Seamless Planning with SAP SAC and SAP Datasphere Live Connections - Initial tests

December 2025

Introduction

Live Connection with Seamless Planning was presented at TechEd in Berlin and has recently become generally available with the SAC Q4/2025 release.

Our experience from the first tests with the new and brilliant functionality will be shared within this blog.

Following aspects will be looked at:

Live Connection in Seamless Planning – What is it?

What possibilities does the new functionality offer?

How do SAC and Datasphere permissions interact with Live Connections?

Is a Self-Reference to the plan data possible?

Live Connection in Seamless Planning – What is it?

This blog provides a good overview of Seamless Planning:

Understanding Seamless Planning

Live Connection in Seamless Planning allows you to link additional tables/views to your plan figures without copying them into the data model with the plan data. This functionality is described very well in the following blog post by Maximilian Gander:

Unlocking the Next Chapter of Seamless Planning in SAP Business Data Cloud with Live Versions

There is also an excellent training course/demo on this topic, which was presented at TechEd 2025. The link to this training course and other highlights can be found in this blog:

TechEd 2025 in Berlin – Recap on planning in SAP Business Data Cloud

Setting up a Live Connection was straightforward. The following points, which are self-evident from the concept, should be noted:

It is only possible to integrate fact views.

A live version can/must be linked to an empty/new version. If data for this version already exists in the model, it cannot be linked to live data.

Only one version can be marked as “actual.” Therefore, it is not possible to copy part of the actual data into the model and link another part live, or to obtain the actual data from two live connections. To do this, you must use versions that are not marked as “actual” or first summarize all the actual data in a single view.

All dimensions of the live data MUST be linked to a dimension of the data model. As long as the dimension of the live data is not linked, the model cannot be saved. Superfluous dimensions must be hidden in advance in the view within Datasphere. However, it is not a problem if the live view does not provide all dimensions.

Only ONE version can be assigned to a live view at a time. Therefore, it is not possible to assign the “Version” dimension. The view must always be filtered to one version.

If master data is missing in the SAC tables that appear in the live view, this is displayed in the SAC model. The master data can be easily added at the touch of a button (see screenshots).

Figure 1: Error message in case of missing master data

Figure 2:Popup to add missing master data

Figure 3:Version with origin in case of live versions

What possibilities does the new functionality offer?

For anyone familiar with the classic BW world, this functionality now corresponds to a (limited) composite provider. For the first time in SAC, there is an option of combining data into a model without having to copy them into the SAC model! This means that you are no longer forced to pack everything into one model and copy data from one model to another for integrated planning.

Figure 4: Possibilities with Live Connection in seamless planning

How do SAC and Datasphere permissions interact with Live Connections?

With Seamless Planning, the data is stored in Datasphere, but everything is managed by the SAC.
How does this work with regard to permissions?

The user needs authorization in SAC to access the planning.
If the user does not have authorization in the Datasphere (either no user at all or no access to the corresponding space), he can execute the SAC planning but will not see any data that is integrated via the live model. (see Fig. 5)
If a dimension in the SAC model is marked as authorization-relevant, this restricts the data in the SAC for both the planning data and all live models. (see Fig. 6)
Please note that the restrictions in SAC do not apply to the data in Datasphere! Users who can access the planning data in Datasphere directly have this access without the SAC restrictions! Separate restrictions (DAC) must also be implemented in Datasphere for this purpose and kept in synch!
If there are restrictions in Datasphere via “data access control” for the user, these also apply if the data is integrated into a planning model via a Live Connection. (see Fig. 6)

Figure 5: SAC users without Datasphere user or space authorization: Planning is possible, but live data is missing!

Figure 6: DAC - Authorization in Datasphere and restriction in SAC
-> both apply to live data; plan data only uses the SAC restriction.

Is a Self-Reference to the plan data possible?

The plan data in Seamless Planning is stored in the Datasphere, where it is available for integration into other data models. One might think of consuming this data via a view, implementing further processing there, and then linking it back to one's own data model via a Live Connection (self-reference).

Unfortunately, this did not work for me. I was able to define a live connection, and the data was visible in the data preview as expected. However, as soon as I saved the model, it was aborted with an SQL error.

What does work, however, is integrating the data into another model and then copying the calculated data into my original data model via a cross-model copy data action.

This means that it is possible in principle to use calculations in planning that are not possible in SAC data actions but can be implemented via a Datasphere View or HANA SQL View.

Figure 7: Self-referencing virtual data model possible via second SAC model

Conclusion

The new live connection feature in SAC's Seamless Planning opens up many possibilities in SAC planning that were previously impossible or difficult to achieve:

Live integration of actual data without data copying
Live integration of other plan data without data copying
Use of SQL functions in the Datasphere

This is an enhancement and makes the Seamless Planning model the preferred planning environment in SAC, with further functions to follow.

Appendum: A move to a BDC environment should also work, as a Datasphere tenant can be transferred to the BDC via “rewiring.” This means that existing Seamless planning solutions should also have no problem migrating to the BDC, as long as SAC and Datasphere tenants are migrated at the same time.