SAP Business Data Cloud Reviews

I am using it for the reporting features.

The financial reports are very easy to read at the end of the month. You can see your profits. The reporting tools and graphs versus sending a report in Excel are great. When it comes to visualization, reading a report visually instead of a number is excellent because it is going to stick with you.

The reporting, dashboards, KPIs, and visualization are the most valuable.

I think the editing can be improved. When you import and export the data you edit the report in Power Editor. However, it needs more flexibility and formulas. You have to use DAX and not everyone knows DAX.  I think it would be easier if there was another module created to retrieve only data. When you enter the data, you need a connector to take the data and transform it into your reporting tools. 

I have been using SAP Analytics Cloud for the past ten years.

The stability of SAP Analytics Cloud is very good.

The more you train people and give them good information, the more they want to put their trust in new solutions. People are used to getting an excel file for review.  It takes time and publicity to help train people about additional options that are available.

Technical support is only an online chat option.  They need a phone number to talk to someone and they need to increase the support available.  When I had some questions it was not as helpful as it could be. It will tell you where to go on the online chat, but that has its limitations.

I was using Crystal. I switched because I had a lot of processes before I could get to the visualization option. When using SAP Analytics Cloud I just import in Excel and I have the visualization options right there. It is much easier.

The initial setup is straightforward and did not take long to deploy.

I did the installation myself with some customization from the Azure team.

I have seen a return on investment. The value is there instantly because you can make a decision fast when using this report. You can see right away where you want to be. Everybody will invest in this point.

The pricing is based on a monthly or yearly basis.  There are only two options. The free option does not have many capabilities. The premium option is very expensive at five thousand dollars. I use the nine hundred and ninety-nine dollar option. There are no other additional costs involved.

I looked at Tableau however it has limited options in comparison to SAP Analytics Cloud.

I would highly recommend SAP Analytics Cloud.  I would rate it a ten out of ten.

SAP does not have any capability of self-service analytics. It has a GUI, which has nothing to do with end-user empowerment. It should work more on integration.

While SAP Analytics Hub doesn't directly allow manual metric creation from uploaded Excel files, it seamlessly connects to various data sources, including Excel files, to create comprehensive analytics and visualizations.

I have been using SAP Analytics Hub for four to five years.

The product is stable.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

The solution has complex architecture. There is nothing like no-code, low-code, or drag- configuration. The configuration is not easy.

I rate the solution’s scalability a five out of ten.

I have experience with SAP Analytics Cloud, including its visual analytics and tool exchange capabilities. I've also worked with popular BI tools like Power BI, Tableau, and MicroStrategy. SAP Analytics Hub is the second worst regarding the product roadmap. SAP did not evolve with consumer requirements. They're not flexible when it comes to changing data.

The solution’s maintenance is easy. I rate it seven out of ten.

I recommend the solution if you do not have specific business requirements, predictive data, smart data planning, or Analytics. SAP servers are easy. If you have a diverse set up with loads of data and want to curate data to create insights from different data sources, then you do not prefer SAP.

Overall, I rate the solution a five out of ten.

SAP Analytics Cloud is very easy to use, and you don't require much technology. It has a very good library and analytics. It is easy to configure and offers good visualization. 

I expect more integration from SAP Analytics Cloud. 

I have been working with the solution for three years. 

The tool is very stable. 

SAP Analytics Cloud is scalable. 

The tool's deployment is very easy. 

The tool's pricing is medium, and licensing costs are yearly. 

I rate SAP Analytics Cloud an eight out of ten. I wouldn't recommend it to non-SAP customers. 

We use the product for story building. 

I have found that the feature to drag and drop widgets based on the data source, and import them into stories to be valuable. This way it helps the end user to create stories themselves.

Live Data Models are very slow and the setup can be improved, with tools such as Cloud Connector being inbuilt into SAP Analytics Cloud.

Likewise, we need to write application code from scratch, rather than tweaking existing code, as we might with Excel macros.

Moreover, when using responsive pages, the widgets get adjusted according to the mobile screen. As a result, when I place two or three KPI tiles, they can only be viewed tile-by-tile. We want to see the full dashboard on the mobile screen and zoom in to click on a particular section of the dashboard and go further into that. But displaying tile-by-tile makes it very annoying and the upper management using this dashboard might not be aware there are any more tiles to view.

I have been using this solution for two years at the minimum, and I continue to use it.

Since the performance of the Live Data Model is slow, I would give the solution a three out of ten.

The only issue with scalability is the speed of the Live Data Model. We thought we would not need the Business Warehouse tool and we could directly extract data as per HANA, but that has not been the case.

Otherwise, we haven’t tried scalability much, we only have two or three dashboards.

We have raised a couple of queries and received responses to all of them.

Neutral

We haven’t used any similar solutions for interactive dashboard building, we are currently looking for alternatives such as Power BI and Tableau.

The setup was okay, but Cloud Connector was required. The deployment would have taken a couple of hours or less, and it was handled by a user acquainted with Basis. I would rate the setup a six out of ten.

I would rate the solution four out of ten, but we are still analyzing other our alternatives, which could affect the rating.

All the same, I would not recommend SAP Analytics Cloud.

SAP Analytics Hub serves as a platform for reporting and creating dashboards. It offers powerful capabilities for cross-functional reporting and dashboard creation across various modules, making it a valuable tool.

SAP Analytics Hub offers a user-friendly interface with effortless configuration, seamless updates, and real-time availability of information. It avoids the complexities associated with batch processing, providing a smooth and efficient experience.

Pricing and support are integrated into the system. However, the support process can be challenging, particularly when navigating the SAP support site, which lacks user-friendliness and ease of access.

A good level of understanding is needed to use the system efficiently. Users who are unfamiliar with the topic area may find this difficult.

I have been working with SAP Analytics Hub for two years.

The system is highly stable and regarded as a mature product in its field.

The system empowers you to achieve a granular level of detail, enabling you to scale up to line-level data. 

It offers seamless navigation and analysis capabilities in both forward and backward directions, providing the flexibility to meet your specific requirements. By configuring the system appropriately, you can attain this desired level of granularity.

I would rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

I have experience working with Oracle, SAP, QED, and MicroStrategy. Specifically, on the Fusion side, I work with Fusion HRM.

When it comes to SAC (SAP Analytics Cloud), I have some familiarity with it, but it is more from a functional and project management perspective rather than the technical side.

The initial setup process is not straightforward and may require a significant amount of time to complete.

Once the setup is complete, the system becomes capable of handling even the most challenging scenarios. However, it is important to note that modifying or updating the system is not a simple task and may require considerable effort and expertise.

I believe that the deployment process can be completed within a reasonable timeframe, likely within three weeks. This timeframe should be sufficient for a successful deployment.

Their methodology allows for the possibility of deploying the system with a small team. 

If you opt for the cloud version, it eliminates the need for a larger team typically required for on-premise deployments.

I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten.

They are pursuing a highly assertive approach to target businesses of all sizes within the industry.

They are highly capable of closely aligning with your specific needs and effortlessly matching your desired numbers. By engaging in detailed discussions and conveying your requirements, they can readily accommodate them.

I would rate SAP Analytics Hub a nine out of ten.

Despite its complexity, the system is versatile enough to accommodate a wide range of scenarios, making it suitable for various use cases and considerations.

Currently, we are customers of the system, but I also have prior experience working with the system as a partner. In my current role, I am actively engaged as an SAP customer.

SAP used to provide two tools, SAP BI and SAP BPC. The SAP BI tool provided analytics, while the SAP BPC tool provided budgeting and planning functionality. However, We later consolidated these two tools into one tool, SAP Analytics for Cloud. This tool provides both budgeting and analytics functionality.

I have seen a lot of benefits from using SAP Analytics, but I think people have not yet fully realized its potential. I believe the system is still in its revolutionary stage because it has a lot of capabilities that have yet to be fully explored. In order to take advantage of these capabilities, we need to have a business story and our own analytics or business analytics requirements. I myself have only used SAP Analytics for a very small use case, but I can see how it could be used for enterprise-level planning, reporting, and dashboarding.

The most valuable feature of the tool is machine learning. The machine learning algorithms are inbuilt and strong. I really like that feature because we don't need to do any coding. Normally, we used to do coding in Jupyter notes or Anaconda. It's another tool for analytics or for data science. We used to write Python code, and then try to fetch the data from the backend system, and perform the analysis, based on the batch. SAP Analytics is more real-time analytics and the use case which I use the tool for, with S/4HANA itself. SAP Analytics makes it much easier for me to have the data directly in real-time, to perform this machine learning. I have also seen some good automation features for budgeting and budgeting processes. This combined feature gives a very good flavor to perform the analytics.

SAP has always had one problem with its products, they make them very closed systems that are difficult to integrate. This is not only a problem with SAP Analytics but also with other products, like middleware systems. These systems, such as GRC, reside in the second level of defense, rather than the first. All these analytical systems normally require a huge integration, because they are not working independently. They are dependent on the backend systems. In any analytical system, we don't have data. Basically, we fetch the data or we try to take the data from any recording system such as an ERP recording system, CRM recording system, or any recording system. We perform the analysis in the analytical layer, which is our analytical tool, such as frauds, business integrated screening, SAP GRC, or even the SAC, SAP Analytics for Cloud. All of these require a huge integration. The problem I faced with SAP Analytics was the ease of integration and the cost. SAP Analytics for Cloud is not cost-friendly. we encounter the same issue with all SAP tools. Although SAP has a very beautiful and seamless integration within their system, it is not as easy to integrate them with non-SAP tools, as our Enterprise system does not have all SAP systems. They instead have multiple systems, including Oracle and Microsoft systems. Even though SAP has very beautiful plugins, which we can utilize and get benefit from that, it is not as friendly compared to other tools.

In 2012 or 2013, SAP's interfaces were a big challenge because they were very engineering-oriented and dry, making them difficult for business users to understand. Fiori was introduced as a solution to this problem, and it has been successful in doing so. However, I believe that SAP still needs to work on the integration aspect.

SAC is not the number one tool for analytics. However, if an organization has SAP backend products, then SAC falls within the system of analytics. The system of analytics requires a system of recording, which is the ERP system, CRM, or any other backend system that automates business processes. I believe that a little work is required in that aspect by SAP to improve.

I have been using the tool for several years.

The tool is stable.

I give the scalability a nine out of ten.

Most of the organizations I work for have a maximum attention licensing agreement with SAP, so the support service is amazing. We've never faced any delays with that.

If we have more backend systems using SAP, it's really easy to set up SAP Analytics, but if that is not the case it becomes very difficult to integrate.

SAP Analytics can be very costly to license, which can make it difficult for organizations to implement.

I evaluated SPSS and Alteryx.

I give the tool a seven out of ten.

I was looking for a tool that could help me add value-added services to my department, such as predictive analytics from the audit perspective. I wanted a tool that could analyze text, mostly based on natural language processing. There are other heavy tools that could be applied to the audit lifecycle to improve the process. I was looking for a data analysis tool that would help me roll out the fifth generation of our internal audit department. I considered several options, including SPSS, Alteryx, and SAP Analytics. There is a generation of auditors and assurance professionals called 4.0 or 5.0 who are turning from performing basic analytics to using advanced analytics tools with AI to enhance their audit processes. They are becoming more proactive and using bottom-up analytics. This is a little bit technical for some people. In the same way that we have fourth-generation audit insurance, we have the fourth industrial revolution in the generic industry, we have a revolution in the audit department, a fourth-generation revolution, where we apply AI tools, RPA, robotic process, and advanced analytics to improve our processors. This allows us to perform more audits, 15-20 instead of 10, and to do so using a complete database rather than samples. As an auditor, we will no longer be providing reasonable assurance that we cannot provide everything, we will be able to provide assurance on the entire database. The analytics will automate this process for us, so I'm launching that strategy. In my strategy, I have, for example, some contracts I want to automate instead of reviewing them manually. Each and every contract, for example, comes to the audit department. Instead of reviewing the contract manually, and spending hours, converting this from the OCR text, and then applying the NLP on it, trying to identify the risks and the threats within this contract, and trying to audit based on that risk template, I can automate this process. I'm a certified professional in GRC and ECC. I've been working in this field for a long time. I've seen predictive analytics in action, and I've tried to compare the effectiveness of different tools, like SPSS and Alteryx, with SAP Analytics. I'm doing this because I want to see how much these tools can help me with my overall strategy. But I know that no single tool can guarantee success. We need a bunch of tools. For example, we have this SAP Celonis, which can help us understand business processes and do business process re-engineering and analysis. This SAP Celonis will help automate the process of understanding business processes, instead of having manual meetings with the business and trying to understand everyone's understanding of the process. We can rely on the data to tell us the truth. The central truth is the data. SAP Celonis will take the event log and try to analyze the process on our behalf, and try to give us the anomalies in our business process. The strategy has a different flavor, different tools, and different aspects. SAP Analytics would be more helpful in the audit execution process, and reporting stage. There is another tool that helps with fraud management. It's called business integrity screening. This tool basically fetches data and tests it for us. The tool also gathers information from SAP Analytics for Cloud and performs predictive analytics with strong machine learning algorithms. SAP Analytics is not the only thing I use to achieve my goals. It is a part of my strategy, and it helps me automate certain aspects of my plan.

An organization that has its backend systems as SAP would be making a smart move to go with SAP Analytics, but if they have a mix of SAP or non-SAP systems, I never advise organizations to go with SAP Analytics. An organization that does not have SAP in the backend and still wished to use SAP Analytics should perform a proper requirement analysis first.

We're using the solution for a client who wanted to see live dashboards from backend data in the S/4HANA system, to be transferred into SAP Analytics Cloud.

The most useful feature of SAP Analytics Cloud is planning because it helps users with making predictions and forecasts. Clients can forecast, make data allocations, and other actions. The solution is useful for planning.

An additional feature that needs to be added to SAP Analytics Cloud is exporting because right now, you can only export to PDF and PowerPoint. It would be good to have multiple export options, for example, to Excel and other apps.

Pricing is an area for improvement in SAP Analytics Cloud, apart from exporting.

I've been using SAP Analytics Cloud for nearly three years.

SAP Analytics Cloud has good stability.

Scaling up SAP Analytics Cloud is easy. It has good scalability.

I had a couple of requests and the support team for SAP Analytics Cloud was good. On a scale of one to five, I'm rating support as four out of five.

The initial setup for SAP Analytics Cloud is straightforward. How long the deployment takes depends on the client, for example, the solution was already implemented when my team started working with the client, so it was just a matter of transferring existing reports to the SAP Analytics Cloud environment.

The implementation was done by a consultant with good knowledge of SAP Analytics Cloud.

I don't have the exact price for SAP Analytics Cloud, but it could be improved and made cheaper, especially when compared to Power BI.

I evaluated Power BI, and it's fairly good, especially in terms of pricing. It's also easier to use, apart from being cheaper than SAP Analytics Cloud, but both are good products.

My company has more than one hundred users of SAP Analytics Cloud, particularly people in project planning and business intelligence departments. The solution requires only two to three people for deployment and maintenance.

My company has plans to increase usage of SAP Analytics Cloud, and there's been some internal training and knowledge sharing going on.

My advice to others who want to use SAP Analytics Cloud is that it's a good tool, especially if you were using older SAP analytics tools. Currently, SAP Analytics Cloud is the most advanced tool, and it helps you with your plans and strategies.

I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud eight out of ten.

Our primary use cases include analytics and integration planning, dashboarding, and data reporting.

There are quite a few features I like. The interface and the ease of building the data model. Data consistency is also a notable feature; the system takes care of data consistency, so you don't need to handle it manually.

Easy integration with other systems and Ethernet support are a few of the most valuable features of SAP Analytics Hub for us.

Faster implementation of new functions for the new product is an area of improvement in SAP Analytics Hub.

We have been using SAP Analytics Hub since its beginning. So, it's been 16 years. 

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. It is a stable solution.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. 

Customer service and support are good.

Positive

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a seven out of ten, one being difficult and ten being easy.

The deployment depends on the infrastructure and requirements. For us, the deployment took us a few days. Around seven to eight people were involved in the deployment process. 

It is an expensive solution.

I would say if you are already using other SAP products like ERP, then SAP Analytics Hub is also a really good tool to consider. If you do not use any SAP products, then probably it's better to explore other tools first.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use this solution for real-time dashboards, modeling data and for predictive analytics. It is used on a daily basis by 300 people in our business. 

The visualizations have been the most valuable feature.

The integration with other vendors and solutions could be improved. The visualizations and reporting capabilities could also be improved. In a future release, we would like to have access to built-in API capabilities. This would remove some of the manual work involved in reporting. 

I have been using this solution for three years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The customer service team are very responsive and knowledgeable. I would rate them a four out of five. 

Positive

An in-house team implemented this solution. 

 This solution offers value for money and you get what you pay for. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

I am a professional consultant and programmer and we are customers of SAP. 

This is a robust solution and I like that it's oriented to develop what we need in our ERP. I like the platform and the fact that it's the same ecosystem. 

There is something about SAP Analytics that is complicated and more technical, certainly in comparison to a solution like Power BI which is more intuitive and where it's easier to find data. Power BI has the added advantage that many people work with Excel. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

It's stable because it's all in the cloud. 

The solution is scalable but we haven't really tested it. Deployment requires a couple of people; one for design and the other working with what you need for analysis.

SAP calls me once every three to six months to ask how things are going. 

The initial setup is very easy because you can work with data models and if you know the database and you know how to model, both are intuitive. I haven't had many issues with deployment. 

In general Power BI seems to be more professional and user-friendly, it's certainly easier to find data. I prefer Power BI if I want to work quickly with clients because it's easier to use and I can send a link whereas SAP is more difficult to access and I can never be sure that the client can get access. The first steps are more or less the same with both products although SAP Analytics has perhaps more details to analyze what you see on the screen and Power BI has more of a classical interface.

Take your time and study the product because when you use SAP Analytics Cloud, you'll find it's very easy to make graphs and tables, to analyze and cross data. It's important to understand how it works but to also have a very clear idea of where you're going. There are online courses available as well as online help which is very useful. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10.