Building Simple Stories

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to Build a simple story.

Story Design

The video below covers the basics to creating a story in SAP Analytics Cloud.

Story Page Types

When creating SAP Analytics Cloud stories, you have different page types from which to choose:

  • Responsive: Required for viewing on mobile devices; dynamically changes layout depending on the viewer's monitor/screen size.
  • Canvas: A fixed page size that does not change, no matter the size of the viewer's monitor size.
  • Grid: A table-only page that is available only in the Classic Design Experience and will not be available in the Optimized Design Experience.

Classic Design and Optimized Design

When you create a story, you are prompted to choose Classic Design Experience or Optimized Design Experience mode:

Classic Design Experience Depreciation Warning in the Select Design Mode Type dialog.

SAP encourages you to use Optimized Design Experience mode. The Optimized Design Experience includes many usability and performance improvements and is the prerequisite for future story enhancements. There are a set of features that may not be available at this time as SAP continues to enhance the Optimized Design Experience mode; however, these and other new features are being added with each quarterly release and will be made available only in the Optimized Story Experience. Furthermore, it will be the new default experience in future releases.

The Classic Design Experience is still be available but will be phased out. It provides access to features developed prior to Q2 2022. However, it will not receive any performance, functionality, or usability enhancements.

Note

For the most current information on what features are available with each design experience mode, always refer to the

SAP Help Portal in your current SAP Analytics Cloud tenant.

Guidelines for Data Visualization

There is no right or wrong way to tell a story; that is entirely up to you.

There are, however, general design principles that can help you create meaningful, attractive stories that provide useful information.

  • Choose direction: Define the importance of your visualizations.
  • Keep it simple: Ensure a user-friendly experience for viewers.
  • Follow general reading direction: Follow either left-to-right or right-to-left as appropriate for the audience.
  • Group information logically: Locate similar topics adjacent to each other.

Data Sources for a Story

Once you have a blank page in your story, you will want to add widgets to visualize the data in your story. The simplest option is to choose either a chart or a table to add to your page. Select either option from the story menu bar: Chart or Table (or, depending on your screen resolution, you may need to select the … More option in the menu bar and select from there).

With either choice, you will be prompted to choose a data source, either a dataset or model to browse to and select or a SAP Datasphere model. You will probably choose a model most often.

The Select a Dataset or Model dialog

Left Side Panel

When creating a story, users have the option to use the horizontal menu options at the top of the screen or the Left Side Panel. The panel can be toggled on and off from the Left Side Panel button in the View menu option.

At the top of the Left Side Panel users can select three different options:

  1. Assets: All elements available in the horizontal menu can also be added to the story from the left side panel.
  2. Outline: Access story settings, pages, and scripting.
  3. Filters: View and apply story filters.

When elements are added from the horizontal menu, SAP Analytics Cloud positions them on the screen. With the Left Side Panel, users can position the widgets or other elements in the exact position they require as displayed in the following example.

SAP Analytics Cloud story with left side panel open.

Builder and Styling Panels

Build Your Chart or Table

Next, you will build your chart or table. You may need to toggle the Right Side Panel button in the View area of the ribbon to access the Builder panel.

Right Side Panel from the view area of the ribbon

When you are in the Builder panel, you simply add the appropriate data to the various elements of the widget.

The Builder pane with no data on the left. The Builder pane and the associated story with data added to the story.

The Builder panel, however, is only half of the entire panel. The other half is the Styling panel, which provides many formatting options for every component of the story, including the page itself.

The Styling panel in the right side panel.

Build a Simple Story

Business Scenario

You need to access real time data from your SAP HANA on premise system for simple data analysis.

Task Flow

In this practice exercise, you will do the following:

  • Create an optimized story with a responsive page
  • Customize your story
ExerciseStart Exercise

Log in to track your progress & complete quizzes