Scheduling exports with SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) provides a central scheduling and broadcasting function via the toolbar:

Here you can configure the automatic sending of PDF documents to e-mail recipients at given points in time. Also, you can preset variables and set different variables for individual recipients:

So far so good...

But what if you want to:

• Share the report as a high quality (PDF) document, presentation or spreadsheet
• Schedule the generation based on an (external) event, e.g. new data having been loaded
• Store the generated files on a sharepoint, web service etc. instead of mailing them
• Configure the layout of the document individually
• Configure the scheduling parameters to the very detail

This is when biExport comes into the game.

Scheduling with biExport

biExport provides a separate WebUI to schedule, monitor and trouble shoot SAC document generations:

The biExport SAC Scheduler can be opened directly via the following URL:

https://designstudio-export.com/export_resources/sacscheduler.html .

Here, you can see an overview list of all your schedules, including runtime and status of each run of a schedule. You can also download the detailed logs, edit or delete a schedule.

In the maintenance view you can:

1. Switch between calendar-based and event-based schedules
2. Select the export format, export template etc. (see Export Templates for your Corporate Design)
3. Select the output channel: mail, fileserver, sharepoint, web service or custom endpoint (see How a biExport for SAC document can be returned or stored)
4. Name one or multiple Application and/or Story ID as a source for the export
5. Add parameters to query one or multiple specific views for the export (see Easily generate Briefing Books from SAC in PowerPoint, Word, PDF and Excel formats)
6. Add a list of recipients if you want to use the Information Bursting feature

You can also use the download and upload feature to conveniently edit the schedules offline in Microsoft Excel!

Obligatory configuration steps

Because biExport is an external service to SAC, you have to configure the login method for biExport Scheduler. You can choose between oAuth and SSO.

oAuth authentication

This works only for Import Models and Live Connections with popup authentication!

biExport will use the authentication of the user that has been specified with the export request.

A scheduling user has to use the "Authorize SAC user" feature once, before a schedule can be successfully executed. In the schedule details, the scheduling user must be named in the "user" field to authenticate correctly.

SSO authentication

This works for all scenarios, also for Live Connections with SSO authentication!

biExport will use the authentication of a centrally defined user. The service will always authenticate with the service user, as long as you leave the field "user" in the schedule blank.

Service configuration

To configure oAuth or SSO, please refer to the following blog posts:

• Configuration if you are using the biExport Cloud Service
• Configuration steps if you are using an on-premise installation