Streamlining Financial Planning with SAP Analytics Cloud: A 2025 Q1 Perspective

Introduction?

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) have become game-changers, enabling organizations to automate decision-making processes and enhance analytics efficiency. SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) continues to innovate in this space, introducing cutting-edge features to help businesses scale analytics and deliver strategic insights.?

This newsletter explores the most significant updates planned for Q1 and Q2 2025, focusing on the integration of SAC with large language models (LLMs), enhanced enterprise planning capabilities, and new productivity tools. Let’s dive into what’s new and how these advancements will benefit your organization.?

AI for Planning and Analytics: Transforming SAP SAC?

SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) continues to redefine how businesses automate decision-making processes, leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver actionable insights. With generative AI (GenAI) evolving rapidly, the integration of large language models (LLMs) with SAC has become increasingly vital.?

“Just Ask” with SAP HANA Cloud?

At the core of these advancements lies the “Just Ask” natural language query feature. Powered by the SAP HANA Cloud vector engine, this functionality uses word embeddings and similarity queries to help businesses quickly retrieve insights and answers.?

In Q1 2025, “Just Ask” introduces capabilities to handle questions involving multi-currency scenarios using acquired data models, enabling:?

• Default Currency Queries: Based on model variables.?

• On-the-Fly Currency Conversion: Supporting currencies like USD, JPY, or GBP.?

• Defined Conversion Measures: For example, “sales in Yuan.”?

• Local Currency Support: Automatically breaking down results by dimensions with currency properties.?

Key Benefits:?

• Empowers self-service analytics, allowing users to obtain insights independently.?

• Optimizes data asset utilization, enabling businesses to scale analytics efficiently.?

• Frees analytics teams to focus on strategic insights rather than routine queries.?

Looking Ahead: Q2 2025 Enhancements?

The planned enhancements for Q2 take the “Just Ask” feature to new heights with:?

• Full Support for SAP Datasphere Models: Bridging the gap with SAC-acquired models.?

• Advanced Natural Language Understanding: Improving how users interact with queries.?

• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): Ensuring queries are grounded in relevant data.?

• Administrator Tools: Allowing the definition of synonyms and rules to refine query results.?

• Unified Query Capabilities: Enabling questions across SAP Analytics Cloud-acquired and SAP Datasphere models.?

These upgrades will enhance information consumers' ability to retrieve precise answers, making AI a more seamless and reliable tool for analytics and planning.?

Seamless Planning Integration with SAP Datasphere?

SAP has introduced a closer integration between SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) and SAP Datasphere, enhancing enterprise planning and analytics workflows. This update marks the general availability of seamless planning capabilities across both solutions, with the following features:?

• Unified Model Deployment: Deploy new planning models from SAC directly to SAP Datasphere spaces, ensuring that model data (both facts and master data) resides entirely in SAP Datasphere.?

• Advanced Analytic Modeling: Expose facts and public dimensions (excluding account dimensions) in SAP Datasphere’s data builder for enhanced analytic modelling.?

Key Benefits:?

• Real-Time Insights: Conduct live plan-versus-actual reporting by leveraging joint analytic models in SAP Datasphere.?

• Resource Optimization: Maximize hardware capacity usage in SAP Datasphere, ensuring efficient and cost-effective operations.?

Enhancements to Excel Integration and Export Capabilities?

SAP Analytics Cloud continues to enhance its integration with Microsoft Excel, adding new features to streamline workflows and manage large datasets:?

• Excel Add-In Workbooks in Calendar Tasks: Users can now add existing Excel workbooks from the SAP Analytics Cloud repository to the work files section of calendar tasks. This enables seamless task management, allowing users to open, edit, and associate relevant workbooks directly with defined tasks.?

Expanded Export Limits:?

• CSV Files: Increased to support 10 million cells and 300 columns.?

• Excel Files: Expanded to 10 million cells, 300 columns, and 1,048,576 rows.?

Key Benefits:?

• Simplify task management by linking Excel workbooks to calendar tasks.?

• Handle and export larger datasets for more comprehensive analysis and reporting.?

Additional Enhancements for 2025: Microsoft Excel Add-In?

SAP Analytics Cloud is introducing new features in 2025 Q1 to enhance the usability and functionality of the Microsoft Excel add-in:?

• Full Reset of Tables: Users can now reset a table to its original navigation state, providing a quick and easy way to undo all actions performed on a table.?

• Improved Illustrations: The designer pane and dialogs within the Excel add-in have been updated with harmonized illustrations, aligning with the visuals used on the SAP Analytics Cloud web interface for improved responsiveness and consistency.?

Key Benefits:?

Simplifies data manipulation by enabling users to revert tables to their original state.?

• Enhances user experience with updated, intuitive illustrations for better navigation and interaction.?

Conclusion?

SAP Analytics Cloud continues to set the standard for AI-driven analytics and planning by integrating advanced generative AI features and enhancing enterprise planning capabilities. The updates planned for Q1 and Q2 2025 demonstrate SAP’s commitment to empowering organizations with self-service analytics, seamless planning, and greater flexibility in managing and exporting data.?

As we embrace these new capabilities, businesses can look forward to a future where decision-making is smarter, faster, and more scalable than ever. Stay tuned for more updates as SAP continues to innovate and transform the analytics landscape.?

If you want to get more information to see if SAP Analytics Cloud is suitable for your requirements, we are happy to provide you with more insights with a live demonstration. If you want to learn more about our support and services, please visit our page.?

Source: https://roadmaps.sap.com/board?PRODUCT=67838200100800006884&range=FIRST-LAST#Q1%202025?

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