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if you're familiar with SAP BW, you might
be wondering how you can work with your
live BW data in SAP Analytics Cloud
stories. In the second part of this video
series, SAP Analytics Cloud Global
Product Evangelist Ingo Hilgefort
guides you through the story interface
to show you how to work with BW elements
like variables, attributes, and hierarchies. So
this time we will use the model that we
created in our first video, and then take
a look where we're going to find all the
elements from our BW query as part of
creating your story in SAP Analytics
Cloud. So let's start by creating a new
story
and we're going to use actually a chart
and a table. We're going to use a canvas
page to start with. So let's start by
using the chart.
We're going to use the model that we
created on top of our BW query, and as
expected, we first of all get the list of
variables, and we need to provide values
because the data needs to be retrieved
with the variables as an input. We can
recognize a few things, so first of all
we can see that we can click set, which
means all the variables are actually
optional, none of them is a mandatory
input. We can see the text that we
defined in the queries, we can see some
of them are single value, some of them
are ranges, and we can also see that we
can have variable variants, so in case
you have defined variable variants in
your BW system, for example using
Analysis Office or using the BEX
Analyzer, you can then actually use these
variants in Analytics Cloud as well. For
our scenario, for now we simply click set
and we're going to receive all the data.
So we have the empty chart, where we're
going choose as the first measure our
net value,
and we're going to choose a dimension. So
remember we grouped our dimensions, so
here's all the groupings, so in our case
we can see the Customer dimensions, we
can see the Product dimensions and we
can see Time, so let's start by actually
choosing one of the Product dimensions,
so we're going to choose product group, and
here is now basically our net value,
broken down by product group.
So we know now where we can find the
measures, we did see our dimensions, but
we can also see now in the chart
actually a few items. It shows in US
dollars and euros, so we're looking
actually at a chart with mixed
currencies. The currency information was
retrieved directly from BW, so it will
show you that some of the items that we
see are euros, some of them are US
dollars. We also see the curly
brackets, which actually indicates that
the data source does have variables
from BW, and if we click on it we are
actually being brought back to the
prompting dialog, and we could change the
variable values here.
So currently our chart shows the net
value broken down by Product group, and we see
the text from the Product group, so what
if we would like to see the IDs? And what
about short, medium, or long description
text? So we can go on the right-hand side
where we take a look at the product group,
we can say display IDs and we do have the
option to choose ID, description, or both.
You will notice that actually in
Analytics Cloud you're not being offered
to choose a short, medium, or long
description, which is what you can do in
the BW query. So Analytics Cloud will
simply leverage what you configured in
the BW query, so if you choose in the BW
query that you would like to see the
long description, Analytics Cloud
will show the long description. So in
this case, now let's take a look at the
variables. So we already noticed that we
do have the ability to set the variable
values per model,
so as an example we can open up the
list of countries, we can even search for
a specific value.
In this case let's choose United States.
We click set, and now we see the net
value broken down by Product group, and
it is being filtered down to the US. We
also have the ability to choose the
variable values specifically for one
chart or for a table. As you can see,
right now we can always choose to either
use the values that we configured for
the complete story or we could have the
ability to actually choose different
values for this one particular chart.
We also have a third option. In
Analytics Cloud, we do have the notion of
what we call story filters, so in this
case, I enabled the story filter toolbar
and I can actually add a story filter to
this story so that the user, when viewing
the story, has the ability to choose
different kind of filter values. And here
you can see I'm being offered now to
choose one of the dimensions from the
models, or I have the ability to actually
take one of the variables and offer the
variable as a story filter. So in that
way, the user doesn't have to choose
between like a variable or a story
filter in terms of what he would like to
interact with, but you can now offer the
variable in the same way as a story
filter. So in my case I take that
variable for the country,
and if we for example now view our
story, you can see it behaves in the same
way as a story filter. I'm being offered
the list of options, I can remove for
example US, open up the list and let's
choose Australia as a country, and my
filter is being updated. So let's go
back to our story design, but let's take
a look at two things. First of all, when
you remember in the query, we also had
display attributes for our customer, so
we want to take a look where we
actually can find these display
attributes. So I'm going into the design
mode, and in this case let's add a table
next to our chart. And you will also
notice that the table comes up with how
we configured the query, so it shows the
elements from the rows and the elements
from the columns how we actually
configured it already in our
underlying BW query,
So in our case, we wanted to use dimension Sold
to Party, so I'm going to remove
dimension Country
and I'm gonna bring in our Sold to Party.
So here we have now all the attributes,
because we did actually add the
attributes already in the BW query, but what
if we hadn't added them? So how can we
actually choose which of the attributes
is going to be shown? It's very simple, if
you go to the Sold to Party, you open
them up, here you find an item called
Properties, so what you know from BW as
display attributes it's being referred
to as a property in Analytics Cloud, so
here's my list of properties and I can
choose now which of those I would like to
actually display as the table.
The rule is the same, so the display
attributes, in this case the properties,
can only be shown together with the
dimension. So if you're showing Sold To
Party in the table, you can show the
properties, but you can't show the
properties without showing Sold to Party.
So now last but not least, where are we
going to find our hierarchies from BW? So
we have multiple dimensions, our product
has hierarchies, we have a dimension
sales organization with hierarchies, so
how can we actually choose between them?
So let's go back to our table, and in
this case I'm removing the dimension Sold
to Party and I'm going to bring in
dimension Product.
So in the same way where we found the
properties, we can also find the
hierarchies. So you open up the element
hierarchy, you always have one by default,
which is the flat representation, but you
can also choose now any of the
hierarchies that you have in BW,
regardless if you enabled the hierarchy
as part of the BW query or not, you can
basically choose the hierarchy in
Analytics Cloud, so I'm choosing the Product
hierarchy one, clicking set,
and here we have now the table with the
hierarchy, and we have the same options
for you can choose, do we want to see the
ID or description, in this case I want to
see the descriptions.
Let's resize the column a little bit, and
we also have the ability to then drill down
into the different elements of the
hierarchy.
So what now if we wanted to do the same
thing in the chart?
It's the same steps, we take our chart, in this case
it's net value for Product group, so
let's take the Product group out and add
dimension Product.
And then you have the same options, you
can click, you have little hierarchical
item here, you could choose set hierarchy,
and we can choose Product hierarchy one,
click set. And now you do have the
ability to actually drill down in the
hierarchy, so example for Computer you
can actually drill down to the next
level, you can drill down even further.
And also I'll use the option to set the
drill level here,
go back to the beginning.
So you can see now you have both the
chart as well as the table with the
hierarchies and enabled from BW.
Now that you've seen how to work with
live BW data in stories, you're ready to
explore on your own and start diving
into some more advanced topics. Please
subscribe to the SAP Analytics Channel
to see more videos in this series as
they're released. In the meantime, you can
learn more about working with live data
in SAP Analytics Cloud by clicking the
link. See you next time!
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