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The quick & dirty guide to beautiful dashboards

“Okay. Show me what you’ve done. Wow me.”

A prospective client said those words in a recent interview. Sure. No pressure.

Have I ever told you I’m horrible with interviews? 😅

As an early adopter of SAC in 2017, however, I’m keenly aware of what the tool can and cannot do. Wowing isn’t something that I would say is high in that list when it comes to this emerging tool.

Still, it’s a super cool product and I haven’t been excited about something like this in a long time. But first, let me get back to putting my foot in my mouth during the interview.

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No HANA, No problem

Recently, a friend called me in a panic. His client asked for help with piloting a SAP Analytics Cloud on BW system. 😱

He’s one of the most sought after Analytics Architects in the country and is I’m constantly jealous of his work on the most cutting edge technologies. It just happened that he was given this particular scenario.

Luckily, I had helped one of my customers pilot a SAP Analytics Cloud project in late 2017 on a BW on HANA system. We had Live Data Connections to both of the BW and HANA systems so I was able to tell him all about the differences and limitations for each option.

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SAP Analytics Cloud! Now what?

Congrats! So you’ve decided to invest in SAP analytics cloud!

While there are similar tools, I believe that keeping your products under one vendor simplifies development, maintenance, and support.

But now what? How do you take the initial step towards your first dashboard?

But first, a warning. You’ll be surprised to find that a number of the features for SAP Analytics Cloud are NOT available. Why is that?

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Managing the backlog

In the business world, time is money.

If your company takes 20+ days to close its books each month, then that time is lost and could have been better spent elsewhere. This is also known as opportunity cost.

Your SAP team also faces a similar challenge. Most technical teams have a backlog of issues and enhancement requests.

How long would it take to work through that backlog with your current staff? A length of 2-3 years is not uncommon.

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Case Study – St. Jude Medical

See how a 1-hour diagnostic saved this medical devices company more than 30 hours each month

The challenge

For the better part of a year, the Inventory Stock Quantity and Valuation report was an embarrassment to the IT Director at St. Jude Medical, a global medical devices company in Minneapolis, MN.

The report required a hefty 15-hour downtime of the company’s reporting systems at month-end, yet more often than not it would display a clearly incorrect inventory valuation of $0.00, for a firm that has an annual revenue of $5.6 billion (2014).

How could the IT Director persuade his business counterparts to trust the information from his systems when he could not depend on it for consistent results?

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Inventory Management: Everything You Need to Know About Inventory & Efficient MRP

Inventory management refers to the process in which a business looks after, organizes, and keeps track of its physical assets, materials, and stock.

This includes everything from purchasing inventory, to storing it in warehouses or at other locations, to shipping it. The degree of complexity for inventory management depends significantly on the size of the company, and a number of physical products that it sells.

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