Navigating the Story Report Interface

A Story report is a presentation-style document that uses charts, visualizations, text, and images to describe data. If you have permission to create or edit a story, you can add and edit pages, sections, and elements as you like.

Measures are numerical value data fields that work with mathematical functions. Dimensions are fields with qualitative data that do not total a sum. Measures quantify the data sets on which you are trying to create a report. Dimensions provide a structure to categorize the facts and figures. If you are creating a report for employee attrition rates, then "attrition rate" is the measure and employees are the dimension. Measures and dimensions work together to help answer complex business questions.

Common examples of measures are Percentage fields in the Job Information table, such as Salary Increment Percentage. Common examples of dimensions are most fields in SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite product schemas, for example, Name fields, External ID, Country, Department, Job title, and status fields.

When you create a new story, you are prompted to choose between the Optimized Design Experience or the Classic Design Experience. The newer optimized experience has some enhancements, but there are also limitations.

Classic modes are being deprecated, therefore SAP SuccessFactors recommends utilizing the Optimized Design Experience for all new reports. The current exception applies when you need to use the Blended Data feature in tables.

This course will not include information on using Classic Story modes.

For information on optimized vs. classic modes, please review the help documentation: Use the Optimized Story Experience | SAP Help Portal.

When you design your story report, you can add and edit pages and widgets with the Story Designer.

As a report designer, you can toggle between turning on and off Edit Mode while working on the report. In edit mode, you can enable the right-side panel. The panel has two main functions, the builder and styling. The Builder allows you to configure and select what data appears in the widget while the Styling affects the way data displays. The options that appear in the builder/styling data depend on the visualization you are working with. For example, if you are working in a chart visualization, it gives you different options from working in a table.

To switch between Edit and View mode, click the appropriate button:

To view the right-side panel, select the right-side button .

Once the panel is displayed, you can switch between the builder and styling by clicking the appropriate button on the top on the right-side panel.

As a report designer, you can toggle Edit Mode on and off while working on the report. In Edit Mode, you can make changes to the story report.

In view mode, you can preview what the story report may look like to a report consumer.

To switch between Edit and View modes, click the appropriate button:

Many of the changes you make as a report designer will be completed to configuration Panels. You can open and close the panels with the toolbar buttons:

The left side panel consists of the following areas:

Assets

Where you can drag and drop widgets to the page to build your story.

Outline

Where you can manage global settings and manage your widgets in an outline view.

Filters

(If enabled) Where you can create, manage, and configure filters.

To view the filters tab, you can use the Filter Panel toolbar button to enable filters, then (if necessary) choose the Pin to Side button on the filter toolbar.

The right side panel consists of the following areas:

Data panel

Allows you to see a list of all data sources added to a story.

Builder

Allows you to configure and select what data appears in the widget.

Styling

Affects the way data displays.

The options that appear in the builder/styling data depend on the visualization you are working with. For example, if you are working with a chart visualization, you have different options than when working with a table widget.

If you select a widget in the story, the data source used by the widget is automatically displayed in the data panel when it is visible.

You can also use the data panel to configure the default source for new widgets.

The story canvas toolbar is divided into different categories such as File, Insert, Tools, and Data to help you find options and perform tasks.

When you select a widget on a canvas, you will get an additional menu separate from the toolbar. This Action Menu has commands specific to the widget you have selected. The structure of the menu and commands available vary by widget type and by design mode.

You can add multiple pages to your story to help you explore and present your data.

A story page can be a blank canvas or a responsive page, and either one can be used to lay out tables and charts. Responsive pages let you create lanes to section the page content into groups. Tiles within a lane stay together when the responsive page is resized.

On the page tab bar, you can select a page's dropdown menu to delete, duplicate, copy, rename (Edit Title), move, hide, or add comments to that page. You can copy and paste pages from one story report to another.

To move a page, you can drag and drop the tab to the desired location, or from the dropdown menu. Select Move left or Move right to move the page one level in either direction.

Hiding a page makes it visible only to users who have edit rights; it is not visible in view mode. To hide a page, from the page's dropdown menu, select Set as Hidden. You can tell if a page has been set as hidden by an icon that appears beside the Title. To make a hidden page visible, from the page's dropdown menu, select Set as Visible.

The Canvas page is the default page of your Story report. The Canvas page is a flexible space where you can explore and present your data.

Use canvas pages to bring your Story to life. You can add charts, tables, and other widgets that will make your data visually appealing within the Story.

You can rotate, resize, or move the widgets around to help you tell your story better. You can copy the widgets and paste them elsewhere on the same page or paste them to a different canvas page. You can apply styling changes to individual widgets or group them together and then apply the styling changes.

The Responsive page lets you create lanes to section the page content into groups. Tiles within a lane stay together when the responsive page is resized.

You can preview a responsive page to see how it looks on different screen sizes and device types. To preview a responsive page, from the story toolbar, select Device Preview Bar. From the preview bar, you can change the device or size to see how your page looks on a particular device or screen size. In some cases, tiles resize and flow to fit smaller resolution screens when space becomes limited.