1

ASEAN DATA SCIENCE EXPLORERS

TODAY’S YOUTH FOR TOMORROW’S WORLD
HANDS ON
SAP Analytics Cloud Hands On

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXERCISE 1 – OVERVIEW OF SAP ANALYTICS CLOUD ............................................................................ 5
EXERCISE 2 – IMPORTING EXTERNAL DATA ............................................................................................... 13
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS – IMPORTING CSV FILE TO BUILD A MODEL ........................................ 19
EXERCISE 3 – HUMAN RESOURCES .................................................................................................................. 32
EXERCISE 4 – SALES & PRODUCT ..................................................................................................................... 38
EXERCISE 5 – TRAVEL .............................................................................................................................................. 41
EXERCISE 6 – S4 FINANCE (OPTIONAL) ......................................................................................................... 44
OVERVIEW

In this hands-on exercise, you will have the opportunity work on several exercises that focus on the new SAP Analytics
Cloud. For this exercise assume that you are the owner of BestRun Bikes, a mid-sized (1,100 employees) bike manufacturer
company with office locations around the world. They use Concur, FieldGlass, Cloud for Customer (C/HANA), S4HANA,
and SuccessFactor to run their business. BestRun wasn’t always best run. There is data everywhere - on cloud, on premise,
and on personal computers; for instance, there is data coming from the all kinds of cloud applications. In this hands-on,
exercise you will be showing how BestRun can combine all of their data at once and on one single platform - SAP Analytics
Cloud to gain meaningful insight and SAP Digital Boardroom for a 360 degree view of the business.

Setup time

Exercise 1 – Overview of SAP Analytics Cloud

Exercise 2 – Importing External Data

Additional Materials – Importing CSV File to build a model

Exercise 3 – Human Resources

• Calculated dimension
• On-premise Business Objects content

Exercise 4 – Sales & Revenue

• Product sales, performance and target

Exercise 5 – Travel
• Map filter

Exercise 6 – S4 Finance (Optional)

• Predict forecast
• Value Driver Tree
BEFORE YOU START
System Accesss Information & Prerequisites

1) SAP Analytics Cloud currently requires Google Chrome. Within Chrome you need to disable Third-Party cookies in
Settings:
• Type “third” in search box and then click Content settings
• Unselect “Block third-party cookies and site data”

2) Prior to a demo

Access the SAP Analytics Cloud system via one of the following URLs in Chrome (your instructor will tell you the appropriate
one):

[Link]

Username and Password will be provided during the session.

EXERCISE 1 – OVERVIEW OF SAP ANALYTICS CLOUD

You will begin the hands-on exercise by copying a pre-built story. From this story you will be performing various types of
analysis and getting an overview of how the SAP Analytics Cloud can help in determining what’s happening with the
business. For this exercise, you will see how easy it is to combine data from another dataset. You can also learn to add
meaningful metrics to an existing chart and take actions to improve the business.

Explaination Screenshot

Click on Menu > Browse >

Files > Public

Find the story “BestRun Bikes”

and select it (Tick the checkbox)

Click on Copy To icon

In the Copy Story To dialogue

enter the title as:
“BestRun Bikes_X”

Replace X with your name e.g

BestRun Bikes_Mandy
Do not copy your story to the
Click My Files public folder. Click on “My Files”
(NOT My Files/ Public). Do not
save it in the public folder.

Change “All Files” to “Owned by

Me”

Save your story under My Files

by clicking OK

Save it under this folder, not the

“Public” folder.
Your story should appear here!
Click on your story.

Your story will be displayed

What you are looking at here is

an overview of BestRun bike
company’s management
dashboard with data coming from
miltiple SAP Cloud applications
inlcuding Cloud for Customers,
Concur (Travel), SuccessFactors
(HR), Fieldglass (Vendor
Management) and S4HANA
(Procurement)

Click on Edit > Current FTE per

Department chart
Right now you can only see the
Full-time Employees per
department

You can easily change this, by

adding contractor data to give a
complete picture of the entire
workforce

Click on Designer > Select

Builder icon > Add Linked

Models

Select BestRun_VMS_Worker
as the datasource

Under Measures, add meselect

BestRun_VMS_Worker

Select Contractors
Now you can see the chart as
data from multiple systems and
show employees vs contractors.
Hover over the chart to see the
values.

Hover and click on the bubble on

the map at the top for San
Francisco

Click on a section of the pie chart

You can see how many

employees you have in San
Francisco. Note that you can also
see female and male percentage
for each selected city

Look at the Finance KPIs on the

top .

From here, the 2018 profit

forecast number indicated shows
that you are not hitting the top- With the following indications:
line profit goals for the year. • Travel Expenses budget is short by 12%
• HR Expenses budget is short by 5%
• Sales forecast is slightly above the goal which is good news
On the bottom, you can see the
Revenue Lost chart that
indicates that you are losing
revenue in the Racing bike
catergory

You can further explore the data

to see what is impacting product
revenue loss

Click on View > Edit > Revenue

Lost chart
Click on Data

Select dataset:
“BestRun_CRM_Opportunities
”

Select the PLUS (+) sign to add

Competitor dimension

Select:
1. Measure > Product Revenue
Lost
2. Version > Actual
3. Material Group > Racing
4. Competitor

As you are slicing and dicing the

data, notice that competitor
Dexter’s Bike LTD is a major
contributor to your product lost
revenue
Select :
Sort > Product Revenue Lost >
Highest to Lowest

You can see that your biggest

competitor in the Racing product
is Dexter’s Bike LTD

At this point, you can export data

as CSV right from the explorer
view if you wanted to.
Click on the right > Export
CSV

Alternatively, copy chart to new

responsive page ( ) and

save story.

If you copy to new responsive page, you will get:

Return to Story tab.

Note Smart Insight on the left

panel

Click on for the smart insight

on Product Revenue Lost

You can see that by enabling

Smart Insights, you can always
gett auto generated insights and
notifications.

Return to homepage.
EXERCISE 2 – IMPORTING EXTERNAL DATA

In this exercise, you will learn how to import external data into SAP Analytics Cloud and analyse it.

Explaination Screenshot

Drag and drop an external

dataset over to SAC homepage.

For example, you imported a

dataset titled Sales Analysis -
TechEd.

You can see the option “I am

feeling lucky” which is utilising
the smart modeling capability.

This means you don’t have to do

any data preparation. You do not
have to specify the measures and
dimensions because this task has
been done by the system
automatically.

Click on the plus sign to show all

dimensions. Once it’s done, it will
bring you into the data exploration
view.

Inside of this view, you can

immediately start visualising your
data. You don’t have to go to the
top ribbon to do insert chart
repetitively. Anytime you click on
something, it immediately creates
visualization for you!
Data visualisation
Select Order Value under
Measures

Select different dimensions to

show slicing and dicing. This
creates visualizations. What’s also
nice is that it is auto suggesting
chart type for you.

Point to Date and Order ID

dimension

Order IDs are pure numeric value;

however, the system is smart
enough to realise it is not a
measure but a dimension.
Select Order Value and Product
to create a chart

Copy chart to a new responsive

page (located at the top right of
the chart). Then, copy to Page 1.

Drag the chart to resize

Select the bar chart

Open Designer panel from the top Copy to a new

right corner responsive
page & copy
to page 1 here
Show formatting options – change
background color; change chart
color, etc

Select the three dots next to the

chart

This provides you a view of your

data; however, it is static. Note
that there is a low order value for
M500 Bike and high order value
for eBike E148. Do you have any
idea why it is high or so low?

Select “add smart insight”. This

will explain what’s going on.

A footer has been added to the

chart, showing that eBike is 32%
above average and the variation is
driven by customer status.
SAC is able to investigate your
entire dataset to find out hidden
insights as well. You can even
click on the customer status to drill
down to see more details.

Click on Save. Remember not to

save it in the public folder.

Change “All Files” to “Owned by

Me”.

Click on Sharing icon, and select

share story. This allows you to
share with others via a hyperlink.
Select comment icon on the
side menu

Add comments and like the

comments

Select Edit

Then, click More and select Smart

Discovery

Select Order Value under “I want

to know more about”

Click on Run.

The system is automatically

creating the complete report in the
background for you. It creates an
overview page, key influencer
page, unexpected values, and
even a simulation page. This
allows you to to save time as you
would not need to build this report
all from scratch.

On the overview page, it shows

your total order value, the min and
max, and also a histogram that
shows the distribution of all of your
different orders.

It is also giving some predicted

insights. First of all, it's showing a
time serious forecast,
unfortunately it looks like there's a
steady decline in order value over
time.

On the right hand side, see order

value by customer segment and
investigate on the different
categories to figure out what might
be causing the decreasing sales.
Navigate to the “Key Influencers”
page

Point to the influencer chart

Click on product on the influencer

chart and click on the smart insight
“How does it influence Order
Value?”

Scroll down to see Order value by

product chart. See the unit sold is
the highest influencer of the unit
value. Below that, you can see
product and sales agent also have
high impact on the forecast deal
value.

The most popular product, M 550

bike, actually doesn't have that
high order value. As you look over
at the frequency chart, you can
see it's a large contributor to the
number of orders, but order value
is not that high and this might be
part of the reason why there is a
decrease in value over time.

At the same time, you can see

your new product - eBike is doing
extremely well.
Navigate to Unexpected Values
page

System generates a baseline and

also highlights the items that are
above or below that baseline for
you to follow up with. So now you
can call the sales agent in a
specific area and find out why that
order value ends up being so high
that we can learn from it or so low
that we might need to have some
coaching.

Navigate to Simulation page

Select eBike under product on

the right

Select China under Country

DISCUSS!

Question 1: As a group, discuss the charts which you have just created. If you were the CEO of BestRun Bikes, what does
this tell you about the company’s performance and how would you respond?

• I can find out more about the sales performance of different products in each country.
• The order value by customer segment chart helps me figure out what might be causing decreasing or
increasing sales. Decreasing profits, positive revenue and increase of expenses may be worrisome.
• These charts then allow me to figure out the next appropriate action for different products - set ST/LT
KPI’s to ensure we are on the right track, etc.

Question 2: Discuss the importance of colour for charts.

• Easy visual keys

• Depends a lot on culture and company branding
• Red does not always mean bad (Ex. Coca Cola does not allow any blue on their content because of
competitor brand, Pepsi)
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS – IMPORTING CSV FILE TO BUILD A MODEL

This exercise will demonstrate how to import a csv file containing women unemployment rate in ASEAN countries into the
SAP Analytics Cloud. You will learn how to build a model and perform time series forecast using the data to predict the
future trend of women unemployment rate.

Explanation Screenshot
Before you import csv file,
make sure your data is
transactional and not tabular.

Click on Menu > Create

Model
Explanation Screenshot
Select Import a file from
your computer

Click Select Source File and

choose
women_unemployment_rate
_dataset.csv from your
computer.
Explanation Screenshot
Once file uploaded
successfully, you should see
the landing page as per
shown in screenshot.

Tick the Enable Planning.

Explanation Screenshot
Select Year column, and it will
auto scan for its data quality.
As you can see form the
screenshot, no data quality
issues detected which means
our dataset is ‘clean’.

On Details panel, change

Type to Date.
Explanation Screenshot
Click the Create Model
button.

Save the model as

ADSE_Woman_Unemploym
ent_Rate_Model under My
Files – Owned by me.

This should be the landing

page once you click Create
Model.

If you are not redirected to this

page, open Menu > Browse >
Files > in search bar, type in
your model name to search
for the model you just created
and click on it.
Explanation Screenshot
Click Model to switch to
model view.

Select Account to edit the

Account Type property, and
switch to grid mode.

Click on Account Type

header.

Change Account Type located

on the side bar to NFIN.

Unemployment rate is non-

financial (NFIN).

The data sets that you will be

utilising are usually non-
financial. Selecting the
account type will prevent any
potential issue in creating
charts in story and predictive
forecasting.
Explanation Screenshot

Go back ( ) to Dimension
view and select Year row.

You will see the Dimension

Settings for Years (shown on
the right).

On the side bar, click on Date

settings gear to open Model
Preference pop-up view.

Select Planning & Time

Range setting and change the
To date to 2022.

Click OK.

Click Save button.

Explanation Screenshot
Go to Menu > Create >
Story.

Click Access & Explore

Data.

Click Model and in Name

section type in your own
model name (for e.g
ADSE_Woman_Unemployme
nt_Rate_Model)
Explanation Screenshot
You will be prompted to Data
View where you can play with
your model and come up with
tables and charts.

Click Story View which is

located beside the Data tab.

Click insert Table.

This will be the view returned

once you click the above-
mentioned button.
Explanation Screenshot
Under Table Structure >
Rows, click Add
Measures/Dimensions, and
tick Country.

Under Table Structure >

Columns, click Add
Measures/Dimensions, and
tick Year.
Explanation Screenshot
This will be the table you see
after you perform the previous
2 steps.

Select a data cell under row of

Brunei and column of
Actuals.
Explanation Screenshot
Select More > Tools and click
Predictive Forecast.

Leave the settings unchanged

and click Preview.

Predicted women
unemployment rate in Brunei
from 2018 to 2022 are shown
in the figure here and
confidence interval is
highlighted in orange.

Click OK.

This graph shows you the

unemployment rate from 1995
to 2018. From here, SAC also
provides a predictive function
for the women unemployment
rate from 2018 to 2022.
Explanation Screenshot
Click (all) to expand the time
by years and scroll to the right
to see the inserted predictive
values.

Now you’ve finished a

prediction, you can save your
story. Congratulations!
EXERCISE 3 – HUMAN RESOURCES

In this exercise, you will learn how to monitor HR costs efficiency by creating custom calculations, analysing target groups
and finding out salary discrepencies. You will also be able to get a complete view of sensitive data such as detailed employee
information, while the data stays within the organisation walls.

Explaination Screenshot

Click on Edit

Click on Human Resources

You can see HR cost data coming

from S4HANA and employee
count data from SuccessFactors
and Fieldglass

You should keep in mind that your

recruitment expense budget is
below your forecasted spend.

Click on Executive on the

Termination Rate chart to see
Gender Pay Parity chart updates

The Termination Rate by job level

chart shows you that your
executive level employees have
very high turnover ratio. You also
notice a massive gender pay gap
from the charts

.
Adjust By Current Age measure
slider to 20 to 30

Reset filter to 20-100 again

You can see here that I have

utilised the measure slider to
focus on specific age groups. You
can see that age range 20 to 30
has a higher termination rate in
director level but the good side is
that the gender pay parity is
lower
Select Termination Rate Chart

Open Designer panel

Under Dimensions > Add

Dimension > Create Calculated
Dimension

Create Measure-Based
Dimension in Calculation Editor
according to the screenshot and
add it to Termination Rate Chat

Remove Job Classification

Dimension
Select 30-40 age bar.

You can see that Gender Pay

Parity issue is the worst in this
group

Unselect the age bar by clicking

on the white space

You have compared Termination

Rate with different Age Groups
with Measure-Beased Dimension
Click on the dots on the
scatterplot

You can run a program to target a

group that requires more attention

In addition, you can also run an

Outlier Analysis from Smart
Discovery to find out employees
who are underpaid in order to
close the Pay Parity gap

With this predictive capability,

you will be able to find out the
exact salary discrepancies by
clicking on the dots on the
scatterplot
In some cases, sensitive data such
as employee personal information
is not allowed by policy to be
transferred to a cloud environment

SAP Analytics Cloud addresses

this by accessing on-premise
Business Objects content such
as Web Intelligence document
within Analytics Cloud, thereby
enabling users to get a complete
view into the areas they’re
interested in while the data
remains in its original environment

Moving on, view employee data

from the Engineering department

To showcase hybrid usecase:

Gender Pay Parity chart > Click
Engineering bar > Hover > Click
Pay & Performance

The link allows you to pass the

department parameter from this
SAC chart to your Webi report
In the Webi report, you can see
detailed employee data like
Performance Rating and Salary
from the Engineering department

Point audience to the top left

corner to show the parameter is
now passed to the Webi report

By doing this, you have the

capablility to see information from
both on Premise and Cloud within
the same cloud environment, while
sensitive data stays within the
organisations walls .
DISCUSS!

Explaination Screenshot

In the Human Resources tab,

click on any chart. In this case, I’m
selecting Gender Pay Parity.

Click on the three dots icon next to

the chart.

Select “Add Variance”

You can compare any measures

in the side bar

Select “Average Male Salary” for

COMPARE (A)

Select “Average Female Salary”

for TO (B)

Under Display Options, view

variance as Bar .

Select OK

You will be able to compare the

differences in salary for each
department
Question 1: You can add variance to any chart and play around with the “View Variance as” options. Why do you think
variances are important?

• Variances are good to control measures against what was planned and what actually happened, most
popular with budgeted vs. actuals, allows businesses to readjust their strategies and objectives.

Question 2: There are options to view the variance as a bar, data label, or integrated. In what situations do you think using
one is better than the other?

• Bar – good huge variance ranges, otherwise it’ll be too thin to see anything
• Data label – good for simplicity
• Integrated – shows changes as part of the bar
EXERCISE 4 – SALES & PRODUCT

In this exercise, you will be exposed to tracking product sales and performance. You will also learn to use SAC to predict
future revenue growth in different regions.

Explaination Screenshot

Navigate to product page. Here,

you can see how you can further
improve our revenue.

Select R100 bike on heatmap.

and see time series chart trending
Heatmap
downwards. This implies that
sales are slowing down.

On the top right, the Deals win-

loss reason shows that you are
losing a number of deals due to
the product.

On the bottom right, you can use

the input controls to investigate on
Time Series
different dimensions. Selecting
Chart
Territory or Country and Product trending
Revenue won, you can see that downwards
sales have dramatically declined in trending
North America.
Select ebike E180 on heatmap
and see data trending upwards.

This is a recently released product

which is doing exceptionally well in
Asia Pacific Japan but hasn’t been
released to the rest of the world.
You should plan to release the
ebike in more locations.

Navigate to sales page

Point to the simulation section on

the bottom section and explore
what the average deal would look
like if you released it in a new city.

Let’s say you want to launch this

new bike in San Francisco (Select
San Francisco under city).

And let’s say you know this deal

would be managed by an account
executive (Select a different sales
agent).

Select any ebike model under

material.

After these selections, SAC will be

able to tell you what the expected
weighted revenue would be
based on your historical data.

On the Sales Goal to Target

chart, drill down through the
territory level to see the employee
level details to find out the exact
performance for each employee.

For example, drill down on Mexico

city.

All the information are formatted

with ranking and added threshold
to notify you if there is any
problem!
Save the story for future use

With SAC, you can save your story

settings (Input Controls, Chart,
Geo filters etc. ) as well by
selecting the bookmark icon on
the menu.

You can have more than one

bookmark per story. For
instance, You can save it for
different regions, products etc.

You can also switch to view

mode. This allows you to switch
between bookmarks at one time.
EXERCISE 5 – TRAVEL

For this exercise, you will have the ability to monitor travel data and perform analysis with a map by creating a custom filter.

Explaination Screenshot

Click on Travel

Here, you can immediately

see where people are
travelling, YTD Travel
Expenses, Average
Report Expense and
Percent Approved

These information are

important for cost efficiency

On the geo map, you can

see your Transaction
Amount (Bubble colour),
Unapproved Amount %
(Bubble size)

Click on a bubble on the

map

Unselect the bubble

Click on Corp Dev bar on

Expenses per Department
chart

You can click on the bubble

to filter the rest of the charts
to get regional information

You can also filter on the

department that’s over
budget to find out where
people are traveling to
Click on the dotted bubble
that’s in the EU region

Deselect the bubble by

clicking on it again

What’s more interesting is

that you can see the
outliers of the unapproved
amount – the dotted
bubble!

It is highlighting the region

that has Unapproved
Amount % which is over
20%

You can easily filter

information to that region to
find out more about what’s
happening – see charts
below updated including
the transactional report

Click on the bubble for

California

Click on the drill down

button

It appears that California

has a high transaction
amount. Drill down to see
some details

Now you can see what

Unapproved Amount %
for the sub-regions are

Also note, you are able to

use custom shape to
visualise data in different
hierarchy levels
DISCUSS!

Question 1: As a group, discuss how the bubbles on the geo map can bring about benefits for the user who reads it.

• User can consume different types of information on the same visualization at one glance. Users can
also gauge where customers and employees travel to/from the most based on the size of the bubble.
• Upon clicking the bubble, specific regional information can be acquired. These information include
travel expenses per department, expenses per period, actual amount, approved amount etc.

Question 2: Discuss the importance on tracking actuals vs. budgeting, differences in values (variance).

• Creating a budget vs. actual comparison is extremely important for businesses because it allows
them to alter their future financial forecasts based upon the numbers collected in the reports.
EXERCISE 6 – S4 FINANCE (OPTIONAL)

For this exercise, you will be able to plan and forecast data from the S4 finance system in SAP Analytics Cloud. This helps
you to do planning on a one-stop platform in the most concise manner.

Explaination Screenshot

Navigate to planning page

You can see data from your

S4 finance system (product
forecast vs plan data by
product and also the
variances).

Select version
management icon
on the top menu. Then,
click on copy icon next to
BR Forecast.

Name the new version

“ForecastV2”

Copy a private version for

BR Forecast (Select Copy
All) before publishing to the
public version

Let’s say you have a plan

to increase production for
Cruise product line in
2018.

For ForecastV2, increase

2018 net revenue for
Cruise for $10M.

You will see 10M is spread

proportionally to the sub
products.
For ForecastV2, select
2019 – Cruise

Select Predict Forecast

from top menu

To create a time series

prediction, select Forecast
from 2019.Q1 to 2019 Q1

Click on OK
Select column BR Forecast
and ForecastV2

On the pop-up menu, select

to create a delta
column. You can easily find
out the delta between your
private forecast and original
forecast.

Select the delta column and

click on the bar chart icon.
This allows you to visualise
the variance.

Open version
management from top
menu

Select the three dots icon

next to the private version

Select history. You can

see the full history of what
you have just done and
also revert the changes by
clicking on the items.

You can also do planning

on the grid page, create
your own versions of the
data, adjust it, etc.
Alternatively, you can also
provide the finished plans
for end users to interact
with, using a more visual
way called Value Driver
Tree (VDT).

Navigate to Finance page

On the top left corner,

under the planning
version or BestRun_plan,
select BR Forecast from
the drop down bar on the
VDT

As you can see, the VDT

shows me the profit and
loss of the company. On
the top node, it summarises
the different revenue
streams. The bottom node
shows the types of
expenses. Value Driver
Tree

After analyzing the HR,

sales, and travel
information on the
operations side, you can
see how you can use the
insights to improve on
forecast numbers.
Click on the cell and use Cell
the virtual keyboard to
adjust the forecast numbers
for the following points

With the insights gained

you can adjust the
forecast plan accordingly −
Reduce about 20% in
employee expenses

Reduce Travel Spend by

about 15%

Point to the profit forecast

Tile at the top. The VDT is
updated and the forecast
numbers have dramatically
improved.
Point to net revenue per
product chart

Select Mountain and

Cruise forecast version
and select filter

You will be able to see a

break down of the forecast
along the product hierarchy
and the variance between
budget and forecast. There
is negative deviation for
moutain bikes.

Analyse the situation by

looking at the products of
the main product lines.

Drill down on cruise bike

by selecting the expand
icon.

As established previously,
ebike is the most trending
bike type so ebikes should
be promoted for major
product lines.

As eBikes have been

produced for cruising bikes,
it will be best to increase
the volume for the coming
years.

With that, increase

revenue for cruise
product line by 15% on
VDT.

As shown, all KPIs are

turning green!

Drill down on Mountain

bikes.

For mountain bikes, no

eBikes are seen yet so a
new product, a mountain
eBike (M600), can be
introduced.
Navigate to planning page

For 2018 BR Forecast

version, select Mountain

Select the first icon on the

pop up menu

Enter description “ebike”

Click on the people icon to

show assign owner

This is to create a product

on the fly for planning
purposes and to define the
person responsible to plan
it.

DO NOT SAVE as new

member cannot be deleted
from the story

Cancel the action and go to

planning view again