What's New in SAP Datasphere and SAP Business Data Cloud 2026
Overview
This document covers the major features and enhancements released for SAP Datasphere and SAP Business Data Cloud during 2026. SAP Datasphere follows a continuous delivery model with releases approximately every two weeks. Starting in 2025, SAP publishes Datasphere release notes under the SAP Business Data Cloud What's New page.
Official What's New (BDC): https://help.sap.com/whats-new/31c53b47cac6482d89f167a1d2a4a50b
Official What's New (Datasphere): https://help.sap.com/whats-new/48017b2cc4834fc6b6cae87097bd9e4d
Q1 2026 Highlights
Task Chains: Task Ports, Auto-Retry, and REST API Management (2026.02+)
Three major task chain enhancements shipped in January 2026:
Task Ports allow controlling task flow based on success or failure outcomes. The new Ignore Error feature lets you disregard a specific task's status from the overall chain evaluation, maintaining workflow continuity and customizing execution paths.
Auto-Retry allows up to three automatic retries for a failed task in a chain, improving resilience without manual intervention.
REST API Task Management enables running task chains and retrieving task logs via REST APIs (no CLI required). A new CLI command provides flexible log retrieval.
Task Chain with Ports:
Steps:
1. Refresh Data Flow:
Port: success → step 2
Port: failure → step 3
2. Send Notification (on success)
3. Log Error and Continue (on failure)
Ignore Error: trueTechnical User for Scheduling (2026.02+)
Assign a technical user to schedule data integration tasks. This minimizes the number of users managing schedules and prevents failed schedules caused by expired consent and authorization.
Analytic Model: YTD, QTD, MTD, %GrandTotal Functions (2026.02+)
New standard functions available in the expression editor for calculated measures, restricted measures, and structures: YTD(), QTD(), MTD(), and %GrandTotal.
Replication Flow: Multi-Step Scenarios (2026.02+)
Reuse a target local table from one replication flow as a source in another replication flow. This automatically creates relationships between flows, enabling multi-step replication and distribution of data from Datasphere to multiple downstream systems.
Replication Flow: Parquet Format for Cloud Storage (2026.02+)
Replicate data stored in Parquet files from Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, and Azure Data Lake Gen2.
Partitioning of Local Tables with Data (2026.02+)
Create partitions on existing local tables that already contain data (HANA Cloud storage and compute). Choose from three deployment options: automatic after deployment, automatic at scheduled time, or manual at a later time.
Longer Technical Names (2026.02+)
Increased maximum length for technical names:
- Views, tables, E/R models: 100 characters
- Analytic Models: 60 characters
- Columns: 100 characters
- Input parameters: 100 characters
BW Modernization Milestones (2026.02+)
- Catalog metadata extraction for SAP BW 7.5
- Data lineage from SAC stories down to BW 7.5 objects
- Scenario Generator: semantical import of BW 7.5 and BW/4HANA InfoProvider with dependencies
- Multiple target support and mass handling of BW InfoProviders
- Requires BWMT 1.27 and SAP Note 3692414
BDC Data Product Lifecycle Improvements (Q1 2026)
Throughout Q1 2026, SAP introduced several BDC data product management enhancements:
- Data Product Statuses (2026.04): More granular product statuses aligned with the catalog for detailed lifecycle tracking (February 2026)
- Multi-Source Intelligent Application Installation: Install a single intelligent application multiple times for different source systems, each creating its own ingestion space (February 2026)
- Commercial Entitlement Protection: Automatic uninstallation/deactivation no longer occurs on entitlement expiry; only the BDC cockpit user can uninstall (February 2026)
- Data Composer: SAP Datasphere, Data Composer service for harmonizing data from multiple data products into unified customer profiles using deterministic or probabilistic identity resolution (March 2026)
Source: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/31c53b47cac6482d89f167a1d2a4a50b
New Data Centers (Q1 2026)
BDC expanded to:
- Frankfurt EU Access (EU11) — February 2026
- Dammam SA30/SA31 (Saudi Arabia) — February 2026
- Switzerland EU Access (CH20), Australia AP20, Singapore AP21 — March 2026
Source: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/31c53b47cac6482d89f167a1d2a4a50b
Q2 2026 Highlights
Update Action for Installed Data Products (2026.08+)
Data products installed in a Datasphere space now have an Update action button when new minor versions are released, streamlining version management.
BDC Cockpit Data Product Monitoring (2026.08+)
Enhanced monitoring in the BDC Cockpit provides full pipeline status at every step for SAP-managed data product pipelines, making it easy to identify exactly where issues occur.
Local Table Partitioning for Existing Tables (2026.08+)
Partition existing SAP-managed local tables in standard spaces that already contain data, useful for large-volume tables where partitioning was not possible at creation.
Spark Configuration (2026.08+)
Configurable Apache Spark application resource limits per task activity in each file space. You can change default configurations and create custom ones. Note: new defaults may allocate fewer resources (see SAP Note 3726059).
Cloud Connector Support for Google BigQuery (2026.08+)
Configure private connectivity for Google BigQuery connections through the Cloud Connector, routing data traffic through secure tunnels rather than the public internet.
Task Chains: Delete All/Filtered Records (2026.08+)
Task chains now support Delete All Records and Delete Filtered Records deletion types for both local tables and Local Tables (file).
Semantic Onboarding of Calc Views from HANA Cloud (2026.11+)
Import calculation views from SAP HANA Cloud as remote tables while preserving semantic information. Prerequisite: source HANA Cloud version QRC 1/2026 or higher; Datasphere database version 2025.50+; deploy with SAP Business Data Cloud Integration Mode set to Flat View or Construction Kit.
Analytic Model: Inherited and Local Properties (2026.08+)
For analytic models using another analytic model as source, you can toggle Show Inherited Elements in the properties panel to distinguish between local and inherited elements.
Improved Monitoring Tool Navigation (2026.08+)
Consolidated monitoring menu with sections: System and Spaces, Capacities Monitoring, Task Logs, Expensive Statement Logs, Elastic Compute Nodes, and Data Integration.
End-to-End Data Observability and Monitoring (2026.10+)
BDC Cockpit provides visibility into data pipeline health, system connectivity, and data-product-specific processing information. Admins and data engineers can proactively identify issues and monitor installation/activation progress.
Source: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/31c53b47cac6482d89f167a1d2a4a50b
Data Protection and Privacy Tags in the Catalog (2026.09+)
System-defined tag hierarchy automatically identifies data products containing personal data or sensitive personal data during metadata extraction.
Source: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/31c53b47cac6482d89f167a1d2a4a50b
BDC Data Product Metadata in SAP Databricks (2026.09+)
Access semantic metadata directly in Unity Catalog when sharing data products from BDC to SAP Databricks.
Source: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/31c53b47cac6482d89f167a1d2a4a50b
Run Replication Flows with Delta Load at Scheduled Times (2026.11+)
Schedule replication flows that use delta-enabled objects by setting Delta Load Run to "At Scheduled Time". The flow processes all available delta records and completes after each run.
Bulk Assignment of Schedule Owner for Task Chains (2026.11+)
Assign a schedule owner to multiple task chains at once, eliminating one-by-one configuration for larger environments.
Analyze Lineage Graph with Runtime Metrics (2026.11+)
Runtime Metrics tool analyzes the full lineage graph of a view, including all underlying source objects — not just the view in isolation.
Transport Runtime Settings for Flows and Views (2026.11+)
Transformation flow runtime settings (HANA run modes, batch configs, Spark settings) and view persistency runtime settings can now be included in transport packages for consistent behavior across environments.
Variables in Analytic Models (2026.11+)
When using an analytic model as a source for another analytic model, you can customize its variables — rename, change default values, use in restricted measures and calculations.
SAP Snowflake and BDC Connect for Snowflake (GA, May 2026)
SAP Snowflake generally available as a solution extension for BDC. Full Snowflake Business Critical Edition, provisioned via SAP for Me, with zero-copy access to SAP data products. BDC Connect for Snowflake adds bidirectional data sharing on AWS.
Enhanced SAC Asset Type Support in Catalog (2026.12+)
Catalog can now extract metadata for SAC asset types including Add-in Workbook, Analysis Workbook, Composite, Content Link, Dataset, and Uploaded File.
Source: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/31c53b47cac6482d89f167a1d2a4a50b
New Data Centers (Q2 2026)
- Japan/Osaka (JP30), Brazil (BR30), Australia (AP30) — April 2026
- Databricks live in Australia (AP20) and Singapore (AP21) — May 2026
- BDC Connect live in Frankfurt (EU11) and Switzerland (CH20) — May 2026
Source: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/31c53b47cac6482d89f167a1d2a4a50b
SAPPHIRE 2026 Announcements (May 2026)
Key announcements from SAPPHIRE Orlando:
- SAP Business AI Platform: BTP + BDC + Business Transformation Management converge with the SAP Knowledge Graph
- SAP HANA Cloud natively in BDC: Unified in-memory engine alongside Databricks and Snowflake
- MDG and Reltio in BDC: Master Data Governance as BDC component; Reltio for AI-based entity resolution
- Joule Agents: Natural language creation of data products, analytic models, and planning structures
- BDC Connect for Amazon Athena: Planned H2 2026
Resources
- BDC What's New: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/31c53b47cac6482d89f167a1d2a4a50b
- Datasphere What's New: https://help.sap.com/whats-new/48017b2cc4834fc6b6cae87097bd9e4d
- Monthly Community Blog Series: https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blog-posts-by-sap/bg-p/technology-blog-sap (search "Business Data Cloud and Datasphere News")
- SAP Datasphere Help: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_DATASPHERE
- SAP Community Datasphere: https://community.sap.com/topics/datasphere
- SAP Road Map Explorer: https://roadmaps.sap.com
Version Information
This document covers releases through version 2026.12 (June 2026).
Check your tenant version:
- Go to System > About
- Note the version number
- Compare with feature release versions above