Use Custom Widgets in Analytic Applications

You can use custom widgets, which extend the functionalities of SAP Analytics Cloud, analytics designer and complement the standard palette of widgets according to your needs.

Note

Custom widgets work in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge (version 79 and higher) only.

As a developer you can build your own widgets in addition to the widgets delivered in SAP Analytics Cloud, analytics designer. For more information, see SAP Analytics Cloud Custom Widget Developer Guide.

Uploading a Custom Widget to Analytics Designer

Follow the steps to upload a custom widget to SAP Analytics Cloud, analytics designer so that you can use it as other widgets in your analytic application.

Prerequisites

To create and upload custom widgets, the Create permission for Custom Widget must be selected in the role that you are assigned.

For more information, see Permissions and Standard Application Roles.

Procedure

  1. On the Analytic Applications start page, choose the Custom Widgets tab.
  2. Select (Create).
  3. In the Upload File dialog, choose Select File.
  4. Select the custom widget file, for example box.json.

Results

When you want to insert the custom widget into your analytic application, you can find it via Start of the navigation path(Add) Next navigation step End of the navigation pathCustom Widgets.

Next Steps

Every custom widget has a version number in the format majorVersion.minorVersion.patchVersion defined in its original file, for example, 1.0.0. You can add different major versions of a custom widget to analytics designer at the same time, for example, versions 1.0.0 and 2.0.0.

However, when you add a custom widget that differs in minor version from the one present in analytics designer, it replaces the present one. For example, if a custom widget of version 1.5.0 is present in analytics designer, then adding either version 1.4.0 or 1.6.0 replaces version 1.5.0.

References Between Analytic Applications and Custom Widgets

Exported archives of analytic applications by default contain all referenced custom widgets.

If you use a custom widget in an analytic application and the application is transported between different SAP Analytics Cloud systems, the application archive automatically includes the referenced custom widget (as it works for models as well). In this way only one archive needs to be imported to the target system to get the application up and running.

You can know which applications are actively using a custom widget when you try to delete it from an SAP Analytics Cloud system in the Custom Widgets tab. The Delete Custom Widgets dialog lists all related applications and warns you that deleting the custom widget will break those applications.
Example
In the following example, the first custom widget is used by an application named Ticker Test, the second one isn't used in other applications, and the third one is used in two applications for which the you have no authorization.

Note

If you choose to ignore the warning and delete the custom widget regardless of active use and later realize that this was a mistake and re-upload the custom widget, the references between applications and this custom widget will stay lost.

This means that the export of the custom widget with the analytic application actively using it and the display of related applications in the dialog won't work anymore. In this case, you'll see a warning when opening an affected application:

To solve this, just save the application. You can therefore repair the dependencies and will no longer see the warning.