Using Sections to Format a Story

Sections are like containers for your SAP Analytics Cloud story.

Sections are useful for reporting, but they're also useful for dashboarding if you're working with a canvas page.

Sections allow you to split report information into smaller, more comprehensible and manageable parts. That's also a great way to create comparisons quickly by laying out multiple section instances in a paginated canvas.

You can use sections to improve the layout of your stories and break down your analysis per dimension member.

Choose the dimension to use as a section filter:

The dimension's members are displayed in the section heading, one member per section.
The widgets in the section based on the same model are filtered on that member.

You can customize sections and section headings in Edit mode in the Styling panel if you’re looking to further refine the design of your story. Still in the Styling panel, you can also hide the heading and guidelines of the section.

Restriction

You can't add comments to a section.
Sections take the whole width of the canvas.
You can't create sections within sections.
Some widgets can't be placed in a section.
If you want to use optimized view mode, each section must start on a new page.
You can't use time hierarchy dimensions as section filters.
You can only use level-based dimensions as section filters. Hierarchies will default to flat presentation.
You can't use Planning features in a section.
You can't select unbooked data for section filter dimensions. Only section instances with values are displayed.

Formatting a Section

You can format a section just like any other widget.

Multiple options are available so you can fine-tune the look of your section. That's especially useful if you must replicate your company’s corporate look. You can access these options in the Styling panel by right-clicking a section and selecting Edit Styling. Most of these options are also available in the Story Preferences dialog.

Note

The options available in the Styling panel are contextual and depend on your selection (whether you have selected the section header or section body).

Along with graphic options, you can also select attributes that impacts the behavior of the section. For example, you can decide whether to paginate the section and have a dedicated page per member, or look for members manually using the left and right arrows or search bar.

Formatting Option	Description
Default Body Background	Select a default background color for the section body.
Default Body Border	Select a default border for the section body. You can also edit the Style, Color and Line Width. Note The Corner Radius is only available if you select All Borders.
Show Heading	Show or hide the section heading. The section heading displays the filtered member of the section.
Show Guidelines	Show or hide the section guidelines.
Browse and search instances	Allows you to use the left and right arrows to navigate to different member sections. The navigation wraps around to the beginning when you reach the end of the sections. Also, a search is available to quickly look for dimension members and browse through data.
Show all instances on pages(Default setting)	Paginate the section and show each member on a dedicated page. Start section on new page: You can also select whether you want the section to start on a new page. Note When the story is using optimized view mode, you must start each section on a new page.
Default Heading Background	Select a default background for the section heading.
Default Heading Border	Select a default border for the section heading. You can also edit the Style, Color and Line Width. Note The Corner Radius is only available if you select All Borders.
Default Heading Properties	Select a default Font, font Color, and font Size for the section heading.

Additionally, the following options can be found in the Story Preferences dialog:

Formatting Option	Description
New pages, lanes and tiles	Apply styling to new sections only.
All pages, lanes and tiles	Apply styling to all sections.