more.

It performs quite well. Custom visuals would definitely help us to improve a little more. 

There are more viewer licenses. We have got close to 130 users for Analytics Cloud. And for developer access, for read and write, at our location we have around six plus two for planning, altogether 11 to 12 licenses. 

We have BW HANA. So we have only four developers as of now. We used it more extensively before the pandemic but not as much now. We do have plans to increase usage in the near future. 

The technical support is quite good. Any time there is a new release and we have any issues, we connect with the technical support team and then go ahead and write about it in a blog so that the other users can also get help for similar issues. 

We previously used Cognos Analytics and Tableau. I've done a couple of POCs on Tableau and worked on micro-strategy. We switched to SAP Analytics Cloud primarily for the planning, development, and the user-friendliness. When SAP comes up with a solution, they definitely try to be up to market. The features were not in a premature stage. We had faith that SAP had enhanced features compared to other BI tools.

The initial setup was pretty easy. It was also easy for my team. They thought it was easy to install. There's no download, there was no complexity.

We do the maintenance for it because we know the ins and outs of the development. We also do the admin.

If you are new to SSE and are trying to implement SSE in your project, don't think that SSE is an SAP product. Look into the features because I am sure you'll be satisfied with the features. They come out with the releases. I go into the release notes to understand what are the enhancements are. This will make it easier to understand. 

If you have somebody who isn't as experienced with BI, even that person can still learn SSE and can cope up with the BI requirements. In India, if you want to be a BI compatible, you have to have at least three years' experience so that you can understand all of the data warehousing concepts, and EDL. With SSE, learning is very smooth and easy.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

The missing point would be because of the performance. 

We use SAP Analytics Cloud to create executive dashboards for our organizations. It is a comprehensive analytic solution that allows users to review functional data globally in a clear and organized format, and incorporate features for data visualization and analytics.

There is a seamless integration with SAP S4HANA which is really valuable to our organization and its functions. Since the data is stored in the same ecosystem, it creates a simple process of building dashboards, without making the process cumbersome The Analytics Cloud provides standardized templates and storage options, making it easy to plug into existing structures.

We're utilizing custom stories that have already been developed, streamlining the development process. It serves as a convenient starting point and contributes to the overall ease of development. Another advantage is that it doesn't provide the same level of calculation power as Power BI and Tableau. SAP Analytics Cloud emphasizes pushing analytics back into the database, recommending data manipulation and preparation outside of the platform. This approach is seen as an advantage, as it allows for more robust data handling.

However, there are areas of improvement, particularly in terms of visualization. The front-end interface of SAP Analytics Cloud is not as impressive as Tableau and Power BI. The charts in other solutions have a more visually appealing and customizable look, while in SAP Analytics Cloud, there's a lack of alignment between numbers and charts. This graphical aspect, especially concerning charts, is not as satisfactory in SAP Analytics Cloud compared to its counterparts.

I have been using SAP Analytics Cloud for the past six months.

In terms of scalability, SAP Analytics Cloud seems well-aligned with the concept of being an SAP product. It is designed to work seamlessly with SAP ERP, making it scalable when used in conjunction with SAP ERP, especially for large-scale operations. While there might be challenges when connecting to external sources, the current structure allows connectivity to various sources such as Excel sheets and Cloud-based databases like Xarel. Although there may be limitations in the current setup, there's potential for future scalability to include a broader range of databases for connections to SAP Analytics Cloud.

I haven’t claimed support services as of now, but the online resources are really useful for small queries.

SAP Analytics Cloud is a cloud-based solution, meaning there's minimal installation required on your end.You obtain login details, pay for access, and log in to your cloud account to develop or access data. As an end user, you simply log in through the web application using your credentials. Whether you're a developer or an end user, the platform is accessible through the web, and the storage is created accordingly.

The maintenance primarily involves administration tasks. As a developer, I don't handle the administration part; someone dedicated to administration takes care of tasks like managing access and overseeing the platform. Regarding updates and maintenance, SAP does this on a biweekly or quarterly basis, depending on your subscription or preference. So, maintenance involves ensuring the platform is regularly updated by SAP.

I wasn't directly involved in the pricing discussions, but when I joined the organization, they had already purchased the SAP Analytics Cloud solution. The organization faced challenges due to its perceived expense, leading to restrictions on granting access to many users.

As a recommendation, when deciding on using SAP Analytics Cloud, it primarily depends on whether your company is already utilizing SAP as its ERP. If SAP is the ERP, this solution makes sense due to seamless integration and optimization within the same organization. However, if you're considering Oracle or Postgres, alternatives like Tableau or Power BI might be more suitable. The learning curve, as SAC employs Core Data Services (CDS), which can be challenging for developers unfamiliar with this concept. Finding experienced SAC developers can be a challenge compared to the more prevalent expertise in Tableau or Power BI. Community support is another consideration. While Tableau and Power BI have strong and active communities for support and knowledge-sharing, SAC may have a smaller and less engaged community.

I would rate it 6 out of 10.

My company uses SAP Analytics Cloud to create reports for clients. I use the solution to develop reports for clients. The clients would be based out of different locations and do analytics, so I create those reports for clients through SAP Analytics Cloud.

SAP Analytics Cloud is a very good tool. The feature that's most useful for me is the reporting as it can be done via Google Chrome. The solution is also very nice, user-friendly, and easy to build. It's very easy to use the features of SAP Analytics Cloud.

What could be improved in SAP Analytics Cloud is integration, particularly in terms of extracting data from the source system. Currently, its data extraction mechanism doesn't have good integration and needs improvement.

I've been working with SAP Analytics Cloud for two years now.

SAP Analytics Cloud is a stable tool.

SAP Analytics Cloud is a scalable tool.

I find the technical support for SAP Analytics Cloud helpful.

SAP Analytics Cloud is easy to set up and the deployment took five to six months.

We do the deployment in-house, but clients would still need a resource who can do support and monitoring activities. The client would not be able to handle it himself and would need an IT resource to help, but one or two resources would be enough. One or two resources are enough to maintain SAP Analytics Cloud.

I'm a software engineer and I'm working with SAP Analytics Cloud. I'm using the latest version of the solution which was released this quarter: 2022.07.

SAP Analytics Cloud is deployed on a public cloud, but I don't know the cloud provider, so SAP must have tied up with a data center.

In my company, people who are using the tool have the role of developing it and developing reports, and currently, one hundred people are using SAP Analytics Cloud.

I would recommend SAP Analytics Cloud to others who are currently not using it because it is a very good, easy-to-use tool. It's quite user-friendly and that's the most important factor.

My rating for SAP Analytics Cloud is eight out of ten.

I'm not a customer, but a partner of SAP Analytics Cloud.

We use the product for story building. 

I have found that the feature to drag and drop widgets based on the data source, and import them into stories to be valuable. This way it helps the end user to create stories themselves.

Live Data Models are very slow and the setup can be improved, with tools such as Cloud Connector being inbuilt into SAP Analytics Cloud.

Likewise, we need to write application code from scratch, rather than tweaking existing code, as we might with Excel macros.

Moreover, when using responsive pages, the widgets get adjusted according to the mobile screen. As a result, when I place two or three KPI tiles, they can only be viewed tile-by-tile. We want to see the full dashboard on the mobile screen and zoom in to click on a particular section of the dashboard and go further into that. But displaying tile-by-tile makes it very annoying and the upper management using this dashboard might not be aware there are any more tiles to view.

I have been using this solution for two years at the minimum, and I continue to use it.

Since the performance of the Live Data Model is slow, I would give the solution a three out of ten.

The only issue with scalability is the speed of the Live Data Model. We thought we would not need the Business Warehouse tool and we could directly extract data as per HANA, but that has not been the case.

Otherwise, we haven’t tried scalability much, we only have two or three dashboards.

We have raised a couple of queries and received responses to all of them.

Neutral

We haven’t used any similar solutions for interactive dashboard building, we are currently looking for alternatives such as Power BI and Tableau.

The setup was okay, but Cloud Connector was required. The deployment would have taken a couple of hours or less, and it was handled by a user acquainted with Basis. I would rate the setup a six out of ten.

I would rate the solution four out of ten, but we are still analyzing other our alternatives, which could affect the rating.

All the same, I would not recommend SAP Analytics Cloud.

The primary use case is for our client. We implemented the BI Analytics for the executive. SAP also works with the theater boardroom. There is another license policy, but there's more that's dedicated for the dashboard with the touch screen so they can use it for their executive meetings.

The solution is used on PC or mobile. It's deployed on a public SAP cloud.

SAP Analytics Cloud changed the culture of meetings with data-driven management for our client. It modernized everything.

One of the most outstanding features is being able to use the dashboard with a touch screen. The other feature is nothing special compared with BusinessObjects, but it's a cloud version and they upgrade very often with the CI/CD way. They do it automatically because it's the service, it's not like download and installation. It's different from the other BI products and it has a planning feature.

In the beginning, we had a problem with stability but it's currently fine.

SAC, which is the cloud version, lost some good features from the previous planning product, like BPC or BPS.

I have been using this solution for more than three years.

It's stable.

The cloud version is automatically scalable.

Technical support is good.

Setup was straightforward.

Some of our clients are interested in moving to cloud-based IT. In that case, we can recommend SAP, but some clients still want to use the on-premise for security purposes and their policies. In that case, we cannot recommend SAC, but we do recommend BusinessObjects or another on-premise solution like Tableau.

The amount of time it takes to deploy depends on the requirements, but normally it takes three months for the reporting. Of course, they need to prepare their data before implementing the BI.

Normally, two or three people are needed for the BI implementation. If it contains planning as well, it's more than that because planning is more complex than actual implementation.

From our customers' experience, we know that they are satisfied with the ROI.

They need to collect the data and make reports, but it's just one solution. After logging in, they input their planning and then it can be aggregated automatically for the HQ users. That is very time saving and effort saving.

The price is competitive. There is a power user license and normal user license, but the normal user license is reasonable. The power user license is a bit expensive, but our client doesn't need to buy many user licenses for that.

Previously, we used BusinessObjects. That's the previous version of SAP, but it's been changed to SAC.

These days we are comparing the modern BI products, like Click, Tableau, and Microsoft Power BI. Those are the main competitors.

I would rate this solution 7 out of 10. 

My advice is the same as BW/4HANA. For someone who wants to start using this solution, they need to refine their requirement in the beginning and analyze the available data and how it should be consumed in the dashboard or analytics. They need to design from the beginning. It can be just a sketch, but they need to think about it before they start implementing it.

We primarily use the solution for the dashboards. 

The close integration with other SAP products is great. 

The initial setup is easy.

It is quite stable.

Technical support is helpful.

The product can scale. 

It's lacking a bit in maturity and we find we can't replace our existing mode 1 analytics tool until it's improved. 

I've been using the solution for 12 months. 

The stability is quite good. It doesn't crash or freeze. there are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable. 

We have about 50 people using the solution right now. They are all business specialists. We find it to be scalable.  

Technical support has been quite good. We haven't had any issues with them. They are helpful and responsive and we are satisfied. 

Positive

We found the initial setup to be pretty simple and straightforward. I'd rate it four out of five in terms of ease of setup. 

The deployment took one to two months and I handled it myself. 

I didn't need any assistance with the setup. I was able to do it on my own. 

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using. It's likely the latest one.

I'd advise other users that the solution isn't really mature just yet. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a 7 out of ten.  

SAP used to provide two tools, SAP BI and SAP BPC. The SAP BI tool provided analytics, while the SAP BPC tool provided budgeting and planning functionality. However, We later consolidated these two tools into one tool, SAP Analytics for Cloud. This tool provides both budgeting and analytics functionality.

I have seen a lot of benefits from using SAP Analytics, but I think people have not yet fully realized its potential. I believe the system is still in its revolutionary stage because it has a lot of capabilities that have yet to be fully explored. In order to take advantage of these capabilities, we need to have a business story and our own analytics or business analytics requirements. I myself have only used SAP Analytics for a very small use case, but I can see how it could be used for enterprise-level planning, reporting, and dashboarding.

The most valuable feature of the tool is machine learning. The machine learning algorithms are inbuilt and strong. I really like that feature because we don't need to do any coding. Normally, we used to do coding in Jupyter notes or Anaconda. It's another tool for analytics or for data science. We used to write Python code, and then try to fetch the data from the backend system, and perform the analysis, based on the batch. SAP Analytics is more real-time analytics and the use case which I use the tool for, with S/4HANA itself. SAP Analytics makes it much easier for me to have the data directly in real-time, to perform this machine learning. I have also seen some good automation features for budgeting and budgeting processes. This combined feature gives a very good flavor to perform the analytics.

SAP has always had one problem with its products, they make them very closed systems that are difficult to integrate. This is not only a problem with SAP Analytics but also with other products, like middleware systems. These systems, such as GRC, reside in the second level of defense, rather than the first. All these analytical systems normally require a huge integration, because they are not working independently. They are dependent on the backend systems. In any analytical system, we don't have data. Basically, we fetch the data or we try to take the data from any recording system such as an ERP recording system, CRM recording system, or any recording system. We perform the analysis in the analytical layer, which is our analytical tool, such as frauds, business integrated screening, SAP GRC, or even the SAC, SAP Analytics for Cloud. All of these require a huge integration. The problem I faced with SAP Analytics was the ease of integration and the cost. SAP Analytics for Cloud is not cost-friendly. we encounter the same issue with all SAP tools. Although SAP has a very beautiful and seamless integration within their system, it is not as easy to integrate them with non-SAP tools, as our Enterprise system does not have all SAP systems. They instead have multiple systems, including Oracle and Microsoft systems. Even though SAP has very beautiful plugins, which we can utilize and get benefit from that, it is not as friendly compared to other tools.

In 2012 or 2013, SAP's interfaces were a big challenge because they were very engineering-oriented and dry, making them difficult for business users to understand. Fiori was introduced as a solution to this problem, and it has been successful in doing so. However, I believe that SAP still needs to work on the integration aspect.

SAC is not the number one tool for analytics. However, if an organization has SAP backend products, then SAC falls within the system of analytics. The system of analytics requires a system of recording, which is the ERP system, CRM, or any other backend system that automates business processes. I believe that a little work is required in that aspect by SAP to improve.

I have been using the tool for several years.

The tool is stable.

I give the scalability a nine out of ten.

Most of the organizations I work for have a maximum attention licensing agreement with SAP, so the support service is amazing. We've never faced any delays with that.

If we have more backend systems using SAP, it's really easy to set up SAP Analytics, but if that is not the case it becomes very difficult to integrate.

SAP Analytics can be very costly to license, which can make it difficult for organizations to implement.

I evaluated SPSS and Alteryx.

I give the tool a seven out of ten.

I was looking for a tool that could help me add value-added services to my department, such as predictive analytics from the audit perspective. I wanted a tool that could analyze text, mostly based on natural language processing. There are other heavy tools that could be applied to the audit lifecycle to improve the process. I was looking for a data analysis tool that would help me roll out the fifth generation of our internal audit department. I considered several options, including SPSS, Alteryx, and SAP Analytics. There is a generation of auditors and assurance professionals called 4.0 or 5.0 who are turning from performing basic analytics to using advanced analytics tools with AI to enhance their audit processes. They are becoming more proactive and using bottom-up analytics. This is a little bit technical for some people. In the same way that we have fourth-generation audit insurance, we have the fourth industrial revolution in the generic industry, we have a revolution in the audit department, a fourth-generation revolution, where we apply AI tools, RPA, robotic process, and advanced analytics to improve our processors. This allows us to perform more audits, 15-20 instead of 10, and to do so using a complete database rather than samples. As an auditor, we will no longer be providing reasonable assurance that we cannot provide everything, we will be able to provide assurance on the entire database. The analytics will automate this process for us, so I'm launching that strategy. In my strategy, I have, for example, some contracts I want to automate instead of reviewing them manually. Each and every contract, for example, comes to the audit department. Instead of reviewing the contract manually, and spending hours, converting this from the OCR text, and then applying the NLP on it, trying to identify the risks and the threats within this contract, and trying to audit based on that risk template, I can automate this process. I'm a certified professional in GRC and ECC. I've been working in this field for a long time. I've seen predictive analytics in action, and I've tried to compare the effectiveness of different tools, like SPSS and Alteryx, with SAP Analytics. I'm doing this because I want to see how much these tools can help me with my overall strategy. But I know that no single tool can guarantee success. We need a bunch of tools. For example, we have this SAP Celonis, which can help us understand business processes and do business process re-engineering and analysis. This SAP Celonis will help automate the process of understanding business processes, instead of having manual meetings with the business and trying to understand everyone's understanding of the process. We can rely on the data to tell us the truth. The central truth is the data. SAP Celonis will take the event log and try to analyze the process on our behalf, and try to give us the anomalies in our business process. The strategy has a different flavor, different tools, and different aspects. SAP Analytics would be more helpful in the audit execution process, and reporting stage. There is another tool that helps with fraud management. It's called business integrity screening. This tool basically fetches data and tests it for us. The tool also gathers information from SAP Analytics for Cloud and performs predictive analytics with strong machine learning algorithms. SAP Analytics is not the only thing I use to achieve my goals. It is a part of my strategy, and it helps me automate certain aspects of my plan.

An organization that has its backend systems as SAP would be making a smart move to go with SAP Analytics, but if they have a mix of SAP or non-SAP systems, I never advise organizations to go with SAP Analytics. An organization that does not have SAP in the backend and still wished to use SAP Analytics should perform a proper requirement analysis first.

We're using SAP Analytics Cloud for analyzing financial and commercial information.

What I really like most about SAP Analytics Cloud is that it's very easy to create charts with it.

What should be improved in SAP Analytics Cloud is the speed of importing information and data from SAP S/4HANA, because it's what we're using. We noticed that gathering the data from the main database takes a bit of time.

Another way to improve the product is for them to let others access some information without being part of our SAP company system. If I want a customer to check information directly using SAP Analytics Cloud that would be good, because currently, it doesn't seem to me that this is possible directly in the product. Of course, there's another path to take to reach that goal, but a direct connection for external people who may want to check some information could be useful.

I've been using SAP Analytics Cloud since last July.

SAP Analytics Cloud is a stable product.

The initial setup for SAP Analytics Cloud was quite easy. On a scale of one to five, with five being the best, I'm rating the setup a five. I did the setup with the help of a team, e.g. not just by myself.

I find the pricing of SAP Analytics Cloud reasonable. On a scale of one to five, with five being the best, I'm giving it a score of four out of five for the price.

We adopted Qlik Sense a few years ago, then we started with SAP, and after having tried SAP, we decided to stay with SAP Analytics Cloud. We discharged Qlik Sense.

We're using SAP Analytics Cloud in our company.

I still don't have an idea on how scalable the product is.

I'm unable to give feedback on the technical support for SAP Analytics Cloud, because I don't deal directly with SAP, but with another company that assists us, and they work with SAP.

My advice to others looking into implementing SAP Analytics Cloud is for them to
check the cost of implementation, because the cost of the product is not high, but sometimes the implementation could cost a lot more, e.g. the connection to your access system could cost a lot.

I'm rating SAP Analytics Cloud nine out of ten.