How to bring reporting to the next level – everyone is talking about AI, Data Science and Machine Learning, but how to cope with much simpler scenarios of doing reporting and enhancing it for the “casual” data scientist?
SAP Analytics Cloud Overview
SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is the new strategic reporting product of SAP which combines classical Business Intelligence use cases with Planning and Prediction. As SAP Analytics Cloud is a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution you can just order a user license to get started with the solution and explore the capabilities. 
Figure 1: SAP Analytics Cloud SaaS Platform As SAC is positioned as the strategic reporting product all Cloud solutions are planned to get an embedded version. The standalone solution is planned to be called Enterprise Edition. The Enterprise Edition gives full flexibility to access data live or acquire data for analysis using SAC.
Smart Features of SAC
Next to the standard Business Intelligence use cases of Story building and Application creation, five smart features are integrated into SAC (see figure 2). Each of these Smart Features allows users to get more insight into data. The first three: Search to Insight, Smart Insights and Smart Discovery are designed to be used by “casual” data scientists. “Casual” data scientists are users who are interested in Data Science, but do not have a statistical or mathematical background. 
Figure 2: Smart Features Search to Insight allows to enter natural language text and as such discover insights into data which is available within SAC. This is planned to be enhanced in the future with conversational AI, so that even voice commands can be used to gain insights into data. Smart Insights adds verbal information on data which is analyzed in e.g. charts. Based on algorithms, insights into data are shown in the chart and available in the model presented to the user which evaluates the usefulness of this information. Smart Discovery enhances this by applying advanced algorithms to e.g. identify outliers and allow simulations of future looking scenarios. R Visualizations and Smart Predict are meant to be used by more experienced Data Scientists, as R Visualizations require R code to be written. Smart Predict is similar to SAP Predictive Analytics, Automated Mode, and allows the “automatic” derivation of best matching algorithms for a given data set.
Camelot Content Packages for SAC
Camelot ITLab has built several content packages, which can be used as project accelerator (see Figure 1). Each of these content packages contains pre-defined visualizations and KPIs which help to analyze data for e.g. a line of business. The content has been designed based on our project experience in various projects and different domains. Using the functional capabilities of the SAP Analytics Cloud allows companies to build customer centric reporting solutions which are fit for purpose. The power of SAP Analytics Cloud can be leveraged to every user and is enhanced with smart features for the “casual” data scientist. In addition, data scientists have the possibility to further enhance reporting using R code and visualization or Smart Predict to bring your reporting to the next level.
We would like to thank Torben Hügens for his valuable contribution to this article.
