SAP Analytics Cloud: Top 5 New Features | Q3 2026 Release Highlights — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:06In this video, we take a look at the top five
2. 0:09features coming your way in SAP Analytics Cloud.
3. 0:12These include new out-of -the-box visualizations,
4. 0:16new AI-assisted features,
5. 0:19Excel-like search,
6. 0:21compass updates,
7. 0:23and data action data filters.
8. 0:25Hi, my name's Orla Cullen, and these are
9. 0:28your what's new updates for QRC3 2026.
10. 0:45We kick things off this quarter with three new additions
11. 0:48to our native charting library, Sankey, Funnel and
12. 0:51Gauge charts, plus a brand new quick builder that takes
13. 0:54the guesswork out of choosing the right visualization.
14. 0:56Let's dive in.
15. 0:58Here I have an SAP Analytics Cloud dashboard.
16. 1:02Firstly I can see that I have exceeded the threshold on my
17. 1:05travel expense KPI and it's falling outside the threshold range.
18. 1:09To look into this deeper I can easily
19. 1:11transform the KPI into a gauge chart.
20. 1:15Here in my builder panel, I select my chart type as gauge and I can
21. 1:19see that my chart has completely transformed and now it is showing
22. 1:23me where exactly my travel expense falls within the threshold range.
23. 1:27I also have the option to change my data indicator
24. 1:29from bar to a needle to mimic a speedometer.
25. 1:34For a sales leader or marketing director, it is often difficult
26. 1:37to identify the drop-off points in our sales and pipeline,
27. 1:40particularly using a bar chart. With the addition of the funnel chart
28. 1:44I can now quickly transform my bar chart into a funnel chart by
29. 1:48again navigating to the builder panel selecting my chart type
30. 1:51as funnel and now with a single click the chart has been transformed
31. 1:55into a funnel chart clearly showing me the drop-off points.
32. 1:59As a designer I have the option in the styling panel to
33. 2:02choose the funnel neck height and the funnel neck width.
34. 2:06I can also choose the data label settings from the styling
35. 2:09panel to show it has absolute value conversion rate or both.
36. 2:14Funnel takes this analysis one step further
37. 2:16by showing you the stage rate in the tooltip.
38. 2:21Next up I take a look at my income statement
39. 2:23across my company in a waterfall chart.
40. 2:26Again from the builder panel I can transform this into a Sankey chart.
41. 2:30I can expand my net income account on my count hierarchy
42. 2:33so that the value flows are rendered visually where the
43. 2:36width of each band is proportional to the magnitude and green
44. 2:39flows indicate income and red flows indicate expenses.
45. 2:42We also have the grey flow indicating
46. 2:44dimensions or non-financial accounts.
47. 2:47Now the structure of the entire income
48. 2:49statement becomes readable at a glance.
49. 2:52In the styling panel I have the option to choose
50. 2:55where I want to show the data label in the node or in
51. 2:58the flow and here I choose to show it in the nodes.
52. 3:03Staying on the innovation theme, this quarter brings two new AI assist
53. 3:07capabilities to SAP and its cloud. But let's start with AI prompts
54. 3:11insights. First up, we want to see what is happening with our operating
55. 3:14income. In this scenario, the AI prompt is linked to our P&L statement.
56. 3:19I am shown a short AI generated summary highlighting which version or
57. 3:23period might be most relevant to review. This is based on recent data
58. 3:27patterns such as growth in revenue and an improvement in operational
59. 3:31expenses and prompts me to investigate my cost of goods sold drivers.
60. 3:35I can then drill further into operating expenses and regenerate the
61. 3:40insights which give me further recommendations on areas to investigate.
62. 3:45Looking deeper into the configuration of this particular
63. 3:48AI prompt, we see it as a custom prompt and that it
64. 3:51has been set up to evaluate business performance while
65. 3:54being concise and keeping the answer under 100 words.
66. 3:57Some other examples include intelligent plan review,
67. 4:02variance of risk analysis,
68. 4:05policy validations
69. 4:08and forecasting with anomaly detection.
70. 4:12Sticking with AI, in SAP Analyst Cloud,
71. 4:16scripting lets you add dynamic behavior to your stories.
72. 4:19For example, showing or hiding widgets based on user
73. 4:22interaction and with the new AI -assisted story code generation,
74. 4:25you no longer need to write that code manually.
75. 4:29I start by right-clicking on the table chart button.
76. 4:32I select edit scripts to open the script editor.
77. 4:35Next I choose the inline chat and I simply describe what
78. 4:39I want the script to do in plain language. Here I want a
79. 4:42button to toggle the visibility of a table and a chart.
80. 4:45The AI assistant instantly generates the script and I can review it
81. 4:50and once I'm happy I click accept and no syntax knowledge was required.
82. 4:55The same capability works across all event types.
83. 4:59Here I'm scripting the on select event of a chart.
84. 5:02I describe a conditional logic rule in natural language and I let
85. 5:06the AI assistant handle the implementation. So I type the below
86. 5:10text into the inline chat. Get the value of chart 1 and if it is
87. 5:14greater than 100,000 hide it. The AI assistant generates a multi
88. 5:18-line script that iterates over the chart's result set. It checks
89. 5:22for values exceeding 100,000 and it conditionally hides the chart.
90. 5:26The generated code is accurate and complete including
91. 5:29iteration logic, type conversion and conditional visibility
92. 5:33control. All of this was done from a single sentence.
93. 5:37Switching back to story view mode I see that when I click the table
94. 5:40chart button we can see the visibility toggles between chart and table
95. 5:45and if I select the first chart on the canvas the visibility is
96. 5:48automatically turned off because the measure value exceeds 1 million this
97. 5:53confirms that the ai generated scripting is functioning correctly campus
98. 5:57continues to be one of our most loved planning tools and this quarter
99. 6:01it gets two meaningful upgrades a new story widget for surfacing
100. 6:04simulation results and smart boundaries which automatically proposes ranges
101. 6:09of uncertainty for your simulation drivers here I am a financial
102. 6:13planner running a new compass simulation to look at how various drivers
103. 6:17are impacting my operating income previously once a driver was selected
104. 6:21for simulation the business user had to manually decide on the range
105. 6:25of uncertainty to apply drawing on their own judgment and expertise
106. 6:29with the introduction of the smart boundary button users could generate
107. 6:33driver performance boundary values based on historical data and
108. 6:37can choose between absolute values or relative result in percentage.
109. 6:41I simply select the drivers I am interested
110. 6:43in, and in this case its employee,
111. 6:46building expenses and sales discount, and the time series analysis is
112. 6:50performed on all available historical data for the specific driver in the
113. 6:54version to predict the upper and lower bound of possible performance.
114. 6:59Results can be used as guide rails or adjusted using insights from
115. 7:02the field or other sources and I can go ahead and run my simulation.
116. 7:07This is especially useful for new users of Compass or for
117. 7:10simulations involving many drivers where manually researching a sensible
118. 7:14range for each one would otherwise take considerable time.
119. 7:18Here I have a story where I've added a Compass
120. 7:20widget just like I would with any other widget.
121. 7:23Here I've added two Compass widgets, one with a
122. 7:25single scenario and another with multiple scenarios.
123. 7:29As a story creator you'll be able to style it or add script
124. 7:32to steer it further and as a story viewer I can change
125. 7:35the display to only show graphs, all three cases or both.
126. 7:40And just like with other widgets I can also add comments
127. 7:43to discuss the simulation results with my colleagues.
128. 7:46A great benefit besides reporting is also the ability
129. 7:50to re-run the simulation directly in the widget.
130. 7:53This ensures that the results displayed
131. 7:55are based on the latest model data.
132. 7:58Now we can see how stakeholders across my organisation have the full
133. 8:02picture including actuals, plans and the range of probable outcomes
134. 8:06all in one place without needing to rebuild anything manually.
135. 8:10Up next is a feature that's been high on our customers wishlist,
136. 8:14Excel Light Search. This brings the familiar Excel find experience
137. 8:19directly into your SAP Analyst Cloud tables as soon as you start typing
138. 8:24within the search you see two main workflows search and replace and
139. 8:28building lists via multiple searches in this scenario I'm analyzing higher
140. 8:32locations I'm only interested in specific locations rome and toronto
141. 8:37as you can see all search results are pre-selected and the user can
142. 8:41confirm or refine without having to manually select each member first.
143. 8:46It can also easily switch to other locations. For
144. 8:49example, I can select Los Angeles and apply the selection.
145. 8:53In the second scenario, I want to enhance my
146. 8:56current search by adding or removing members.
147. 8:59The two new actions now come into play. With Replace, the current
148. 9:03selection is completely discarded and replaced with the search result.
149. 9:07Members that were previously selected but are not in the search results
150. 9:10will be removed with update search results are merged into the existing
151. 9:15selection previously selected members are kept and any search
152. 9:19results are added on top any deselections made during the search are also
153. 9:23applied here I replace los angeles with rome and toronto I've added
154. 9:28berlin and burn to the previous selected members and before I apply my
155. 9:32selection I get a preview of all members and the selection status and
156. 9:36once I'm happy I can commit the list. These actions will be available
157. 9:39across all major filter contexts like story page and local filter.
158. 9:44Rounding things out this quarter we introduced the data
159. 9:47filter parameter a new parameter type within data actions and
160. 9:51multi actions which supports broader parameter conditions.
161. 9:55Firstly it allows you to now pass multiple input controls
162. 9:58and story filters to a single parameter so I no longer
163. 10:02have to tie a single dimension to a single parameter.
164. 10:05Previously if I had three or four input controls and I wanted to assign
165. 10:09them to a parameter, I'd have to individually assign each to a given
166. 10:13dimension parameter. Now I could assign many to a single parameter.
167. 10:17Even more important is the fact that I have the
168. 10:19ability now to support other types of input controls.
169. 10:22These include date ranges or custom current date.
170. 10:25If for example I have a dynamic date navigation or selection or range
171. 10:30selection, this is now supported using the data filter parameter.
172. 10:34This new feature also supports attribute-based filters
173. 10:37or input controls and filters such as explicit exclude.
174. 10:41So again, simply the benefit from this data filter
175. 10:44parameter is simplified passing in terms of the
176. 10:47number of input controls to the parameter itself.
177. 10:50Here is one example where I now have four input
178. 10:52controls which are mapped to a single filter parameter.
179. 10:56Thank you for joining us to learn about some of the top features coming
180. 11:00in the Q3 2026 release cycle of SAP Analytics Cloud. Check out the
181. 11:05video description for more links to resources about this quarter's updates
182. 11:08and also remember to leave a like on this video and subscribe to our
183. 11:11YouTube channel to stay up to date with all things SAP Analytics Cloud.
184. 11:15Thanks again and see you next time.