Viewing and Interacting with a Story

SAP Analytics Cloud Stories

An SAP Analytics Cloud story is the primary data reporting and analysis medium. It is often
referred to as a report or a dashboard because it can consist of detailed tables, highly visual charts,
interactive elements, or a combination of these options.
The following figure shows different views of an SAP Analytics Cloud story, a dashboard of
summary information and a more detailed view of the data.

Figure 1: SAP Analytics Cloud Stories

Explore a Sample Story

In the following video, we will explore a sample story, highlighting some of the key features

Working Modes
All SAP Analytics Cloud stories have three working modes: View, Edit, and Presentation.

View Mode
When you open a story, you default to View mode. In this mode, you have very limited functionality
and cannot change the story other than with any interactive elements designed in the story. It is
similar to read-only in other applications
Figure 2: SAP Analytics Cloud stories : View

Edit Mode
In Edit mode, you have full control over the design of the story. You can add elements to the story,
including new pages. You can rearrange elements in the story. You can change or add interactivity to
the story, and more.

Figure 3: SAP Analytics Cloud stories : Edit

Presentation Mode
In Presentation mode, you can create flexible and fluid presentations using the presentation viewer.
Objects used for this retain their interactivity and functionality. They replace static presentations
and information with interactive elements based on real data, allowing fact-based decisions to be
made.
Presentation mode allows you to answer questions through direct analysis of current data, planning
visually, and simulating the effects of various assumptions and actions.
Figure 4: SAP Analytics Cloud stories : Presentation

Note
No separate license is required for the use of Presentation mode.

Bookmarks
You can create bookmarks to save different states of a story.
When viewing a story, you may want to come back to the same view of the data every time, or you
may want to set up different states or scenarios. For example, you have several pages in your story
that have filters or prompts applied to them. You do not want to spend time resetting all of them
each time you want to see a different scenario. You would like to open the story, see one scenario,
and then quickly switch to another scenario.
• Bookmarks can be either private or global. You can always save a private bookmark, but you
need appropriate authorization to save a global bookmark.
• Bookmarks only include filters and prompts.
• Bookmarks can be shared.

Figure 5: creating bookmarks

 Note
When you create a bookmark, you can choose Customize Link in order to provide a
meaningful label at the end of the URL

Add a Bookmark
Business Scenario: You are working with stories in SAP Analytics Cloud and you want to be able
to quickly access your story from your home page as well as bookmark specific story views and set
them as the default view for a story.
Task Flow: In this practice exercise, you will perform the following tasks:
• Pin a story to your Home page
• Add bookmark of a story state and make it the default view for the story
• View a story bookmark

Export a Story
In either View or Edit mode of a story, you can export the entire story to either a .pdf, .pptx, or
Google Slides file type from the File menu.

Figure 6: Exporting Story

Note that from the File menu, there is no option to export to .csv, .xls, or .xlsx file types. The export
process is strictly a presentation format.
There are options for exporting the story's data in other areas of the story elements. We will note
some of these options in the More Actions Button concept below.

More Actions Button

More Options
In many areas of SAP Analytics Cloud, you have More options than can be displayed in the
interface.
In some situations, seeing a More option depends on your screen size and resolution as well as your
browser's zoom setting. In other words, if you have a large monitor, your browser window may be
large enough to display all the possible options you have.

Figure 7: More Actions Button

More Actions
While viewing and editing a story, however, there is a More Actions button available for every
element of a story (charts, tables, filtering devices, text, images, and so on). This option provides
you with many more design- and object-related options than the story can practically display.
You can think of the More Actions button as being similar to a context or quick menu you access by
right-clicking an object.
There will be different More Actions options depending on whether you are in Edit or View mode.
When viewing a story, there are fewer options.
In the following example, you can see some of the different options available when choosing More
Actions when editing a chart (left) or table (right).
Included in the More Actions button for charts, tables, and other data-dependent story elements is
the option to export data to a .csv or .xlsx file. Unlike the export option for the entire story, which
exports only to .pdf, .pptx, or Google Slides files, the More Actions export option exports the data
reflected in the object.

Figure 8: Exporting to csv

Export to Excel and PDF

Business Scenario: You are new to SAP Analytics Cloud and you need to learn how to use the
export functionality.
Task Flow: In this practice exercise, you will:
• Export data from a data table to Excel
• Export a story to a PDF document
Building Simple Stories
Story Design
The video below covers the basics to creating a story in SAP Analytics Cloud.

Story Page Types

When creating SAP Analytics Cloud stories, you have different page types from which to choose:
• Responsive: Required for viewing on mobile devices; dynamically changes layout
depending on the viewer's monitor/screen size.
• Canvas: A fixed page size that does not change, no matter the size of the viewer's monitor
size.
• Grid: A table-only page that is available only in the Classic Design Experience and will not
be available in the Optimized Design Experience.

Classic Design and Optimized Design

When you create a story, you are prompted to choose Classic Design Experience or Optimized
Design Experience mode:

Figure 9: Classic Design or Optimized Design

SAP encourages you to use Optimized Design Experience mode. The Optimized Design
Experience includes many usability and performance improvements and is the prerequisite for
future story enhancements. There are a set of features that may not be available at this time as SAP
continues to enhance the Optimized Design Experience mode; however, these and other new
features are being added with each quarterly release and will be made available only in the
Optimized Story Experience. Furthermore, it will be the new default experience in future releases.
The Classic Design Experience is still be available but will be phased out. It provides access to
features developed prior to Q2 2022. However, it will not receive any performance, functionality, or
usability enhancements.
Note
For the most current information on what features are available with each design experience
mode, always refer to the
SAP Help Portal in your current SAP Analytics Cloud tenant.

Guidelines for Data Visualization

There is no right or wrong way to tell a story; that is entirely up to you.
There are, however, general design principles that can help you create meaningful, attractive stories
that provide useful information.
• Choose direction: Define the importance of your visualizations.
• Keep it simple: Ensure a user-friendly experience for viewers.
• Follow general reading direction: Follow either left-to-right or right-to-left as appropriate
for the audience.
• Group information logically: Locate similar topics adjacent to each other.

Data Sources for a Story

Once you have a blank page in your story, you will want to add widgets to visualize the data in your
story. The simplest option is to choose either a chart or a table to add to your page. Select either
option from the story menu bar: Chart or Table (or, depending on your screen resolution, you may
need to select the … More option in the menu bar and select from there).
With either choice, you will be prompted to choose a data source, either a dataset or model to
browse to and select or a SAP Datasphere model. You will probably choose a model most often.

Figure 10: Data Sources selection for a Story

Left Side Panel
When creating a story, users have the option to use the horizontal menu options at the top of the
screen or the Left Side Panel. The panel can be toggled on and off from the Left Side Panel button
in the View menu option.
At the top of the Left Side Panel users can select three different options:
1. Assets: All elements available in the horizontal menu can also be added to the story from the
left side panel.
2. Outline: Access story settings, pages, and scripting.
3. Filters: View and apply story filters.
When elements are added from the horizontal menu, SAP Analytics Cloud positions them on the
screen. With the Left Side Panel, users can position the widgets or other elements in the exact
position they require as displayed in the following example.

Builder and Styling Panels

Build Your Chart or Table
Next, you will build your chart or table. You may need to toggle the Right Side Panel button in the
View area of the ribbon to access the Builder panel.

Figure 11: Builder and Styling Panels

When you are in the Builder panel, you simply add the appropriate data to the various elements of
the widget.
Figure 12: Builder and Styling Panels

The Builder panel, however, is only half of the entire panel. The other half is the Styling panel,
which provides many formatting options for every component of the story, including the page itself.

Figure 13: Builder and Styling Panels

Build a Simple Story

Business Scenario: You need to access real time data from your SAP HANA on premise system for
simple data analysis.
Task Flow: In this practice exercise, you will do the following:
• Create a story with a responsive page
• Customize your story
Working with Microsoft Add-ins
Microsoft Office Integration with SAP Analytics Cloud
Rather than using SAP Analytics Cloud stories for data analysis, planning, and presentation, you
can use SAP add-ins to Microsoft Office.
The SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint allows you to you to embed SAP
Analytics Cloud widgets in your PowerPoint presentation.
The SAP Analytics Cloud, add-In for Microsoft Excel and SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office
enable you to use Excel to format, analyze, and enrich your SAP Analytics Cloud data.
You can insert one or several models in a workbook. Then you can add or remove dimensions and
measures to analyze your data. You can also add totals in rows and columns to your table. In your
analysis, you can use dimensions with hierarchies applied. You can expand and collapse the
hierarchy nodes within the table.
There are also several formula functions provided that can be used for filtering, reading meta data,
and creating cell-based reports. For example, SAP.GETDATA returns the data value for a specified
set of dimension and member combinations.
Finally, both add-ins accommodate planning capabilities, such as:
• Write-back
• Revert
• Publish
• View changed cells with automatic highlighting
• Add filters, subtotals, navigation attributes, properties
You can download all of the add-ins from the Microsoft Office store.

SAP Analytics Cloud, Add-In for Microsoft Excel

Watch this video to learn more about SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Excel.
With SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft Excel, you can bring your SAP Analytics Cloud
data into Microsoft Excel and continue your analysis there. In this example, you can see the
additional SAP Analytics Cloud tab displayed in the Microsoft Excel ribbon as well as sample
formula functions available.
Figure 14: SAP Analytics Cloud add-in for Microsoft Excel,

Additional Learning: SAP Analytics Cloud, add-In for Microsoft Excel is covered in more detail
in the Creating and Working with Microsoft Excel Workbooks Using the SAP Analytics Cloud,
Add-in for Microsoft Excel learning journey.

SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office

SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office, commonly referred to as Analysis for Office, is a Microsoft
Office add-in that allows multidimensional analysis of SAP data sources, including SAP Analytics
Cloud. It consists of the following plug-ins:
• Analysis
• Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)
Figure 15: SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office

Note
While SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office can also be used to plan on SAP Analytics Cloud data,
all future development regarding SAP Analytics Cloud will be on the SAP Analytics Cloud, add-
in for Microsoft Excel.

Additional Learning: The SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office add-in is covered in more detail in
the Discovering SAP Analysis for Microsoft Office learning journey.

SAP Analytics Cloud, Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint

SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint is web-based and available with both
PowerPoint for Web on Windows and Mac.
Once you connect to your SAP Analytics Cloud tenant and have added a widget to your PowerPoint
slide, you can refresh the widget's data at any time. There is no need to go back to SAP Analytics
Cloud to copy the information and paste it into your slide each time there is an update to the data.
Using the add-in, you can easily find SAP Analytics Cloud stories and associated widgets, filter
widget data as required, and add widgets to your PowerPoint slide.
Figure 16: SAP Analytics Cloud, Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint

Note
An SAP Analytics Cloud license is required to access data with the SAP Analytics Cloud, add-in
for Microsoft PowerPoint
Scripting Advanced Stories
Advanced Scripted Stories
While you can use SAP Analytics Cloud story design capabilities for the majority of your reporting,
dashboard, and planning needs, you may need to work with developers in your IT organization to
create more custom stories.
Stories can incorporate scripting so that developers can create a highly customized and interactive
experience for story viewers. However, a story can also be scripted to have even less functionality
than a standard SAP Analytics Cloud story, for example, removing all context menu options.
The broad range of customization options (from very static to highly interactive) possible through
scripting options when editing a story.

Scripting Capabilities
The scripting language used for stories is a subset of JavaScript. The JavaScript Script Editor in the
scripting environment is similar to other SAP editors. You can use Ctrl+Space to access available
functions and data to speed up your script writing. In addition, the editor provides auto-complete
and syntax check as you write.

Figure 17: scripting language used for stories

Enhance a Story with Scripting

The following demonstration video will show you how you can use scripting to enhance your
stories.

Extension Capabilities
Story design options are not limited to the defined set within the story builder. You can ask
developers to create custom widgets and R widgets to add even more visualization options to your
stories.
Figure 18: Creating custom widgets and R widgets

Additional Information
Creating extended stories is covered in more detail in the Acquiring Basic Scripting Skills to Extend
Stories in SAP Analytics Cloud learning journey.
Creating R visualizations is covered more detail in the Create R Visualizations in SAP Analytics
Cloud | SAP Learning learning journey.