Leverage S/4HANA Embedded Analytics for

real-time data insight

Anurag Barua, SAP America
Nov 1, 2022
Speaker introduction

• 24 years of SAP experience in a career of 29 years in a variety of roles including

SAP product development, delivery/advisory/consulting, pre-sales, & sales;
currently work for the SAP S/4HANA Center of Excellence, North America

• Served nearly 50 clients globally & across multiple industry verticals including
Public Sector, Utilities, Media, Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, Oil & Gas, & Hi-
tech among others

• Areas of expertise include SAP Financials, Logistics/Supply Chain, Reporting &

Analytics, Data Management & Governance, Cloud technologies, User
Experience, & Project/Program Management

• Prolific thought leader: Published over 100 articles & white papers for SAP
publications; written 5 SAP books; spoken at nearly 50 SAP conferences globally

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Agenda

1 Background

2
S/4HANA Embedded Analytics – what it means for
the business user

3 Embedded analytics in action

4 Technology foundation of Embedded Analytics

5 Wrap-up

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Conventional view
In the past, transactions and analytics were handled separately.
But in reality, business processes are often a sequence of…
transaction analysis transaction

Enter Purchasing
Check Supplier KPIs Assign Supplier
Request

Review amount of Remove billing

blocked orders blocks etc.

Check effect on P&L

Post G/L Booking
statement
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Questions to ask when considering an ERP application

Data Integration: Process Efficiency:

Why should it be necessary to transfer data Why should the business process be
to another place just to run an analytical interrupted at points where machine
query on it? learning based decision support can ensure
a seamless continuation?
Data Latency:
Why should users accept to look at
outdated data and thus not focus on the
problems of today, but of yesterday? Flexibility:
Why should users have to wait for another
report to be shipped by the software vendor
User Experience: when creating it, tailormade to the own
Why should there be a difference in the look organizations needs, is significantly faster?
and feel of a table that shows transactional
data versus a grid that displays the result
set of an analytical query?

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Agenda

1 Background

2
S/4HANA Embedded Analytics – what it means for
the business user

3 Embedded analytics in action

4 Technology foundation of Embedded Analytics

5 Wrap-up

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S/4HANA Embedded Analytics - Overview

SAP S/4HANA embedded analytics =

Analytics embedded in SAP ERP (embedding analytical
“Where is my business data I views inside SAP Fiori applications)*
need for insight-to action,
fact-based process handling, + SAP HANA
and real-time operational + Content (Data Models and End User Applications)
reporting - and how is it + Design Applications
structured?”

* Using ABAP CDS view models, not embedded BW, or ABAP Reports

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S/4HANA Embedded Analytics – in a nutshell

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Transformational nature of Embedded Analytics

From To
Answering yesterday’s questions with Answer today’s and tomorrow’s questions with
yesterday’s data embedded real-time and predictive analytics

Bringing the user to the reports Bringing the reports to the user (-roles)

Information-seeking Information-first / progressive disclosure

Business Processes, fragmented over systems

Insight-to-action in one system
of records and systems of engagement

Exception Provisioning Exception Avoidance

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What are the implications of ‘embedded’?
Embedded on database level:
• No separate “analytical” storage of data
• Access only to real-time live data (the analytical data is transactional data) SAP HANA
• Necessary transformations are performed by the virtual data model (VDM)

Embedded on UI level:
• Using the same UI technology (and sometimes even the same UI screen) to
render transactional data and analytical information SAP Fiori

Embedded into business processes:

• Role-based access to analytical artifacts,
• Using intent-based navigation and thus
• Implementing an insight-to-action working style

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Embedded Analytics Overview for Business User

Smart Business KPIs Overview Pages Analytical List Pages

Get a consolidated view on a certain Generic approach to visualize and analyze

Smart Business KPIs deliver KPI
data. Switch display from table to chart or a
monitoring on the Fiori Launchpad and domain, e.g. Purchasing. Information
combined table-chart-display. Take action
drill-down capabilities into further presented in analytical tables and charts,
directly in the same app or navigate to other
analytical or transactional Fiori apps, save take action in the same place or navigate apps for more details and actions, save
personal variants. to more details, save personal variants. personal variants.

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Business User – Analysis with Multi-dimensional reports

Multi- SAP Smart Analytical

Analytical Overview Query
dimensional Business SAP Fiori
List Page Pages Browser
reports KPIs / APF Apps

■ Slice and dice, sort, filter

■ Drill down, drill across
■ Swap rows and columns
■ Display chart and table
■ Personalized views
■ Navigate to other Fiori Apps

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Smart Business KPIs

Multi- SAP Smart Analytical

Analytical Overview Query
dimensional Business SAP Fiori
List Page Pages Browser
reports KPIs / APF Apps

■ KPI-tiles on the Fiori Launchpad providing

quantitative information
■ KPI-Details with various drill-downs by selected
dimensions.
■ Personalization and “Save as tile” of the KPI-
Details
■ Instead of KPI-Details (default), navigation from the
KPI-tile to an Analysis Framework Path or to any
other Fiori App can be configured
■ Modification-free adaptation of pre-defined KPIs

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Analytical List Pages

Multi- SAP Smart Analytical

Analytical Overview Query
dimensional Business SAP Fiori
List Page Pages Browser
reports KPIs / APF Apps

■ Visual filters to focus on the most important areas

■ User switch between complex, visual, facet filter
■ Chart area for quick overview and drill down, charts
personalizable
■ Details area for operational details
■ Navigation to other Fiori apps that are semantically
linked to the data
■ Personalized views
■ Ideal for insight-to-action scenarios

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Overview Pages

Multi- SAP Smart Analytical

Analytical Overview Query
dimensional Business SAP Fiori
List Page Pages Browser
reports KPIs / APF Apps

■ Most important information at a glance (instead of

opening many different transactions)
■ Combination of analytical and transactional
information (different type of “Cards”)
■ More detailed information can be found with one
click
■ Entire page can be fully personalized
■ Navigation to other Fiori apps that are semantically
linked to the data

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Analytical Fiori apps

Multi- SAP Smart Analytical

Analytical Overview Query
dimensional Business SAP Fiori
List Page Pages Browser
reports KPIs / APF Apps

■ Implemented for highly specific use cases

■ Using Fiori floorplans and UI5 controls
■ Details of the functionality depending on the use
case

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Query Browser

Multi- SAP Smart Analytical

Analytical Overview Query
dimensional Business SAP Fiori
List Page Pages Browser
reports KPIs / APF Apps

■ Lists the analytical queries assigned to the roles of

the current user
■ Tag queries, flag as favorite
■ In-App Search
■ Queries are launched in the multidimensional
reporting client

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Agenda

1 Background

2
S/4HANA Embedded Analytics – what it means for
the business user

3 Embedded analytics in action

4 Technology foundation of Embedded Analytics

5 Wrap-up

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Demo - 1

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Demo - 2

SAC DEMO

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Demo - 3

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Demo - 4

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Agenda

1 Background

2
S/4HANA Embedded Analytics – what it means for
the business user

3 Embedded analytics in action

4 Technology foundation of Embedded Analytics

5 Wrap-up

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High Level Architecture
SAP S/4HANA (scope of standard delivery)

SAP Analytics products

can access SAP S/4HANA data directly via the available transient
analytical queries
SAP Fiori UI For SAP S/4HANA Cloud:
Visualization analytical apps, reports, KPIs,… delivered as part of SAP
S/4HANA, extensible by the customer
SAP Analytics Cloud
For SAP S/4HANA on prem:
SAP Lumira, Analysis Office, Design Studio,…

Transient analytical
Access Odata services
queries

View-Models
Modelling (for analytical and transactional purposes)

Persistency Database tables on SAP HANA

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The Virtual Data Model (VDM) as the foundation for Embedded
Analytics

Customers and Partners can develop on

released VDM views

VDM is the data model and source for all

R R R
types of applications
Transactional
Virtual Data Model (CDS)
Analytical
External interfaces
SalesOrder Customer
VDM is a set of views on SAP S/4HANA
application data
SalesOrderItem Material
Business-oriented
Understandable & semantically rich
Reusable & stable
SAP S/4HANA Core Tables (ECC)
>40 000 Tables (technical, cryptic, unrelated) Executed on SAP HANA
Implemented as ABAP CDS views (core data
HANA Platform services)
© 2019
© 2021 SAP
SAP SE
SE or
or an
an SAP
SAP affiliate
affiliate company.
company. All
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rightsreserved. PUBLIC 19
25
Extension & adaptation via CDS views

For Scenario 1:
View Browser

Custom CDS View

Custom Analytical Queries

Multi-dimensional Report

Catalog Extension for

report tile

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Agenda

1 Background

2
S/4HANA Embedded Analytics – what it means for
the business user

3 Embedded analytics in action

4 Technology foundation of Embedded Analytics

5 Wrap-up

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Key Takeaways
• In the traditional world of reporting & analytics, these were two separate activities &
often times occurring in separate systems

• S/4HANA Embedded Analytics brings the two worlds together by providing users a
convenient means to run their operational analytics in real-time in their source
S/4HANA system

• Embedded Analytics is designed to be run as Fiori apps & therefore is easy &
convenient for the business user to run both planned and ad-hoc analytics

• Embedded Analytics has a strong technological foundation and the Virtual Data
Model provides users with indirect access to S/4HANA tables

• Although SAP provides considerable content out-of-the-box, you can easily extend
underlying ‘CDS views’ to meet your custom reporting/analytics needs
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Thank you.
Contact information:
Anurag Barua
Anurag.Barua@sap.com
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www.sap.com/contactsap

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