Reporting Reimagined in S/4HANA with CDS Views | Case Study
For decision makers comparing and contrasting the pros and cons of going with SAP S/4HANA, be sure to consider this often-over-looked feature: Reporting.
One of the greatest strengths of SAP S/4HANA is its ability to offer customers a unified system that can combine the traditional core ERP functions including Finance, HR, Manufacturing, Order Management, etc., with the usually distributed functions that include Transportation Management, Customer Relationship Management, and Warehousing.
This provides a single point of entry for a business to manage its operations end-to-end, which in turn can provide finance managers, warehouse managers, back office staff, customer sales reps, and executives a window into the health of their business across functional lines beyond anything they could have imagined before.
Examples of cross functional reports that an Embedded S/4HANA system can produce, without having to integrate with any outside data analytics tools or systems, include:
- A warehouse manager trying to understand forecast/demand to prepare space in the warehouse based on the season.
- A purchasing representative being able to view real time space in the warehouse before placing a purchase order from a vendor.
- A transportation planner being able to review Customer Shipping Conditions for fleet planning.
- A finance manager able to view the inventory that is staged for scrapping.
While the data exists in tables in the HANA database, not all users can be given access to tables and even with access, the technical nature of tables makes it hard for someone in operations to make sense of them. To bridge this gap and help operations leaders in different functional spaces re-imagine what’s available to them from a reporting perspective, SAP offers Core Data Services (CDS) views.
There are about 1400 Consumption views provided in SAP S/4HANA 2023 that can help with basic reporting needs, such as number of deliveries shipped late from one or more Shipping Points, Real Time Location of shipments in transit from the vendor overseas along with carrier details. This is available under the Query Browser Fiori Tile. Consumption means they are ready for consumption or have active queries provided by SAP.
The real value of CDS views, however, lies in the Customer Data Browser app. SAP provides Interface Views, which are essentially views of database tables but no logic/standard queries. There are thousands of such Interface Views for users to choose from.
FuseGlobal has extensive experience working with business leaders to understand their reporting needs and build Consumption Views combining the above Interface Views and building Consumption Queries for their customers. Reach out to us to learn more about how SAP S/4HANA may be a fit for your enterprise, and how we can ensure your investment is best serving your enterprise.
