Use cases and getting started with SAP Data Warehouse Cloud

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at what SAP Data Warehouse Cloud (DWC) is and why you would choose this tool. Here, we’ll get started with DWC.

But before we begin, I wanted to briefly answer the most frequent question I’ve been asked, which is ‘When should I use SAP DWC?’

• Data silos – There is a global organisation that has data stored across multiple countries in various enterprise and data warehousing systems, that includes on-premise and cloud with an objective to deliver a single source of truth. DWC can provide them with trusted data and analytics across these systems from their specific landscapes.
• Agile data modelling – When an organisation’s analytical requirement is not clearly defined with no clear vision of the KPIs, then the traditional data warehousing method doesn’t support flexible delivery. With DWC you have the flexibility to quickly create or make changes to existing data models and deliver the requirements in shorter iterations. You can also give the business user the ability to create their own data models. This offers the user visibility of the data from an early stage instead of waiting for the development work to be completed.
• Fast-changing environments – During the Covid-19 pandemic, it has become critical for organisations to have data and analytics on-demand to be able to make good and timely decisions. They need the ability to inject data from various sources and not only from internal systems, but also external unstructured data from web application, etc. The need for on-demand and self-servicing data modelling and quick insights is critical for many organisations.
• A fully cloud based data warehouse and analytics – Perhaps an organisation’s roadmap is moving towards the cloud and a software-as-a-service model. In this case, DWC is a fully-fledged data warehouse solution in the cloud. It includes everything you expect from a modern warehousing solution and offers embedded analytics to gain insights. These include enterprise data warehousing processes like data flow, data scheduling, cleaning and transforming data, role-based security, real-time analytics, insights etc.

Getting started with SAP Data Warehouse Cloud

DWC is accessible from Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 11 and Microsoft Edge. You can find technical prerequisites here. Licensing is based on the storage and compute services rather than users, so you can have as many users for data warehousing functionality as required. Each DWC tenant comprise of  five SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) BI licenses and it is possible to purchase further licensees if required, however SAC planning is not available in DWC.

When I first logged into DWC, I was impressed by the simplicity of the home page with everything clearly visible and accessible. On the screen you can see the welcome note and below is the resources box with links to blogs and updates. On the top left-hand side is the menu, at the top is modelling and analytics options and at the bottom is the administration options.  On the top right side of the page are notifications, help menu and my products– here I could seamlessly switch between DWC and SAC.

Setting up users

Now that you have logged into the system and are a little more familiar with the home page, what’s next? You’ll need some users! . Users are added based on their email address in the user-management console, which is like inputting data into an on-line table. The administrators can add users manually, copy-paste or by importing from a spreadsheet. The user will be sent a welcome email and a link to create a password. Users can be assigned specific roles to restrict what they can do in the system by using standard roles or creating a custom role.  The standard roles are:

• DW Administrator role gives administrative permission over the entire tenant
• DW Space Administrator role allows the user view / edit their Space and connections
• DW Integrator role allows the user to create new connection and edit / delete existing connections
• DW Modeller role allows create / edit / view to stories, tables, views and models. You can create / edit Spaces.
• DW Viewer role allows view access to table, view and models and can view stories.
• BI Content Creator role you can create / view / edit stories and add comments, create bookmarks, filter on input controls and export to PDF
• BI Viewer role allows to only view stories, add comments, create bookmarks, filter on input controls.

This is the second of a multi-series blog with the next part focusing on connection and Spaces. To find out how Capgemini can help your organisation benefit from DWC, please get in touch.

Hinal Kansagra

SAP BI Consultant

Hinal Kansagra is SAP BI consultant in SAP BI in the UK I&D team. She has over 10 years’ experience providing SAP BW & Analytics solutions.