Adding an SAP Analytics Cloud Connection

Prerequisites

• A user with sufficient permissions is required to establish a connection with SAP Analytics Cloud.
• Zeenea traffic flows towards the data source must be open.

Supported Versions

The SAP Analytics Cloud connector is compatible with the online version of the service.

Installing the Plugin

The SAP plugin can be downloaded here: Zeenea Connector Downloads

For more information on how to install a plugin, please refer to the following article: Installing and Configuring Connectors as a Plugin.

Declaring the Connection

Creating and configuring connectors is done through a dedicated configuration file located in the /connections folder of the relevant scanner. The scanner frequently checks for any change and resynchronises automatically.

Read more: Managing Connections

In order to establish a connection with SAP Analytics Cloud, specifying the following parameters in the dedicated file is required:

Parameter	Expected value
name	The name that will be displayed to catalog users for this connection.
code	The unique identifier of the connection on the Zeenea platform. Once registered on the platform, this code must not be modified or the connection will be considered as new and the old one removed from the scanner.
connector_id	The connector type to use for the connection. Here, the value must be sap-sac and this value must not be modified.
connection.oauth.endpoint	SAP Analytics Cloud endpoint Example: https://example.authentication.eu10.hana.ondemand.com/oauth/token
connection.oauth.client_id	Client identifier
connection.oauth.client_secret	Client secret
tls.truststore.path	The Trust Store file path. This file must be provided in case TLS encryption is activated (protocol https) and when certificates of servers are delivered by a specific authority. It must contain the certification chain.
tls.truststore.password	Password of the trust store file
tls.truststore.type	Type of the trust store file (PKCS12 or JKS). Default value is discovered from the file extension.
proxy.scheme	Depending on the proxy, http or https
proxy.hostname	Proxy address
proxy.port	Proxy port
proxy.username	Proxy username
proxy.password	Proxy account password

note

A template of the configuration file is available in this repository.

User Permissions

In order to collect metadata, the running user's permissions must allow them to access and read stories that need cataloging.

In our case, the configuration is done at the OAuth2 client level according to the SAP documentation described in the following article: https://blogs.sap.com/2018/04/20/sap-analytics-cloud-apis-getting-started-guide/.

Data Extraction

To extract information, the connector runs the followings requests on the API:

• /oauth/token?grant_type=client_credentials: To authenticate
• /api/v1/stories?include=models: To collect all the stories and related models

Collected Metadata

Inventory

Will collect the list of stories accessible by the user.

Lineage

The connector is able to reconstruct the lineage of the tables used in the stories if they are present in the catalog. This functionality is available when SAP Analytics Cloud uses datasets from the technologies mentioned below. In some cases, it is necessary to specify an additional parameter in the configuration files of the original connections of these tables as it is referenced in the configuration of SAP Analytics Cloud connections.

Summary table of possible values of the alias parameter to be completed in the data source configuration file.

Source System	Model	Example
SAP BW	N/A	N/A

Visualization

A visualization is an SAP Analytics Cloud story.

• Name
• Source Description
• Technical Data:
  • SAP Identifier
  • URL
  • Created At
  • Updated At
  • Created By
  • Updated By

Dataset

A dataset is an SAP Analytics Cloud model.

• Name
• Source Description
• Technical Data:
  • SAP Identifier

Data Process

To represent the data flow from an external source, a Zeenea Data Process will be created for each SAP Analytics Cloud model.

• Name: import dataset_name

Fields

The connector does not return any information about the story fields. They are not exposed by the SAP Analytics Cloud API.

Unique Identifier Keys

A key is associated with each item of the catalog. When the object comes from an external system, the key is built and provided by the connector.

More information about unique identification keys in this documentation: Identification Keys.

Object	Identifier Key	Description
Visualization	code/story/technical identifier	code: Unique identifier of the connection noted in the configuration file technical identifier: SAP technical identifier of the story
Dataset	code/model/technical identifier	code: Unique identifier of the connection noted in the configuration file technical identifier: SAP technical identifier of the model
Data process	code/transformation/technical identifier	code: Unique identifier of the connection noted in the configuration file technical identifier: SAP technical identifier of the model