Technological advancements are the driver of the modern-day economy as almost every business today is dependent on technology either directly or indirectly. Over the past few years, we have witnessed businesses of different scales leveraging advanced SAP solutions such as the SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP S/4 HANA, and more.

The most appealing aspect of these solutions is that they are updated with better features and advanced functionalities every three months. Similarly, the latest significant development of a similar sort can be seen in the Q3 2021 release of SAP Analytics Cloud. Therefore, without wasting further time, let us dive deep and check out all the latest offerings of SAP Analytics Cloud.

But first, What is SAP Analytics Cloud?

SAP Analytics Cloud or SAC is this unique platform that helps businesses by providing them with valuable insights by leveraging the content and data relevant to the business and the market as a whole. In addition, the platform is engineered to help businesses facilitate managed distribution of value-driven information along with self-service functionalities.

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In addition, SAP Analytics Cloud is equipped with the capabilities to integrate with business intelligence (BI), corporate planning, and even predictive analytics. This enables businesses to leverage the features and functionalities of many different solutions into a single unified solution. On top of that, enterprises already using other SAP solutions can seamlessly integrate all solutions with the SAP Analytics Cloud to facilitate enhanced context analysis.

Recent Enhancements in SAP Analytics Cloud

General Enhancements

There are many different general enhancements incorporated in the SAP Analytics Cloud solution in the Q3 of 2021. For starters, SAP Analytics Cloud now features a new menu design along with some enhancements in the user interface. Therefore, the latest advancements in the user interface have made things far more intuitive and more apparent than they were before. This makes it very easy to navigate the platform without wasting valuable time dealing with pointless complexities.

Nevertheless, these enhancements have much more to offer than just a clear start page. We say so because these enhancements have come with a shell bar that features information about the available jump options and the current position within the solution. Additionally, many different SAP Cloud solutions can now be seamlessly integrated with SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC).

Planning in SAP Analytics Cloud

Besides the general enhancements mentioned above, one of the most significant enhancements can be seen in the planning section of SAP Analytics Cloud. In addition, there are numerous nominal enhancements in the planning section that are accompanied by the delivery of business content.

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The operation workforce planning now supports standard workforce planning, including position level planning, contingent workforce planning, headcount, full-time equivalent planning, and even personal cost planning. Furthermore, the content featured on SAP Analytics Cloud is thoroughly optimized for other SAP solutions such as SAP SuccessFactors and even SAP S/4 HANA. In addition, it also supports other analytics and planning packages.

Optimized Story Viewer of SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP Analytics Cloud now enables its users to leverage optimized view modes for Business Warehouse, HANA Cloud, Acquired Analytics, and SAP HANA data models in real-time for every story. This functionality enhances the interactions of widgets, filters usability, dashboard performances in different situations. This further enables the information workers to experience enhanced usability and performance while interacting and viewing stories by leveraging the optimized story viewer.

Furthermore, the latest active viewport rendering is now the novel default rendering behavior available in the optimized viewport. This means that from here on, just the items visible on the screen will be interpreted, and the other items not visible on the screen will remain paused until one scrolls the control panel and modifies the active viewport. In addition, other usability and performance enhancements include the tooltip experience, phantom loading indicator, and the ability of the user to either redo or undo earlier actions while interacting with the story.

Predictions in SAP Analytics Cloud

As per numerous SAP Analytics Cloud users, the prediction features that function as a black box result in a lack of trust in predictions. However, SAP is putting in efforts to deal with such complications by providing end-users with many different features and functionalities at once.

The Smart Prediction functionality now provides users with enhanced explanations supporting the predictions in other columns of the result table. Furthermore, all of these explanations can be leveraged by the users in the stories to make all the predictions far more comprehensible, enabling one to make better and informed business decisions to drive growth throughout the business.

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The other addition in the predictions section is called the Influencers Variables, which users can select to boost the accuracy of the predictions. This also includes carrying out data comparisons with the influencers and determining the dependencies while creating the overall forecasts. Nonetheless, users must note that this also means that the values determined for the influencer variables must be made available for the future number series. All in all, this is a much-needed enhancement and functionality that will make the prediction functionalities offered by the SAP Analytics Cloud far more enhanced and effective.

Multi Actions in SAP Analytics Cloud

The other notable enhancement seen in SAP Analytics Cloud is the multi-action functionality that brings together and manages different multi-step operations related to planning. This enables users to develop complex workflows across various components without any hassle.

This means that users will now run a series of data manipulation and version management on more than one version or model. Therefore, every SAP Analytics Cloud user can now seamlessly create all workflows in SAC itself, making it far more convenient for everyone.

Bottom Line

Now that we have the overview of the Q3 update of SAP Analytics Cloud, we must admit that the latest enhancements in the prediction and planning section solution stole the limelight. Therefore, everyone using the SAP Analytics Cloud platform can now carry out their operations with far more accuracy and efficiency.