{"id":3674,"date":"2022-07-29T15:20:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T14:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/?p=3674"},"modified":"2022-07-29T15:20:51","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T14:20:51","slug":"book-review-designing-dashboards-with-sap-analytics-cloud-sap-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/book-review-designing-dashboards-with-sap-analytics-cloud-sap-press","title":{"rendered":"Book review: Designing Dashboards with SAP Analytics Cloud (SAP Press)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Developing dashboards and reports with SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) does not only require skills on using the tool itself, but also some fundamental knowledge on how to design a dashboard and how to communicate data in a proper way. Of course, there are already some good books and resources on how to work with SAC and we have numerous books on dashboard design and concepts as IBCS. This book by SAP Press – Designing Dashboards with SAP Analytics Cloud<\/a> – aims to bridge these two topics and bring these theoretical design concepts into practice in SAC.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The book starts with some pretty extensive chapters on dashboard design principles (they define their “10 golden rules”) and process-related success factors, from understanding the user requirements till measuring the success of dashboard after deployment. It’s a bit dry to read (lots of text) but it definitely contains some interesting stuff, especially if you’re pretty new to this. <\/p>\n

The majority of the book leads you through the practical side of these fundamentals with a series of sample scenarios. We get lots of screenshots and lots of different visualization types (charts). It not only shows you what is possible, but also how to achieve this in SAC in a step-by-step manner. However, I don’t really understand why the authors chose to split the scenarios (and chapters) by for example connectivity type (acquired vs live). It shouldn’t really matter where the data comes from to design a good dashboard, right? Anyway, it at least gives us some more examples to learn from. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Besides these more standard SAC story topics there are dedicated chapters on designing planning dashboards, using SAC Application Design, the embedded version of SAC (SAP S4\/HANA), self-scripted custom R-visualizations and developing mobile dashboards. Especially this chapter on mobile stories grabbed my attention as this is often a bit of an afterthought. It’s just not enough to assume that stories will automatically convert into good working mobile (iPhone \u00e1nd iPad) dashboards!<\/p>\n

The book ends with a template for a style guide, which is of course very useful in case you want to introduce your own development standards. Also an extensive list of additional resources is provided. <\/p>\n

Throughout the book IBCS is discussed and applied several times, which is of course a big plus. A lot of the examples use the canvas pages option however. I’m not a fan of that and rather just use the responsive pages all the time as they provide structure, perform better and are mobile compatible. <\/p>\n

A major drawback of the print edition of this book is that it lacks colors, which is a bit strange for a guide for visual design that costs almost \u20ac90. This has been a discussion within SAP Press for a long time, as I remember this from the days that I worked on their books for Lumira. So you probably want to spend the additional \u20ac10 to get the PDF version as well… <\/p>\n

Then, for whom is this book? If you are a SAC pro who wants to get some new ideas on dashboard design, there is a lot of useful material here but you’ll also be skipping quite a lot of content. You don’t need to get explained how to add a chart to a story, right? This step-by-step format is on the other hand clear enough for really new SAC developers, as it is easy to follow and learn from and it provides at least a good idea of what is possible with the tool. In additional they then could check out the recent OpenSAP training on SAP Analytics Cloud<\/a> or get the book on SAC by Abassin Sidiq<\/a>, as that gives a more complete overview and much more details. <\/p>\n

Designing Dashboards with SAP Analytics Cloud<\/a><\/strong>
Erik Bertram, James Charlton, Nina Hollender, Melanie Holzapfel, Nico Licht, Carmen Paduraru
344 pages,  2021
E-book formats: EPUB, MOBI, PDF, online
ISBN 978-1-4932-2061-8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Developing dashboards and reports with SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) does not only require skills on using the tool itself, but also some fundamental knowledge on how to design a dashboard and how to communicate data in a proper way. Of course, there are already some good books and resources on how to work with SAC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34,183,299],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-3674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-review","category-sap-analytics-cloud","tag-sap-press"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pKaa2-Xg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3683,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/book-review-sap-analytics-cloud-financial-planning-and-analysis-sap-press","url_meta":{"origin":3674,"position":0},"title":"Book review: SAP Analytics Cloud – Financial Planning and Analysis (SAP Press)","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"August 16, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Another review on yet another SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) book? Oh yes! This time I read\u00a0SAP Analytics Cloud - Financial Planning and Analysis, again by SAP Press, and I was very glad to see this 450+ pages strong book on SAC Planning being announced some time ago.\u00a0 Few may know\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/SAP-Analytics-Cloud-Financial-Planning-Analysis-SAP-Press.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3495,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/sac-application-design-and-lumira-designer-roadmap-questions","url_meta":{"origin":3674,"position":1},"title":"SAC Application Design and Lumira Designer – Roadmap questions","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"March 7, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently got quite some questions about the new Application Design feature in SAP Analytics Cloud, especially its position in relation to SAP Lumira Designer (Design Studio). I understand that all this may raise some questions with SAP BI customers that haven\u2019t hopped on the SAC train yet or are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SAP Analytics Cloud"","block_context":{"text":"SAP Analytics Cloud","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/sap-analytics-cloud"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lumroadmap.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lumroadmap.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lumroadmap.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lumroadmap.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3661,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/dashboards-are-dead-really","url_meta":{"origin":3674,"position":2},"title":"Dashboards are dead? Really?","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"July 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I saw\u00a0this\u00a0nice discussion on LinkedIn last week on the state of dashboarding. And yes, I was as surprised as you to see a relevant, professional post on this platform in 2022, as LinkedIn has turned into some sort of Facebook lately, but okay... \ud83d\ude05\u00a0\u00a0 The premise of the post was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SAP Analytics Cloud"","block_context":{"text":"SAP Analytics Cloud","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/sap-analytics-cloud"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/dashboards-are-dead-thoughspot.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3653,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/book-review-security-for-sap-analytics-cloud-authorizations-and-provisioning","url_meta":{"origin":3674,"position":3},"title":"Book review: Security for SAP Analytics Cloud – Authorizations and Provisioning","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"July 13, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a while since I reviewed some SAP related books here at\u00a0HackingSAP.com\u00a0and what better way to pick this up again than with a book on SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) that was even written by my very own Interdobs colleague Martijn van Foeken!\u00a0 Security for SAP Analytics Cloud - Authorizations\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Review"","block_context":{"text":"Review","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/review"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/SAP-Press-Security-for-SAP-Analytics-Cloud-Authorizations-and-Provisioning.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3794,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/de-nederlandse-bi-podcast-business-data-cloud-is-here-is-het-echt-zo-revolutionair","url_meta":{"origin":3674,"position":4},"title":"De Nederlandse BI Podcast: Business Data Cloud is here! Is het echt zo revolutionair?","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"February 19, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"English summary (AI generated): In the latest episode of the DNBIP podcast, several key updates and developments within the SAP world were discussed. From technological improvements in SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) to the announcement of the Business Data Cloud (BDC), there is plenty to explore. Here\u2019s a summary of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "De Nederlandse BI Podcast"","block_context":{"text":"De Nederlandse BI Podcast","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/podcast"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3549,"url":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/sap-analytics-cloud-and-sap-data-warehouse-cloud-early-insights","url_meta":{"origin":3674,"position":5},"title":"SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Data Warehouse Cloud: Early Insights","author":"Xavier Hacking","date":"May 31, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the projects that I\u2019m currently working on involves a very interesting setup with the brand new SAP Data Warehouse Cloud (DWC) as its datawarehousing solution. As front-end \u00a0we use SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), which is available as an embedded offering within DWC. This is actually the first DWC\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SAP Analytics Cloud"","block_context":{"text":"SAP Analytics Cloud","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/category\/sap-analytics-cloud"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/cgs2IqftgH0\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3674"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3678,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions\/3678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hackingsap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}