SAC QRC Q2 2023 Release: Stories with Application features!

SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is SAP’s cloud-based Business Intelligence platform that provides a range of analytics and reporting tools. It is a fast-evolving product, which gets updated frequently. In this blog, Kris van Brouwershaven takes you through the main takeaways from the latest release for SAP Analytics Cloud: QRC Q2 2023 Release. 

Kris has been working with McCoy & Partners since October 2020 and is specialized in SAP Analytics Cloud.

Important: Upcoming change

We’ll start with a topic that’s not even in this update. Starting with the next release (Q3 2023), SAP Analytics Cloud will begin enforcing usage limits. Once you reach the maximum limit of named licenses, all activities/workflows that involve the assignment of these licensed users will not be possible. 

The affected workflows could include:

• User creation/update via SCIM, including role and team assignments.

• Dynamic user creation during login when the default role is at full capacity.

• Users assigned roles through SAML attribute mapping.

• Updating user roles (addition and removal).

• Activating a user whose previous role exceeds license limits.

• Updating roles.

• Adding users and teams to roles.

• Updating teams.

• Deleting teams and roles (users will receive the default BI license).

• Approving roles for users.

The new Story Builder

This is only available when using the Optimized Story Experience. It’s an evolution of the well-known Story and provides usability- and performance improvements. As seen in this blog by Anna Burkhardt, this new experience enriches the regular Story with the scripting capabilities of the Applications. 

This blog by Anna tells you all about the new functionalities, which in short are:

• Enrich the regular Story with scripting-capabilities.

• Improve performance of dashboards by reducing load times.

• Improvements in usability, like:

• Ghost Loading and indicators

• Improved Tooltip-placement

• Customization of Toolbar in View-time
  This enables the dashboard-builder to ensure that the most-wanted features are prominently shown in the toolbar.

• Easier navigation through hierarchies and filters using the new Filter-Panel.

The traditional view for a filter is on top of a page. With this feature, it is possible to show the filters in a left-panel.

View upgrades

One of the main changes when building a dashboard, is the upgrade of the Toolbars. It enables easier show/hide-functionality for (L-R):

• The Assets/Outline-panel.

• Builder & Designer-panel.

• Filterpanel

• Advanced Mode
  This mode enables the full usage of the JavaScript-subset. To use this, your user must have the role Application Creator
  See this SAP NOTE for more information.

Introduction of Themes

By creating a theme, you can now design all widgets at once. They can be found in the Theme Preferences of the dashboard.  Utilizing these themes enables you to bring the design of your dashboard to the next level. You can easily manage:

• Story Settings
  General, Canvas, Responsive Pages & Popups

• Widget Settings
  For each widget: from buttons to Input Controls to Value Driver Trees.

Does this interest you?

Are you interested in learning more about SAP Analytics Cloud or looking for a team to help you put this and other features in SAP Analytics Cloud to use? Please reach out to Roel van Bommel or Joury Jonkergouw for more information!

Want to learn more? 

If you want to learn even more about the latest Data Analyzer-update, read this blog written by our expert Sander Huisman.
If you want to learn more about the latest SAC-update, click here.
If you want to learn the main differences between SAP Analytics Cloud and Power BI, click here.
If you want to learn how to use Power BI on SAP, check out this McCoy TV Episode.
If you want to learn how to use the Data Analyzer, check out this McCoy TV Episode.