Discussing embedded reporting and analytics in SAP S/4HANA

After completing this lesson, you will have an overview of the various reporting options in SAP S/4HANA. This includes analytical list pages, key performance indicators (KPIs), and the options for multi-dimensional reporting.

As a user, you consume information and execute ad-hoc analyses. Various SAP Fiori apps are available for this purpose and in the following sections, you will see examples for different types of apps.

Analytical list pages can be used to analyze data from different perspectives, investigate root causes, and react to transactional content. Data visualization and business intelligence can be used to identify relevant areas within data sets or significant single instances.

The following figure gives an example for the revenue according to different product groups, such as finished products (L001) or spare parts (S001), and so on.

These are the KPI tiles found on the SAP Fiori launchpad. Here you can see the most important key figures at a glance without having to start an application. By clicking on a tile, a drilldown to a predefined view can be initiated, where it is usually possible to switch between different views using a dropdown.

The following key figure gives you an example for Sales Order Fulfillment Issues related to order processing, invoicing, and other issues.

For multidimensional reporting, more than 100 dedicated reports are available for the various user departments and roles. The majority are for finance and controlling, but also for sales and distribution, inventory management, purchasing, and production planning. They are made available as Fiori apps on the SAP Fiori launchpad and allow you to flexibly analyze your data by numerous dimensions in pivot mode. The data can also be displayed as a table, chart, or combined. With the personalization feature, navigational states can also be saved and reused.

The following figure shows a contribution margin report based on product and customer. In the navigation pane in the left-hand part of the screen, further characteristics can be included into the evaluation by drag and drop, for example, a further subdivision by year, month, and company. The report is updated automatically.

Another example is the evaluation of revenues earned with the customers. The following figure shows that the highest revenues were achieved with customer T-BP99.

SAP Fiori overview pages consist of a set of predefined cards that are displayed below a filter bar. Restricting a filter affects all cards in the app. For each card, a key figure is usually displayed both numerically and as a chart. Depending on the configuration of the card, you can click on a card to navigate to other reports, KPI details, or transactional apps. In most cases, you can also navigate directly from the card to further analyses or transactional apps.

These possibilities enable the SAP Fiori overview page to perform as a cockpit for business users.

The following figure shows an SAP Fiori overview page with individual report tiles using key figures as tickers.

You can use these tools to join existing CDS views for customer-specific views without SQL coding and make basic adjustments. You can also click your own analytic queries here. However, for more complex requirements, you will always require a developer who then implements the requirement using CDS SQL in the developer tool Eclipse in the ABAP development tools.

In the following figure, you see the revenues enriched with details of the customer number and customer address in an actual line item report for the general ledger. This shows the flexibility of being able to combine data from the accounting table ACDOCA with data from sales tables. In this example, you can address customers with high revenues directly.