What’s New in Reporting and Analytics with SAP Commissions 

One of the core value propositions of SAP Commissions is its pre-integrated reporting tool set.  These tools deliver up-to-date calculation results to payees and compensation administrators without the need for building integrations to external reporting tools. SAP is continually enhancing and modernizing this tool set, so in this article I’d like to provide a brief overview of the latest changes and developments. 

The leading components of this tool set are SAP Commissions Dashboards and SAP Embedded Analytics for Commissions.  What are the differences between them? 

• SAP Commissions Dashboards are best suited for providing Commissions payees with simple visualizations of key performance metrics and results. Dashboards are composed of widgets that provide self-explanatory interactive functionality; little or no training for end users is required. Configuration of dashboards is accomplished through drag-and-drop visual design, with no coding required.  This makes dashboard configuration manageable by compensation administrators and other business team members with an understanding of the company’s SAP Commissions calculation model. Dashboards are not designed for analysis of large data sets encompassing multiple payees, which means they will not be the best choice for analytic use cases. 
• SAP Embedded Analytics for Commissions is a powerful business intelligence solution that is bundled with SAP Commissions.  SAP Embedded Analytics delivers all the presentation and interactivity features that users expect of a business intelligence tool, including the ability to design canvases composed of multiple linked stories, dynamic filtering and sorting capabilities, and detailed control over formatting.  SAP Embedded Analytics comes with a pre-built analytic model based on SAP Commissions’s core data model but also supports the addition of custom data models.  SAP Embedded Analytics also includes a data security model that is pre-integrated with the SAP Commissions reporting hierarchy and SAP’s identity provider services (IdP), as well as story and folder-level role-based access control. 

• Note that SAP has recently introduced Advanced Analytics, which is a version of SAP Embedded Analytics that is scaled up for clients with high data volumes.  Advanced Analytics mirrors the functionality of SAP Embedded Analytics and comes with the same pre-integrated SAP Commissions data model (as well as custom data model support), plus the benefit of added performance and scalability.  Advanced Analytics is licensed separately / in addition to SAP Commissions. 
• Another recent development is that for recently provisioned and all future SAP Commissions tenants, Crystal Reports are no longer available or supported on the platform.  SAP Embedded Analytics (or Advanced Analytics) is the recommended solution going forward for the most advanced reporting requirements and eliminates many of the limitations associated with Crystal Reports including the desktop design client, necessity of custom-built data models, VPN access for report deployment, lack of interactivity, and Business Objects server administration requirements. 

With the investments that SAP has made in enhancing and extending the Dashboards and Embedded / Advanced Analytics modules, Commissions payees and administrators will enjoy the benefits of a much more modern user experience and access to more functionality than ever before.  

OpenSymmetry will continue to stay abreast of developments with these tools and stands ready to offer best-practice guidance to customers looking at SAP Commissions for the first time as well as existing SAP Commissions customers interested in taking advantage of the latest platform features. 

Article written by: Matthew Ver Halen