Describing the Key Features and Benefits of Story Reports in SAP SuccessFactors

Story is a presentation-style report that uses visualizations (chart, image, text, table, shape) to describe data.

Story Reports consist of pages. Pages are made up of:

• Visualizations of Data
• Filters and Input Controls to manipulate the data

Stories involve queries that retrieve data that you want to report AND widgets that represent the data. To build or update queries, you work in the Query Designer. To manage the representation of the data the queries retrieve, you work in the Story Designer.

With Story Reports, you can:

A query model represents large amounts of business data using common business terminology. The Query Designer enables you select the fields you want to use to create reports using Story.

The queries you build using the Query Designer are stored within the stories and cannot be accessed outside the story. You can create multiple queries (also known as datasources) in a story.

• Ability to select tables & columns from across multiple SAP SuccessFactors modules
• Search schemas to easily find schemas/tables
• Easy drag-drop UI for user-friendly query building experience

Story Design is the process of designing interactive reports using the data which has been saved using Query Designer.

The Story Designer provides the user interface (UI) to build the story pages.

Benefits:

• Allows users to derive insights from the data interactively
• Gives users the flexibility in visualization of information, a key element in reporting

Story Reports allows report creators to include data from multiple SAP SuccessFactors modules and set up multiple pages within a single story.

This makes it possible to reduce the number of reports shared with managers, thus making it easier for users to navigate and for the central team to maintain fewer reports.

Benefits:

• Report users have fewer reports to consider. This makes it easier to find the information.
• The central reporting team has fewer reports to maintain and document.

Linked Analysis allows you to make dashboards interactive. You can configure charts to act as filters for other components on the page.

Clicks or selections in one chart can filter other charts and tables in the story. You can specify if the selection should filter all charts on the page or only selected visualizations.

Benefits:

Serve many different users with a single dashboard, thus reducing the work for the central reporting team.

• Users need a simple dashboard to view the story.
• More advanced users can filter and drill into the data for more insights without asking the central reporting team for new reports.

Data access is defined automatically based on the Role-Based Permissions (RBP) settings of the underlying application.

This means that the data an end user can see is secure right down to the individual cell for RBP-supported applications. The data a user can see in a Story is also specific to their individual access.

Benefits:

• Serve many different users with a single Story, reducing the work for the central reporting team
• Simplify administrative overhead by removing the need for duplicate report permission setup
• Safely distribute reports to any user within the organization

The Report Center contains a tool called the Story Performance Analysis Tool. This tool helps Story administrators check how well a Story report is executing. It provides detailed information about performance, including processing times for the Network, Frontend, and Backend areas. By using this tool, administrators can find ways to improve report performance and the user experience.

Benefits:

• Helps administrators identify specific parts of the Story report that require improvement.
• Allows targeted actions to improve report performance, making it faster and more efficient for users

Story Performance Analysis Tool

The Story Reports created will be available in a listing of Report Center along with other types of reports per users' roles and permissions.

Stories can also be run, edited, renamed, deleted, scheduled, exported, labeled, and generate shareable links directly through the Report Center.

Benefits:

• Unified view of all reports in Report Center
• Permission-based user’s view of stories
• Easier to manage different reports from a single UI

To help your company start using Stories to deliver meaningful business insights, SAP SuccessFactors provides Story templates. Although Stories can be designed without a template, pre-configured approaches can be a great way to start. These templates are available via the Content Store.

Benefits:

• Start reporting on commonly needed data without the requirement to build the report from scratch
• Support modification of the templates to match unique use cases for your organization
• Great learning opportunity to see how data can be displayed in stories

Examples:

• Private Contact Phone and Email
• Manager Dashboard
• Turnover Analysis

• Story Reports present data visually across multiple pages.
• Query Designer manages data selection for reports.
• Story Designer creates interactive report visualizations.
• Supports suite-wide analysis and custom calculations.
• Managed centrally through Report Center with performance optimization tools.