SAP Analytics Cloud & integrated financial planning (xFP&A)

Planning is a collaborative task. Therefore, SAP Analytics Cloud offers numerous options and utilities to make the entire planning process run smoothly

Support for hybrid scenarios

• While SAP Analytics Cloud supports all planning activities and data, SAP's cloud-first strategy offers customers the option to use their existing on-premise planning system with the SAP Analytics Cloud user interface
• Customers with existing SAP BW, SAP S/4HANA and SAP BPC systems can take a hybrid approach to planning activities by keeping planning data on-premise but using the SAP Analytics Cloud user interface for their planning activities as end users

Extensive planning functionality

The SAP Analytics Cloud has numerous planning functions that enable you to plan more easily and quickly. These include:

• Efficient, simple data entry
  • Aggregation/disaggregation in hierarchies
  • Relative/absolute values
  • Highlighting of changed data
• Version management
  • Private, public and shared versions
• Currency conversion
• Locking of data
• Calendar
• Data actions
• Validation rules
• Validation driver trees

• With the help of analytical applications, companies can personalise their stories to create story concepts that are individually tailored to the company and its goals
• Stories can be optimised in terms of business needs
• In analytic applications, developers can use story widgets. The special feature is that these widgets can be further processed to ensure flexible development
• The basis of an analytic application is at least an underlying SAP Analytics Cloud model or direct data access to an OData service
• The analytic application has both standard and technical widgets. These technical widgets can be configured by the IT department
• The following technical widgets are available:
  • Script variables
  • Script objects
  • Data actions
  • Timer
  • Search for information (these widgets have no visualisation, but are only used for scripting scenarios)

• With the help of Data Analyzer, companies can carry out ad-hoc analyses to quickly evaluate data and thus draw more accurate conclusions
• Thanks to its high compatibility with different file sources, Data Analyzer can be used to carry out meaningful ad hoc analyses
• The filter function allows large amounts of data to be sorted out in order to better analyse the data needed at the moment
• Share ad hoc analyses with individuals and groups, as well as with all other SAC users using the sharing function

• The Digital Boardroom enables presentations directly via the SAC. A time-consuming transfer to other presentation formats such as MS PowerPoint is not necessary
• Presentation is based on real-time data. This enables companies to react better to the current situation
• The direct access to real-time data and functions that SAC brings with it can be used much more flexibly in presentations
• Possible queries can be answered more precisely and directly on the system

Data-driven predictive forecasting with different algorithms

• Automatic: Finds the optimal algorithm for the data automatically, based on machine learning with historical data
• Linear regression
• 3-fold exponential smoothing

Smart Discovery

• Smart discovery on a dataset uses artificial intelligence to analyse that data and automatically generate a story consisting of an overview, key influencers, unexpected values and simulation pages
• By examining your KPIs you can:
  • Uncover the most important influencing factors through classification and regression techniques.
  • Interact with insights and explore hidden structures and relationships
  • Find answers to business questions through intuitive diagrams and natural language

You can simulate possible outcomes based on your business scenarios. For example, you can simulate the value of a new sales opportunity in your industry.

Smart Insights

• Enables you to quickly develop a clear understanding of the complex aspects of your business data
• Select a specific data point and choose Smart Insights. The result is the most important business value drivers

Smart Predict

• Helps answer business questions that require forecasts or projections to plan future business development
• Automatically learns from historical data and finds the best relationships or behavioural patterns to easily make predictions for future events, values and trends
• Also provides you with easy-to-understand key performance indicators (KPIs) and visualisations to help you evaluate the accuracy of the predictions
• You can then use these predictions and forecasts with confidence to enhance your planning model and stories
• You can create one or more predictive models within a Smart Predict. Each predictive model produces intuitive visualisations of the results, making them easier to interpret
• After comparing key quality indicators for different models, select the one that provides the best answers to your business question so you can apply that predictive model to new data sources for predictions

Another function of the SAC that is a great help to the user is the comment function.

• Story page widgets but also tables can be commented. These comments are saved and are visible to other users.
• With the possibility of up to 1,000 characters per comment, comments can be formulated very precisely
• In addition to comments, users can also start a conversation to ensure more flexible collaboration

To facilitate collaboration with others, SAC allows you to share content with other users or a group. You can set permissions for users of your content. This allows you to authorise certain people or colleagues to view or make changes to content.

• The calendar integrated in SAC serves as a support for planning processes
• The calendar serves as an organisational tool that allows users to create tasks and delegate them to people
• These tasks can be scheduled using the calendar function to maintain an overview of the progress of the planning process
• Tasks can be created to monitor the progress of the project
• These tasks can be created and assigned for oneself as well as for co-workers
• By keeping track of the planning process, tasks can be scheduled so that they are locked after the deadline. The aim is to spread data at the right time
• The calendar function enables the automation of planning processes
• Data actions can be started automatically by setting a time
• In addition, it is possible to decide individually how parameter values are set and how tasks are made visible to other people
• To avoid errors, you can specify in the calendar the persons who will check the edited content and accept or reject the result
• The comment function is integrated into the calendar and thus helps to communicate tasks better with each other