Many customers, partners and consultants have been waiting for a tool in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud to work with their data. Within the 2208 release a groundbreaking new app is available that enables key users to analyze data much faster than before – the Customer Data Browser.

To get a detailed list of key features and insights about restrictions and app behavior, please read the official documentation. Currently, a total of 1.576 C1-released CDS Views (approx. 20%-25% of total C1-released CDS views) are available.

In this blog post, I would like to focus on a use case to demonstrate the power of the tool.

1. How to get access
2. Use case: Manufacturing Order Operation
3. How the Customer Data Browser can be used to analyze the data
4. Conclusion

1. How to get access

Please get in contact with your authorization administrator. The admin can use the new business role template SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR_DANA to create a new business role:

1. Open the ‘Business Role Templates’ app
2. Search for Role ID SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR_DANA
3. Select it and click ‘Create Business Role’
4. Enter your own name for the Business Role ID and choose OK. A copy of the Business role with the ID you provided will be created

This business role can be adjusted and should be defined in harmony with the authorization concept of your organization (an example is described in section 3: ‘How the Customer Data Browser can be used to analyze the data’).

To get more information how restrictions require to be maintained by the administrative user, please visit the official documentation.

2. Use case: Manufacturing Order Operation

Sometimes analytics specialists only get a screenshot from business users with a requirement like ‘we need the ‘Operation Short Text’ and the ‘To Be Conf.’ value in a report.’ With the View Browser application, it has been possible to identify the needed CDS Views by comparing the field description with the screenshot. But without seeing the actual data it has been extremely hard to validate if it is the correct field. Therefore, a lot of additional steps were necessary to see the data within the app Custom CDS Views.

3. How the Customer Data Browser can be used to analyze the data

After a short analysis in the View Browser, it seems that the C1-released CDS View I_ManufacturingOrderOperation might provide the needed information.

Note: If only this CDS View should be available in the Customer Data Browser, the administrator can grant access to the CDS View I_ManufacturingOrderOperation in ‘Object Name’ via the Maintain Restrictions option. Once this is done, the user has just access to just this CDS View in the app:

1. Open the Maintain Business Roles app
2. Search for Role ID SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR_DANA (or your own ID for the Business Role)
3. Enter the details page by clicking on the Business Role
4. Enter Edit mode
5. You can see Maintain Restrictions button enabled
6. Choose ‘Write, Read, Value Help’ tab and provide ‘No Access’
7. Choose ‘Read, Value Help’ tab. Choose ‘Restricted’ option from drop down
8. Click on the pencil button at ‘Object Name’, ‘Object Fields’ or ‘Object Records’
9. Maintain restrictions in relation to the access requirements
10. To get an explanation of the different options, read the official documentation
11. Go back and click ‘Save’

Now the key user can search for this CDS View in the Customer Data Browser. It is available and can be further analyzed.

After clicking on the CDS View, the data details become visible.

1. Data Preview
2. Data download in MS Excel
3. Filtering
4. Sorting (right click on the column)
5. Open the settings (add columns)
6. Show the total number of records
7. Switch between technical and semantic names

A description of the individual features is available in the official documentation.

In our specific scenario the key user can filter the relevant manufacturing order 2000881 first (3.). Next, in the settings the columns ‘Operation Text’ and ‘Processing Time’ are added (5.). With a few clicks the relevant data of the manufacturing order is visible. It matches the data of the initial screenshots!

4. Conclusion

In previous SAP S/4HANA Cloud releases, the key users had to invest a lot more time to get the relevant information. After the usage is aligned with the authorization admin, the Customer Data Browser offers excellent features that are valuable for data analysis. SAP is continuously working on increasing the total number of CDS Views available for data preview in the Customer Data Browser app.

Before using the app, please also be aware of the disclaimer: ‘The usage of the customer data browser might conflict with the data protection policies of your organization. The authorization concept does not support any filtering by data controllers or by typical attributes reflecting the purposes of the processing. In addition, a download of the data is a transfer to potentially non-secure software/environments. Please ensure before using the customer data browser that you are in compliance with the data protection policies in your organization.’

In case you have any questions, please use the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Q&A area. You are also welcomed to provide your feedback in the comment section below. For similar content you can follow my profile or the blog feed SAP S/4HANA Cloud.