Explaining Intelligent Applications

An Intelligent Application consists of four different Key Components. Those are:

• The Data Sources Layer serves as the foundational entry point where business data originates from various SAP and non-SAP systems, including SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, SAP SuccessFactors, and external applications, providing the raw material for Intelligent Applications.
• Data from source systems is automatically replicated to Foundation Services as part of the intelligent application installation process, where it undergoes initial harmonization with other business data to ensure consistency and compatibility across different formats and structures.
• This layer handles essential data acquisition capabilities including data extraction, initial quality checks, and preparation for transformation into higher-value data assets, ensuring that source data maintains its integrity while being made available for analytical use cases.

• The Data Products Layer transforms raw source data into ready-to-use, curated data sets that are specifically designed for analytics, AI, machine learning, and operational use cases, serving as business-ready assets with embedded business context and meaning.
• Each data product includes comprehensive metadata that provides detailed descriptions of business definitions, field explanations, and data lineage information, ensuring users understand the context and proper usage of the data they are consuming.
• Data products are made accessible through well-defined APIs and access ports that enable seamless integration with third-party applications, while being discoverable through the Data Product Directory that aggregates metadata to facilitate easy data discovery across the landscape.

• The Analytic Models Layer combines multiple data products using SAP Datasphere semantic models to create structured analytical frameworks that power SAP Analytics Cloud stories, planning models, and interactive dashboards for comprehensive business analysis.
• This layer implements business logic through data modeling capabilities including formulas, currency conversions, hierarchies for drill-down analysis, and analytical measures and dimensions that provide meaningful business perspectives on the underlying data.
• Analytic models serve as the foundation for visualization and dashboard capabilities, enabling business users to explore data through charts, graphs, and interactive elements while supporting both read-only analytical scenarios and read-write planning use cases with built-in AI-driven co-pilot functionality for natural language querying.

Once the Intelligent Application is installed, all operational activities, such as continuous data replication, are automatically taken care of by SAP. You do not need to set up data loading schedules.

Intelligent Applications combine visualization objects with underlying models to display data through diagrams, tables, and other visual elements. These elements draw their data from data products that are integrated through SAP Datasphere models. Let’s examine the visualization layer more closely.

In its simplest form, an Intelligent Application presents data from a single data product, typically delivered as an SAP Analytics Cloud story - a no-code dashboard built on an underlying Analytic Model and view. However, most Intelligent Applications are more complex, incorporating multiple models and data products, and may include custom coding.

SAP plans to expand the Intelligent Applications portfolio with enhanced capabilities spanning additional application areas and features such as AI integration. The goal is to deliver comprehensive, SAP-managed software-as-a-service solutions. SAP partners are already actively developing Intelligent Applications, including many tailored to industry-specific scenarios.

Currently, Intelligent Applications like Working Capital Insights require SAP Analytics Cloud. Future, more advanced Intelligent Applications will leverage additional SAP Business Technology Platform services and may have different requirements - not always necessitating SAP Analytics Cloud.

By providing Intelligent Applications, SAP has greatly reduced your time-to-value for data analysis. Many steps that would have required in-depth, prolonged thought, along with the setup of many system tasks, have already been taken care of by SAP. You just need to install the Intelligent Applications with a few clicks to enable the business user.

From a business user perspective, the result of an installed Intelligent Application is a ready-to-use dashboard. The Intelligent Application is presented to the business user as an SAP Analytics Cloud story which is connected to one or more underlying SAP Datasphere models. The story and all of these connected models are automatically created during the installation of an Intelligent Application. Even the roles are generated. You just have to assign the roles to the designated business users.

SAP Business Data Cloud Intelligent Applications represent a comprehensive suite of pre-built, AI-powered analytics solutions that deliver ready-to-consume business insights across various organizational domains and Lines of Business (LoBs).

Therefore, they can be divided into different Categories with different focus topics:

• Finance Intelligence: Focus on Liquidity and Risk Management
• Enterprise Intelligence: Focus on Enterprise Operations
• Cloud ERP Intelligence: Focus on Procurement & Cost Control
• Revenue Intelligence: Focus on Customer & Growth
• People Intelligence: Focus on Workforce & Talent
• Supply Chain Intelligence: Focus on Operations & Resilience