How to Build Your First SAP Analytics Cloud Story: Step-by-Step Guide 2026

Welcome to Part 2 of our SAP Analytics Cloud series. In Part 1 we covered what SAP Analytics Cloud is, its three pillars, and how it fits into the SAP ecosystem.

In this part we get practical. By the end of this guide you will have built your first SAP Analytics Cloud Story — a real interactive dashboard using your own data.

No prior SAC experience needed. Let’s go.

Table of Contents

What is an SAP Analytics Cloud Story?

In SAP Analytics Cloud, a Story is what other tools call a dashboard or report. It is a canvas where you combine charts, tables, images, and text to visualise your data and tell a story about what is happening in your business.

Think of a Story as a PowerPoint presentation — but live, interactive, and connected directly to your data.

Every dashboard you see in SAC is a Story. Every report your finance team uses is a Story. Learning to build Stories is the most important skill in SAP Analytics Cloud.

What you need before starting

Before building your first Story you need:

A free SAP Analytics Cloud trial account — sign up at sap.com/sac-trial
A simple Excel or CSV file with data — sales figures, budget numbers, anything with rows and columns works perfectly
A browser — SAC runs entirely in your browser, nothing to install

That is it. No SAP system needed for your first Story.

Step 1 — Log into SAP Analytics Cloud

Go to your SAC trial URL — it looks like:

https://[your-tenant].eu10.hanacloudservices.cloud.sap

You received this URL in your trial confirmation email. Log in with your SAP credentials.

You land on the SAC Home Screen — your starting point for everything.

What you see on the home screen:

Left sidebar — main navigation menu
Stories section — your saved dashboards
Sample content — pre-built examples from SAP
Recent files — your recent work

Spend 5 minutes exploring the sample Stories SAP includes. Click on them, interact with the charts, get a feel for what a finished Story looks like before building your own.

Step 2 — Prepare your data file

For your first Story you will upload a simple Excel file. Here is a sample dataset you can copy into Excel right now:

Month	Region	Product	Revenue	Target
January	North	Product A	45000	40000
January	South	Product A	38000	42000
February	North	Product A	52000	48000
February	South	Product B	41000	45000
March	North	Product B	61000	55000
March	South	Product A	44000	46000

Save this as sales-data.xlsx on your desktop. This becomes your first SAC data model.

Important tip: Keep your Excel file clean before uploading — no merged cells, no empty rows, clear column headers in row 1. SAC imports clean structured data best.

Step 3 — Create your first data model

Before building a Story you need a Model — this is how SAC understands your data.

In SAC, click the main menu (☰) → Modeler → New Model

Select “Import a file” → upload your sales-data.xlsx file.

SAC automatically detects:

Dimensions — text columns like Month, Region, Product — these are your filters
Measures — number columns like Revenue and Target — these are what you analyse

Review what SAC detected and click Create Model.

Give your model a clear name: Sales Analysis Model

Click Save. Your first data model is ready.

Step 4 — Create a new Story

Now the exciting part — building your dashboard.

Click the main menu (☰) → Stories → New Story

SAC gives you two canvas options:

Responsive — adapts to different screen sizes automatically — recommended for most use cases
Classic — fixed size canvas — better for precise pixel layouts

Select Responsive for your first Story.

You land on a blank canvas. This is where you build.

Step 5 — Add your first chart

Click Insert in the top menu → Chart

A chart placeholder appears on your canvas. On the right panel:

Click “Select Model” → choose your Sales Analysis Model
Under Measures — drag Revenue to the Values field
Under Dimensions — drag Month to the Dimension field
SAC instantly generates a bar chart showing revenue by month

You just created your first SAC visualisation. 🎉

Customise the chart:

Click the chart → Styling panel on the right
Change chart type — try Line chart for trend view
Add data labels — toggle “Show Data Labels”
Change colours — click any bar to change its colour

Step 6 — Add a KPI tile

KPI tiles show single key numbers at the top of dashboards — total revenue, achievement percentage, variance from target.

Click Insert → KPI Tile

Configure it:

Primary Value: Revenue — sum
Comparison Value: Target — sum
SAC automatically calculates variance and shows green or red

Place it at the top of your canvas above the chart. This gives your dashboard an executive summary at a glance.

Step 7 — Add a table

Charts give overview — tables give detail. A good dashboard has both.

Click Insert → Table

Configure:

Rows: Region and Product
Columns: Month
Values: Revenue

You now have a crosstab table showing revenue breakdown by region, product, and month — exactly like a pivot table in Excel but live and interactive.

Step 8 — Add filters and input controls

This is what makes SAC dashboards truly interactive — filters let users slice data without editing the Story.

Click Insert → Input Control

Select Region as the dimension. A dropdown filter appears on your canvas.

Now when someone using your dashboard selects “North” from the filter — every chart and table on the page automatically updates to show only North region data.

Add a second filter for Month — now users can filter by both region and time period independently.

This interactivity is something Excel simply cannot match.

Step 9 — Style and format your Story

A professional looking dashboard builds trust with your audience. SAC has strong styling options.

Page background:

Click anywhere on canvas background
Right panel → Canvas Settings
Change background colour — dark navy blue works well for executive dashboards

Consistent fonts:

Select all text elements → set the same font throughout
SAC uses Helvetica by default — clean and professional

Layout tips:

KPI tiles at the top
Main chart in the centre — largest element
Table at the bottom
Filters on the left sidebar or top right

Add a title:

Click Insert → Text
Type: Sales Performance Dashboard — 2026
Make it large, bold, and white if using dark background

Step 10 — Save and share your Story

Click Save in the top menu. Give your Story a clear name:

Sales Performance Dashboard — My First Story

Choose a folder to save it in — create a folder called My Dashboards to keep things organised.

To share with others:

Click the Share icon top right
Enter email addresses
Choose permission level — View only or Edit
Click Send

Your colleagues receive an email with a direct link to your live interactive dashboard.

Common mistakes beginners make in SAC Stories

After implementing SAC across multiple enterprise clients these are the mistakes we see most often:

1. Too many charts on one page
More than 6-8 visualisations on one page overwhelms users. Split into multiple pages — SAC Stories support multiple pages like PowerPoint slides.

2. Not using the right chart type
Bar charts for comparisons. Line charts for trends over time. Pie charts only for simple part-to-whole with maximum 5 segments. Never use 3D charts — they distort data perception.

3. Ignoring mobile view
In Responsive canvas, always check the mobile layout. Click View → Mobile Preview to see how your dashboard looks on phone. Many SAC users access dashboards on mobile.

4. No clear title or context
Every chart needs a title that answers “what am I looking at?” — not just “Revenue” but “Monthly Revenue vs Target — 2026”

5. Skipping data model preparation
Messy source data creates messy dashboards. Clean your Excel file before uploading — your dashboard is only as good as your underlying data.

What’s next in this series

You have now built your first SAP Analytics Cloud Story. That is a real achievement — most people never get past reading about SAC.

Coming up in Part 3 — we move beyond Excel uploads and connect SAC directly to live data sources including SAP S/4HANA and SAP Datasphere. This is where SAC becomes genuinely powerful for enterprise use.

The full series:

Part 1 — What is SAP Analytics Cloud?
Part 2 — Building your first SAC Story and Dashboard( you are here)
Part 3 — Connecting SAC to your data sources
Part 4 — SAC Planning — building your first budget model
Part 5 — SAC AI features — Smart Predict and Search to Insight
Part 6 — SAC vs Power BI — full honest comparison

Subscribe below to get notified when Part 3 publishes.

Key takeaways

A Story is SAC’s term for a dashboard or report — it is the core deliverable of SAP Analytics Cloud
You need a Model before building a Story — the model tells SAC how to understand your data
Start with a clean Excel file — messy data creates messy dashboards
Input controls make your dashboard interactive — filters update all charts simultaneously
Mobile view matters — always check how your Story looks on phone
SAP Analytics Cloud trial is free for 30 days — start building today

Published by the Data Cloud Insights team — SAP data professionals with hands-on enterprise implementation experience across Europe.