Hello SAP Community,
As we transition into the second quarter of the year, it’s the perfect moment to showcase the updates and enhancements introduced during February and March 2026. This edition of What’s New provides an overview of the latest features and improvements in SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud – Universal Model (SAP PaPM Cloud UM).
If you’d like to revisit previous updates, feel free to explore posts under the PaPMCloudUMWhatsNew tag.
With that, let’s dive into what’s new for February and March.
Enhanced Authorization Control for Runtime Artifacts
SAP Profitability and Performance Management Cloud Universal Model (SAP PaPM Cloud UM) now offers enhanced authorization control for runtime artifacts, ensuring that users can access only the information relevant to their assigned roles.
With this enhancement, access permissions are applied consistently to runtime artifacts. This means that what users can see and work with is aligned with their existing authorizations, creating a clear and consistent experience across the application.
This behavior is applied across the following application groups: Model, Process, Reports, and System. Lists, details, and available actions reflect only the objects that users are permitted to access.
Key Highlights
- Runtime artifacts (e.g., Environments) are displayed based on user authorizations
- Value help lists display only authorized artifacts, even when no filters are applied
- Copy and Copy To actions are allowed only when the user has access to the selected target
For example, the user is assigned to a role collection called “Model Viewer” in SAP BTP, which contains the role MODEL_READ and the user attribute READQAMUSER.
Image 1. Role Collection and roles assigned to the user in SAP BTP
Based on this assignment, the user can view only the runtime environments that match their authorization in the SAP PaPM Cloud UM application. Environments that are not relevant to the user’s role or team assignment are not displayed.
Image 2. Only authorized runtime environments are displayed in the list view.
This enhancement helps ensure controlled access while simplifying the user experience by displaying only relevant information.
For more information about roles, see: Role Templates in Universal Model.
Environment Scope Toggle for Joule
This feature activates an intelligent QnA agent (Joule Bot) directly within the SAP PaPM Cloud UM Report Screen.
It empowers users to ask natural language questions about business environments, such as BEPS or Cost Allocation, and receive precise, context-aware answers.
How It Works:
By default, the Environment Scope toggle is switched off. Activate this option if you want to receive answers related to the business environment.
The response behavior depends on the environment’s Runtime Status and the state of the Environment Scope toggle:
- Environment Scope: ON
- Current: Joule provides answers based on the current environment’s runtime functions data.
- Inactive: No results are returned.
- Environment Scope: OFF
- Joule provides answers based on the current report pages, regardless of the runtime status.
This setup allows users to easily switch between environment-specific insights and report-focused queries, ensuring relevant answers without unnecessary complexity.
Customizable Aggregated Charts with Grouping in Report Copilot
Users can now dynamically create customizable charts at runtime by specifying aggregations and row groupings on the selected grid columns.
The generated Show Elements are automatically rendered with appropriate visualizations—such as line, bar, area, or pie charts—without requiring manual configuration.
How It Works:
- As a prerequisite, ensure that a report is created and open it in Edit Mode.
- The following prompts can be used as examples:
- “Add a bar chart for [PlanGLData] Plan General Ledger Data with all row groups and max aggregated values”
- “Add a Pie chart for [PlanGLData] Plan General Ledger Data with all row groups and min aggregated values”
- “Add an Area chart for [PlanGLData] Plan General Ledger Data with all row groups and sum aggregated values”
- “Add a Line chart for [PlanGLData] Plan General Ledger Data with all row groups and average aggregated values”
- “Add a bar chart for [PlanGLData] Plan General Ledger Data with all row groups and max aggregated values”
Enhanced Event Log when writing using SOAP Service
In the SAP PaPM Cloud UM, when users run the Writer function to send data to SAP S/4 HANA Cloud using the SOAP Service, an information prompt appears showing the message ID to indicate success. This is used as a reference when validating the writing from Universal Model onto the target platform SAP S/4 HANA Cloud. With this enhancement, the message ID is now displayed once per run of the Writer function using the SOAP Service.
Before
Message ID is shown twice when Writer function using SOAP Service is run.
After
Message ID is shown once when Writer function using SOAP Service is run.
Color Conditions in Adapt UI
We are introducing Color Conditions in Adapt UI, which is a new feature that enables users to apply dynamic background and/or text colors at the cell level based on configurable conditions.
Color Conditions are configured in Object Page → Adapt UI mode and are automatically reflected on both the Object Page and the Data Screen, ensuring a consistent visual experience across screens. Users can define multiple conditional rules for a field and configure background color, text color, or both. Conditions can also reference the values of other fields within the same row, enabling contextual visual highlighting.
When multiple conditions apply, the first matching rule takes priority. If the first rule defines only one color type (e.g., background only), the system continues evaluating subsequent rules to determine the missing color type and applies the combined result.
The configuration persists after reload and re-login, does not affect exported data, and can be easily removed to restore the default cell styling.
Joule Design Enhancement
The Joule user interface has been enhanced with improved usability and flexibility.
The updated design includes an animated main image to provide a more dynamic interface, with the option to enable or disable animations directly in the Settings menu.
Users can now unlock the Joule window and reposition it anywhere on the screen, allowing for a more flexible workspace layout. In addition, the Chat menu now opens on click, improving interaction clarity and navigation.
An AI Notice has also been added to clearly inform users about AI-powered functionality within Joule.
Field Type Icons in Columns Panel
We’re introducing an enhancement to the Columns Panel that improves how users identify field types.
Icons are now displayed beside each field, allowing users to instantly recognize the type of data they’re working with. This update improves clarity and reduces reliance on field names alone.
The following field types are now represented with corresponding icons:
| Field Types | Icon |
|
Amount |
|
| Association |  |
| Association to Many |
|
| Composition |
|
| Characteristics |
|
| In-Data Comment |
|
| Key Figure |
|
| Quantity |
|
Icons are implemented consistently and behave the same across:
- Function (Show Data)
- Activity (Show Data)
- Report pages (Show Element and Application Element)
This ensures a consistent experience for users whenever they interact with field selections.
Improved visual consistency and clear cues enable users to navigate and interpret data more efficiently, resulting in a smoother overall experience.
Preserved Group Expansion State After Sorting
This update improves the behavior of the Data Screen when working with grouped data and sorting. With this enhancement, the system now preserves the expanded and collapsed state of row groups when sorting is applied. Sorting actions now only reorder the data and no longer affect the visibility state of grouped rows.
The improvement applies to all grouping configurations within the Data Screen grid, including groups created via the Column Menu and those defined through the Column Pane (row grouping area). It supports all standard sorting actions such as “Sort Ascending”, “Sort Descending”, and “Clear Sort”, as well as master data sorting options like “Sort by Value”, “Sort by Text”, “Text First”, and “Text Last”. The behavior is consistent for both “Single Column” and “Multiple Column” group display modes.
As a result, users can now sort data without losing their current analytical context. Expanded groups remain expanded, and collapsed groups remain collapsed across all sorting operations, improving usability and efficiency when working with grouped datasets.
Please note that these improvements are also applied in Reports Elements, ensuring consistent behavior across the application.
Enhanced Long Text Handling
This update introduces improved handling of long texts in Data Screen, ensuring a consistent and more readable user experience.
Long text is now fully visible by default, as rows automatically expand to fit the content and prevent truncation of wrapped text.
In Edit Mode, Large String fields are scrollable, allowing users to easily view and edit content without affecting the layout.
Paragraph structure (including line breaks) is preserved for Large String fields and displayed in the original format. Meanwhile, String fields continue to display text without paragraph formatting.
The Show More / Show Less functionality on the Object Page allows users to easily expand or collapse long text fields.
Inline editing has been enhanced to support efficient maintenance of long text directly within the grid. For Large String fields, a pencil icon provides access to a dialog with a text area for more convenient editing. Formatting, including line breaks, is preserved after saving.
Additional layout flexibility is introduced through “Compact Rows” and extended column sizing options. Users can choose “Compact Rows” in the Column Menu to switch between fully expanded text (default) and a condensed single-line view, and save this preference as part of a layout.
Please note that these improvements are also applied in Reports Elements, ensuring consistent behavior across the application.
That’s a wrap for now!
We hope these new features and enhancements make your experience with Cloud UM even smoother. Keep an eye out for our monthly “What’s New” releases.
Thank you for sticking around! If you found this helpful, feel free to spread the word to others.
