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Prerequisites to SAP Fiori analytical app implementation
SAP consultant Anil Bavaraju shares an overview on configuring two analytical app types in Fiori in this excerpt from the book 'SAP Fiori Implementation and Development.'
Click here to download theTraditionally, SAP has not been known for its user interface and user experience, but Fiori is changing all that. With SAP Fiori, the German company put significant attention into addressing customer complaints and creating a product that not only looked good, but that also offers a standout UX. The company hired modern developers and asked users for input. Indeed, Fiori applications represent SAP's most serious attempt yet to improve the user experience. But what about implementation? You can get a sense of that for yourself, starting with this overview from the chapter "Implementing Analytical Apps" from the book SAP Fiori Implementation and Development by consultant Anil Bavaraju. The full chapter excerpt is available as a download on the left and includes a step-by-step tutorial on implementing analytical apps, starting with how to create a key performance indicator.
6.1 Overview
SAP Fiori analytical apps are the new user experience (UX) for SAP Business Suite powered by HANA and developed using SAPUI5. These apps allow real-time insights into your business by displaying KPIs, allowing you to make faster, better decisions. In this chapter, we'll show you how to configure both analytical app types with examples based on the Days Sales Outstanding app and the Profit Analysis app, respectively.
There are two types of apps under the analytical umbrella:
- Analytical apps (non-smart apps)
These apps provide real-time information on large volumes of data. - Analytical apps designed using SAP Smart Business Modeler
These apps closely monitor the most important KPIs. SAP Smart Business apps are analytical apps that offer drilldown capabilities based on the SAP Smart Business framework.
In Chapter 1, we discussed SAP Fiori roles for different LOBs. For example, under the SAP UX for Finance LOB, you have accounts payable, accountant, cash manager, GL accountant roles. Certain apps can be configured for each of these roles. Figure 6.1 shows an SAP Smart Business product called SAP Smart Business for SAP S/4HANA Finance (formerly SAP Smart Business for SAP Simple Finance). These products contain one or more analytical apps. Similarly, for each LOB, there are different SAP Smart Business products.
These apps provide real-time insight into your business. For example, Figure 6.1 shows your company's collection progress, days sales outstanding, and other KPIs. You'll be able to further drill down from this KPI or operational performance indicators (OPIs) to a detailed analysis. In the next section, we'll show you how to model a KPI or OPI and how to drill down from that KPI tile.
What Are KPI and OPI?
Both KPIs and OPIs refer to the vital metrics of an aspect of your business from different perspectives that are crucial to the success of your business. KPIs look at board categories such as the sales of a particular region, and OPIs focus on a specific measure of a specific function or operation, for example, orders processed per shift.
The following are some of the key benefits of analytical apps designed using the
SAP Smart Business Modeler (smart apps):
- They offer role-based access to all relevant information, such as KPIs, OPIs, news feeds, specific tasks, trends, and alerts.
- You can easily build your own KPI with the threshold values and color-coded visualizations.
- You can create a drilldown from one application to another, to a Lumira storyboard, or to a BusinessObjects Design Studio application.
- They provide end-to-end insight into action scenarios, including simulation and forecasting.
We've covered some of the basic concepts of analytical apps. Before you enable and implement these two types of analytical apps, let's review some of the prerequisites.
6.2 Implementation Prerequisites
A number of prerequisites need to be fulfilled prior to implementation to configure the analytical apps. In Chapter 2, Section 2.5.3, we covered all the components that have to be installed on SAP HANA and the ABAP front-end and back-end servers.
The following is a quick checklist of components that should be installed and configured in your system:
- Install the KPI framework on the ABAP front-end server
- Enable the KPI framework on the HANA server Install SAP Gateway on the ABAP front-end server
- Install the central UI components
- Install the following SAP Smart Business products on the ABAP front-end server:
- Smart Business for CRM 1.0
- Smart Business for FCC 1.0
- Smart Business for ERP 1.0
- Smart Business for GRC 1.0
- Smart Business for EM 1.0
- Smart Business for TM 1.0
- Configure the SAP Web Dispatcher
- Install the HANA Application Lifecycle Manager (HALM)
- Enable HANA authentication and single sign-on (SSO)
- Assign the PFCG role /UI2/SAP_KPIMOD_TCR_S to your front-end user
- Assign the role, sap.hba.r.sb.core.roles::SAP_SMART_BUSINESS_MODELER, to your HANA user to access the SAP Smart Business Modeler
Important!
You have to implement the SAP Notes that are required for every specific app. Refer to the app-specific online help.
By now, you know that analytical apps run on an SAP HANA database that houses the KPI data. For the users to access the data from the HANA database, you need to provide access to HANA from the ABAP front-end server. For that, you need to enable user access to the KPI data (see Chapter 3, Section 3.2 and Section 3.3).
There are two ways to implement analytical apps, and the implementation differs according to the type of app that you want to use:
- Analytical apps launched using the KPI tile
For these types of apps, you can either model your KPI or use predefined KPIs with the Smart Business Modeler apps. In addition, you can even configure a generic drilldown using a predefined template or a custom drilldown. We'll cover this implementation method in Section 6.3. - Analytical app that uses the app launcher tile
App-specific content is provided for these types of apps. This content defines what to display and how to display it in Fiori Launchpad. You can't adapt or configure the information displayed by these apps. We'll cover this implementation method in Section 6.4.
We'll begin by implementing analytical apps using the Smart Business Modeler.
6.3 Analytical Apps with the SAP Smart Business Modeler
The SAP Smart Business Modeler is a tool delivered as part of the SAP Smart Business suite. This tool allows you to model KPIs and report tiles that enable targeted monitoring of key business data using SAP Fiori Launchpad.
You can define KPIs and reports in the SAP Smart Business Modeler to which you can apply different evaluations so that you can respond to the ever-changing business landscape. You can even add additional perspectives on the relevant data with drilldown views that are accessed through the KPI tile.
Analytical apps using the Smart Business Modeler are launched via KPI tiles. The Days Sales Outstanding app allows users to filter and drill down by various dimensions, and then check the days sales outstanding by customer country and company code. As you did with the transactional and fact sheet apps chapters, refer to the Fiori apps reference library for the app that you'll be implementing in the next section.
In the next sections, we'll show you how to create a Days Sales Outstanding analytical app using the SAP Smart Business Modeler and how to add a drilldown from the KPI tile with step-by-step instructions. The first step is to create a KPI. [Download chapter for explanation.]
© 2016 by Rheinwerk Publishing, Inc. SAP Fiori Implementation and Development /Anil Bavaraju. ISBN 978-1-4932-1248-4
About the author:
Anil Bavaraju is an SAP professional with over 11 years of experience, primarily on SAP BW and SAP BusinessObjects BI products. He is an SAP Certified Solution Consultant for SAP Business Intelligence, and an SAP Certified Application Associate for SAP HANA. His current focus is on HANA and Fiori; at his consulting company, he has delivered proof of concepts on Fiori, installed and configured the Fiori landscape on an HANA database, and extended Fiori apps.
