Custom Reports in SAP LeanIX: Visualize Dependencies Across All Fact Sheet Types

SAP LeanIX comes with a solid set of built-in reports. But sometimes you need to answer a question that none of the standard views quite address: what happens across the entire landscape if this one thing changes? That was exactly the problem I wanted to solve.

The gap in standard LeanIX reports

LeanIX has excellent native reports: the Application Landscape, the Roadmap, the World Map. They are well-designed and cover the most common EA use cases. But they all have one thing in common: they typically focus on one Fact Sheet type at a time, or show relationships between a limited number of types.

The challenge arises when you need to understand cross-type dependencies. Which Organizations are affected by this Initiative? Which Business Capabilities support this Objective? Which Applications sit at the intersection? Answering these questions usually means clicking through multiple Fact Sheets or building multiple filtered views, and even then the full picture is hard to see.

The solution: a spiderweb dependency custom report

To address this, I built a custom report that makes dependencies visible across all Fact Sheet types simultaneously. The metaphor is a spiderweb: one Fact Sheet sits at the center, and everything connected to it radiates outward across rings. Click on any node and the entire view recenters around it, instantly showing you what is connected and where a change would have an effect.

In the example shown, the center ring contains Objectives, Ring 1 shows connected Initiatives, Ring 2 shows the Organizations involved, and Ring 3 can be extended further. The right panel provides a ranked view of which nodes appear most frequently, making it immediately clear which entities are the highest-impact dependencies.

What makes this useful in practice

A few things make this report genuinely useful rather than just visually interesting:

First, it updates automatically. Because it is a native LeanIX Custom Report, it reads directly from the workspace data. No manual exports, no stale spreadsheets. When a Fact Sheet changes, the report reflects it immediately.

Second, no hosting is required. The report runs inside SAP LeanIX itself. You do not need a separate server, a deployed web app, or any external infrastructure. It is just another report in the reports library.

Third, it is interactive. Unlike a static diagram, you can navigate through the dependency graph in real time. Click on a node to recenter, explore different paths, and build a mental model of your landscape's dependency structure.

Use cases that benefit most

Change impact analysis is the most obvious use case. Before retiring an application or reorganizing a business unit, you can immediately see the ripple effects across the full Fact Sheet graph. This makes it much easier to have informed conversations with stakeholders about what will be affected.

Portfolio rationalization is another strong fit. When you are trying to identify redundant capabilities or consolidate applications, seeing the dependency web helps you understand which candidates for retirement or merger are truly isolated versus which ones are deeply embedded in the landscape.

Strategic planning discussions also benefit. When presenting to leadership, a visual dependency map that responds to clicks is far more engaging than a table of Fact Sheets. You can walk through a scenario live, showing exactly which parts of the organization are connected to a given initiative or objective.

How it is built

LeanIX Custom Reports are built using the Custom Reports SDK. The report queries the LeanIX GraphQL API to retrieve the Fact Sheet relationships, then renders the spiderweb visualization using a JavaScript-based graph library running inside the report frame.

The center Fact Sheet type, the ring configuration, and the visible relationships are all configurable. You choose which Fact Sheet type sits at the center and how many rings of relationships to display. This makes the report flexible enough to work for different workspace configurations and different analytical questions.

With the arrival of the LeanIX MCP server, reports like this can now also be generated or modified through AI-assisted coding tools. Describe what you want, get the code, preview it against live workspace data, and refine. The barriers to custom report development in LeanIX have dropped significantly.

Interested in using this in your workspace?

If the spiderweb dependency report looks useful for your LeanIX workspace, I am happy to discuss whether it fits your use case and how it could be adapted to your meta model configuration. Feel free to get in touch.