SAP Analytics Cloud Reviews

We have been using this solution for story development on the cloud.

This is a very easy solution to learn. It took us only one month to grasp all of the SAC concepts.

The new Application Design option offers lots of customization options by being able to script in TypeScript (similar to JavaScript).

It provides easy predictive capabilities with a large number of options to choose from, including date handling.

The what-if analysis sets it apart from other reporting tools like Qlik and Power BI!

The most valuable features of this solution are:

• It is Cloud based.
• Predictive analysis
• Application design/analytic application.
• The "what-if" analysis.
• Easy date handling including options for ytd, lytd, etc.
• There are lots of table features including adding comments.
• Responsive pages.
• Smart Insights.
• Smart discovery.

The next release could include features like:

1. A community that creates custom charts.
2. Table cell size formatting.
3. Formatting options for Data Labels.
4. Allowing comments within small teams.
5. There should be more features for the time series charts.
6. Rebuild models without affecting any chart.

SAC is already working on some of these!

My impression is that the stability of this solution is very high.

This is a highly scalable solution.

This solution has excellent support and customer service. It is the best compared to other vendors that I have dealt with until now.

I have used Qlik and Power BI, but after learning SAC I felt that it was better to move to this solution. The main reasons for changing are its ease of use and better capabilities.

Extremely easy setup, since it is cloud-based. Only in the rarest cases is there a failure.

We performed the implementation in-house.

We have realized ROI through improved Business Intelligence and Analytics.

It is a bit expensive, but really worth it, especially if you are already using other SAP tools.

We evaluated several options including QlikView, QlikSense, and Power BI.

My only suggestion is that people try SAC, and start using it.

I primarily use SAP Analytics Cloud for developing automated reports and for developing dashboards. The BW takes queries and provides the reports and dashboards.

I find the linking analysis, blending and predictive analysis features most valuable. Additionally, Smart Insights is a good feature.

It would be helpful if it had multiple PowerPoint marks built-in so that it could be shown in PowerPoint presentations. It would also be helpful if you could download this external content onto the Flash File.

I began using SAP Analytics Cloud a few months back.

Up until now I have not encountered any kind of stability issues.

Right now we have 30 to 40 users using it, with plans to increase.

There is no problem with SAP Analytics Cloud support. I do think there should be some training provided. We only have eBooks. I don't think we have any kind of e-learning. It would be good to have SAP training for Analytics Explorer, including some instructor-led training.

The initial setup is straightforward. 

Deploying SAP Analytics goes from development to production. It doesn't take much time and is very quick. Setup depends upon the requirements as well as the back-end work to be done.

It's usually around two hours or less. 

When deploying SAP Analytics Cloud, they should provide documentation on clear steps regarding the migration. 

We implemented it ourselves.

Regarding pricing, I don't know exactly how much it is. I am not aware of the price.

I would advise anyone looking into SAP Analytics Cloud to go for it.

One a scale of 1 - 10 I would rate it an 8. To raise that score they need more exporting options.

We are a consulting firm and we implement SAP Analytics Cloud for our clients.

This solution is for digital boardroom purposes.

Our clients do not have knowledge of business analytics, so we assist them by implementing this solution for them. Our customers are made up of medium-sized companies with fewer than one hundred employees.

The visualizations are quite eye-appealing.

The Smart Predict, Smart Insights, and Smart Discovery predictive analysis features are quite good.

Some of the standard visualizations, such as a speedometer or a goal chart, are not there and should be added. These are available in other solutions like R, but with SAP you need to have R code written for them. This can be time-consuming.

I have been using this solution for one and a half years.

This solution is stable.

This is a cloud solution so it is definitely scalable. On average, our clients have between 20 and 30 people who are using SAP Analytics Cloud.

I have also worked with SAP BusinessObjects and QlikView.

The initial setup can be a little bit complex when it comes to establishing the connection. We have seen some difficulties with that. There is a big list of things that you need to go through.

The same things can be done using Tableau.

The suitability of this solution depends on several things including use case, budget, and licensing costs. Tableau will do the same thing as this solution.

If cost is not a problem and you want to try something new then I would recommend SAP Analytics Cloud.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I am a consultant and SAP Analytics Cloud is one of the solutions that I work with.

We created our queries in SAP BW and then we use them in Analytics Cloud. We have modules like MFI and reports.

All of the modules that we used to have separately in our on-premises solution are now integrated into one platform.

The quality of reports for the users is very good.

The Application Designer is a good tool.

I would like to see reporting to the Analytics cloud directly. As it is now, we can integrate text reports in Analytics Cloud, but every time we create a model then we have to design the reports. It is taking a long time because we have fifty to sixty reports.

I have been using this solution for two to three months.

This solution is mostly stable.

We have two or three people using this solution, although they are not using it full time. We have given them training, but they are taking some time to get acquainted.

I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. I have not used all the features and not used the application designer yet.

I have not been in contact with technical support.

Prior to this solution, we were using Business Objects. We were more acquainted with the WEBI tool and Crystal Reports, and have now moved to the Analytics Cloud.

We switched because, in the future, SAP Cloud is going to support export to HANA.

The initial setup of this solution was quite simple.

I did face a little bit of complexity when I was connecting the Analytics Cloud to BW, but everything else was fine.

We performed the implementation in-house.

We thought about going with Tableau Cloud. We attended some sessions on SAP Analytics Cloud and learned about the integration with HANA, and we felt that it would be very good so we chose it.

My advice to anybody who is thinking about moving out of their standalone system is to implement this solution. 

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We are a solution provider and this is one of the solutions that we implement for our clients.

The filtering options are useful.

The user interface is quite good for developing reports out of models.

There is no direct connector from SAP to Redshift, so we are required to use a third-party product that was recommended by SAP. Going forward, we would like to use connectors that are developed by SAP directly and do not require us to pay any additional licensing fees. In general, this solution should support as many databases and data warehouses, including cloud-based deployments, as possible.

There are a couple of complex reports that we cannot generate using a live connection. With the full data option, however, it is possible.

Hierarchies are not supported as of now, so it would be great if there were support for two or three-level hierarchies. It is helpful when we can drill down further into the hierarchy.

I would like to see more enhancement in terms of AI and ML. Currently, they have R visualization support in the product using a direct plugin. We need to have support for Python scripting, as well.

I am a consultant and I have been working with SAP Analytics Cloud for six months.

The solution itself is stable as of now, but we have had some challenges with connectivity. We're not sure if it is related to SAP or AWS, and it is stable at the moment, but we have had challenges.

With respect to scalability, we have only uploaded about half a million records as a pilot for the customer. At this point, we are not pushing more because we don't have the data. We do have plans to build in that regard, but for now, we cannot fully judge scalability.

We are developing solutions for enterprise-level companies.

The technical support is fine, and we have not had a problem. The SAP expert team is there if you need to speak with them.

Most of the technical support we are getting is from the marketplace. We get very good information from the SAP support portal.

For analytics, I have been working with SAP for the past twenty years. I have used the on-premises solution of business intelligence.

The initial setup is straightforward. The first time we deployed this solution it took between three and five days. This was due to some complexity that we had, including connectors. After our first experience, it now takes a maximum of two days to deploy if we have the proper documentation and connectors.

We have also recently tried Tableau and they are also pretty good. I do not find much difference between them. It is, however, the choice of the customer.

Some people like the Tableau reporting, whereas others like the SAC reporting, and it is based on the data being reported. SAC is pretty new on the market so Tableau is more flexible in terms of legacy support. A good example is Redshift. Tableau has a direct connection and SAC does not.

We have also used QlikView in the past.

We are trying to get the reports out of AWS Redshift. We are consolidating all of our data in the Amazon Data Lake, and we have it in AWS S3. It is from there that we are pushing to Redshift, but we had a challenge because there is no native connector.

This is a solution that I recommend to anybody with SAP in their landscape. We used to prefer QlikView and Tableau, but as of now, I suggest trying SAP Analytics Cloud to see the results first. There is a lot of seamless integration and you can avoid a lot of licensing costs. It is also pretty good at connecting multiple SAP systems together. It is quite useful in terms of data connectivity, data transmission, and modeling. 

Our customers definitely prefer SAP Analytics Cloud on Amazon Redshirt, regardless of the third-party connector that we had to use.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I am a professional consultant and programmer and we are customers of SAP. 

This is a robust solution and I like that it's oriented to develop what we need in our ERP. I like the platform and the fact that it's the same ecosystem. 

There is something about SAP Analytics that is complicated and more technical, certainly in comparison to a solution like Power BI which is more intuitive and where it's easier to find data. Power BI has the added advantage that many people work with Excel. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

It's stable because it's all in the cloud. 

The solution is scalable but we haven't really tested it. Deployment requires a couple of people; one for design and the other working with what you need for analysis.

SAP calls me once every three to six months to ask how things are going. 

The initial setup is very easy because you can work with data models and if you know the database and you know how to model, both are intuitive. I haven't had many issues with deployment. 

In general Power BI seems to be more professional and user-friendly, it's certainly easier to find data. I prefer Power BI if I want to work quickly with clients because it's easier to use and I can send a link whereas SAP is more difficult to access and I can never be sure that the client can get access. The first steps are more or less the same with both products although SAP Analytics has perhaps more details to analyze what you see on the screen and Power BI has more of a classical interface.

Take your time and study the product because when you use SAP Analytics Cloud, you'll find it's very easy to make graphs and tables, to analyze and cross data. It's important to understand how it works but to also have a very clear idea of where you're going. There are online courses available as well as online help which is very useful. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

We use this solution for real-time dashboards, modeling data and for predictive analytics. It is used on a daily basis by 300 people in our business. 

The visualizations have been the most valuable feature.

The integration with other vendors and solutions could be improved. The visualizations and reporting capabilities could also be improved. In a future release, we would like to have access to built-in API capabilities. This would remove some of the manual work involved in reporting. 

I have been using this solution for three years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The customer service team are very responsive and knowledgeable. I would rate them a four out of five. 

Positive

An in-house team implemented this solution. 

 This solution offers value for money and you get what you pay for. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

We use this solution as part of an embedded analytics use case for an ERP application. SAP are starting to embed Analytics Cloud as a solution within their ERP application, which gives you the options for closed-loop analytics, as you go from insights to action within a single ERP application. It can also be used to bring together multiple data sources, different sources of data from various applications and use the application to blend and trade analytics solutions across different parts of the organization. The product suits small to large enterprise, it supports all user types. We are partners with SAP and I'm an analytics practice lead.  

A point of differentiation in the market for Analytics Cloud compared to other analytics products, is it offers not only business intelligence within the application, but also it has inbuilt AI and machine learning capabilities that can be used not only by data scientist types in the organization, but for general users who can get the benefit of inbuilt predictive features in the tool. The other really compelling part of it is that it's also a planning application. You can do full life cycle from plan through execution in a single platform. That's quite unique for SAP. A lot of the other software vendors do analytics products and they do planning products. This is quite a unique combination that has both BI predictive and planning in a single application. And that's really where its strengths is.

I think what could be improved is a lot of those intelligent features that I mentioned, the AI and predictive functions within the tool work really well with data that you import into the platform, but it doesn't work as well with SAP live connections. If they could make those predictive features available to any source, whether it's SAP or non SAP, it would be a really, really compelling product. 

I'd like to see formatted reporting as an additional feature, such as pixel perfect style formatted reporting. I'd also like to see the product on parity when you compare acquired data and live data models, to know that the features are identical. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

I believe the stability needs more work. The product was first released about five years ago and it's still maturing, which means a lot of new functionality is released with each update. Sometimes that can be a little bit disruptive as features change. 

The scalability is pretty good, you've got options of either having it publicly hosted, or you can also have a private hosting option in a restricted area in the cloud data center. You can also add capacity to it quite easily. It's elasticity as an application for scale-out is pretty good. And underneath the covers, it runs SAP HANA, which is an in-memory database. So that makes a pretty performance. I'm happy with it. 

The technical support could be improved. 

I would say that Analytics Cloud is definitely improving although it's not yet fully comparable. There are some features in BusinessObjects that are not yet in Analytics Cloud, but I would say, from my perspective, that the overall the benefits and advantages of using SAC outweigh BusinessObjects. 

Initial setup is somewhere in the middle of straightforward and complex, it just depends on the source of information. It's not overly simple and it's not overly complex. We have the solution up and running with customers in three weeks for a trial, and that's sending up the application, connecting it to their source systems and demonstrating one really good example of a dashboard or report. We carry out the deployment internally. There's very little maintenance required because it's software as a service, a SaaS offering, a lot of that housekeeping and maintenance and upgrade of the solution is managed by SAP, by the software vendors. Again, that's one of its strong selling points, it requires very little administration overhead.

I believe that SAC is cheaper than BusinessObjects for a basic user license. It's difficult to compare because one is an on-premise pricing model and the other is subscription based. You're not really comparing apples with apples. For some of the more advanced functionalities, though, it can be more expensive. Analytics Cloud is subscription-based. There are different tiers of licensing that give you different access to different functionalities, but assuming you have all of that, there is no additional hosting or set up costs, its fully included in the price per user. 

It's really important to think about data governance in the solution because it's very much a self-service application. It can be quite open for users to create their own versions of data, so it's really important that you think about customers, think about a data governance model to make sure that there's clear ownership of data, and there's a clear single source of truth for enterprise data in the model. It's easy to create a situation where it's open, but you still very much need to consider having a data governance strategy that underpins your Analytics Cloud implementation.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.