SAP Community - Mobile

New in SAP Mobile Start V2.4: Integrate and Launch SAP Document AI on Mobile

2025-08-11T08:00:00.115000+02:00

With the SAP Mobile Start 2.4 release, users can leverage SAP Document AI—integrated seamlessly within the Mobile Start app—to transform document handling into a secure, intelligent, and automated experience. They can scan or upload documents directly from SAP Mobile Start, which are then processed by the SAP Document AI service. This streamlines processing, cuts down manual work, and boosts data accuracy throughout your operations. In this blog, I'll walk you through the integration steps, prerequisites, and configuration details needed to bring SAP Document AI capabilities to your mobile users.

Preconditions

Before you begin, ensure the following prerequisites are fulfilled.

Subscribe to SAP Document AI

Ensure that your SAP BTP subaccount is subscribed to the Document Information Extraction service (document-information-extraction-application-ias with embedded_edition instance). Once complete, access the SAP Document AI workspace from your BTP subscriptions to configure document types and schemas relevant to your business scenarios. For more information, refer to the official user guide.

Enable Identity Authentication for SAP Build Work Zone

In SAP Build Work Zone, navigate to Site Manager > Settings, and ensure Identity Authentication is enabled.

Screenshot: Enabling Identity Authentication in SAP Build Work Zone Settings

Note: Valid only for SAP Build Work Zone subscription made before 20 March 2025.

Configure Trust Relationship for API Access

To allow SAP Build Work Zone to consume SAP Document AI APIs, you need to add a dependency in the SAP Cloud Identity Services (IAS) administration console:

Go to the Applications tab
Select the SAP Build Work Zone application
Under Dependencies, add a new entry with:
Name: documentai (or any unique name)
Application: Select the “SAP Document AI” entry in your IAS tenant

Create Destination for SAP Mobile Start

To authorize SAP Mobile Start App to access SAP Document AI, create a destination in your BTP subaccount with the following settings:

Name: sapdocumentaimobilestartintegration
Type: HTTP
Authentication: NoAuthentication
Proxy Type: Internet
URL: (Use https://<your-tenant-url-endpoint>/document-ai/v1, located in Document AI instance > service key > endpoints > backend > URL)

Add the following additional properties:

HTML5.DynamicDestination = true
HTML5.IASDependencyName = documentai (dependency name created in SAP Cloud Identity Services)

Once completed, both SAP Build Work Zone and SAP Mobile Start are authorized to access SAP Document AI. You can control user access in SAP Document AI using default authorization policies via Identity Authentication service. (Learn more)

Configuring tile for SAP Document AI access in mobile

To make SAP Document AI accessible via SAP Mobile Start:

Step 1: Create a New App in Site Manager

In SAP Build Work Zone, navigate to Site Manager > Content Manager and create a new App.

URL: https://<your-tenant-url>/launchpad?sap-ushell-config=headerless#InboundDocument-manageInDocumentAI
ℹ️ Use sap-ushell-config=headerless to hide the launchpad header

Step 2: Configure Navigation Parameters

In the Navigation tab, add the following parameters:

name: Schema name - Optional (from SAP Document AI workspace > Schemas tab)
latest: true, this signifies that only the latest version of the schema is used
client_ID: Client ID (from SAP Document AI workspace > Settings), preset to ‘default’
instance_ID: Instance ID (from SAP Document AI workspace > Settings or BTP account > Instances > Select SAP Document AI instance)
showWorkspaceHeader: true

Step 3: Configure Visualization

You can set your own preferred title, subtitle, icon.

Visualisation Type: Static Tile
Add the following name-value parameters:
mobilestart.type: documentAi
mobilestart.documentAi.clientId: (as specified in Navigation Tab parameters)
mobilestart.documentAi.instanceId: (as specified in Navigation Tab parameters)
mobilestart.documentAi.documentSchemaId: Optional - needed if only a specific schema scenario should be enabled, otherwise all active schemas will be shown to the end user. You can find Schema ID in SAP Document AI workspace > Schemas tab

Screenshot: SAP Document AI Tile Visualization in SAP Build Work Zone

You’ve now created a fully functional SAP Document AI tile for SAP Mobile Start! 🚀

User Experience in SAP Mobile Start

As a business user, you can locate the newly created SAP Document AI tile in the SAP Mobile Start app using the Search function. For easier access, you can also add the tile to your Favorites. When you tap the tile, you’ll be directed to a native document selection screen. Depending on how the service was configured by the administrator, you may have the option to select a document type and schema. If the tile is configured for a specific schema use case, it will be automatically selected.

Screenshot: SAP Document AI tile in SAP Mobile Start App

Upload Options

Scan via Camera – Leverages the device’s native camera with real-time preview, cropping, rotation, and filtering. Multiple scans are compiled into a single PDF.
Select Images from Gallery – Users choose previously captured images which are compiled into a single PDF.
Select File from File Explorer – Users upload a single PDF from their device’s file system.

Screenshot: Scanning a document via device’s native camera

Upload Validation & Handling

Before uploading a document, the app performs several validation checks to ensure compatibility. The file size must not exceed 50 MB, and the document should contain no more than 100 pages. Additionally, file names are automatically sanitized to remove any invalid characters. Once these checks are successfully passed, the upload process begins, with a visible progress bar indicating status. Android users can upload multiple documents synchronously.

After the upload is complete, the document extraction workflow is triggered, and users receive a success notification confirming the process.

Track Status and Review Document

To monitor the progress of document extraction, simply open the Document Overview from the overflow menu within the document selection screen. This action launches the mobile-optimized SAP Document AI UI, providing a clear and intuitive view of the status, allowing reviews and other updates related to your uploaded documents.

Screenshot: Track status and review document via mobile optimized UI

Conclusion

With the release of SAP Mobile Start 2.4 and the seamless integration of SAP Document AI, business users now benefit from a truly mobile-first, intelligent document processing experience. Whether it's capturing receipts on the go, processing invoices, or extracting data from complex forms, SAP Document AI empowers users to automate workflows efficiently—right from their mobile devices. This integration brings the power of AI-driven document handling directly to your fingertips, enabling smarter, faster, and more scalable business operations.

SAP Maintenance Assistant 2508 Now Available – What’s New?

2025-08-19T16:38:41.476000+02:00

The SAP Mobile Asset Management team is excited to announce the 2508 release of SAP Maintenance Assistant, the mobile app for maintenance execution with SAP S/4HANA Cloud. This update continues our focus on making technicians more effective in the field — with new form capabilities and expanded integration with SAP Field Service Management (FSM).

Features delivered in the 2408 release

SAP Dynamic Forms on Mobile

SAP Dynamic Forms is now available directly in SAP Maintenance Assistant. Built on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), Dynamic Forms let organizations design digital forms with validation rules, attach them to business objects, and make them available to technicians both online and offline.

On the mobile app, technicians can:

Download forms with their assigned work,
Save drafts as they go,
Submit completed forms once work is finished.

Forms sync back to SAP BTP where data can be mapped to business objects or trigger follow-up actions.

Administration for Dynamic Forms

On the backend, administrators now have ways to manage Dynamic Forms:

Dynamic Forms Administration – New Fiori tiles allow configuration and assignment of Dynamic Forms to relevant business objects.
Manage Mobile Application Configuration – Introduces new options to configure Dynamic Form Agents which are responsible for handling form operations for a specific business object type.

Expanding the Field Service Technician Persona

In our previous release, we introduced the Field Service Technician persona. With 2508, we’re expanding its capabilities by integrating more deeply with FSM, giving technicians visibility into dispatcher-assigned work and structured service scripts.

FSM Smartform Support

When an FSM dispatcher assigns an activity with a Smartform, the form now appears directly in the Maintenance Assistant item details. Technicians can work through these structured, multi-step scripts to capture inspection results, safety checks, notes, and more — ensuring consistent execution across the field.

FSM Activity and Status Integration

With FSM integration enabled:

Activities – Items released by the dispatcher in the FSM Planning & Dispatching Board appear in Maintenance Assistant after sync.
Status Updates – Technician updates made in the app are sent back to FSM, so dispatchers always see real-time progress.
Location Data – When enabled, the technician’s location syncs back to FSM, helping planners make informed dispatching decisions.

Release available now

SAP Maintenance Assistant is available now. The application is publicly available and includes an offline demo mode for viewing and testing the functionality. The application may be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Submit innovation requests

We encourage you to visit the SAP Mobile Service and Asset Management Customer Influence portal to submit improvement requests. Use the SAP Maintenance Assistant for S/4HANA Public Cloud category to properly direct your request.

Explore other SAP mobile applications

SAP has a powerful suite of SAP native mobile applications. Follow the MXE Community for latest updates.

Stop the Buzzword Circus: Real Impact Starts with Mobile

2025-08-29T10:31:05.024000+02:00

Let's be blunt. The term "digital transformation" has become a playground for charlatans, peddling expensive, multi-year projects with dismal success rates – often exceeding 70% failure. This isn't strategic evolution; it's "Buzzword Bingo," designed to extract capital without delivering tangible value. Many organizations dive in without a clear strategy, leading to wasted resources and frustration.

Meanwhile, the cost of clinging to outdated manual processes is staggering. American employees waste over nine hours a week on data entry, costing businesses a hefty $28,500 per employee annually. This isn't just about salary; it’s about errors – humans make 100-400 errors per 10,000 entries compared to the near-perfect accuracy of automated systems [8, 9]. These errors cascade into financial losses and operational bottlenecks.

The solution? A pragmatic approach centered on the mobile-first advantage. By leveraging smartphones and tablets for instant digital intake – think scanning forms with intelligent document processing (IDP) – we eliminate manual errors and unlock real "low-hanging fruit." This isn't about grand transformations; it’s about targeted digitalization that delivers immediate ROI. For example, field service apps using mobile data collection can boost efficiency and reduce errors by up to 70%. This isn't a futuristic fantasy; it’s a proven strategy for tangible results.

From Paper to Pocket: How Mobile Transformed the Technician’s Day

2025-09-03T15:56:35.315000+02:00

From Paper to Pocket: How Mobile Transformed the Technician’s Day

(Blog 3 of the “Transformation in Field Service” series)

In my first blog on transformation in Field Service , I drew on the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, which describes the Elephant, the Rider, and the Path as a model for driving change. The Rider represents logic and rational arguments, the Elephant our emotions and habits, and the Path the environment that makes change easier or harder.

This framework is especially relevant when we look at how field service has transformed with mobile technology. Technicians didn’t choose their career because they love software. Quite the opposite: many wanted a job in the field, not behind a desk. Introducing mobile apps into their daily work often triggered skepticism, resistance, or even fear. But with the right balance of Rider, Elephant, and Path, mobile solutions have not only been adopted but have become indispensable.

Early lessons from the field

Looking back at my own career, I’ve seen firsthand how difficult — and rewarding — mobile transformation can be.

2010: Sales reps in medical technology
We were rolling out a mobile app for sales representatives at a time when smartphones were still new. These reps were the true experts on their products — often even more knowledgeable than the doctors they visited. The app provided critical customer relationship information, helping them navigate the complex networks of hospitals and physicians, while also capturing what was discussed or trained during visits.
The Rider argument was clear: better information, fewer manual notes. The Elephant, however, feared that pulling out a phone during a delicate conversation with a doctor would hurt the personal relationship. It took careful guidance, success stories, and a clear Path (simple user interface, offline support) to convince them that mobile would strengthen, not weaken, their professional credibility.
2012: German Workers Council and route optimization
In Germany, we implemented a mobile solution that tracked technician movements to enable route optimization. At first, this raised strong concerns from the Workers Council about surveillance. Transparency, open discussions, and clear boundaries on data usage were essential. Once trust was established, the project gained approval, and the efficiency benefits were clear. This was an Elephant challenge — overcoming emotional resistance by addressing fears directly and respectfully.
2015: Agricultural device technicians
Another challenge was rolling out a mobile solution to technicians servicing agricultural machinery in rural areas. Connectivity was often non-existent, and yet compliance required a full report with all parts used — printed and handed directly to the farmer. A digital solution had to be offline-first, integrate seamlessly with backend systems, and still produce a paper record. It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked. Here, the Path was the key: designing the environment so the app could deliver value even without network coverage.

Field Reality Check – Power Stations in Morocco

One of the most eye-opening experiences for me came while supporting a customer maintaining power stations. We sent developers and UX designers to join a major outage in Morocco to understand the daily challenges of technicians using our mobile solution.

What we learned was humbling: technicians didn’t complain much about the app itself — they had bigger issues. Sometimes the right people didn’t show up on the outage day, so last-minute stand-ins had to be onboarded with a new user profile. Breaks had to be planned carefully because the nearest toilets were a kilometer away from the inspection area.

And yet, even with these very human, practical obstacles, technicians still valued the mobile solution. Why? Because they no longer had to drag cartons of paper folders with technical drawings around or try to scribble measurement results on dusty, wet paper. Having everything on a tablet — documentation, tasks, forms — made their work lighter, faster, and more accurate.

This experience was a powerful reminder: in transformation, context matters. The Elephant, Rider, and Path don’t exist in isolation. Mobile adoption wasn’t just about the app being user-friendly — it was about reducing friction in a tough environment and giving technicians tools that fit into their real-world constraints.

Before & After: What Changed with Mobile

Transformation is most tangible when we look at the “before” and “after.” Here are a few snapshots from my own journey and customer projects:

Med Tech Sales Reps
- Before: Reps carried binders, scribbled notes after complex hospital and doctor visits, and often relied on memory to track conversations.
- After: A mobile app provided structured customer data, captured discussion feedback instantly, and helped reps share insights across the team. Reps could focus on relationships — not paperwork.
Field Service Route Optimization
- Before: Dispatchers planned routes manually, and any attempt to track technician movements risked conflict with the German Workers Council.
- After: With early buy-in from the council, a mobile-based routing solution was deployed. This reduced travel times, increased the number of jobs per day, and still respected employee privacy.
Agricultural Device Technicians
- Before: At the end of a job, technicians had to manually write which parts were used when maintaining equipment. This was time-consuming and error-prone.
- After: Mobile offline capability allowed them to get parts information and complete digital reports on-site, printing offline and automatically syncing once connected. Farmers received accurate documentation without delay.
Power Station Outages
- Before: Cartons of paper, handwritten notes on dusty, wet surfaces, and heavy binders to carry across the site.
- After: A tablet with everything in one place — tasks, history, and reporting — freeing technicians to focus on the real challenges of the outage.

Real-World Proof Points

Across industries, the results of mobile transformation in field service are clear:

First-time-fix rates improved as technicians gained instant access to AI-driven equipment insights and past resolutions.
Route optimization reduced travel times significantly, freeing up more hours for actual service.
Mobile apps with dynamic forms ensured compliance and accuracy, even offline.
Technicians reported higher job satisfaction when technology took away tedious reporting tasks, letting them shine in front of customers.

The rain boots moment

For me, this journey always brings to mind a familiar scene with my children: getting them to put on their rain boots before going outside. In the moment, they resist — because they’re busy running around in socks or tumbling across the gym floor. But once they’re outside, jumping happily in puddles, they wouldn’t want to be without those boots.

Technicians often react the same way when first introduced to mobile apps. They resist because it feels like a distraction from the “real work.” But once they’re out in the field — fixing equipment faster, looking professional in front of customers, and avoiding paperwork — they realize the tools make their job better.

Mobile transformation in field service is about more than technology. It’s about balancing logic, emotion, and environment — and showing people that the rain boots make the experience not just easier, but more enjoyable.

Implementing SAP Emarsys Loyalty Management - Part 1

2025-09-13T09:36:42.892000+02:00

Introduction and Overview

This blog presents an end-to-end architecture for SAP Emarsys Loyalty, bringing together loyalty program design, omnichannel engagement, and closed-loop financial posting to strengthen repeat purchases and customer lifetime value.

It provides a structured view of how the solution is organized—covering applications, modules, and data objects and illustrates core processes such as onboarding, plan and tier-based accrual, voucher or points redemption, and service-driven adjustments.

Additionally, it explains how segmentation, personalization tokens, and analytics with Datasphere and SAC will be leveraged to operationalize loyalty programs and measure outcomes across channels.

Architecture

The following reference architecture explains how SAP Emarsys Loyalty can be implemented with other SAP solutions, though it may vary for different customer implementations depending on the systems they use. Emarsys Loyalty Architecture

Based on this reference architecture, the following SAP solutions are proposed for integration with SAP Emarsys Loyalty.

SAP S/4 HANA will handle loyalty points earned through transactions such as sales orders and retail purchases, with real-time posting of point accruals and redemptions to ensure financial accuracy.
Web or mobile apps may be used to let customers check their loyalty activity, view offers and exclusive access, and track points, tiers, and plans through a digital wallet.
SAP Service Cloud will give customer service agents a complete view of the loyalty profile, including tier, balance, and past redemptions, enabling them to resolve issues like missing points, redemption problems, or upgrades.
Campaign channels such as email, mobile, and web will be used to run loyalty campaigns, encourage purchases, share offers, and update customers on their tier or points status.
Finally, SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud will provide reports, dashboards, and stories related to loyalty performance.

End-to-End Loyalty process flow

Customer Registration and Loyalty on Boarding

Customer registration and loyalty onboarding start with joining the program to enjoy benefits from purchases and activities. New customers can enroll during registration, while existing customers can join anytime. For both, a hash ID must be generated and assigned to their record before they can join. Enrollment can be done through mobile apps, websites, or POS systems.

Points accrual

Points accrual allows customers to earn loyalty points and benefits based on their purchases and activities. For purchases, data is sent from SAP ERP to Smart Insight and then to Loyalty, where points and benefits are calculated based on the customer’s plan and tier. The confirmed points are then sent back to SAP ERP/S4 HANA for financial posting.

Points Redemption:

At checkout, customers can either use an existing voucher they have already claimed or pay directly with their points. When a voucher is claimed, the points are redeemed at that time. If customers pay directly with points, the points are deducted from their balance, and the financial postings are then processed in SAP S/4HANA.

Customer Service Support scenarios for points

Customer service support for points comes into play when customers raise issues such as missing rewards, incorrect deductions, or other loyalty-related queries. A ticket or case is created in the Service Cloud, where an agent can view the customer’s loyalty profile through an interface. The agent can then adjust points or tiers as needed, and each change triggers the corresponding financial postings in SAP S/4HANA

Loyalty Segmentation, Personalization and Campaigns

Loyalty segmentation, personalization, and campaigns are managed using relational data templates to create customer segments. These segments are then used across different channels to run targeted campaigns. Personalization tokens ensure that campaign messages are customized for each customer before being sent.

Loyalty reports and Dashboards

Loyalty data is shared with Google Cloud Platform through open data views. These views can be used to build models within SAP Datasphere, and the models are then consumed in SAP Analytics Cloud for reporting and analysis.

Conclusion

This blog lays out an architecture blueprint for SAP Emarsys Loyalty, showing how businesses can run smarter, more connected loyalty programs by combining customer engagement, financial accuracy, and personalized experiences. It supports the complete loyalty lifecycle from enrollment, earning and burning points, to customer service and reporting, while integrating seamlessly with SAP systems such as S/4HANA, Service Cloud, and Analytics Cloud, along with mobile and web apps. This ensures customers enjoy a smooth, rewarding experience across all touchpoints, while businesses strengthen retention, boost revenue, and build lasting brand loyalty.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts where we will share business processes, customizations, and technical insights—highlighting how each component comes together to deliver a seamless loyalty experience.

To be continued…

Co-Authors : @lokeshla (Lokesh Lakhondae) and @vijaysb15 (Vijay SB)

SAP TechEd 2025 - Go Mobile!!!

2025-09-25T13:30:00.035000+02:00

SAP TechEd in 2025 kicks off on November 4th in Berlin, and preparations are in full swing! This premier tech conference is perfect for developers, IT professionals, business experts, and tech visionaries to deepen their knowledge of SAP solutions and connect with peers and SAP experts.

We have prepared an exciting offering of mobile sessions for you: Strategic Talks, Roadmap and Hands-on sessions on Mobile Apps, Mobile Design and Mobile Technology. Furthermore, we will have a demo booth where you can explore our apps an Mobile Joule on your own.

Certainly Mobile AI, is the focus topics this year.

Here are some of the sessions I’m most looking forward to this year:

CA200 | An overview of our AI-enhanced mobile products across SAP Business Suite - Deep Dive
View demos of selected apps and learn how the latest mobile apps from SAP make it easier for your users to leverage SAP Business Suite on the go. You can build your own mobile apps the same way we do—start by exploring how we use SAP Design System for mobile apps as well as the latest technologies such as the Joule copilot and SAP Build solutions.

ST112 | AI and the future of product and user experience on the web and mobile - Strategy Talk
Discover how the Joule copilot and embedded AI are transforming UX as well as how you can use AI to enhance and extend the UX for SAP Business Suite. See our strategy for giving users access to all they need and enabling them to provide feedback, wherever they are, through the web and on mobile, including applications and central services.

CA811 | User and product experience innovations by SAP—on the web and mobile - Road Map
Have a look at the latest user and product experience innovations across our suite of applications, along with cool innovations coming soon—on the web and mobile. Also, check out selected highlights from UI technologies.

AD170 | Build scalable enterprise mobile solutions with SAP Build - Hands-on Workshop
Dive into the technical details of building scalable, cross-platform mobile solutions with SAP. Get a hands-on overview of integrating SAP Build solutions and our mobile development kit to streamline your development process and deliver high-quality apps.

CA260 | Learn how to build your own app and use it in SAP Mobile Start - Hands-on Workshop
Build an application on SAP BTP using SAP Build Code and SAP Cloud Application Programming Model that integrates with SAP Mobile Start. Accelerate development with development productivity tools in SAP Business Application Studio. Learn how to make the app accessible and send push notifications for relevant business events directly to your users.

CA201 | Creating AI-enhanced UX for your own applications with SAP Design System - Deep Dive
Discover how AI is changing the idea of what an application is—and what this means for you. Learn about how to create AI-enhanced UX for your applications by using SAP Design System (SAP Fiori UX for web and mobile), and see how building applications is made easier through our AI UI technologies for web and mobile apps.

AD109 | Bridging the gap: Build your enterprise mobile strategy - Deep Dive
Are your employees struggling to find critical company data on the go? The SAP Mobile Start app solves that challenge by connecting them to SAP Build Work Zone and enabling custom mobile solutions. Find out how to create a powerful, integrated mobile journey for increased productivity.

AI166 | Mobile projects with SAP Joule for Consultants and SAP Joule for Developers - Hands-on Workshop
Learn how SAP Joule for Consultants accelerates execution of mobile projects and cloud transformation by simplifying knowledge access and offering expert guidance. Also, explore SAP Joule for Developers and its mobile development kit AI capabilities—including code suggestions, explanations, test generation, and more—to boost development efficiency.

CA914 | AI-based user and product experience innovations on the web and mobile - Demo Station
Experience the latest user and product experience innovations by SAP, including the Joule copilot on mobile devices and AI-embedded scenarios. Learn how you can leverage SAP Design System and our UI technologies to build your own apps.

Join our live Mobile AI usability testing session: Exploring Joule and voice – understanding mobile AI in your daily work
Usability testing offers a unique opportunity for SAP users to engage directly with SAP product and development teams. In a focused 60-minute one-on-one session, you’ll interact with product screens and evaluate whether the buttons, terminology, and features meet your expectations and workflow needs. This session focuses on how AI on mobile is used in everyday work and what users envision for the future.

Do not miss this opportunity and join us in Berlin. Register now! 📅November 4 - 6, 2025 Berlin
We look forward to meeting and interacting with you!

Unlocking SAP Fiori and other business content on Mobile: A Practical Guide

2025-10-01T11:43:30.288000+02:00

Introduction: Accessing SAP business content on mobile

While analysing the recent search queries from users around “the use of SAP on mobile” we came across the below examples.

is there an app for SAP Fiori?
can I access SAP Fiori from mobile?
how to use SAP Fiori on iPhone?
can SAP be used in mobile?
how to open SAP on mobile?
what SAP business content is available on mobile?

There were also questions around how SAP Mobile Start fit into the picture with the standard set of mobile apps for each of the cloud solutions from SAP; for e.g. SAP SuccessFactors mobile.

Providing clarity on these kinds of questions served as the motivation for writing this blog. We will also look at the broader set of business content that can be accessed from mobile as standard or via configuration.

Is SAP Fiori Client still relevant?

The SAP Fiori Client mobile app provided a native runtime environment for SAP Fiori apps on iOS and Android devices. It was removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store on March 31st, 2022. (Refer to SAP Note 2992772).

While the above SAP note does recommend the users of SAP Fiori to transition to SAP Mobile Start, the above search queries gave the impression that customers probably could do with bit more guidance on the overall strategy and approach around accessing SAP business content including SAP Fiori apps from mobile.

Decision tree for alternatives to SAP Fiori Client

As mentioned in the SAP Note 2992772, one of the options is for the users of SAP Fiori Client to transition to SAP Mobile Start. Here’s a visual representation of the decision tree for customers who are still using SAP Fiori Client as covered in SAP Fiori Client successor recommendations.

Product positioning of SAP Mobile Start

SAP Mobile Start is positioned as the mobile native entry point for business applications, processes and business data from SAP and non-SAP solutions. SAP Mobile Start was initially released for iOS (iPhone and iPad) in September 2021 and the Android version was later released in June 2022. This also signified a change in mobile strategy for SAP by moving away from the hybrid world to native app approach.

The mobile app for SAP's central entry point solutions

SAP Mobile Start brings the content that is deployed on SAP’s central entry point solutions to mobile users.

Once the business content is deployed on these solutions, you can enable the power of mobile to the end-users with a QR code scan at almost no additional implementation effort or deploy using Mobile Device Management (MDM).

Accessing SAP business content from mobile

Now let’s dive deeper into how the following types of business content can be deployed and consumed via SAP Mobile Start.

standard business content from SAP S/4HANA that is mobile enabled
custom SAP Fiori apps created using SAP Build
custom native apps created using SAP mobile services
other SAP business solutions content

1. SAP S/4HANA standard business content on mobile

Let’s address the question on how to access SAP S/4HANA business content (SAP Fiori roles and apps) via mobile.

SAP Fiori Apps Reference library can provide a list of SAP Fiori apps that are optimized for mobile phone and tablet. For e.g. you can discover apps “by Line of Business”; for e.g. Finance, Sourcing and Procurement etc.

You need to implement SAP Fiori roles and apps for your chosen processes on your SAP Fiori launchpad on SAP S/4HANA; refer to How to Deliver a Great User Experience with SAP S/4HANA.
You can then federate and bring the business content (SAP Fiori roles and apps) to one of the central entry point solutions mentioned above. Refer to the learning journey: Setting up SAP Mobile Start with SAP S/4HANA on SAP Build Work Zone which explains how to do this using SAP Build Work Zone and bring it to mobile.

You can also refer to below assets:

SAP Fiori Deployment Options and System Landscape Recommendations is the reference document for all consultants, partners and customers who implement SAP Fiori. Do note that it also mentions the use of SAP Build Work Zone as a central entry point deployment option.
SAP Fiori Deployment in 2025: Embedded vs. Work Zone Standard vs. Advanced Edition also gives some insights into comparing various deployment options.

2. Creating and consuming custom SAP Fiori apps

SAP Build is a unified application development and process automation solution, enabling personalization and efficiency at scale. You can create custom SAP Fiori apps, using SAP Build Apps (for low-code development) and SAP Build Code (for pro-code development). You can connect to your SAP S/4HANA or other backend system, use visual tools to define data models and UI elements, and leverage generative AI with tools like Joule to accelerate development.

SAP Build Work Zone can act as the central entry point to consume these custom apps as well as the federated (standard) business content from SAP S/4HANA. SAP Mobile Start can consume the content that is deployed on SAP Build Work Zone.

3. Creating custom mobile apps that follows SAP Fiori guidelines

Some customers may have use cases for which they might want to create custom native mobile applications that meets the following requirements:

utilize the native capabilities offered by the respective operating systems
while also following the SAP Fiori design guidelines
and maintaining the same user-experience as that of the business solutions from SAP.

This is where SAP Mobile Services comes into picture. It is an open standard based service on SAP Business Technology Platform that enables simple mobile application development, configuration, and management. It offers:

SAP Mobile Development kit which is a metadata driven tool that can allow you to develop cross platform applications.
Or SAP BTP SDKs for iOS as well as Android for those who want more flexibility beyond what the above metadata driven approach can provide.

These SDKs follow SAP Fiori design guidelines to preserve the familiarity of both the native operating system experience as well the SAP Fiori app experience; refer to SAP Fiori mobile design guidelines.

Any custom native app that you create can of course be launched from SAP Mobile Start via a native tile; refer to add native apps to your content.

4. Other SAP business solutions content

To be a true native entry point, SAP Mobile Start app also needs to bring the business content and key capabilities from other SAP business solutions to a mobile user. Let's have a closer look at the possibilities.

SAP S/4HANA (as explained above)
- mobile enabled apps from SAP S/4HANA SAP Fiori launchpad via content federation
- workflow notifications and situations
SAP Task Center integration for tasks; for e.g. Purchase Order approval from SAP S/4HANA. Also tasks from SAP Ariba , SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Cloud for Customer, SAP Concur, SAP Fieldglass, SAP Field Service Management, SAP Marketing Cloud, SAP Workflow Service, 3rd party providers
UI integration cards displaying Insights and custom cards
URL tile to Cloud solutions from SAP e.g. SAP Concur web
Analytical story from SAP Analytics Cloud
Native app tile to launch specialised app from the respective SAP Cloud solution
- e.g. SAP Concur mobile
- or deep links where SAP Cloud solution supports the same; e.g. using SAP SuccessFactors deep link to directly launch Compensation details
SAP Document AI integration

Big picture on SAP’s mobile portfolio

To complete the picture on SAP’s mobile portfolio, we must also talk about the dedicated mobile apps that comes with each of the cloud solutions from SAP ; for e.g. SAP SuccessFactors mobile, SAP Analytics Cloud mobile, SAP Concur mobile etc and how SAP Mobile Start fits into the picture.

SAP Mobile Start in the context of other SAP mobile apps

SAP Mobile Start is not intended to provide the ability for the end users to access all mobile enabled capabilities from all the cloud solutions from SAP. It is meant to be a native entry point from where the following can be done.

the most valuable capabilities and content from the business solutions can be accessed as described above.
and the specialised mobile apps provided by each of these cloud solutions from SAP can be launched.

Conclusion:

In summary

SAP Mobile Start is the mobile native entry point into SAP universe for a mobile user.
Administrators can deploy the most critical content from various business solutions from SAP as outlined above on SAP's central entry point solutions and bring them to SAP Mobile Start.
The end-users can further use the specialised standard SAP mobile apps.
SAP Mobile Services provides a choice of SAP BTP SDKs that can be used to create custom native apps when end-user needs go beyond the standard set of apps provided by SAP while also maintaining the familiarity of the respective operating system as well as SAP Fiori design guidelines.
The users of SAP Fiori Client are encouraged to move to SAP Mobile Start.

We look forward to hearing your experience with setting up these solutions in your landscape. We are keen to hear about mobile personas and use-cases you have taken advantage of. Please do share your thoughts and comments below.

Stay up to date with latest news and post your questions or feedback about SAP Mobile Start in the Q&A area. Start by visiting your SAP Mobile Experience community page and click “follow”. We’ll be publishing more informative blog posts.

Introducing SAP Fiori for Android/iOS 25.8: Innovative Enhancements for Android and iOS

2025-10-07T10:45:01.820000+02:00

SAP Fiori continues to advance its technological offerings with the release of SAP BTP SDK version 25.8, featuring exciting updates for both Android and iOS. This release introduces a suite of new capabilities as well as upgrades to current features, enhancing user experiences on business apps.

New in SAP Fiori for Android 25.8

In the following section, we’ll give you a brief overview about everything that’s new in SAP Fiori for Android 25.8.

Circular In-Place Progress Indicator

The circular in-place progress indicator displays the status of ongoing processes when loading is initiated by a button. An indicator within the button shows the loading state. The progress indicator has been enhanced to allow customization of the icon button so that once loading is finished, the icon button can be changed to a different icon.

For more information, check out the Circular Progress Indicator article in the SAP Fiori for Android design guidelines.

Object cell with a circular progress indicator

Illustrated Message

The illustrated message component, which helps communicate empty, error, and success states through a combination of engaging illustrations, solution-oriented messages, and a conversational tone, has been updated with new illustration assets.

To learn more about this component, refer to Illustrated Message.

Illustrated message with the new “empty task” illustration

Native File Viewer

The native file viewer, which allows users to preview files, now supports viewing password-protected PDFs by prompting them to enter a password in a dialog before the file is displayed, expanding accessibility and document control within apps.

For more information, check out Native File Viewer.

Password-protected PDF files in native file viewer

Picker Form Cell

The picker form cell, used for making date and time-based selections, is now available for Jetpack Compose.

See Date and Time Picker Form Cell for more information.

Date picker form cell with Horizon tonal color option

Stepper Form Cell

The stepper form cell and the nested stepper control, which allow users to incrementally increase or decrease a select value, are now available for Jetpack Compose.

Check out the Stepper Form Cell guideline article to learn more.

Stepper form cell in horizontal layout (top) and vertical layout (bottom)

Text Input Form Cell

Text input form cells have been enhanced to provide currency support, allowing users to enter currency values in single property form cells. The form cells now feature ISO codes that automatically format the text input with the corresponding currency symbol.

For more information, refer to Text Inputs.

New in SAP Fiori for iOS 25.8

Check out what's new in SAP Fiori for Android 25.8.

Illustrated Message

Just like the Android equivalent, the illustrated message component has been updated with new illustration assets to help communicate empty, error, and success states with engaging illustrations.

Learn more about this component in the Illustrated Message SAP Fiori for iOS guideline article.

Illustrated message in different containers

Modals and Sheets

We have added new guideline articles for modality and sheets that cover all types of modals and sheets, including but not limited to full-screen modals, non-modal sheets, action sheets, popovers, and form sheets.

For more information, refer to Modality and Sheets.

Modal sheet

Pickers

The date range picker is now supported as a picker form cell, enabling the triggering of the date range selection component.

Take a look at the Pickers guideline article for more information.

Date range picker

Text Inputs

Text inputs now come with currency support via a new view modifier, enabling display of the ISO code in the text input label, showing the currency symbol after editing, and applying localized formatting using native Apple APIs and formatters.

Check out Text Inputs to view more details.

Text input - single property form cell with currency field support

Resources

Design Guidelines

A detailed documentation on component anatomy, behavior, and interactions allows you to use components that match your use case. Crosslinks to Google’s Material Design Guidelines for Android and Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines for iOS, as well as links to development documentation, help you navigate to these resources. Additionally, you can find a feedback function on each guideline article that allows you to provide feedback.

SAP Fiori for Android Design Guidelines | SAP Fiori for iOS Design Guidelines

UI Kits for Figma

SAP Fiori for Android and iOS UIKit

With the updated SAP Fiori for Android and iOS Design Kits, it’s now easier than ever to use the latest components and patterns in your mobile design. By using the Design Kits, you can quickly create a consistent user experience that enables app implementations at scale.

SAP Fiori for Android 25.8 UI Kits | SAP Fiori for iOS 25.8 UI Kits

Developing Mobile Apps with AI Agents: Introducing the MCP Server for mobile development kit

2025-10-13T11:01:14.266000+02:00

Update 20 Jan 2026: released version 0.3 with further optimized MCP tools (reduced to 4 tools), telemetry and support for generating MDK Rule definitions.

Are you an experienced developer working on mobile app projects based on SAP Mobile Development Kit (MDK)? Do you want to jumpstart your mobile app development with MDK? Do you use AI coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, OpenCode, or GitHub Copilot to support you in your daily work? Wouldn't it be cool if the agent could help you develop MDK applications? We now offer some free tools that can provide more context about your project as well as relevant MDK examples to steer the AI coding assistant in doing the right thing.

Figure 1: High level overview MDK MCP Server

We are excited to announce the release of the MCP server for mobile development kit. This open-source server provides AI agents with comprehensive MDK knowledge and tools. By combining best practice guidelines, project-aware context information, templates for creating new projects, and access to the MDK CLI tools, the MDK MCP server transforms AI agents into MDK development experts.

The MCP server for mobile development kit is available as npm module at https://www.npmjs.com/package/@sap/mdk-mcp-server .

The code repository is located at https://github.com/SAP/mdk-mcp-server

This MDK specific release follows previously announced MCP servers by SAP for:

What is an MCP Server?

An Model Context Protocol (MCP) server is designed to manage and deliver capabilities to Large Language Models (LLMs) via AI agents. It bridges the gap between LLMs and external resources such as services, tools, and data, enabling LLMs to interact with these resources.

What is mobile development kit?

The SAP Mobile Development Kit (MDK) is a powerful framework that enables developers to build cross-platform mobile applications using a metadata-driven approach. It is part of SAP Business Technology Platform and integrates tightly with SAP Mobile Services.

Some of SAP’s larger and complex mobile apps are built using MDK. An example is SAP Service and Asset Manager.

Why should you use this MCP server?

The newly introduced MCP server for mobile development kit transforms AI agents into MDK development experts. It provides context-focused tools that aim to help the AI agent to answer questions such as:

Finding examples of using an MDK component.
Retrieving details about specific properties of an MDK component.
Finding the schema for a specific MDK component.
Searching MDK documentation.

Other reasons for using this MCP server:

Large Language Models (LLMs) sometimes lack information on the latest best practices and metadata recommended for MDK development.
They might recommend the use of MDK metadata that does not exist in the version your project is using, or MDK metadata that has been marked as deprecated.
By facilitating MDK validation tools, your coding agent can validate the changes it has made, ensuring it follows current best practices.
Scaffolding tools can help agents kickstart new projects faster and with established patterns, saving token costs.

The MCP server can help you answer questions you as a developer have about the project you are working on, such as:

Explain what this specific file does in the MDK project structure.
How can I use Fragments in my project?
Can this application support offline capabilities?
Are there any requirements for the data source to support offline?

Combining AI agents with existing tools – a powerful and efficient combination

Instead of relying fully on what an AI agent can generate, we offer the agent access to existing tools in our MDK toolset.

Figure 2: Tools used by the MCP Server for mobile development kit

With MDK tools, we can migrate, validate, build and deploy projects. With the MDK Generator, we provide project scaffolding for Base, Empty, List-Detail and CRUD templates. Based on your prompts, we can further generate pages and actions to your MDK project. This ensures a more predictable outcome, saves time and tokens (costs).

Open Source

We are also happy to announce that the MCP Server for mobile development kit is an open-source project, licensed under the Apache-2.0 license. Learn more about open source at SAP.

We are curious to see what you will do with our MCP server for mobile development kit ! Please do not hesitate to provide your feedback here or report any issues in our GitHub repository.

Setup

Assuming you have already installed node.js on your machine, first install Yeoman. This must be an older version of Yeoman to avoid compatibility issues.

npm install -g yo@4.3.1

For installing the MDK MCP server, we offer two options:

1. Use npm to install it from the public npmjs registry at https://www.npmjs.com/package/@sap/mdk-mcp-server .

npm install -g @sap/mdk-mcp-server

2. Clone the open-source code repository at https://github.com/SAP/mdk-mcp-server, and use npm to install it:

git clone https://github.com/SAP/mdk-mcp-server.git
cd mdk-mcp-server
npm i --include=optional
npm run build
npm i -g /mdk-mcp-server@.

Both MDK Tools (@sap/mdk-tools) as well as MDK Generator (@sap/generator-mdk) will automatically be installed as dependencies of the MCP server for mobile development kit.

Next, your MCP client (AI agent) needs to be configured to make use of the server. Depending on the AI agent used, the configuration looks a little different. We are still waiting for alignment across AI agents regarding this kind of configuration.

In general, the mcpServers configuration should include the following section:

     "mdk-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "mdk-mcp",
      "args": ["--schema-version", "25.9"]
    }

Note: the schema-version is optional. By default, the latest schema version will be used.

Once installed, the AI agent in your IDE will automatically gain access to the MDK MCP server and can start using the tools at its own discretion. Depending on your IDE and settings, you may need to approve the first tool calls.

Figure 3: MCP Servers configuration in Cline

Rules

The following rules help guide the agent to use the server correctly.

## Guidelines for MDK
Don’t generate .service.metadata file
Don’t generate .xml file in ‘Services’ folder
Don’t change .project.json file

Add these rules to your existing global or project-specific AGENTS.md (specifics may vary based on respective MCP client).

Figure 4: MDK specific rules configuration in Cline

Tools

This release of the MDK MCP server includes the following tools, which can be accessed by your AI agent:

Tool name	Description
mdk-create	Creates MDK projects or entity metadata using templates (CRUD, List Detail, Base). Use this for initializing new projects or adding entity metadata to existing projects.
mdk-gen	Generates MDK artifacts including pages, actions, i18n files, and rule references. Returns prompts for LLM processing (pages, actions, i18n) or searches for rule examples.
mdk-manage	Comprehensive MDK project management tool that handles build, deploy, validate, migrate, show QR code, and mobile app editor operations.
mdk-docs	Unified tool for accessing MDK documentation including search, component schemas, property details, and examples.

Integration with SAP Mobile Services

For the integration with SAP Mobile Services, the MCP server currently makes use of the Cloud Foundry CLI and a service metadata file that contains details about:

The mobile application defined in the SAP Mobile Services instance.
The OData service metadata of the data source used in the mobile application. This describes the data model and capabilities of the OData service.

An example of such a service metadata file (with filename “.service.metadata”) is provided in our code repository. However, changing this file is not easy. We offer a tool to help with creating or updating this file as part of our Visual Studio Code extension: Mobile development kit extension for Visual Studio Code

How to use this tool to create or update the “.service.metadata” file:

1. Install Mobile development kit extension for Visual Studio Code version 1.32.0 or later in your Visual Studio Code.

2. Make sure you have installed the Cloud Foundry CLI.

3. Make sure to log in to your SAP Business Technology Platform environment on Cloud Foundry. This can be done by executing the following command in a terminal window:

cf login <your target endpoint> --sso

For more details you can refer to this help documentation.

4. Open the Command Palette in Visual Studio Code and select the "MDK: Open Mobile App Editor" command.

Figure 5: MDK: Open Mobile App Editor

5. Create/Select a new/existing mobile app.

Figure 6: Mobile Application Editor in Visual Studio Code

6. Select a destination.

7. Click "Add App to Project" button.

We also offer a tool in the MCP server to provide you the above information through the agent. You can basically ask the agent how to create the “.service.metadata” file.

In future releases we aim to enhance and further simplify the integration with SAP Mobile Services.

What can you do with this server?

The MCP server for mobile development kit works well for everyday tasks in MDK projects. It can help you refactor your code and metadata and add new features.

Important: Our MCP Server for mobile development kit is designed to support professional developers in their daily work. As with all AI-generated information, you should check the generated results carefully to avoid unintended side effects. As a professional developer, YOU are in control and responsible for the outcome.

Some examples where this MCP server can help

Update old projects

I’ve opened an old project that I’ve created in one of my previous blog post series. I know the MDK metadata schema is outdated and want to update it. I’ll ask Cline which tool can be used for this. As you can see in the screenshot, Cline made use of the MCP server for MDK to find out which tool to be used and is now proactively asking to run the MDK migration tool.

Figure 7: Update old MDK project in Cline

Explain specific properties

In the screenshot below, I am using Cursor and asked what the property “Animated” does in an Action.

Figure 8: Get explanation of a property in Cursor

Help to deploy the app

Making use of the available tools, the AI agent can help you deploy the mobile app and provide detailed information on how to install the app on your device.

Figure 9a: Deployment - validate and build the app in Cursor

Figure 9b: Deployment - deploy and show QR code in Cursor

Figure 9c: Deployment - Summary and installation instructions in Cursor

Conclusion

In this blog post we have introduced new tools to help professional developers in their everyday tasks developing MDK apps. We have made the tools as open as possible, to allow developers to use their favorite agentic development environment. As a developer, you should be able to develop SAP mobile apps in whatever environment you prefer to use.

We are also providing the MCP server as open source, allowing you to modify the tool to your needs and contribute enhancements.

As always, feedback is welcome to improve the blog posts, but most importantly the tools and products involved.

Vibe Coding a Mobile App to display Business Partners

2025-10-23T05:58:55.484000+02:00

Updated 28 October 2025: Added easier configuration option through Cursor's MCP directory.

Last week I posted about the release of the MCP server for mobile development kit. In that post, I’ve provided details about the setup and offered some simple use cases as examples. In this post, I will be using the Cursor coding agent together with the MCP server for mobile development kit to vibe code a mobile app from scratch.

We are going to create a simple mobile app that shows a list of Business Partners. The sample data is stored in an S/4HANA Cloud instance made available through SAP Business Accelerator Hub.

It is important to note that while Cursor is featured in this example, SAP is evaluating several coding agents to ensure broad compatibility with our MCP server. This demonstration does not imply preference or endorsement of any particular product.

We will go through the following steps:

Select a data source
Configure the app in SAP Mobile Services and add a connection to the data source
Ensure we can access the Cloud Foundry space where our SAP Mobile Services instance is running
Use Cursor
1. Configure the coding agent
2. Add MDK Editor extension
3. Retrieve details about mobile app and data source in SAP Mobile Services
Start vibe coding!

Picking a data source from SAP Business Accelerator Hub

We start with opening SAP Business Accelerator Hub and browsing to the Business Partner API overview. This is an API available on the S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. We are going to use this API for our mobile app. To set up the connection in SAP Mobile Services, we need to gather some information.

Select Show API Key and copy the key.

In the Configuration Details tab, you will find the SANDBOX URL. Copy this URL.

Configuring the mobile app in the SAP Mobile Services Admin cockpit

Assuming you have an instance of SAP Mobile Services available in your SAP BTP subaccount, open the Mobile Services Admin cockpit. You can do this via Service Marketplace, select Mobile Services and open the Support link. There is no need to create an instance here.

If you don’t have the service yet, simply add the Mobile Services entitlement to your subaccount. If you’ve created a brand-new subaccount, then make sure to enable Cloud Foundry, add the Cloud Foundry Runtime entitlement and allocate some runtime memory (1 unit is sufficient). You will also need an active Cloud Foundry space.

In the Mobile Services Admin cockpit, navigate to the Mobile Applications > Native/MDK tab and click New. Select Mobile Development Kit (MDK) as the type of application. Click Next.

Provide details about the app.

Click Next and leave the remaining configuration steps unchanged. Select Finish after reviewing the selections.

Once the app definition is created, select Connectivity.

We will now set up a connection to the data service we’ve found in SAP Business Accelerator Hub. We first provide information about the Destination Name and Destination Type (Internet Destination).

For the URL, paste the URL you’ve copied from SAP Business Accelerator Hub.

Click Next.

Create a custom header called apikey and paste the API key you’ve obtained from Business Accelerator Hub into the Header Value field.

For the remaining steps, leave all settings as default and click Next and finally Finish.

Access your Cloud Foundry environment

To be able to exchange information between your (local) development environment and your SAP Mobile Services instance, you need to log in to your BTP environment on Cloud Foundry. Make sure you have installed the Cloud Foundry CLI.

The easiest way to log in is to use the following command and follow the instructions to open the provided url:

cf  login <your target endpoint> --sso

Your target endpoint is visible on the Overview page of your BTP subaccount.

Using Cursor

Configuring the coding agent

We’ll open Cursor, where we have configured the mdk-mcp server. Detailed instructions can be found at https://www.npmjs.com/package/@sap/mdk-mcp-server.

Update: our MCP server for mobile development kit is now also listed in Cursor's Model Context Protocol (MCP) directory. Simply click the "+ Add to Cursor" button to configure it.

For Cursor, you'll find the MCP servers in the Cursor Settings > Tools & MCP. You can enable or disable MCP servers as needed. My recommendation is to only enable those MCP servers that are needed to perform a specific tasks. Having too many tools active could confuse the agent and LLM. Our team is currently working to consolidate a number of tools.

Installing the MDK Extension

As Cursor does not offer a direct way to download and install extensions from Microsoft's Visual Studio Marketplace, we will need to manually download and install the MDK Extension (VSIX). There are a few options. The easiest one is opening VSCode, search for "mdk" in the Extensions: Marketplace pane and select the "mobile development kit extension for Visual Studio Code". Click the gear icon and select Download VSIX from the dropdown menu.

Drop the downloaded VSIX file into the Cursor workspace, right click the file and select "Install Extension VSIX".

Alternatively, you can download the extension via me.sap.com at the following link (log in and download permissions required).

Retrieving the mobile application details

For our project, we need to collect information about the mobile app definition and mobile destination we've created earlier. In Cursor, go to the Command Palette and open “MDK: Open Mobile Application Editor”

The Mobile Application editor opens. Select the application we’ve created in SAP Mobile Services and tick the box of the destination.

By clicking “Add App to Project”, we collect all relevant information into a file named “.service.metadata”. This information will be used to create the mobile application project in the next steps.

Let’s get mobile vibe coding!

We are now ready to start creating the mobile application. We type the following prompt in the agent’s chat pane:

Create a mobile application to browse the list of Business Partners. 
Besides updating the generated README.md file, do not create documentation.
Make sure there are no linting errors and validate the project.

Note: I’ve specifically mentioned to skip creating documentation. This is because this agent, combined with Claude Sonnet 4.5, is very keen on creating documentation. Although this is a good practice, it can cause issues with bundling our metadata. There is also no need to ‘burn’ more tokens than necessary.

After a few iterations, the application and README.md file has been created.

To test what has been generated so far, we will deploy the application to SAP Mobile Services.

Open a new chat and enter the prompt

Deploy the application

Based on the information retrieved from the MCP server, the agent will trigger a deployment to SAP Mobile Services and show a QR code that we can use for onboarding the SAP Mobile Services client application. This client can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play.

The mobile app looks like this on iPhone:

The app runs fine. However, the partner list shows mainly record id numbers. We also notice this number get repeated in the list. Can we change this without touching any of the code or metadata? You don’t need to be an MDK expert to enhance the app. Your agent can help!

We use the following prompts:

Change the Business Partners list to show their name and search term 
instead of business partner id and customer id.

Change the subhead to BusinessPartnerGrouping.

On the list page, change the title to “Business Partner Overview”

The main page also looks like we are pulling the information straight out of a database. Let’s fix that.

On the main page, change the title to My Business Partners, 
change the "vibe_coded_demoapp" text to "Vibe coding showcase", 
change "A_BusinessPartner" to "Show list of Business Partners"

The level of detail on the page varies based on the agent and LLM; sometimes it's very detailed, while smarter agents produce more compact pages. In my example, there's too much information for mobile viewing.

To make the detail page more compact, please remove the 
relationship sections (to_<name>) and reduce the visible fields.

On the detail page, change the title to "Business Partner Details"

The object header on the detail page could look a bit better if we change the contents.

On the detail page, change the title to "Business Partner Details" 
and in the object header, please show the following items: 

headline = full name
subhead = id
BodyText = organization name
footnote = search item
Description = form of address
Status text = is blocked
substatus text = category

After the agent makes the changes, the resulting app is deployed and looks a bit a better:

We can even ask the agent to review the app and make it look even better. For this use case, I’ve provided screenshots of the main page, the list page and the detail page and prompted:

Can you make the main/list/detail page look more professional

After several iterations, and reminding the agent to consult the MDK documentation, we have an app the indeed looks better. For the main page, I’ve also asked to add an image with the SAP logo.

Short summary of the changes made for each page:

Main page
- Added branding footer toolbar
- Added logo image
- Improved button design
- Added welcome section
- Added brief key features overview
List page
- Circular avatars
- Blue accent color
- Improved search bar
Detail page
- Cleaner object header
- Split the long list into logical sections
- Improved layout
- Better visual hierarchy

Thoughts

For those unfamiliar with MDK and the tools we provide, it might look like magic to create a mobile app like this one. However, before the arrival of coding agents we already offered generators that offered scaffolding. The AI coding agent makes use of the same tools to create the app. What has changed is that instead of the developer continuing to enhance the project manually, it is now the coding assistant doing most of these changes based on the prompts provided by the developer.

In some cases, I’ve noticed the agent makes wrong assumptions and does not consult the information made available through the MCP server. An example of this is regarding the CSS styling. The agent assumed full support for CSS styling, like available in modern HTML5-based web apps. However, MDK offers limited support for styling. Without checking the documentation, the agent created styles that had no effect. I had to remind the agent to check the documentation first (maybe we should create a rule for this).

Practical recommendation: It is better to start every task in a separate chat with your agent to keep the context window small. This will help creating better results and less hallucinations.

Conclusion

Developing a mobile app based on Mobile Development Kit is now faster and easier thanks to AI coding agents. By introducing the MCP server for mobile development kit, we ensure coding agents can tap into knowledge and best practices that LLMs have not been trained on (yet).

Depending on the coding agent and LLM used, your results may vary. The development still needs supervision. Always review what the coding agent produces and make adjustments where needed.

As always, feedback is welcome.

Exciting UX talks at TechEd – Virtual, or meet us in Berlin and On The Road (USA, India, Australia)

2025-10-23T20:25:57.813000+02:00

For TechEd 2025 we have an exciting agenda lined up for all of you interested in SAP user experience. We not only have many interesting talks and hands-on sessions for creators (designer and developers) but also some talks showing our strategy and latest innovations for end users – which hopefully will inspire you when creating your own applications!

With TechEd Virtual, you can watch some of these talks from wherever you are around the world. Here’s an overview of the talks which are primarily relevant for user experience, starting with TechEd Virtual, and then moving on to the individual locations.

For TechEd Virtual, Berlin and Bangalore: the main sub-tracks to look out for are:

Product and User Experience,
in the Cloud Application (CA) track.

AI-driven user experiences with SAP Build,
in the Application Development and Automation (AD) track.

TechEd Virtual

ST112v | AI and the future of product and user experience on the web and mobile (Strategy Talk – 25 Min.)
CA201v | Creating AI-enhanced UX for your own applications with SAP Design System (Deep Dive – 45 Min.)
ST116v | SAP Build for all: A shift toward AI-assisted developer-centric tools (Strategy Talk – 25 Min.)
AD106v | The art and science of SAPUI5 in SAP Build (Deep Dive – 45 Min.)
AD820v | Future of app dev in SAP Build: Simplifying clean core and LoB extensions (Road Map – 25 Min.)

TechEd Berlin (and Bangalore)

All the sessions below are taking place in TechEd Berlin, and also TechEd On Tour Bangalore except the strategy sessions (which is available on-demand via TechEd Virtual), and the demo stations, since Bangalore has a different approach to providing demos.

Cloud Applications - Product and User Experience

ST112 | AI and the future of product and user experience on the web and mobile - Strategy Talk
CA811 | User and product experience innovations by SAP—on the web and mobile - Road Map
CA201 | Creating AI-enhanced UX for your own applications with SAP Design System - Deep Dive
CA261 | Create great UX with AI, SAP Design System, SAP Fiori elements, and SAPUI5 – Hands-On
CA105 | Intelligent app development at scale with AI and SAP Fiori elements – Deep Dive
CA262 | Analyze and optimize front-end application performance – Hands-on
CA200 | An overview of our AI-enhanced mobile products across SAP Business Suite - Deep Dive
AD170 | Build scalable enterprise mobile solutions with SAP Build - Hands-on

In addition to the above talks, you can come and visit us at our demo station:

CA914 | AI-based user and product experience innovations on the web and mobile – Demo station

Application Development and Automation

ST117 | SAP’s user experience strategy with SAP Build – Strategy
ST116 | SAP Build for all: A shift toward AI-assisted developer-centric tools – Strategy
AD818 | Explore the road map for user experience with SAP Build – Road Map
AD820 | Future of app dev in SAP Build: Simplifying clean core and LoB extensions
AD106 | The art and science of SAPUI5 in SAP Build – Deep Dive
AD166 | Taking UI to the next level: Develop SAPUI5 with SAP Build – Hands-on
AD200 | Unlocking the full potential of business users with SAP Build – Deep Dive
AD165 | Build it yourself: Your modern digital workplace – Hands-on
AD100 | SAP Joule for developers: How AI can boost your development in SAP Build – Deep Dive
AD160 | Get hands-on with Joule: Boost your SAP Build development with AI – Hands-on
AD201 | Explore ABAP Cloud in SAP Build: What's in it for ABAP developers – Deep Dive
AD163 | Fusion development with ABAP Cloud in SAP Build – Hands-on
AD203 | Fact-checking UI extensibility on cloud and ABAP: What's in it for you – Deep Dive
AD260 | UI extensibility on top of cloud and ABAP: What's in it for you – Hands-on

The corresponding demo station is:

AD901 | SAP Build: AI agents, automations, and digital workspaces – Demo station

For a comprensive overview of sessions relevant for SAPUI5 developers, including the abstracts, look at:

Join SAPUI5 Sessions at SAP TechEd 2025

Similarly, for an overview of all the sessions of interest for mobile development, including abstracts, see:

SAP TechEd 2025 - Go Mobile!!!

Joule and Agentic AI is of course also relevant for creating a great user experience, here are some recommended deep dives:

AI100 | Build custom AI solutions with the generative AI hub
AI103 | Integrating Joule with other tools such as WalkMe and Microsoft 365 Copilot
AI105 | Building custom AI agents and skills with Joule Studio

Usability Testing sessions on-site in Berlin

You can sign up to test one of these interesting topics in Berlin:

Exploring Joule and voice – understanding mobile AI in your daily work
Redesigning the dashboard building experience with SAP Analytics Cloud
Building AI agents with Joule Studio in SAP Build
Vibe coding with SAP Build
Accelerate your cloud implementation: Business configuration templates in SAP Central Business Configuration
Supercharge your SAP Fiori elements app development with SAP Fiori tools and AI

Find out more and register for testing!

TechEd On Tour USA

ASUG Tech Connect November 4 – 6 in Louisville, Kentucky has a number of interesting talks and hands-on sessions for you. These are my selection of sessions related to SAP Fiori:

Creating Better User Experiences with AI-Powered SAP Fiori Apps
Using Generative AI to Accelerate SAP Fiori App Development
Extensibility with ABAP Cloud and AI in SAP Cloud ERP
Explore ABAP Cloud in SAP Build: What's in it For ABAP Developers
Customer Show and Tell: From CDS View to Fiori Launchpad: Full-Stack Development with Eclipse ADT with Naturipe

Here are my selected Hands-on Lab sessions:

Get Started with ABAP Cloud for Classic ABAP Developers
Hands-on Lab: Explore Joule for Developers, ABAP AI Capabilities
Hands-on Lab: Build On-Stack Extensions with ABAP Cloud in SAP Cloud ERP

This blog post by Peter Spielvogel, who is a speaker there, gives an overview including abstracts:

UX and application development with AI at ASUG Tech Connect 2025 a companion event to SAP TechEd.

TechEd On Tour Australia

Mastering SAP, Sydney November 12 – 14 in Sydney has these UX talks for you, each 45 minutes. The first one is unique to Sydney, by Jocelyn Dart, the other four are the same as in Berlin and Bangalore:

AD300 | SAP User Experience is the foundation for AI and Clean Core
AD301 | AI for App Development at Scale with SAP Design System & SAP Fiori Elements
AD302 | AI-Assisted User Experience Innovations in SAP Cloud ERP
AD106 | The art and science of SAPUI5 in SAP Build
AD200 | Unlocking the Full Potential of Business Users with SAP Build

These AI-related talks also sound relevant for UX:

AD202 | Agent building 101: All that you can do with Joule Studio
DT105 | SAP Business AI in SAP Cloud ERP

I myself will be in Berlin and Bangalore, giving the strategy talk, the road map talk and a deep-dive talk about creating apps with the SAP Design System (ST112, CA811 and CA201 respectively).

Looking forward to meeting you!

AI-Supported Voice-to-Text Job Completion in SAP Service and Asset Manager

2025-10-29T12:22:51.287000+01:00

Are your technicians tired of slow, error-prone typing after every maintenance job to feed the data demand of your back office? Our new voice-driven AI turns spoken job details into complete confirmation entries – auto-filling hours, expenses, and mileage, hands-free. Cut paperwork, prevent missed information, and help your team close operations faster with cleaner, more reliable data.

In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at our first productive AI-powered use case implemented for the SAP Service and Asset Manager (SSAM) mobile app. As my colleague @ZackFrazier outlined in his recent post, “SAP Service and Asset Manager 2505 Now Available – What’s New?”, we have introduced “AI-Supported Voice-to-Text Job Completion” in the latest release, SAP Service and Asset Manager 2505.

Below, we will dive deeper into this AI-Supported Voice-to-Text Job Completion use case from various aspects: functionality, technology, and commercial considerations.

See it in action

Check out this video to understand what this feature entails and how it can support your technicians:

What’s in for you and your technicians?

Let's explore the capabilities and benefits of this feature.

Enhancing Efficiency for Maintenance and Field Technicians

Our inaugural AI-powered feature is designed specifically to boost the efficiency of maintenance and field technicians. It introduces a voice-driven interface that revolutionizes data entry. This cutting-edge feature allows technicians to verbally communicate job details for Work Orders, Service Orders, Operation, or Suboperation directly into the application.

The advanced AI technology then transcribes spoken input into structured data, automatically populating relevant fields such as hours worked, expenses incurred, or mileage traveled. This hands-free approach empowers technicians to capture crucial information promptly and naturally without the inconvenience of manual typing.

Streamlined Workflow

After the AI accurately fills out the necessary fields, technicians can review and edit the entries if needed. Edits can be made either by verbally re-recording or by selecting and directly updating specific fields using the keyboard. This streamlined workflow accelerates the completion of operations and orders while significantly improving accuracy by minimizing the likelihood of missed or incomplete details.

Boosting Team Efficiency

In essence, this innovative feature contributes to the overall efficiency of the team. By ensuring high-quality data is meticulously maintained, it enhances the team's ability to operate more effectively and efficiently, ultimately leading to a more productive and seamless work environment.

How does it work?

Let’s take a closer look at the technology behind this feature.

Technology Stack and Requirements

The spoken information of technicians are transcribed by native speech-to-text cababilities offered by the standard mobile operating system. Technicians must have an online connection as the unstructured text is sent to the SAP AI Core service on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). The large language model gpt 4.1. mini transforms the text into structured data and returns it to SSAM, where it is then entered into the SAP fields on the screen.

To use this new AI feature, you must add the SAP Dynamic Forms service to the entitlements on the BTP subaccount/space where your SAP Service and Asset Manager application is running. However, this prerequisite does not mean you have to use SAP Dynamic Forms actively.

Steps to Set Up the AI Feature

Afterwards you need to go through the following 4 steps:

Create the destination required for your mobile application in BTP Mobile Services.
Connect the SAP Mobile Service application with SAP Dynamic Forms by configuring the security settings of the SAP Mobile Service application (which links the SAP backend system to the SAP Service and Asset Manager mobile applications). SAP Service and Asset Manager has to be implemented in the same SAP BTP subaccount as SAP Dynamic Forms.
Assign users to the role collection which was created by default in step 2 to manage access control.
Activate the Application Feature Id “CA_AI_JOB_COMPLETION” in the ConfigPanel of MAIF (Mobile Application Integration Framework).

What’s the investment to get started?

Regarding commercial aspects, this AI feature follows SAP’s pricing strategy for AI and falls under the premium AI category. It is a consumption-based model where customers need to acquire AI units and are charged per transaction.

Every completion of an operation or order with AI assistance, regardless of how often the end user re-recorded, will count as one transaction. One transaction is equivalent to 0.05 AI units.

You can use the AI estimator tool to calculate your company's needs for AI units.

As this is an AI feature for SAP Service and Asset Manager mobile app, customers will need an active subscription to SAP Service and Asset Manager to use AI within the mobile application.

Conclusion

The AI-Supported Voice-to-Text Job Completion feature in SAP Service and Asset Manager is an exciting addition that will significantly boost the productivity of your technicians and your company. It marks the beginning of transforming how end users interact with our mobile app.

I hope you and your technicians will enjoy this new functionality.

For additional information, visit the Discovery center and our SAP Help Portal.

The application metadata is now available for licensed customers and partners on the SAP Support Portal Software Center. Please ensure to download from there the latest patch release of SAP Service and Asset Manager 2505 version. The mobile client can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Agentic coding of an SAP mobile app with Windsurf

2025-11-03T14:15:04.661000+01:00

In this blog post, I am going to create a similar mobile app as I’ve previously created in SAP Build Code. However, this time I will be using the Windsurf AI-powered IDE, combined with our recently released MCP server for mobile development kit.

It is important to note that while Windsurf is featured in this example, SAP is evaluating several coding agents to ensure broad compatibility with our MCP servers. This demonstration does not imply preference or endorsement of any product or vendor.

In my previous blog post, I’ve showcased the creation of a simple list-detail app with Cursor. Some would consider this scenario a bit too simple as the user of the app can only view information, and there is no authentication involved.

For this post, we’ll focus on the mobile app creation and reuse an existing CAP-based data service, which combines a basic Product entity with a Supplier entity exposed from a demo instance of S/4HANA Public Cloud edition. In this extension scenario, role-based access is implemented for authenticated users and depending on the role assigned, users can create, update and delete data.

The basic steps showcased here are:

Create a new mobile app definition in SAP Mobile Services and connect it to the BTP destination of an existing data service
Access your Cloud Foundry environment
Open Windsurf and ...
1. Activate MCP server for mobile development kit
2. Configure Rules for the agent
3. Ensure the MDK Editor extension for VS Code is installed
4. Use the Mobile App Editor offered by the extension to retrieve relevant information from SAP Mobile Services
Start the agentic coding journey.

Creating the mobile app in SAP Mobile Services

Assuming you have an instance of SAP Mobile Services available in your SAP BTP subaccount, open the Mobile Services Admin cockpit. You can do this via Service Marketplace, select Mobile Services and open the Support link. There is no need to create an instance here.

In the Mobile Services Admin cockpit, navigate to the Mobile Applications > Native/MDK tab and click New. Select Mobile Development Kit (MDK) as the type of application. Click Next.

Provide details about the app.

Click Next and leave the remaining configuration steps unchanged. Select Finish after reviewing the selected options.

Once the app definition is created, select Connectivity and select + to create a new mobile destination. This destination will act as a bridge between the mobile app and the data service.

In this case, I will use the destination type SAP Destination Service, as I am going to use the BTP destination that was created during the deployment of my CAP service to BTP. In the dropdown list for Cloud Destination Name, I’ve picked the name of the BTP destination.

Navigating back to the mobile app entry in SAP Mobile Services, we now select Security. We edit the application settings and make sure to Enable Cross Context SSO. This feature in SAP Mobile Services allows users to reuse their OAuth tokens obtained in one context (like a desktop browser or mobile browser) in another context (like a native mobile app). This eliminates the need for users to log in again when switching between platforms. It allows for seamless user authentication across multiple backend systems. In our case, we have a CAP-based service deployed to BTP that requires authentication, that makes use of an external data source coming from an S/4HANA Cloud system.

We are now done configuring the mobile app in SAP Mobile Services.

Access your Cloud Foundry environment

The easiest way to log in is by using the following command and follow the instructions to open the provided URL:

cf  login <your target endpoint> --sso

Your target endpoint is visible on the Overview page of your BTP subaccount as “API Endpoint”.

Setting up Windsurf

We'll now open the Windsurf IDE. Before getting started with agentic coding, we need to configure a few things.

Add MCP server

Open the Windsurf Settings and select open MCP Marketplace. Add and enable the MCP server for mobile development kit. More details on how to do this can be found in the Setup guide.

Define Global Rules

To provide some guidance for the agent, define the following Global Rules. You can refine these rules as needed.

## Guidelines for MDK

Don’t generate .service.metadata file

Don’t generate .xml file in ‘Services’ folder

Don’t change .project.json file

Installing the MDK Extension

As Windsurf does not offer a direct way to download and install extensions from Microsoft's Visual Studio Marketplace, we will need to manually download and install the MDK Extension (VSIX). There are a few options. The easiest one is opening VS Code, search for "mdk" in the Extensions: Marketplace pane and select the "mobile development kit extension for Visual Studio Code". Click the gear icon and select Download VSIX from the dropdown menu.

Drop the downloaded VSIX file into the Windsurf workspace, right click the file and select "Install Extension VSIX".

If you have already installed the extension in VS Code, then Windsurf is able to import the extensions directly.

Note: the drawback is that you have to check and perform updates manually. We are considering publishing our extensions on Open VSX as well.

Retrieve the mobile application details from SAP Mobile Services

For this project, we need to collect information about the mobile app definition and mobile destination we've created earlier. This information will be used by our tools when generating project artifacts. In Windsurf, go to the Command Palette and open “MDK: Open Mobile Application Editor”.

The Mobile Application Editor opens. We then select the application we’ve created in SAP Mobile Services and tick the box of the destination.

In case you are presented with the following popup, you’ve missed the Security configuration in SAP Mobile Services to Enable Cross Context SSO.

Start agentic coding

We can now start coding, or should I say ... prompting. In Windsurf we open Cascade and prompt:

Create a mobile app allowing users to create, update and delete Products.

After some thinking and checking various tools offered through the MCP server for mobile development kit, the agent creates an app based on the CRUD template, makes several adjustments, triggers a build, resolves linting issues, validates and deploys the app and finally shows the QR code for onboarding. I did not expect a 'one-shot prompt' to get this far!

Curious to see the result, we scan the QR code on the mobile phone and check the result.

The result is pretty standard output as you would get from a template. The list view shows mainly ID numbers, and they are even duplicated. The detail page contains a huge amount of information that is not easily consumed on a mobile device.

Let's make some adjustments. Prompts:

On the main page, change the title to "Products and Suppliers", replace the text "ProductsAndSuppliers" to "Windsurf showcase" and change the "Products" to "Show Products list".

On the list page, change the supplier id to supplier name

Figuring out the correct way to get to the supplier name took a few iterations of coding, build and deploy.

Eventually, the result is as follows:

The list view is more useful now. However, the selection of the supplier on the detail page is also just a list of IDs. It would be better to select based on supplier names.

Prompts:

On the detail page, change the supplier id to supplier name and show less details so the information can be easily consumed on a mobile device.

Attached are screenshots of the app while navigation the pages. Make them look more professional. Consult the documentation to confirm what is possible with MDK.

And finally, I've asked to

Add a footer bar at the bottom of the screen with the text "Powered by Mobile Development Kit.

The last prompt took several iterations to get the right result. We probably need to enhance the information/knowledge we've collected in the MCP server to optimize this.

The end result:

Conclusion

Developing a mobile app based on Mobile Development Kit has become a lot easier with coding agents that can tap into an MCP server to use tools, retrieve the latest information and best practices.

The process of developing the app was similar to what we've experienced in Cursor. As a developer, you'll have to adjust prompts and steer the agent to get the results you want. Do not expect a complete and perfect result from one single prompt.

Although we provide various tools and editors in the MDK extension, the chat (in Windsurf called Cascade) tends to become the main interface for developing the app. The tools and editors are still useful for checking the results and making minor corrections.

As always, feedback is welcome.

I am also curious the know your experiences with coding agents such as WIndsurf, in combination with our MCP server for mobile development kit.

Building an AI-Powered Business Card Scanner in MDK with MCP Servers: A Real Development Story

2025-11-18T02:37:30.200000+01:00

Introduction

I wanted to add an AI-powered business card scanner to an MDK app. Instead of spending hours reading documentation, I used Cline AI assistant with tools and resources from MCP servers to learn from examples and build the feature through natural conversation. The whole process took about 30 minutes instead of the usual 4-8 hours.

This is the story of how it went, including the mistakes I made and how I fixed them.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:

Visual Studio Code with Cline extension installed
MDK MCP Server configured (setup instructions)
For detailed setup guide, see: Developing Mobile Apps with AI Agents: Introducing the MCP Server for Mobile Development Kit
GitHub MCP Server configured
An existing MDK application project
Access to SAP AI Core service on BTP (for the AI features)

Step 1: Learning from an Example

I started by asking Cline to learn from an existing example app that already had AI Core integration. I gave it this prompt:

"learn MDK Action.Type.AICore.Chat.Completions from an example app at https://github.com/gqswang/cloud-mdk-samples/tree/main/Showcase_Apps/AICoreApp/MDKGenAI.mdkproject with github mcp server"

Cline used the GitHub MCP Server to access and analyze the repository, finding the AICoreApp showcase. Within minutes, Cline explained how AI Core integration works in MDK. The key insights were:

The correct action type is Action.Type.AICore.Chat.Completions - not a REST service action like I initially thought.

Dynamic execution is the way to go. Instead of hardcoding everything in the action file, you execute the action from JavaScript and pass parameters at runtime. This gives you flexibility to change the AI prompt, temperature, and other settings based on what the user is doing.

OpenAI Function Calling ensures you get structured JSON responses instead of unpredictable text. You define a schema for what you want back, and the AI follows it.

Image processing uses MDK's built-in binaryToBase64String() utility to convert photos into a format the AI can understand.

The example showed me that GPT-4o can handle both text prompts and images in a single request, which is perfect for scanning business cards. No need to opt for the latest model, which is much more expensive.

Below is a screenshot of VSCode with Cline at step 1: Learning from an Example

Step 2: Building the Feature

With that knowledge, I asked Cline to implement the business card scanner:

"now please use similar approach to add a new functionality to perform photo taking at customer detail page, to take photo of customer business card, analyze it with AI and extract Name, Phone number, Address, email, etc. please use MDK MCP server, but upgrade MDK schema version to 25.9 first"

Cline used the MDK MCP Server to create all the necessary files:

Application.app - Upgraded the schema version from 24.4 to 25.9 to support the new AI Core action type.

Services/AzureOpenAI.service - A simple service definition pointing to the "AICoreAPI" destination on BTP.

Actions/Customer/ChatCompletions.action - The AI Core action with minimal configuration. The real magic happens at runtime.

Rules/Customer/ScanBusinessCard.js - The JavaScript rule that does the heavy lifting. It takes the photo, converts it to base64, structures the AI request with a detailed prompt and JSON schema, calls the AI Core action, parses the response, and populates the form fields.

Pages/Customer/Customer_BusinessCard_Edit.page - A page with an attachment control for taking photos and form fields for the extracted data.

Actions/Customer/NavToBusinessCardEdit.action - Navigation to open the scanning page as a modal.

The implementation used a temperature of 0.1 (very low) because we want factual extraction, not creative responses. The JSON schema defined 11 fields to extract: firstName, lastName, phone, email, street, city, state, postalCode, country, company, and jobTitle.

Step 3: Validation and Debugging

This is where things got interesting. I asked Cline to validate and build the code:

"please use MDK MCP server to validate and build the generated code, fix the error if any"

Validation Passed

The MDK validator ran and reported 0 errors and 0 warnings. All file references were correct, the schema version was valid, and the action types were properly configured. There were 42 informational messages about platform-specific properties (like iOS-only or Android-only features), but those are normal for cross-platform apps.

First Build Failed

The build failed with a webpack error. It tried to process a markdown file (the blog post I was writing) that was sitting in the project root. MDK uses webpack to bundle everything, and it doesn't know how to handle markdown files.

Fix: Moved the markdown file to the Desktop. The rule is simple - only application metadata files belong in the project directory.

Second Build Succeeded

After removing the markdown file, the build completed successfully in about 2 seconds. It created two artifacts:

bundle.js (231 KB) - the compiled application
uploadBundle.zip (232 KB) - ready to deploy to Mobile Services

Pre-existing Bug Found

During validation, we also discovered an unrelated bug in the Dashboard page. It referenced rule files with .rule.js extensions, but the actual files only had .js extensions. This would have caused runtime errors. We fixed it by correcting the file references.

This showed me that validation doesn't just check new code - it can catch old bugs too.

Runtime Error

After deploying and testing, I hit a runtime error:

"Error scanning business card: TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'setValue')"

The AI extraction was working perfectly - I could see in the logs that it correctly extracted all the data from the business card. But the form fields weren't being populated.

Adding Logging: I asked Cline to add comprehensive logging to see what was happening. The logs showed that pageProxy.getControl() was returning undefined for all the form controls.

Root Cause: The controls were nested inside a SectionedTable, and getControl() only works for top-level controls.

The Fix: Changed from getControl() to evaluateTargetPath() with the #Control: syntax. This method can access controls at any nesting level.

After this fix, everything worked. The AI analyzed the business card photo, extracted all the information, and automatically populated the form fields.

All the code changes implemented by Cline with MCP servers throughout these steps are available in this pull request.

Below are screen recording of the new feature running on the iOS simulator:

What I Learned

MCP servers are incredible for learning. Instead of reading documentation for hours, I learned from a working example in minutes. Cline used the GitHub MCP Server to access and analyze the entire repository, extracting the key patterns I needed.

Logging is essential when debugging. The initial error message was misleading. Only after adding detailed logging did I see that the AI extraction was perfect and the problem was with control access.

Validation catches more than you expect. It found a pre-existing bug that had nothing to do with my new feature. This kind of comprehensive checking prevents future problems.

The control access pattern matters. getControl() vs evaluateTargetPath() is not obvious from documentation. This is the kind of thing you learn by doing, and having good logging helps you figure it out quickly.

AI-assisted development is iterative. Each step built on the previous one: learn from examples, implement based on that learning, validate to catch issues, debug systematically when things don't work, and reflect on what you learned.

Time savings are real. What would normally take 4-8 hours took about 30 minutes. That's an 87-94% reduction in development time.

The Development Workflow

The process followed this pattern:

Learn - Cline used MCP servers to access and analyze example code
Implement - Cline generated all necessary files based on the learned patterns
Validate - Cline used MDK MCP Server tools to check for errors
Build - Fixed issues and created deployment artifacts
Debug - Added logging to understand runtime problems
Fix - Applied the correct solution based on what the logs revealed

This isn't about AI replacing developers. It's about AI amplifying what developers can do. Cline learned from examples faster than I could read docs, but I still needed to guide it with clear prompts, interpret the results, and debug systematically when things went wrong.

Practical Takeaways

Let Cline use MCP servers to learn from examples first, before writing any code. It's faster and more effective than reading documentation.

Add comprehensive logging early, especially when integrating new technologies. Logs reveal the real story that error messages hide.

Validate frequently to catch issues before they compound. Don't wait until everything is built.

Be specific with prompts. Treat AI assistants like expert colleagues - give them context, share complete error messages, and ask for explanations when needed.

Document as you go. Writing things down helps you understand them better and creates a reference for next time.

Summary

This experience showed me that AI-assisted development with tools like Cline and MCP servers isn't just faster - it's a different way of working. You learn by example instead of by documentation. You iterate quickly instead of planning everything upfront. You debug systematically with comprehensive logging instead of guessing.

The combination of human creativity and judgment with AI's ability to learn from examples and MCP servers' domain-specific knowledge creates something more powerful than any of them alone.

This is my first experiment with AI-assisted coding using MDK and GitHub MCP servers. All code changes discussed in this blog are available in the pull request. If you want to use this code, ensure the SAP AI Core service configuration matches your own BTP environment. For detailed setup instructions, refer to my previous blog: SAP Build Apps integration with SAP AI Core services: Part 1 - Setup.

In future posts, I'll share more insights on integrating SAP MDK with various AI technologies.

Resources

TechEd Recap: Creating AI-Enhanced UX for Your Own Applications with SAP Design System

2025-11-20T15:55:07.560000+01:00

By Sophia Levens and Thomas Reiss

We were thrilled to speak at this year’s TechEd conference in Berlin on how the SAP Design System is powering the next generation of AI-led product design. Our Deep Dive talk entitled “Creating AI-enhanced UX for your own applications with SAP Design System” focused on three key areas: an introduction into the SAP Design System, new AI patterns for the design system and SAPUI5, and our AI-powered tools for our UI technologies. We then closed the session with an overview of the resources available to designers and developers today.

Below we’ll share a recap of the major points and announcements from the session. You can also watch the recorded session here.

Introduction to the SAP Design System

The overall mission of the SAP Design System is to unify and advance the SAP user experience. We achieve this in two ways:

Unify: The SAP Design System serves as the central hub of ready-to-use assets, guidance and standards for building delightful experiences that are consistent across the SAP portfolio. This is how we directly contribute to SAP’s Suite-First strategy.
Advance: The SAP Design System provides the essential patterns and tools to embed transformative AI experiences across all products and touchpoints. This is how we directly contribute to the AI-First goal.

What exactly is a design system?

In order to deliver consistent and inclusive UX, the SAP Design System is made up of the following elements:

Design Language: The most foundational elements that go into any brand. For example, color, type, iconography, illustrations, etc.
Components: The building blocks for creating user interfaces, like buttons, drop down menus, or input fields.
Patterns: Covers a use case or user flow, things like exporting data to PDF or a search workflow.
Floorplans: A full UI layout. Typically, floorplans are a complete page or even span several pages.

The SAP Design System extends across SAP. It helps to unify all touchpoints across the SAP brand including our products, our digital experiences like sap.com, and other marketing and communications including interactive events like TechEd. And because the system is open source, our customers can also use the design system to build upon and customize our products and platforms.

What UI technologies are supported with the SAP Design System?

For each element in the SAP Design System, we build reusable components in code that developers can leverage to accelerate their workflow. There are two ways to leverage SAP technologies—via “floorplans and building blocks” or “freestyle”.

Build “freestyle” with SAPUI5 and SAP Web Components: Freestyle allows you full control of every element on the screen.
Use “floorplans and building blocks” with SAP Fiori Elements: This lets you accelerate development when the desired app or workflow is close to one of the out-of-the box floorplans or building blocks.

Because both of these choices are based on SAPUI5, you don’t have to choose one or the other, you can mix both ways of developing leveraging each when needed.

New AI Patterns for the SAP Design System and SAPUI5

SAP is proud to offer AI components and patterns for web and mobile. We’re investing in making it easy to design and build great AI experiences that are responsible, flexible, and work across ecosystems. Our AI experience principles are built on the following six pillars: design for clarity, earn trust, give control, design fairly, boost flow, fail-safe.

Find the latest AI patterns and components:

Our AI components and patterns have gone through the process of reviews and testing by our experts in user assistance, accessibility, user research, and are compliant with SAP’s legal and ethical AI standards. These are patterns you and your users can trust.

Using our AI-powered UI Technologies to Help You Build Faster

We have introduced powerful AI tools to help you build UIs and applications faster.

SAP Joule for Developers is a collection of embedded AI capabilities for SAP Build as well as for ABAP, delivered through Joule, that accelerates development of apps and extensions, reduces costs, and improves developer proficiency.

The SAP Fiori tools project accelerator, which can be started from Joule in SAP Build Code, enables developers to create CAP-based (Cloud Application Programming model based) SAP Fiori elements applications directly from an image of the intended outcome. These images can be high fidelity Figma models, lower fidelity screenshots or a sketch on paper. Simply upload the image and use AI to generate the data models, services and the UI. Find out more in this blog post: From idea to app: using AI-powered Project Accelerator to develop SAP Fiori apps.

Generate a complete CAP-based application from a sketch with SAP Fiori tools project accelerator: data models, services and UI.

Recently, we have gone even further and introduced MCP servers for freestyle SAPUI5 development as well as for developing with SAP Fiori elements and the associated building blocks. These open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers equip developers with valuable support by providing AI agents with comprehensive UI5 and SAP Fiori elements knowledge, including best practices and project-aware context information.

Read about the new MCP servers in these blog posts:

Key Takeaways

This deep dive session gave an overview of how customers and partners can create AI-enhanced UX for their own applications with the SAP Design System and SAP’s UI technologies. Find everything you need to get started designing and developing:

Get started with the SAP Design System portal.
Use SAP's UI kits with the new AI patterns.
Use SAPUI5.

Building Pro-Code Extensions for SAP Mobile Start leveraging mobile native functionalities

2025-11-27T15:04:08.058000+01:00

We just concluded this year's SAP TechEd with two very insightful in-person events – SAP TechEd 2025 in Berlin (Nov 4–5) and SAP TechEd on Tour Bangalore (Nov 25–26). As depicted in the announcement blog post of my colleague Thilo Berndt, the mobile topics were again very well covered in various sessions and activities. As part of which, we were conducting a Hands-on Workshop both in Berlin and Bangalore called "CA260 – Learn how to build your own app and use it in SAP Mobile Start", which we would like to recap in this blog post and highlight the most interesting technical aspects.

Overview

SAP Mobile Start is the native entry point to the SAP Business Suite, to all relevant business processes, data, and content. It provides access to native or web-responsive business apps along with other content and critical business information. This includes notifications and consolidated views on tasks, approval workflows, and SAP S/4HANA situations. SAP Mobile Start provides business information from SAP Start, SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition, and SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition. Non SAP content can be integrated as well. It runs on iOS, iPadOS and Android devices, on watchOS and Wear OS devices, and on Apple Vision

While one significant aspect of SAP Mobile Start is to provide access to SAP’s role-specific standard content, such as business applications and tiles exposed from SAP S/4HANA via SAP Build Work Zone, this year’s SAP TechEd Hands-On Workshop CA260 centered on the ease of building pro-code extensions using SAP Build and specifically SAP Build Code with the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP). Participants were able to experience the necessary steps in building and deploying such a pro-code extension, as well as how to specifically utilize mobile native capabilities within that extension, such as Widgets (e.g. on the iOS Home and Lockscreen) and (Push) Notifications.

The session material and exercises are available on Github within the repository SAP-samples/teched2025-CA260. We do highly recommend checking out the exercises and trying them out on your own development system environment. This blog post will provide a brief overview of the most important steps and technical activities.

Please note that the session material on Github as well as some screenshots and code snippets in this blog post will contain usages of "###" as a placeholder for the participant number that was assigned in the hands-on workshop. Participants were instructed to replace these occurrences with their own participant number.

Building and Deploying the base version of the extension

The exercises started by building and deploying an initial version of the extension that the workshop is using as an example. As the initial version provided to participants, we are using a slightly modified version of the "Incidents Management" CAP sample application. The provided full-stack application and its dependencies are defined in the Multitarget Application descriptor (mta.yaml) which is being built and packaged into an mta archive (.mtar) during the build operation, which eventually gets deployed to the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), specifically SAP BTP Cloud Foundry environment. While the workshop is making use of SAP Build Code and its productivity tooling for developing full-stack applications with CAP, building the MTA project and deploying the build artifact to the SAP BTP, you can as well use your IDE of choice such as Visual Studio Code.

Screenshot: Overview of the project structure

With the deployment, the CAP application (in terms of the server logic) is running an application container on the Cloud Foundry Runtime. The UI of our full-stack application is realized using SAP Fiori Elements, which is generating the User Interface based on standard floorpans and UI annotations as part of the service definitions using CDS. The Fiori frontend application lives within the HTML5 Repository of the SAP BTP. While this would already be sufficient to expose our extension to SAP Build Work Zone and SAP Mobile Start as an application tile and run the frontend within the shell of SAP Build Work Zone using its managed Approuter, we want to have more control over the visual representation.

Frontend deployed to the HTML5 Repository; backend application deployed to Cloud Foundry

We can achieve this greater control by leveraging SAP Build Work Zone's content definition format – the Common Data Model (CDM). The definition of which is documented here and represents a standardized data structure for defining business apps, their visual representation, the required roles, and the logical hierarchical structure in which business apps shall be organized using a concept called "Spaces & Pages". Such CDM structure can be supplied to the HTML5 Repository during deployment of our extension. In the workshop's repository, this definition resides in the /workzone/cdm.json file.

Integrating the app into SAP Build Work Zone & SAP Mobile Start

For integrating our extension into SAP Build Work Zone, which makes it automatically available to SAP Mobile Start, we leverage a relatively new feature of the SAP Build Work Zone Channel Manager – defining a HTML5 Business Solution. While we could also create a regular Content Provider, using the new Content Channel type "HTML5 Business Solution" further simplifies the process as we are not required to manage any design-time destination. The HTML5 repository is merging all deployed HTML5 applications and their CDM definition from a common "Business Solution", making it available for selection as a joint Content Channel by the "Business Solution" dropdown.

Creation of a HTML5 Business Solution Content Channel in SAP Build Work Zone

This value used for merging multiple HTML5 application belonging to the same business solution is done via a dedicated property ("service" under "sap.cloud") in the web applications manifest.json. If you want to read more about HTML5 Content Consumption capabilities of SAP Build Work Zone, we can recommend this excellent blog post from our colleague Rupam who is part of the SAP Build Work Zone team.

{
  "_version": "1.65.0",
  "sap.app": {
    "id": "com.sap.ca260.###",
    "type": "application",
    [...]
  },
  [...]
  "sap.cloud": {
    "public": true,
    "service": "ca260###"
  }
}

After adding the Content Channel's role to our Site and making sure we have the role assigned to our desired users, we can see it exposed in SAP Build Work Zone using the browser as well as in SAP Mobile Start – Nice! As defined in the /workzone/cdm.json file, the application tile of our built extension is placed onto a Page with the title "Apps from Participant CA260-000", which itself is available under a Space named "Extensions from CA260".

Deployed application visible in SAP Build Work Zone and SAP Mobile Start

Extending the app to make use of Widgets on your mobile device

The steps to extend now our application in order for it to be configurable as a Widget, for example on the iOS Homescreen or the Lockscreen, are actually much easier than you might think. SAP Mobile Start offers multiple types of Widgets. The one we will be using here is the "Business Info Widget", which can be configured to display any KPI that is available to SAP Mobile Start. In technical terms this means that we need to enhance the application tile of our extension to become a "Dynamic App Launcher". In the simplest case, these are tiles showing a number coming from a connected data service. In more complex scenarios, these can also display criticalities, trend and more information around the selected KPI.

The process to transform our basic tile into a Dynamic App Launcher is fairly simple. Within our web application's manifest.json file, we can add the required definition to make it such a dynamic tile and connect it to our OData service for incidents available in our CAP application. For our example, let's point to the OData count of incidents and filter for incidents that are not in status closed using the status_code property. The needed configuration resides within the inbound definition under the node "indicatorDataSource". In order to make this change visible on our environment, the updated version needs to be deployed and the Content Channel needs to be synced.

Transforming the application tile into a DynamicAppLauncher

As a result, our application now appears a KPI tile on our Site and in SAP Mobile Start and we can monitor the automatically updated value both inside of SAP Mobile Start – for example when accessing the Page or by adding the app into my favorites on the Start tab of SAP Mobile Start. This fact allows us to configure the same Dynamic App Launcher tile as a Widget, for instance to our iPhone's Homescreen.

Pro tip: Why not mirroring your iOS Widget of open incidents to your Mac or configure the same on your Apple Watch as a watch face complication?

The Dynamic App Launcher tile appearing in SAP Build Work Zone and SAP Mobile Start

Implementing our own (push) notifications

Let's now go one step further and implement our own notifications from our CAP application. The beauty of the integration via SAP Build Work Zone and SAP's notification framework leveraging the SAP Alert Notification Service on BTP is, that such notifications will automatically appear on our SAP Build Work Zone Site in the browser, in SAP Mobile Start under the notification bell as well as be delivered as a mobile native push notification to the mobile devices on which you use SAP Mobile Start. That's a game changer for informing your users about a time critical situation directly from your pro-code extensions.

For CAP based extensions, we can make use of the @cap-js/notifications plugin. The plugin communicates with the necessary APIs using a Destination that needs to be created in the SAP BTP Subaccount in which the application will run. By default it expects the name for the Destination to be SAP_Notifications if not configured differently. The values for this Destination can be retrieved from the Settings of SAP Build Work Zone (Administrator role required).

For sending actual notification from our CAP service, we need to define our desired NotificationTypes first in the /srv/notification-types.json. These defined types represent the blueprint for the actual notifications to be sent. They include the texts for the actual notifications in all the languages that shall be supported with dedicated placeholders which will be filled when the notification is actually triggered in the service logic. Below you can see an example for such a type:

{
    "NotificationTypeKey": "IncidentCreated",
    "NotificationTypeVersion": "1",
    "Templates": [
      {
        "Language": "en",
        "TemplatePublic": "New Incident created",
        "TemplateSensitive": "New incident created by {{customer}}",
        "TemplateGrouped": "Incident Status Update",
        "TemplateLanguage": "mustache",
        "Subtitle": "{{description}}"
      },
      {
        "Language": "de",
        "TemplatePublic": "Neuer Vorfall eingegangen",
        "TemplateSensitive": "Neuer Vorfall von {{customer}}",
        "TemplateGrouped": "Vorfall Status Änderungen",
        "TemplateLanguage": "mustache",
        "Subtitle": "{{description}}"
      }
    ]
  }

Sending actual notification is fairly easy and can be done with very few lines of code. We first need to initialize the notifications plugin with cds.connect.to('notifications'), which creates a handle with which we can send notifications later. Sending notifications can be done with the function alert.notify. Here, we reference the desired NotificationType (defined before), recipients and further properties and data related to this specific notification we intend to send.

Coding used to send notification when incidents are created and closed.

As a result, we receive a push notification at the event of incident creation and closure. Already in the push notification displayed by the mobile operating system, we see the defined texts from our NotificationType with the specific values filled for the specific incident object. When tapping on this push notification, SAP Mobile Start shows the full notification in the dedicated area of the mobile app. Using "Open in Browser" brings us to this specific incident in our SAP Fiori Elements application where we could take further action. This is achieved by supplying the Intent Based Navigation (IBN) information of our app – consisting of the Semantic Object and Action defined in our web application's manifest. This allows SAP Mobile Start and SAP Build Work Zone to open the right application as a navigation target from the exposed content – in our case, the SAP Fiori Elements application running the HTML5 Repository and exposed to SAP Build Work Zone using the HTML5 Business Solution Content Channel. The deep link to the specific incident object is achieved by supplying a special navigation target parameter that SAP Fiori Elements supports for opening the desired "Inner App Route" – in our example, the Object Page of a specific incident using its ID. Feel free to check out how this was done for this specific example in the repositories' code.

The notification details visible in SAP Mobile Start and the deep-link navigation to the SAP Fiori Elements application

Outlook

We hope we were able to show, how easy it is to create pro-code extensions, deploy them to the SAP BTP, integrate them into SAP Build Work Zone & SAP Mobile Start. The demonstrated examples of mobile native widgets and push notifications hopefully showed the ease of leveraging the mobile native device capabilities. Beyond the content of the CA260 Hands-On Workshop of SAP TechEd 2025, we would like to give you an outlook to what else would be possible with this basis.

The beauty of using the HTML5 Business Solution Content Channel Exposure in SAP Build Work Zone is that we have the flexibility and feature set of the Common Data Model (CDM) available. We could further extend the /workzone/cdm.json file to make use of even richer visualization capabilities – for example by defining a declarative UI Integration Card. Such cards allow to achieve UI richt micro-experiences right on the Page's structure, for example displaying a short list of incidents with the most important information to get a brief overview as a processor. In the browser when consuming the page via SAP Build Work Zone, the card is rendered as a regular SAP UI5 UI Integration Card. In SAP Mobile Start, declarative cards are supported as mobile native UI elements. With a single declarative definition of such a card using the UI Integration Card framework, we can achieve native cross-platform support with a high quality user experience directly within SAP Mobile Start.

Having a UI Integration Card added to the Page in SAP Build Work Zone and SAP Mobile Start

For further information on SAP Mobile Start related features and topics, please check our SAP Mobile Start documentation. Visit SAP Mobile Experience Community Page and click “follow” to get the latest development and innovation of our solutions. We look forward to hearing about your experience with these hands-on exercises; please do share your thoughts and comments below.

SAP Mobile Start V2.5 - Release update brings UX and To-Do enhancements

2025-12-08T18:31:01.906000+01:00

With the recently released version 2.5, SAP Mobile Start adopts Apple's new Liquid Glass design language and provides several enhancements for To-Dos.

Let´s start with Liquid Glass. With Liquid Glass, Apple has unified its platform design language across Apple’s ecosystem of products. Liquid Glass provides a much more dynamic and expressive user experience and complements the experience of latest Apple devices like the Apple iPhone 17 – e.g. the round edges of the latest devices are now also reflected in the new design language.

What does this mean for our iOS users of SAP Mobile Start? First, you get a more dynamic user experience, but most important is that you get more space on the screen as the navigation bar collapses if it is not needed. Also, the content scrolls below the navigation and header bar.

Screenshot: New Liquid Glass design of SAP Mobile Start

Another small but worth to mention UX enhancement is that empty pages are not shown on the App Screen anymore. In the past, the app showed empty pages that did not have any mobile app assigned. With the new release, those are not shown anymore.

On the To-Dos screen, you get an additional To-Do filter option with the new release. This allows you to filter your to-dos by semantic groups defined in Task Center. For instance, you can have a group "Procurement", that automatically brings together to-dos from different source systems into one streamlined view. Furthermore, you can switch from the standard card view to a new compact view that provides you more flexibility to choose the view of your to-dos, based on the amount of to-dos you are dealing with. Please check our SAP Help documentation for details.

Screenshot: To-Do screen with new filter and view type

I hope you will enjoy these features in SAP Mobile Start.

For further information on the new topics, please check our SAP Mobile Start documentation.

SAP Mobile Experience offers intelligent native mobile solutions that help businesses build more efficient, resilient and sustainable end-to-end processes, improving people’s work life wherever they are.

Visit SAP Mobile Experience Community Page and click “follow” to get the latest development and innovation of our solutions. We look forward to hearing about your experience with setting up the solution in your landscape; please do share your thoughts and comments below. Enter here for additional questions regarding SAP Mobile Experience Applications.

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My Journey Building a Mobile‑Friendly Fiori App Using AI and Vibe Coding

2026-01-22T23:20:23.922000+01:00

and saga continues...

Figure 1. Screenshots from mobile phone that show main app functionality

UPDATE from my previous posts:

https://blogs.sap.com/2016/08/16/build-your-own-sap-fiori-app-in-the-cloud-2016-edition/

https://community.sap.com/t5/enterprise-resource-planning-blog-posts-by-members/kiko3-sap-fiori-user-administration/

Please read my previous blog so you can familiarize yourself and be up to speed with the current blog post.

My idea was to enable basic user‑administration tasks — locking and unlocking users, setting a new initial password, and adjusting a user’s validity date — to be performed directly from a mobile phone instead of requiring a laptop. This isn’t meant for everyday office use, but it’s extremely helpful in global companies with on‑call teams supporting users in multiple time zones.

A typical scenario for this app is when you’re away from your desk — for example, sitting in a park or waiting at an airport — and you suddenly need to perform one of these tasks. Instead of opening your laptop and spending 15–30 minutes connecting and navigating through the system, you can complete everything on your mobile device in under five minutes.

Your phone can first connect to the corporate network through a VPN app, and the 2FA code arrives on the same device. From there, you simply open the corporate URL linked to the Fiori app. After setting the new initial password and unlocking the user, you can immediately send an email notification containing the credentials you just generated.

This approach makes user‑administration tasks faster, more convenient, and perfectly suited for real‑world on‑call situations.

Let’s look at how a typical real‑world scenario usually unfolds — and whether there’s room to improve the process. In most cases, it consists of just 2–3 simple steps.

Step 1

Ivana (SAP user): I’m locked out of the SAP system. Could you please unlock my user?
You: Your user has been unlocked.

…a few minutes later…

Step 2

Ivana (SAP user): Could you please reset my password and unlock my user again? It seems I forgot it.
You: Your user is unlocked and the new initial password is: XXXXXX.

…a few minutes later…

Step 3

Ivana (SAP user): My SAP user is no longer valid…
You: Please try now — I’ve extended your validity date for two weeks.

One thing that first came to my mind is when you unlocking user, adding additional check if validity date is in the past, also if you are setting new initial password for user that is already locked unlock it and also check if validity date is in the past. If you find that validity date is in the past show warning message about validity date, as showed in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Screenshots shows setting new initial password, automatically unlocking and warning message for validity date in past

When I started building this app, I had no idea there was a name for what I was doing. I was simply copying pieces of code from my custom Fiori app, pasting them into an AI chat window, and asking it to “add this” or “fix that.” It felt a bit like having a super‑fast coding partner who never sleeps and never complains.

Every time I uploaded a new version, I hoped it would work — and sometimes it did. Out of 110 versions I tried, around 30 were perfectly fine. The rest were a mix of broken logic, misunderstandings, or classic AI hallucinations. In other words, about 27% of the time, things worked exactly the way I imagined.

But here’s the interesting part: even with all the trial and error, I managed to implement every single idea that came to mind. I would think of a feature, describe it to the AI, and a few minutes later I had a working version (or at least something close enough to refine). Only later did I discover that this whole approach actually has a name — vibe coding — and that many developers are already using it to speed up their workflow.

Looking back, the process wasn’t perfect, but it was surprisingly effective. And honestly, it was fun — like building something together with an unpredictable but incredibly creative teammate.

I have always using new increment in version when uploading (Name of SAPUI5 App) custom Fiori to avoid issue with cache.

SE38 -> /UI5/UI5_REPOSITORY_LOAD

Figure 3. captures the different versions I uploaded as I worked through this entire process

Version History
Added SAP theme selection option
Added application logo
Implemented Lock/Unlock functionality with automatic refresh after each operation
Added unlock warning when the user’s validity date is in the past
Improved password reset flow: when setting a new initial password, the app automatically unlocks the user (if locked) and checks the validity date
Enhanced validity date handling: when updating validity, the app now suggests a default date 10 days from today and refreshes after saving
Added quick‑filter buttons:
- Show Locked (users with uflag > 0)
- Show Invalid (users with a validity date in the past)
Added SID/Client input field before the Search bar
Improved Search behavior: entering two or more characters automatically displays matching users
Added in ABAP code option to search by last name/surname

For demo and full functionality of this Fiori app, please check video on Youtube.

Conclusion

What began as an experiment turned into a practical tool that saves time, reduces friction, and makes on‑call support far more manageable. With AI‑assisted development becoming more accessible, this is just the beginning. I’m excited to see how these new workflows will continue to reshape the way we build and interact with enterprise applications.

NOTE: All screenshots and the video were taken on an iPhone 17, using the Demo21 S/4HANA 2022 – 01 (02/2023) FPS environment.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this article or suggest any features you’d like to see added to the app. 😃

SAP UX Q1/2026 Update – Part 2: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2602 and SAP Fiori Launchpad

2026-01-28T09:57:22.998000+01:00

This second post in my series gives an overview of user experience innovations that become generally available with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2602 release. Highlights are further AI-assisted features: for personalizing My Home, getting explanations for error messages, and Situation Handling recommendations. We also provide the often-requested capability to launch apps via transaction code or SAP Fiori ID, the new “required reading” feature for news in My Home, and mobile phone optimization – to name a few.

Users in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition can use Joule to access their data: via web browser on desktop, or mobile, via SAP Mobile Start, which also provides access to applications directly. Read about innovations for Joule and SAP Mobile Start in the first blog post introducing the series, and providing information about SAP Build Work Zone:

SAP UX Q1/2026 Update – Part 1: AI, Joule, SAP Build Work Zone, SAP Mobile Start.

Below, you will get an overview of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition UX innovations in these areas:

SAP Fiori launchpad
o. New shell bar now the default
o. Launch apps directly via Transaction Code / Fiori-ID
o. Making New Apps Available to Users
- Activating new apps, since now delivered inactive
- New Experience Switch
o. Further improvements for the launchpad
My Home
o. Manage News app now with “must be read” feature
o. Enhanced Personalization
o. AI-Assisted UX Features:
- AI-Assisted Smart Personalization of My Home for Applications
- AI-Assisted Error Explanation
- AI-Assisted Situation Handling
SAP Fiori elements mobile phone optimization
UI Adaptation
Improvements in details

Beyond these, we have a number of interesting new UX innovations for beta testing and early adopters with the 2602 release. I plan to cover these in my next blog post in the next few days.

Many of the UX improvements in details are enabled by our UI framework (SAPUI5 and SAP Fiori elements) and hence also available to customers and partners developing their own applications. Note however that the enabled AI-assisted features are only available for extensions built directly on the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition system.

Below you’ll see AI innovations from our UX framework as well as some selected application highlights. You can get a more comprehensive overview of the latest AI innovations in these blog posts, which also include application specific examples:

SAP Fiori Launchpad

Let’s look closer at these UX updates:

New shell bar now the default, with updated design of notifications and user menu.
Launch apps directly via Transaction Code / Fiori-ID.
Further improvements.

New shell bar now the default

We have made design improvements which are relevant for a consistent user experience across the entire SAP Business Suite. The new shell bar first became available as an opt-in choice for customers with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2508 as described in my blog post covering 2508. With the 2602 release, it is now activated by default.

Benefits of the New Shell Bar

The new shell bar has these benefits:

The product name is displayed prominently now to the right of the SAP logo. In this case the name is “S/4HANA Cloud”.
Updated notifications design.
Updated user menu design.

Product Name Displayed

The immediately visible difference with the new shell bar is that the product name is displayed to the right of the SAP Logo, in this case “S/4HANA Cloud” as you can see at the top of Figure 1. The logo and the name are all contained within a clickable area, which brings the user to the start page (i.e. My Home).

Figure 1: New shell bar, now activated by default. Alt Text: A screenshot of Manage Sales Orders app, with the shell header highlighted, looking as described in the text.

Updated User Menu

The new user menu design shown in Figure 2 provides more space for the avatar of the user, and provides more space between items for easier selection. The settings are always at the top as the first entry, and the “Sign Out” option is separated from the actual navigation options in the list, to make it easier to find.

Figure 2: Updated design of user menu and notifications. Alt Text: On the left an image of the previous user menu and the updated user menu. On the right an image of the updated notifications list, showing four notifications in the group “Last Month”, each with a title, two lines of description and a line with the data and a “more” link.

Updated Notifications Design

The new simplified design of notifications shown on the right in Figure 2 fits better with the overall design of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, and provides simplier interactions. By default notifications are sorted by date, with grouping by “Today”, “Yesterday”, “Last Week”, “Last Month”, as you can see in Figure 3 below. Users can also choose to sort by importance.

Figure 3: Updated design of notifications. Alt Text: A short video showing the user selecting to display the list of notifications in the groups “Today”, “Yesterday” and “This Week”.

Recommendation: Check Test Automation and RPA

We advise that you check any test automation and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) you may have, since you may need to make some adjustments – in particular if you access the user menu, for example to log off at the end of a test.

In case you need more time to do this, you can opt-out of the new shell bar for this release.You can switch it off via “Activate New Features”, Feature “/UI2/SHELL_BAR_TOGGLE”.

Important: do switch it back on before next upgrade! There is no opt-out planned from 2608 onwards.

Launch apps directly via Transaction Code

Customers have been requesting this for quite a while now, so I am happy to announce that with the 2602 release, users can launch applications directly via the transaction code (t-code).

This is particularly helpful for those users who have experience with older SAP ERP systems, such as SAP ECC (ERP Central Component), and are used to launching transactions by entering the “t-code” (transaction code) in the SAP GUI for Windows shell bar. To launch a transaction VA01 (Create sales order) in SAP GUI for Windows, users enter “/nVA01” if they want it to open in the same window, and “/oVA01” if they want it to open in a new window. Lower case “/nva01” or “/ova01” also works. Furthermore, users could go to the start page by entering “/n” or “/o”, opening it either in the same window or in a new window respectively.

We have implemented the same logic in the search field in the launchpad shell bar, but with “/o” now creating a new browser tab rather than opening a new window.

We have also extended it, so that users can also enter the t-code after “/n” or “/o”. Figure 4 shows what it looks like, and Figure 5 shows a short video of it in action for an example using /nmm03 (Display Material) to open the classic UI and /nF217A (Customer – 360 View) to open a Fiori app.

Figure 4: Launching a classic UI via the transaction code “va01”. Alt Text: The shell header is shown, with the search field showing “All” and the search term /nva01 entered.

Figure 5: Launching applications directly via transaction code. Alt Text: A short video showing the user entering /nmm03 and /nF217A as described in the text.

You can determine an application’s t-code via the About entry in the launchpad user menu. We have also assigned transaction codes to Fiori apps, they are often identical to the Fiori ID, but not always.

Making New Apps Available to Users

New apps for business users can help them work more effectively, and get their work done more easily – but only if they actually use them! That means that they need to be activated and hence made available to users in the first place.

When one or more new applications are delivered that replace an existing application, users of the existing application need to be informed that a replacement is available to them. This is handled by the New Experience Switch. This is especially important if the existing application is about to be deprecated.

The next two sections cover these two topics in more detail: activating new apps, and the New Experience Switch.

Activating new apps, since now delivered inactive

With the 2602 release we no longer activate new apps automatically, so as not to disrupt existing users, as well as to ensure that users are not automatically granted authorizations that they should not have.

In order to activate an application, i.e. a Fiori app or a classic UI, the underlying IAM (Identity and Application Management) apps of type “App Authorization Variant” need to be activated. These particular IAM apps were introduced a while ago in order to allow finer-grained authorizations for applications.

For example, the My Inbox app has a standard view and an expert view. You will only be able to access the expert view if the corresponding IAM app for the expert view has been activated by your administrator. If your administrator has only activated the IAM app for the standard view, then you will be able to access the My Inbox app, but only its standard view.

Since new apps provided by SAP are no longer activated automatically, administrators need to activate the underlying IAM apps of type “App Authorization Variant”. Only then will users be able to find the apps via the launchpad search or in the App Finder, see the corresponding tiles on pages in the launchpad, and assign them as favorites in My Home.

Find out more in the documentation:

New Experience Switch

The New Experience Switch informs users that a replacement of the application that they have opened is available to them, and offers a toggle in the shell bar to directly switch to the new application. You can see what this looks like in the top left image in Figure 6.

If the existing, old version of the app is planned to be deprecated and removed in a future release beyond the next one, then the information icon in the shell bar next to the New Version toggle is replaced by a warning icon, as shown in the top right image in Figure 6.

Finally, if the existing, old version will be removed with the upgrade to the next release, an alert is shown instead of a warning, as shown in the bottom image in Figure 6.

Figure 6: New Experience Switch. Clockwise from top left: Information, Warning and Alert pop-overs. Alt Text: Three screenshots showing the respective popovers, each with a button “Switch to New Version”. The first two include a carousel giving information about the benefits of the new version. The last one include in red “August 2025” as the month when the app is planned to be removed.

The three phases described above were introduced already with the 2508 release.

With the 2602 release, we also support cases where one application has multiple successors. Figure 7 shows an example.

Figure 7: New Experience Switch warning for an application with multiple successors. Alt Text: Screenshot showing the popover containing two cards, one for each of the specialized versions available as successors.

Also new with 2602 is the option for users to provide feedback when the open up the new version of an application (Figure 8). When they select this, a survey is opened with one page of questions about the new version of the app.

Figure 8: New Experience Switch welcome pop-over for new app, now with “Provide Feedback” button. Alt Text: Screenshot showing the pop-over, with a carousel giving information about the benefits of the new version.

To find out more, have a look at the documentation, or at the SAP note for the list of apps that currently have successors making use of the New Experience Switch:

Documentation: Switching to a New App Version
SAP Note 3545277 - New Experience Switch in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition: Overview of Apps

Further Improvements for the Launchpad

Enterprise Search Shows All Smart Business Tiles

Business users can now find all their Smart Business tiles (typically insight tiles with KPIs and/or mini charts) using enterprise search in the launchpad shellbar. Since users can define their own tiles via Smart Business, with specific filter values, this means that they can also find these personal tiles using search.

Did you know that enterprise search supports a number of search operators that you can use when searching for apps, or indeed when searching for business objects? Operators such as OR, *, - and “”.

You can also further filter search results, export them, share them or save the search as a tile. Find out more in the documentation:

Searching and Launching Apps or Business Objects.

Administrators can Upload and Download Spaces

In the Manage Launchpad Spaces app of the SAP Fiori launchpad, administrators can download existing spaces together with their assigned pages and upload them again to another system.

This enables you to transfer spaces and their assigned pages to other systems, for example, when you can't use transports, meaning that you can improve productivity and consistency across systems. Find out more:

Documentation: Downloading and Uploading Spaces

My Home

We continue to enhance My Home to make it even more popular with users. In this release, we have:

Manage News app now with “must be read” feature
Enhanced Personalization
AI-assisted smart personalization of My Home for applications
(this is covered in the next section AI-Assisted UX Innovations)

We are also providing the feature AI-Assisted Smart Solution for Situations in My Home for beta-testing, which I will showcase in part 3 in this series of blog posts.

Manage News App now with “Must be Read” Feature

News articles containing essential company information can now be designated as required reading. All users must acknowledge that they have read and understood the content.

The main benefits of this feature are:

Strengthens accountability: When reading is mandatory, employees can be held accountable for understanding essential information. This practice helps ensure compliance with legal, safety, and policy-related requirements.
Ensures consistent knowledge across the organization: All employees receive the same information, minimizing knowledge gaps and miscommunication.
Enhances change management : During periods of transition—such as the introduction of new policies or process changes—required reading ensures that all employees understand the reasons behind and the impacts of those changes.

Figure 9 shows what this looks like for a user: a required reading pop-over appears on their screen. The article has also been flagged as “Containing Critical News”.

Figure 9: An example of a news article that is required reading. Alt Text: A screenshot of My Home with a pop-over “Required Reading” that is also highlighted with “Contains Critical News”. The news article has an image at the top, followed by text showing the first part of the article. The “Done” button is greyed out, the “Remind me later” button is visible.

Figure 10 below shows the Manage News app, with the toggles Critical and the new Required Reading one.

Figure 10: The Manage News app has a toggle to mark articles as “Required Reading”. Alt Text: Screenshot of the Manage News app with the toggles set to “Yes”, and some news text in the Description field.

Enhanced Personalization

A great strength of My Home is the degree to which users can personalize it to suit their needs. We have now enhanced personalization further by letting users control the visibility of News and Pages separately within the News and Pages section of My Home.

If they are not so interested in news, they can choose to hide it, with the additional benefit of having all the pages only take up one row of vertical space rather than two, as shown in Figure 11. Figure 12shows how users can do the personalization.

Note that even with the news hidden, they will still receive required reading: when they log on, the required reading appears as a pop-over that can only be closed by confirming that one has read and understood the content.

Alternatively, users can decide to only show news and not pages. They can of course also decide to show both news and pages, as before, or hide both.

Figure 11: My Home with enhanced personalization, showing News deselected and Pages selected. Alt Text: A screenshot of My Home, with eight cards in one row in the Pages section, below the ToDos section showing one situation and the Apps section.

Figure 12: My Home Settings pop-over with the new selectors for News and Pages within the News and Pages section. Alt Text: A screenshot showing the Layout part of My Home Settings, where users can select or deselect sections. For the News and Pages section, News is deselected, Pages are selected.

AI-Assisted User Experience

When AI is embedded directly into the application UI to give users a better user experience, as opposed to being accessed via the Joule window, we talk about “AI-Assisted User Experience”.

In SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2508, we distinguish between AI base features and premium features:

Base features are free of charge, and only require that the customer signs the SAP AI Terms, which can be done via this link.
Premium features require SAP AI Units to be in place. Those listed here also require Joule Premium for Financial Management. Customers can activate this via SAP for Me -> Portfolio & Products -> Business AI.

The following are now generally available as premium features (they were both in beta testing with the 2508 release) and are described in more detail below:

AI-assisted smart personalization of My Home for applications.
AI-assisted error explanation.

This feature is still in beta, but planned to become generally available with the 2602 release on March 12th:

AI-assisted situation handling.
See below for more details.

AI-Assisted Smart Personalization of My Home for Applications

You could already use natural language and AI to personalize your My Home by adding Insights Cards, since the 2508 release. Now, with 2602, you can use natural language to find and add applications and insights tiles.

To do this, use the AI button “Add Content” in the salutation bar at the top of My Home, as shown at the top of Figure X. Clicking on this brings a pop-over with the option to add Insights Cards or, as shown, Apps & Insights Tiles. By describing what you want to do, the system will propose suitable applications and Insights Tiles. If you select them and click “Add”, they will be added, either as an entry in your Apps Favorites section, or in the Insights Tiles section. Figure 13 shows these main steps.

Figure 13: AI-Assisted Smart Personalization of My Home for Applications. Alt Text: The image shows three screenshots: at the top an extract of My Home showing the blue salutation bar, with an AI button “Add Content” on the right. An arrow has been added linking it to the second screenshot, where a popover “Add Content” is shown, where the user has entered “I want to monitor sales orders what app should I use to do this”, and two of four results are listed and visualized: “Track Sales Orders” and “Manage Sales Orders” (shown as an insight tile). Below that a screenshot of the outcome in My Home: the former is added to Apps Favorites, the latter to Insights Tiles.

Watch a demo and read more:

Video: AI-Assisted Smart Personalization of My Home for Applications in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (1:07 min.)
SAP Discovery Center: Smart Personalization of My Home.

AI-Assisted Error Explanation

New users who are unfamiliar with the system may find that the short error messages give too little information for them to fully understand the issue, and what to do about it. This is where the Summarizing and Guiding and Recommending AI-patterns can help: the AI-Assisted Error Explanation in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition uses these to summarize information which explains the error and provide a recommendation for how to resolve it. Figure 14 shows an example where a user has entered a Sold-to-Party ID which does not exist in the system.

Note that this feature is also only available for applications based on SAP Fiori elements.

Figure 14: AI-Assisted Error Explanation in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502. Alt Text: On the left part of a data entry screen is shown, with the field “Sold-to Party containing “ABC” marked red and below that a popover with an error message “No customer master record exists for sold-to-party ABC”, and in the text line below that the AI icon followed by “Generate Explanation”. A fat arrow leads from this text to the image on the right, which indicates what happens when you click on this text: you get a popover with an short Explanation section and a longer Resolution section with numbered actions.

Have a look:

Video: AI-Assisted Error Explanation (45 seconds)
SAP Discovery Center: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, error explanation.

AI-Assisted Situation Handling

The Intelligent Situation Handling framework helps users deal with not-so-frequent business situations, by notifying them of the situation, giving them an overview of the situation and providing contextual information to help resolve it. Ideally, the system also offers recommendations on how to go about resolving it.

Currently still in beta testing, we plan to make AI-assisted situation handling generally available with the 2602.1 release on March 12th.

Figure 15 shows what this looks like for a situation where a purchase contract is going to expire soon. The system is able to evaluate the company policy, in this case provided in the form of a decision matrix, and informs the user that a Request for Proposals is not needed for this contract, since its contract value is below the threshold.

Figure 15: AI-Assisted Situation Handling in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2602, showing how the user is notified in My Home and can navigate to the situation page and there generate a recommended solution. ALT Text: The To-Do card “The purchase contract will expire soon” is shown at the top, with an arrow leading to the image below of the situation page, showing a “General Info” section and a “Recommended Solution” section, which only contains the text “You haven’t generated a solution yet. Would you like to do that now”, along with a “Generate” button with the AI icon. From there an arrow leads to the bottom image which shows the recommended solution text, along with thumbs-up and thumbs-down feedback buttons.

To see it in action, watch this:

Video: AI-Assisted Situation Handling in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (1:00 minutes).
SAP Discover Center: AI-assisted Situation Handling.

The extended framework for Situation Handling allows customers to define their own situations. It is very powerful, but we have received feedback that it can be challenging for first time customers and partners to get it up and running. Hence Angelika Salmen has published this blog post to help you get started:

My First Situation with the Extended Framework.

For further information about Situation Handling, have a look at the links at the end of the above blog post.

SAP Fiori elements mobile phone optimization

We have made significant improvements in the overall user experience for accessing selected applications from your mobile phone, with layouts and interactions tailored specifically for smartphones.

The recommended way to access SAP Fiori web applications from your mobile phone is via SAP Mobile Start, which treats web applications the same way as native mobile applications: users can define favorites, and see all their apps, both web and native mobile, in the Apps view.

The currently supported SAP Fiori elements based applications are now rendered in a more user-friendly way, reducing complexity for users on the go by removing non-essential features, patterns and services that are not suited for mobile use.

This results in improved productivity and speed with simplified navigation, faster access to actions and optimized information density.

The new layout is provided by the mobile mode. Users can switch on the previous desktop mode in case they need access to any of the non-essential features hidden in the mobile mode. Figure 16 shows an example of a list report in the desktop mode (on the left) and what it now looks like rendered in the mobile mode (on the right).

Figure 16: SAP Fiori elements mobile phone optimization. On the left a list report rendered using the previous desktop mode, on the right using the new mobile mode. Alt Text: screenshots of a list report as it would appear on a mobile phone. On the left with filter bar and filters visible, so that only one line of the list is shown; on the right they are hidden, so that three lines of content are shown.

Currently these five apps are supported:

My Home
Customer 360 View (F2187A)
Manage Direct Activity Allocation (F3697A)
Manage Material Serial Numbers (F6879)
Manage Production Supply Areas (F6935)
Serial Number History (F7368)

We are eager to learn from our customers to see how well the current functionality meets users real-life needs, and where we could improve the experience. If you are interested in trying this out and providing feedback, please sign up for our Early Adopter Care program.

UI Adaptation

Adapt UI is a key user extensibility tool for making no-code / low-code, upgrade-safe adaptations and extensions to SAP Fiori apps. We have continuously enhanced its scope, so that it now supports most of the common changes.

A key user is a business expert who is authorized to make changes on behalf of other users – for example a team member who is interested in technology. The goal of key user extensibility is to empower business users to be able to adapt their working environment to suit their needs, without having to rely on system administrators.

Adapt UI is easy and safe to use: you can undo/redo changes, revert to a previously activated version or even revert to the original app.

Many Fiori apps contain object pages, that summarize information on a business object such as a sales order or a product. Adapt UI offers a large amount of options for adapting and extending object pages:

Hide/show SAP-defined fields
Add custom fields created with the SAP Fiori app Custom Fields (ID F1481)
Combine/split/rearrange/group/ungroup fields
Hide/show SAP-defined tabs, sections, tables, or action buttons
Change the configuration of tables (view settings, initial load, scrolling thresholds etc. – as featured in my previous blog post)
Change text arrangement (ID only, Text first, Text las) – also featured in my previous blog post.
Rename labels
Hide/show object header content
Embed web-based content in the object header or a section.

Key users who are authorized to use adapt UI can open it directly from their user menu in the launchpad. Once in started, Adapt UI shows you directly on the screen what changes you can make.

To find out more about this and watch a demo showing how it works and how easy it is, I thoroughly recommend this 13-minute video:

Video 1: Extending SAP Fiori Object Pages with Adapt UI. Click on the image to go to the video.The video shows you:

How to recognize an object page
What is Adapt UI
Prerequisites for Adapt UI
Demo
Tips for Working with Adapt UI
Key Takeaways
Resources worth knowing. These are:
- SAP Design System - SAP Fiori: Object Page Floorplan
- SAP Help - SAP Fiori Launchpad User Guide: Adapting SAP Fiori UIs at Runtime – Key User Adaptation.
- SAP Learning - Tutorials: Key User Adaptation for SAPUI5 Applications.

Note that the video was created for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, so the transport step at the end is different in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition – all the rest is relevant also for public edition, which is why I included it here.

The Adapt UI functionality is powered by SAPUI5 Flexibility technology.

Improvements in Details

User research has shown that it is easier to work with tables that contain hundreds of entries when the tables are implemented as a grid table rather than a responsive table.

Hence, with the 2602 release, we have looked at apps containing tables that typically have hundreds of entries and have changed the type of table used from a responsive table to a grid table.

For the full list of enhancements, have a look at the What’s New Viewer:

UX in What’s New Viewer for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2602.

Continue reading

I hope you enjoyed this second part, covering what is now generally available with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2602 and SAP Fiori launchpad. Here's a link to part 3, covering exciting new UX innovations available for beta testing with the S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2602 release:

SAP UX Q1/2026 Update – Part 3: AI (Beta) Innovations in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2602.

Do keep posting your experiences and recommendations yourself in the SAP Community, with the SAP Fiori and/or the User Experience tag! In case you are wondering how to get a list of the most recent blog posts on SAP Fiori and User Experience in our new SAP Community, use these links:

Advance and Accelerate your Mobile Workflows with Embedded AI

2026-02-18T09:31:42.841000+01:00

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, embedded AI is revolutionizing mobile workflows by bringing intelligence directly into applications. This integration enables faster decision-making, smarter actions, and seamless productivity without the need to switch contexts. Here are several ways embedded AI is transforming mobile experiences:

Delivering contextual assistance at the moment of need
Embedded AI offers timely support precisely when users require it, enhancing decision-making processes directly within the app.
Automating repetitive tasks to boost efficiency
By automating routine tasks, AI frees up time and resources, allowing users to focus on more strategic activities.
Unlocking organizational knowledge for faster and smarter decisions
AI leverages existing organizational data to provide insights that enable quicker and well-informed decision-making.
Empowering users on-the-go with real-time, intelligent insights
Mobile users receive dynamic and contextually relevant information, which enhances their ability to act swiftly and effectively.
Transforming mobile apps into proactive productivity tools
With embedded AI, mobile applications become active parts in driving productivity.

UX Components and Patterns for Enhanced Clarity, Trust, and Usability

To ensure the smooth integration of AI into mobile workflows, we have designed UX components and patterns that prioritize clarity, trust, and usability. These UI elements are thoughtfully crafted to embed intelligence directly into applications, thereby enriching the user experience.

AI Notice

The AI notice feature transparently communicates when and how AI is being used within an app, building trust with users by keeping them informed. It is applied on components or pages that contain AI-generated fields, appearing interactively beneath each field. Users can tap a hyperlink within the notice to access additional information about the AI technology used to generate the content, including data usage, privacy, and potential risks.

Learn more about the AI notice pattern in our design guidelines.

AI notice examples

AI Button

The AI button acts as an entry point for initiating AI-driven actions, enabling users to interact with AI seamlessly. It allows users to activate AI-powered features within a user flow, with the AI icon indicating where such features are available. Tapping the "Generate" button starts the content generation process. During this process, the button updates to "Stop Generating," giving users the option to pause the process at any moment. Once the generation is complete or stopped, the button changes to a "Revise" button, allowing users to make adjustments or regenerate content.

Check out AI buttons to get more details.

AI buttons

AI Acknowledgement

AI acknowledgement ensures informed user consent, capturing and recording acceptance of AI functionalities. It delivers crucial information about AI services to users in a standardized manner, focusing on updates, data privacy, and potential risks, thereby establishing clear user expectations and fostering trust. To keep users informed about any AI service updates, contextual hints are recommended on the settings page, allowing users to review changes. Within the settings, users can also choose to opt out of in-app AI features and data collection. Depending on the definition of opting out, users may disable AI data collection while still being able to use AI features.

For more information, refer to AI Acknowledgement.

AI acknowledgement screens

AI Progress Indicators

AI progress indicators manage user expectations by visually displaying the status during AI processing, ensuring users know their request is actively being processed. Once content generation begins, the indicator changes its state to "processing" or "loading," persisting until the task is completed or stopped. The indicator appears one second after the process starts and remains visible for at least 1000ms to prevent flickering, with pulses between animation loops. Offering users the option to stop the AI generation process is recommended for greater control.

Learn more about AI Progress Indicators.

AI progress indicators

AI Writing Assistant

The AI writing assistant supports content creation by providing contextual help right where it’s needed. It efficiently edits text in input fields using prompts displayed in a panel, helping users refine their input and complete writing tasks smoothly. Tapping the "Writing Assistant" button opens the panel above the keyboard, and users can close it by clicking "x" if they haven't yet edited content. After their first edit, navigation changes to "Cancel" and "Done," where "Done" saves changes and "Cancel" offers a confirmation dialog to keep or discard edits. Users can interact with elements outside the panel and are prompted with a dialog if they attempt to switch text fields. Each quick prompt selection updates the text instantly and increases the version number, allowing users to track changes easily.

Check out the AI Writing Assistant design guideline article for mor details.

AI writing assistant

AI User Feedback

The AI user feedback feature gathers user feedback to continually refine and enhance AI quality and functionality. It enables users to provide positive or negative feedback on their experiences with embedded AI, from component-level to page-level interactions. AI feedback can e accessed through automatic pop-ups after AI experiences, in-line thumbs-up or thumbs-down buttons next to components, or through flexible re-entry points like overflow buttons. For positive feedback, users tap the thumbs-up button, triggering a toast message confirming their submission. For negative feedback, users tap the thumbs-down button, with options to provide additional details, requiring a manual tap on "Submit" to finalize. If users reconsider negative feedback, they can change it to positive by tapping the thumbs-up button in the detail view, and the system updates the feedback accordingly.

Find out more about AI User Feedback.

AI user feedback

Use Cases - AI Writing Assistant

In the SAP SuccessFactors Mobile app, the AI writing assistant is set to serve as a powerful tool for users to efficiently draft goal descriptions. This planned feature will aid users in bypassing the often tedious and error-prone process of composing these descriptions manually. For instance, when a manager needs to set performance goals for their team members, the AI writing assistant can suggest clear and concise descriptions, ensuring alignment with company objectives and language standards. By providing a few keywords or phrases, users will be able to generate well-structured goal descriptions, reducing errors and saving valuable time. This streamlined process promises to enhance productivity while ensuring consistency and clarity in goal-setting across the organization.

Goal description using the AI writing assistant

Embedded AI Resources

For those eager to integrate embedded AI into their mobile workflows, the following resources are now available for Android and iOS: software development kits, comprehensive design guidelines, and Figma UI kits, all crafted to empower you to harness the potential of embedded AI effectively.

Unlock the power of embedded AI and transform your mobile experience today!

Get Started - In-App AI Design Guidelines for SAP Fiori for Android

Get Started - In-App AI Design Guidelines for SAP Fiori for iOS

Figma UI Kit - SAP Fiori for Android

Figma UI Kit - SAP Fiori for iOS