SAPInsider BI 2017 congress – Takeaway 3: What is new in SAP BPC 11.0 for BW/4HANA?

At the SAPInsider BI 2017 congress in Amsterdam, SAP officially launched the new version of Business Planning and Consolidation: BPC 11.0 for BW/4HANA. In this last and final takeaway blog, I will explain briefly what is new in this tool.

BW4/HANA is already available for almost 1 year now. Still missing in this next generation data warehouse,  was a  planning and consolidation solution. With the launch of BPC 11.0 for BW/4HANA this is no longer the case. BPC 11.0 is an add-on for BW/4HANA and can be used as a standalone deployment unlike BPV 10.1 for NW, which is an embedded in S/4HANA. Some important remarks of this new release: 

• BPC for BW/4HANA  can be deployed on premise or fully in the cloud

• BPC for BW/4HANA  is a brand new release. It is not a successor of BPC for Netweaver/Microsoft

• Integrated planning is no longer supported, however, BPC 11.0 is based on BW-PAK which is, in fact, the HANA Accelerated version of BW-IP. So the use of FOX formula’s is even enhanced.

• BPC for BW/4HANA  support both the standard and the embedded model. The standard model requires the SAP HANA database.

What is new in BPC for BW/4HANA  v11.0?

• First of all the look and feel has been completely changed, a new HTML  5 web interface with a new menu and navigation options helps the user to jump find their way quickly. Also new is the BPC home page with tiles for charts and a Favorite area for quick access to personal activities. Activities can be ordered by time. 

• BPC for BW/4HANA  has a deep integration with SAP Analytics cloud which allows customers to use SAP Analytics Cloud as an alternative front-end tool for BPC, to do both planning and analysis and eventually write the data back into BW/4HANA. The Predictive features like machine learning and time series algorithms from Analytics Cloud can be used as well.

• Analysis for office can be used to simplify ad-hoc reporting

• A new web worksheet concept can be used to simplify web reporting and planning, you can have multiple grips and charts in one workbook.

• Easier to load external data into BPC via flat files, SDA, SDI.          

• More and more code push down into SAP HANA improves the performance (e.g. query formula and FOX formula.

• The old BW-BPS solutions are no longer supported and have to be manually migrated into the embedded model.

What about BPC for S/4HANA?

S/4HANA has BW 7.5x embedded as analytics engine which includes also BPC 10.1 for NW; how do this related to this new BPC for BW/4HANA?

BPC for BW/4HANA is ideal for customers looking for a standalone deployment of BPC, leveraging BW4HANA, that can integrate with S/4HANA and other systems/data. BPC NW embedded within S/4HANA is for S/4HANA customers seeking real-time planning and consolidations on their S/4HANA data

SAP Tech-ed or SAP Insider?

This was my last and final blog about SAP BI 2017 in Amsterdam, hosted by SAP Insider. The conference is hosted by SAP Insider each year in US, Europe and Azia, just like the yearly SAP Tech-ed event hosted by SAP. So which congress provides you with the best value for money? It depends on what you are looking for. If you are a (technical) consultant looking for the latest news, product releases and hands-on session, SAP Tech-ed is definitely the place to be. However, if you are a customer or consultant looking for a mix of technical, functional and customer stories, SAPInsider could be a good alternative. The mix of people with different interest makes the networking opportunities also more interesting. The number of sessions to choose from in Amsterdam were somewhat limited compared to the same event in the US. So if you choose the SAP Insider event, I would recommend visiting the event in the US because it is much bigger compared to the one in Europe and therefore gives you more value for money.