SAP Analytics Cloud – Story and Analytical Applications
How to choose between the classic self-service presentation (Story) or the one developed with the Analytics Designer tool in SAC?
There are two methods for creating a dashboard in SAP Analytics Cloud: either via self-service dashboard creation also known as Story or via the analytics design tool known as Analytics Designer. These two methods have quite similar functionality and components such as buttons, charts, graphs, joysticks and other additional gauges, yet they are quite distinct.
In this article we will analyze these differences and the reasons for them.
Various applications :
Adapted needs
End-users have different capabilities and needs depending on their areas of expertise. Thus they will apply appropriate strategies in their choice of method. In general, they will start by checking if it is not more relevant to develop via analytical design when critical needs are not covered by the standard presentation.
Example 1:
You want an additional window to open when calling up a table or a chart, the analytical design tool is the only option you can use because of the “Popup” functionality. This is not covered in the standard framework (except for a Geo map or Visualization in R)
So, with the analytical design tool, we can choose different types of charts (bar/Trend/Pie…etc.). In this example, we will choose a bar chart.
By default: all are visible
Using the standard presentation, as “Tooltip chart” exists only in GeoMap, we will make the chart appear after calling the map. This is represented in the image below, the bar chart appears automatically when we add “Tooltip chart” for this map.
Example 2:
You can only hide a page (visible only in edit mode) in the basic layout, but you cannot go down to the interactive component level. However, you can toggle the visibility between the interactive components using a toggle function in the analytical design tool.
In our example, we will add an icon that represents a graph and another that represents a table, when we click on the Graph icon, the graph will appear and the Table will be invisible, and vice versa.
By default: all are visible
Click on
(table),
Click on 
(Graphic)
An important aspect to consider is the maintenance management of the objects used in analytical design because the adjustments will be more complex there than in the stories.
Can we link a dashboard generated using the analytical design tool to a self-service presentation and vice versa?
The answer is yes, we can create a hyperlink (hypertext link) to transmit a value from the more complex dashboard chart (analytical design) to the standard presentation and use the selected dimension there, the reverse is also possible.
SAC provides business content to accelerate and facilitate development projects, you can adapt and develop stories as well as predefined interactive analytical components with the imported content. This content is freely available for download from the SAC application. For more information on SAC business content and a list of all industries and business domains that have predefined content, please visit the SAC Business content page.
Annex
