SAP Analytics Cloud – Consuming Data Using ODATA as a Data Source

SAP Analytics Cloud allows you to connect to various data sources from live data connections to on-premise or cloud systems. In this blog, let us see how OData can be used as a data source for SAP Analytics Cloud.

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What is OData?

OData is a REST-based protocol for querying and updating data. It is built on standardized technologies such as HTML or XML and JSON. It provides a uniform way for both creating data and data models.

Connecting to OData Services

1. Go to Connections from Main Menu of SAP Analytics Cloud.

SAP Analytics Cloud – Consuming Data Using ODATA as a Data Source

2. Click Add Connection.

3. Select OData Services under Acquire Data.

4.Add Connection Name and Description as required.

5. SAP OData Service – If you use SAP OData Service, you can make use of specific SAP metadata as given in SAP ANNOTATIONS FOR ODATA VERSION 2.0. Some features like search, filter, sort are available which are disabled by default.

6.On-Premise OData service – You need to install an SAP CP Cloud Connector and properly map the OData service URL to the on-premise system.

7. Enter the Data Service URL and click create.

8. The created connection appears in the Connection page.

Creating a Model using OData Connection

1. Select the Create Model option from Main Menu.

2. Choose the option Get data from a data source to connect with OData source. Select the OData Services option.

3. Choose the previously created OData Connection. Click Next.

4. Select the Option Create a new query if you want to create a new query for the model using OData.

5.A new pop-up appears asking for a new Query name. Enter the required query name and select any one of the metadata options available.

6. Build Query popup allows you to select the data for the query to be created. Once the data is selected, click on create.

7. Once the Query is created, you will be taken to the model creation. Including/excluding dimensions and other Data Management options are available. Once complete select ‘Create model’ and now you can use the OData model in the story or analytic application.

To refresh the data, go connections page and switch to the Schedules tab. You can view the Model created along with the option to refresh the data.

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Advantage

You can connect to customized OData Services, however, proper configuration is needed to take full advantage of the customized OData Services.

Limitation

SAP Analytics Cloud supports only OData Version 2.0 for now. Hence complex algorithms and arithmetic operations are not supported yet.

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To learn more about SAP Analytics Cloud check out our series of blogs here. Reach out to us here today if you are interested in evaluating if SAP Analytics Cloud is right for you.