SAP Analytics Cloud is a powerful solution that combines Business intelligence (BI), augmented and predictive analytics, and planning capabilities into one cloud environment. It’s packed with powerful features that allow users to create dynamic visual stories based on key business areas and to analyze data in a more efficient way, allowing for faster decisions and more accurate forecasting. But given the sheer complexity and agility of SAC, it’s very easy to overlook useful features. In this part of our “Features in SAP Analytics Cloud You May Have Missed” blog series, we will discuss several features that are commonly missed and how users can find and utilize them.
Helpful, Commonly Overlooked Features in SAP Analytics Cloud
Custom Sort
If you work with data, you know how frustrating it can be to analyze it when it isn’t sorted in the order you prefer or need. In many cases, the data that lands in your hands is either sorted from highest to lowest, A-Z or the default order selected by the modeler. When working with large quantities of data, sorting it in ways that create ease of use and efficiency, is critical. For example, imagine that you have created a custom calculated dimension to reflect months instead of years. By default, if your dataset was to be sorted from A – Z, or vice versa, you would see the months in the following order: August, December, February, etc. Since this isn’t how you want the data in your chart output to be displayed, you can quickly create a custom sort within SAP Analytics Cloud. Let’s walk through this process.
Within SAP Analytics Cloud, navigate to the Charts quick action menu. Alternatively, you may right-click within the dimension header of the table. Next, click on the sort option and create a custom sort. Here, you have two options: either create a custom sort based on the context of your visualization or create a custom sort based on all the dimension members.
You could select multiple members at once to reorder them or send members to the top or the bottom of the list. Once you finish creating the custom sort, you must save it in order to make it available to all widgets that consume that dimension. Should you need to add additional dimension members in the future, you can edit your custom sort at any time.
In-Cell Charts
Imagine that you’ve created multiple tables within SAP Analytics Cloud. You may have even created a table to help displace a numeric value that helps reflect your variance. However, it can be hard to visualize the variance especially when you have a table of myriad numbers.
SAC gives the content creator the option to display numeric data as a small bar chart for each cell of a measure in a table column or row.
To do so, right-click on the measure and select in-cell chart. Once the in-cell chart appears, by default it will be displayed as a simple bar/column chart. To change this view, open the builder panel. Here, you will be given the option to display the information as a variance chart, automatically applying the red and green formatting to your bars.
Outliers in Geographical Visualizations
There are times where you create a geographical visualization where a specific country has a significantly higher value in comparison to other countries. As a result, it can skew your visualization to make other data points look very similar in size. SAP Analytics Cloud allows you to define a range when it comes to your bubble size.
By defining a range, you can exclude values that are significantly higher or lower from the sizing of the bubbles. It allows you to better analyze data points that may be similar in size as now the sizing no longer includes values that are within the ranger. Furthermore, the geographical visualization will update to provide you a visual cue to indicate which bubbles are part of the sizing and which ones are outliers.
Want to learn about other helpful features that you may have missed in your SAP Analytics Cloud solution? Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this blog series. To learn more about all of the powerful capabilities of SAP Analytics Cloud, review all of our training options, and visit Analysis Prime University to register for hands-on, expert-instructor-led training in SAP Analytics Cloud.
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