SAP Community - SAP Fiori

Fiori Apps in Minutes using RAP framework/generator

2025-01-17T15:25:36.977000+01:00

This blog-tutorial will guide you through the process of creating a RAP application using ABAP repository objects generator.

Prerequisites:

SAP system access with eclipse installed. (You can use SAP BTP trial account as well)

Process:

Create the required database table
Right click on Package --> New --> Other ABAP Repository Object

Search for database table and click on Next

Provide name & description for the table and click on Next

Create TR or select an existing one and click on Finish

Add required fields to the table and activate it (you can also create a data element for user_id or can use any existing one)
Generate objects for UI
Right click on table name in project explorer and click on 'Generate ABAP Repository Objects'

Select OData UI Service and click on Next

Select Package and click on Next

Provide names for all the artifacts/objects to be generated and click on Next

Click on Next
Select TR and finish

You can see all the generated objects in the project explorer
Publish service
Open Service binding and click on Publish

This option to publish an OData V4 service through eclipse might not work in a customizing client, for that you can refer to my other blog, i.e., Publishing ODATA v4 service in a customizing clien... - SAP Community

Your basic RAP based Fiori application is ready for preview
Preview Service
Select entity set and click on Preview

As this is a managed app, so few standard features like Create, Edit & Delete are handled by system.

Try creating a new entry using Create button and the same will be visible on report page

This can be checked on table level as well

I will try to enhance this RAP application in future and include the same in my future blogs.

Layouts Básicos e Floorplans do SAP Fiori

2025-01-24T15:57:03.489000+01:00

O layout básico do Fiori é o layout dinâmico (dynamic layout). Ele é dividido em cabeçalho, página e rodapé. Essa divisão ajuda o usuário a focar no conteúdo da página.

Outro tipo de layout é o de colunas flexíveis. Com ele, é possível exibir diferentes floorplans em uma única página, o que proporciona uma navegação mais rápida e fluida em comparação ao layout dinâmico, permitindo uma divisão de até 10 colunas.

Os floorplans, sejam eles pré-definidos ou customizados, podem ser encaixados nos layouts mencionados acima.

Dentre os floorplans que melhor se encaixam nos layouts, destacam-se:

Overview Page: Um aplicativo que exibe todas as informações que o usuário precisa em uma página, com base em seu perfil.
List Report: Permite aos usuários trabalhar com um grande volume de dados, onde é possível realizar filtros de busca e ações nos itens exibidos. Geralmente, é utilizado como porta de entrada para a exibição detalhada de um item em uma Object Page.
Object Page: Utilizado para exibir e categorizar informações de um único objeto, como uma ordem de venda. As informações podem ser acessadas por âncoras (links) ou abas.
Wizard: Permite ao usuário completar uma tarefa longa em seções. Consiste em um passo a passo onde cada parte do formulário é revelada a cada passo completado. Ao final, há uma página de resumo que exibe todos os dados preenchidos pelo usuário, prontos para submissão.
Initial Page: Permite navegar para um determinado registro ou editá-lo. O ponto inicial é um campo único exibido.
Worklist: Exibe uma coleção de itens que o usuário precisa processar. Permite revisar os itens da lista e tomar ações, como completar uma tarefa ou delegar para outro usuário.
Analytical Page (ALP): Oferece uma maneira única de analisar dados passo a passo sob diferentes perspectivas. Serve para identificar dados interessantes, já que os gráficos são interativos e filtráveis entre si. Por fim, permite agir em um registro específico.

SAP UI5 Frontend Application - Debug using AI Assistance in Chrome DevTools

2025-01-26T16:20:35.872000+01:00

Enhancing Coding Experience with AI Assistance in Chrome DevTools

AI assistance in Chrome DevTools has multiple benefits that can significantly enhance your coding experience.

Firstly, it provides intelligent code completion and suggestions, helping to reduce errors and increase productivity. With AI analyzing patterns in your code, it offers relevant suggestions and auto-complete code snippets to save you time and effort.

Additionally, AI-powered dev tools enable advanced debugging capabilities. By using machine learning algorithms, it identifies and highlights potential bugs, making it easier to locate and resolve issues in your code. This real-time error detection can save hours of solving time-consuming debugging.

Furthermore, AI-powered dev tools can assist in code updating, offering automated suggestions for optimizing and rearranging code to improve performance and readability.

You just have to right-click on the element and click on “Ask AI”.

Explanation starts providing on how to solve the error

Sources Tab

You just have to right-click on the element and click on “Ask AI”.

Console Errors:

You can understand and solve the errors in your code. Just right-click on the error line and select understand this warning.

AI Provides insights on how to fix the code with proper SAP UI5 Best Practices

Network Tab - Ask AI

Interact with Chat based conversation to find the network traces or traffic

Final Words

AI assistance in Chrome DevTools is a game-changer for web developers. By providing real-time insights, enhancing styling and layout understanding, optimizing performance, simplifying network request analysis, and enabling safe experimentation, it can significantly enhance your coding experience. Embrace this innovative tool and take your web development skills to the next level.

Building Dynamic Pop Ups using oDataV4 RAP Service in Fiori applications

2025-01-27T14:21:20.105000+01:00

INTRODUCTION

In modern Web Applications Dynamic Pop Up is a very common scenario.As a user we want to provide some details for an action to be executed on document. It could be a Comment or some reference number etc.

In this blog we are showing a scenario where depending on

Purchase Order Type the "Release " action requires different parameters.e.g. For a Standard PO (NB), only a comment is required, however for a Stock Transfer (STO) user needs to also provide a Reference number.

This is a simple requirement, however the solution we are going to cover in this blog is applicable for complex real world scenario as well.

Giving you a sneak peek into what we are going to achieve.

Prerequisite

1.Set up a Dev Space in Business Application Studio.

2.You have setup a user in SAP BTP ABAP environment.

3.You have downloaded and installed latest ABAP Development tools(ADT)

4. Basic understanding of SAPUI5 and RAP based Service.

Development Steps

STEP 1: Create Package ZPUR_ID# in you eclipse ADT environment.

STEP 2: Create Database Table ZPO_TBL

@EndUserText.label : 'Table for purchase order'
@AbapCatalog.enhancement.category : #NOT_EXTENSIBLE
@AbapCatalog.tableCategory : #TRANSPARENT
@AbapCatalog.deliveryClass : #A
@AbapCatalog.dataMaintenance : #RESTRICTED
define table zpo_tbl {

  key client            : abap.clnt not null;
  key po_num            : ebeln not null;
  org                   : ekorg;
  vendor                : lifnr;
  status                : abap.char(1);
  type                  : abap.char(2);
  reason                : abap.char(40);
  refno                 : abap.char(10);
  create_by             : abp_creation_user;
  created_date_time     : abp_creation_tstmpl;
  changed_date_time     : abp_locinst_lastchange_tstmpl;
  local_last_changed_by : abp_locinst_lastchange_user;

}

Step 3: Generate CDS Services ( Others objects ) using the wizard

This is a very useful feature. Press Next .

Click on Next and Finish.

Step 4: At this stage you can publish your service.

Step 5 : Add a virtual Field

After Generation a new Virtual Field was added in CDS ZC_PO_TBL

This is a boolean field and we are going to use it to manage visibility of parameters on action dialog.The logic for value of this field will be written in class ZCL_PO_CALC

Add below additional code to generated code for ZC_PO_TBL

  //Add New Virtual Element
  @ObjectModel.virtualElementCalculatedBy: 'ABAP:ZCL_PO_CALC'
  @EndUserText.label: 'Virtual Element'
  virtual HideAdditionalParams: abap_boolean,

Step 6: Create ABAP Class ZCL_PO_CALC

CLASS zcl_po_calc DEFINITION
  PUBLIC
  FINAL
  CREATE PUBLIC .

  PUBLIC SECTION.

    INTERFACES if_sadl_exit .
    INTERFACES if_sadl_exit_calc_element_read .
  PROTECTED SECTION.
  PRIVATE SECTION.
ENDCLASS.



CLASS zcl_po_calc IMPLEMENTATION.


  METHOD if_sadl_exit_calc_element_read~calculate.

    DATA: lt_calculated_data TYPE STANDARD TABLE OF zc_po_tbl.

    CHECK NOT it_original_data IS INITIAL.

    MOVE-CORRESPONDING it_original_data TO lt_calculated_data.

    LOOP AT lt_calculated_data ASSIGNING FIELD-SYMBOL(<fs_data>).
      CASE <fs_data>-Type.
        WHEN 'NB'.
          <fs_data>-HideAdditionalParams = 'X'.
        WHEN 'ST'.
          <fs_data>-HideAdditionalParams = ''.
      ENDCASE.

    ENDLOOP.

    MOVE-CORRESPONDING lt_calculated_data TO ct_calculated_data.

  ENDMETHOD.


  METHOD if_sadl_exit_calc_element_read~get_calculation_info.
  ENDMETHOD.
ENDCLASS.

The logic applied here is that when type of Purchase Order is NB then the action should allow only Remarks parameter. In case it is of type ST then show additional parameters .Please note this is a basic logic which can be replaced by actual business requirement.

Step 7: Create an abstract entity ZA_PO_PARAMS

@EndUserText.label: 'Abstract CDS for Demo Actions'
define abstract entity ZA_PO_PARAMS
 // with parameters parameter_name : parameter_type
{
    
    .hidden:true
    .defaultValue: #( 'ELEMENT_OF_REFERENCED_ENTITY: HideAdditionalParams' )
    HideAdditionalParameters: abap_boolean;
    
    @EndUserText.label: 'Reference Number'
    .hidden: #(HideAdditionalParameters)
    ReferenceNumber: abap.char(10);
    
    @EndUserText.label: 'Remarks'
    .multiLineText : true
    Reason: abap.char(100);
    
}

Here we have added a field HideAdditionalParameters of type Boolean and getting it's value populated by the virtual field created earlier.ELEMENT_OF_REFERENCED_ENTITY is the keyword which allows access to values from the consumption CDS.This is a technical field and hence it is always hidden on UI.Next we have used this property to determine visibility of other property.

Step 8: Add Action in root entity Behaviour Definition ZR_PO_TBL

action Release parameter ZA_PO_PARAMS result [1] $self;

Step 9 : Refer to the action in Consumption Behaviour definition ZC_PO_TBL

use action Release;

Step 10 : Add UI annotations for actions. Go to Metadata Extension and open ZC_PO_TBL

.lineItem: [{ type: #FOR_ACTION, dataAction: 'Release', label: 'Release', importance: #HIGH, invocationGrouping: #CHANGE_SET }]

Following Objects were created.

Development Object Type	Name
Package	ZPUR_ID#
Table	ZPO_TBL
Root Entity CDS	ZR_PO_TBL
Consumption CDS	ZC_PO_TBL
Metadata Extension	ZC_PO_TBL
Behaviour Definition	ZC_PO_TBL ZR_PO_TBL
Service Definition	ZUI_PO_TBL_O4
Service Binding	ZUI_PO_TBL_O4

Step 11 : These are our final steps to see the Fiori Application. Login to Business Application Studio.

Generate a Fiori application using Fiori Application Generation Wizard and selecting List Report from the available set of template. Select the oData Service we generated in previous steps as the data source.

Right click on your generated project in BAS and open page map.Click on add controller extension to your list report.We are adding controller extension as "HideAdditionalParams" being a technical field is not shown on the UI.At the same time we need to fetch it from backend for our logic to work.

Add highlighted code in generated extension controller file.

And we are done !!! You can preview the Fiori application.

Additional Tips: In case you face any issues , most common issue might be mismatch in some name. So review your code once. Sometimes just unpublishing and publishing the oData Service is helpful.

Should we use promises ?

2025-01-28T10:29:16.851000+01:00

Introduction

In the development of SAPUI5 Fiori applications, managing asynchronous operations is essential for providing a smooth and responsive user experience. Whether it's retrieving data from an OData service or making API calls, asynchrony is at the core of the logic in these applications. However, managing it can quickly become complex and difficult to maintain if not properly handled.

In this article, we will review the main concepts of asynchrony in JavaScript and explore best practices, as well as common mistakes to avoid, to simplify and improve the management of asynchronous operations in your SAPUI5 projects.

Introduction to Asynchrony and Promises in JS

Simple explanation of the concept of asynchrony in JS (blocking vs non-blocking)

Traditionally, JavaScript code runs synchronously, executing line by line, with each statement blocking the execution of the rest of the code until it is completed. However, with long operations like network requests, this can become a problem. Asynchrony allows us to avoid blocking the main execution thread by processing long tasks in the background, while letting the rest of the code continue running.

Definition and role of promises

Promises allow for handling asynchrony in JavaScript; they represent the result or failure of an asynchronous operation. A promise has three states :

Pending: initial state, the promise is neither fulfilled nor rejected.
Fulfilled: the operation was successful.
Rejected: the operation failed.

Why is it widely used in Fiori?

The SAPUI5 component library encapsulates these concepts within callbacks.

Indeed, the “success” and “error” callback functions are derived from promises managed within the SAPUI5 framework. In most cases, we can simply implement these two methods.

However, some situations require manual management of promises.

Parallelization of callbacks (Promise.all)

When there are several asynchronous calls to make simultaneously, Promise.all allows them to be executed in parallel. This reduces the total waiting time by launching all the requests at once and waiting for their collective resolution.

_getProducts: function () {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    oDataModel.read("/Products", {
      success: function (oData, oResponse) {
        resolve(oData, oResponse);
      },
      error: function (oError) {
        reject(oError);
      }
    });
  });
},

_getSites: function () {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    oDataModel.read("/Sites", {
      success: function (oData, oResponse) {
        resolve(oData, oResponse);
      },
      error: function (oError) {
        reject(oError);
      }
    });
  });
},

_getProductsBySites: function () {
  Promise.all([
    this._getProducts(),
    this._getSites()
  ])
  .then((results) => {
    // do something with products and sites
  })
  .catch((error) => {
    // error retrieving products or sites
  });
}

Using an asynchronous function with different outcomes

The “success” function provided by SAPUI5 allows for implementing a single logic to be executed after an asynchronous function. However, sometimes we want to reuse the same function in different scenarios, and in such cases, using a promise with its “then” is more practical.

_getProductsPrices: function () {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    oDataModel.read("/ProductsPrices", {
      success: function (oData, oResponse) {
        resolve(oData, oResponse);
      },
      error: function (oError) {
        reject(oError);
      }
    });
  });
},

_computeTotalPrice: function () {
  this._getProductsPrices().then((oData, oResponse) => {
    // sum products prices for example
  });
},

_getMostExpensiveProduct: function () {
  this._getProductsPrices().then((oData, oResponse) => {
    // search for the highest price for example
  });
}

Managing data state and application state (UX, loading indicators, etc.)

Asynchrony also helps better manage the application state, particularly by displaying loading indicators (e.g., spinners) while data is being retrieved. This informs the user about the application’s status and enhances their experience.

What are the best practices and things to avoid?

Best practices :

Handle errors properly to catch all potential exceptions.
Use Promise.all() to make parallel calls when necessary.
Use promises instead of duplicating code.

Things to avoid:

Using nested callbacks, which make the code difficult to maintain and debug.
Overloading the main thread with too many heavy operations in parallel without limiting the load.

Comparison between older techniques like callbacks and newer approaches based on promises (async/await)

With the advent of promises and later async/await, based on promises, the code has become much more linear and easier to read. async/await allows asynchronous code to be written as if it were synchronous, making it even more readable and reducing the risk of errors.

// Example using promises with async/await
function task1() {
  return new Promise(resolve => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      console.log("Task 1 completed");
      resolve();
    }, 1000);
  });
}

function task2() {
  return new Promise(resolve => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      console.log("Task 2 completed");
      resolve();
    }, 1000);
  });
}

function task3() {
  return new Promise(resolve => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      console.log("Task 3 completed");
      resolve();
    }, 1000);
  });
}

// Using async/await to handle async tasks in a more readable way
async function executeTasks() {
  await task1();
  await task2();
  await task3();
  console.log("All tasks completed");
}

executeTasks();

Improvement of readability and error management compared to nested callbacks (pyramid of doom)

Before the introduction of promises, asynchrony management was often done with callbacks, but this led to readability issues and made code maintenance difficult. Nesting functions within each other created a real pyramid of code, hard to follow (callback hell).

// Fonction pour obtenir les données du client
_getCustomerData: function () {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    oDataModel.read("/CustomerSet", {
      success: function (oData, oResponse) {
        console.log("Customer data retrieved successfully");
        resolve(oData);
      },
      error: function (oError) {
        reject(oError);
      }
    });
  });
},

// Fonction pour obtenir les commandes d'un client
_getOrderData: function (customerId) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    oDataModel.read(`/OrderSet(CustomerID='${customerId}')`, {
      success: function (oData, oResponse) {
        console.log("Order data retrieved successfully");
        resolve(oData);
      },
      error: function (oError) {
        reject(oError);
      }
    });
  });
},

// Fonction pour obtenir les produits d'une commande
_getProductData: function (orderId) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    oDataModel.read(`/ProductSet(OrderID='${orderId}')`, {
      success: function (oData, oResponse) {
        console.log("Product data retrieved successfully");
        resolve(oData);
      },
      error: function (oError) {
        reject(oError);
      }
    });
  });
},

// Exemple de .then() imbriqué
_getCustomerOrderProductData: function () {
  this._getCustomerData()
    .then((customerData) => {
      // Imbriquer un autre .then() pour récupérer les commandes du client
      return this._getOrderData(customerData.CustomerID)
        .then((orderData) => {
          // Imbriquer un autre .then() pour récupérer les produits de la commande
          return this._getProductData(orderData.OrderID)
            .then((productData) => {
              console.log("Final product data:", productData);
            })
            .catch((error) => {
              console.error("Error retrieving product data:", error);
            });
        })
        .catch((error) => {
          console.error("Error retrieving order data:", error);
        });
    })
    .catch((error) => {
      console.error("Error retrieving customer data:", error);
    });
}

Conclusion

Proper management of asynchronous operations in SAPUI5 Fiori application development is crucial to ensure an optimal and responsive user experience. By mastering the fundamental concepts of asynchrony in JavaScript and applying best practices, you can accelerate performance, simplify network call management, and improve code readability. The appropriate use of mechanisms such as promises, Promise.all, and the new async/await syntax helps make your code more robust and easier to maintain. By applying these principles to your SAPUI5 projects, you will not only deliver high-performance applications but also facilitate the management and evolution of your solutions in the long term.

Simplify how users find and share data: new AI features in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (2502)

2025-01-28T19:50:04.350000+01:00

The 2502 release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition is here and I am excited to share with you how we are helping you achieve more, effortlessly, with new AI capabilities for business users.

These innovations are based on many interactions and feedback sessions we had with customers in 2024, including the SAP Fiori Innovation Day events in Dublin, Chicago, and Heidelberg; as well as the collaboration we had with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition customers during the cloud feature beta.

Filter business data using natural language

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted easy filter enables you to set filters in SAP Fiori elements list report applications using natural language. Rather than setting each selection field manually to drill down for the business data you need, you can write a one-line query summarizing the required information – just like you would ask one of your colleagues. A large language model then interprets this query and translates it into filter values. This simplifies your information search and helps you get to the information you need faster, which can make you more productive and help you focus on the business decisions that matter. For example, imagine a busy sales manager filtering a list of top-performing accounts using a single sentence rather than walking through a variety of filters.

This can also shorten the training time required to use different applications, as users simply search for what they need rather than needing to memorize specific selection field options.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted easy filter allows you to filter business data using natural language

Of course, as the user, you are free to choose how you would like to filter your list report page. Should you wish to switch between natural language filtering and the classic method, that option is available to you. Transparency is also important to us: When you use easy filter, the filter conditions (the values automatically selected for you) are displayed as filter tokens below your query. Based on your results, you can easily try a new query or manually change the filter tokens if you need to make small changes.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted easy filter can simplify and streamline how you find business data in your system. Just search for what you need and it will be served up to you. It’s as easy as that!

Summarize object pages with the help of AI

Object pages, containing the details of items from list report applications, can be complex. To help you find the information you need easily, you can use SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted smart summarization to generate customizable summaries of SAP Fiori elements-based object pages. Select the sections you want to see and let smart summarization show you what you want to know. This simplifies your search for information and allows you to focus on the details that matter for a given business decision without having to scroll around to find everything you need.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted smart summarization allows you to generate summaries of SAP Fiori elements object pages

Once you have your summary generated, you can also make edits and share the summary with your colleagues. This simplifies how you share the information you need to move business processes forward.

Personalize your SAP S/4HANA My Home page with Joule

You can now use Joule to create cards for the Insights section of your My Home page that will give you personalized, business critical data at a glance. Rather than opening the required app, setting the required filters, and then creating the card natively in your SAP Fiori app; simply tell Joule what you need. It will create a card for you to preview and then you can add it to your My Home page with a single click to get access to essential information right when you log into the system, streamlining your decision making for the day.

Insights card creation with Joule allows you to query for cards using natural language

Once your card is created, you can open the application directly from the card for further details, if required.

Please note that this functionality is currently available for the following SAP Fiori applications for the 2502 release: Supplier Invoices List (Version 2), Manage Purchase Orders (Version 2), Manage Sales Orders, Manage Sales Orders - Version 2, Maintain Bill of Material, Find Maintenance Order, Find Maintenance Order and Operation, Manage Purchase Requisitions - Professional, and Project Control - Enterprise Projects.

“How can I try this out?”

We’re very excited to get these features in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition out to you! Try them out, see how they can help you find, filter, and share information.

To get started, you must agree to the limited promotion terms document to get access to the features. Once you've done that, you're ready to go!

Jump into one of your SAP-delivered list report applications to try out AI-assisted easy filter.

Click the SAP Business AI button above the filter bar to use SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted easy filter

While you’re there, drill down into a business object and click the Summarization button at the top of the screen to create a quick summary of the data with AI-assisted smart summarization.

Click the Summarize button at the top of your object page to use SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, AI-assisted smart summarization

Strike up a conversation with Joule on your My Home page and ask to create a card with data that’s relevant to you.

Open Joule and ask for your desired business data to be displayed as a card. This can be added to your My Home page with a single click.

Once you’ve tried filtering using natural language, summarizing your object pages, or creating your own cards – we'd love to hear what you think! Feel free to share your feedback in the comments below.

While we wait for your feedback, we’re also working on additional AI-assisted topics to simplify how you handle error messages in your system, as well as help you create cards for your Insights section directly in My Home. We look forward to sharing them with you.

Please note that this reflects our current state of planning and SAP reserves the right to change its development priorities at any time.

A note on data protection in AI solutions from SAP

We are frequently asked about what happens to your business data once it runs through an AI solution from SAP. Business data and personal information processed by SAP’s AI solutions will not be used by third-party LLM providers for training purposes. If you would like to learn more about our data protection practices with AI solutions, you can refer to SAP's statement on responsible AI: https://www.sap.com/products/artificial-intelligence/ai-ethics.html

Product Updates for SAP Build Code – January 2025 Edition

2025-01-29T09:27:02.673000+01:00

Dear SAP Community,

Welcome to the first SAP Build Code release communications blog post of the new year! We're excited to kick off 2025 with many great new features and enhancements designed to streamline your development experience.

Dive into our new Project Overview providing a streamlined and comprehensive view on your projects. We have also made several improvements to simplify your work with Remote Function Calls (RFC). Another notable addition is the inline editing capability for CDS entities, enabling you to add or edit properties directly in the CDS Graphical Modeler. In addition to these exciting new features, we have also curated a collection of informative blog posts that delve into various aspects related to SAP Build Code.

To explore these features in depth and stay ahead of the curve, check out the details of what's new!

The new Project Overview

In our latest release of SAP Build Code, we've introduced an exciting change to the default left pane view. We've switched from the Project Explorer to the new Project Overview. This new Project Overview layout aligns more closely with the Storyboard aesthetics and not only includes all the current functionalities of the Project Explorer but also offers additional capabilities.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the Project Overview presents the following sections: Data Models, Services, Analytical Models, User Interface, and External Resources.

Sections of the Project Overview

You can perform project level actions from the context menu of the project, create new objects of each type from the section ‘+’ action, and perform additional actions from the context menu on each object.

Performing Actions in the Project Overview

Moreover, we are thrilled to announce that in the future the Project Overview will support not just projects created via the SAP Build Code Lobby or those using the "full-stack with productivity tools" template, but it will also support full-stack applications built on SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP) Java or CAP Node.js. Stay tuned for these upcoming enhancements, and we hope you enjoy the improved interface!

Improvements when Working with RFC

When you are working with Remote Function Calls (RFCs) in your Full-Stack Application Using Productivity Tools projects you should try out the following enhancement: When adding a Remote Function Call to a Full-Stack Application Using Productivity Tools project, the run configuration for the external resource is now updated automatically. You can use the run configuration to select which destination to use for RFC when previewing the full-stack application.

For Remote Function Calls, both basic authentication and now also principal propagation are supported, allowing you to explore services in the Service Center, preview apps via run configuration, and run deployed apps seamlessly without the hassle of entering user credentials. For further information, see Explore SAP System Functions.

Run Configuration: Functions (RFC)

Inline Editing for CDS Entities

We are thrilled to announce the launch of our new inline editing feature in the CDS Graphical Modeler! This enhancement allows users to add or edit properties directly within an entity in the diagram shown in the CDS Graphical Modeler. This means fewer clicks, less navigating and a more intuitive experience. This addition complements the existing property sheet functionality and will make your work smoother and faster.

Adding a new property

Deprecation of Java Tools in SAP Web IDE

We'd like to inform you of important updates affecting SAP Web IDE: SAP Web IDE sunset will take place as part of the sunset of the SAP BTP, Neo environment by December 31, 2028. As a successor of SAP Web IDE, SAP introduced the SAP Business Application Studio five years ago, which has been serving as a robust and modernized alternative for development needs.

Furthermore, we'd like address the recent announcement regarding the deprecation of the SAP Java Buildpack 1. This component is set to be deprecated from the SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry environment by June 2025. Consequently, Java tools currently supported in SAP Web IDE will also be phased out by the same date in June 2025.

For a more detailed examination of these changes, how it may affect your development process, and guidance on migrating to the recommended environments, please read Liat Borenstein’s comprehensive article: Deprecation of Java Tools in SAP Web IDE.

Further readings

Overview of GenAI in SAP Build and SAP Build Code

Since its initial release in March 2024, SAP Build Code has rapidly evolved to bring cutting-edge generative AI (GenAI) functionalities to developers across diverse use cases. The latest blog post of my colleagues David Bizer and Marc Huber delves into the current features of SAP Build Code and the wide array of use cases they support. They also provide recommendations tailored to specific functionalities to ensure you get the most out of this powerful tool.

If you are interested in an overview on generative AI in SAP Build, you shouldn’t miss this blog post written by my colleague Marc Huber: AI in SAP Build - Overview and Best Practices.

Multi-Agent Support for Advanced CAP Application Generation

Streamline your development process by using the new feature for multi-agent support for advanced CAP application generation with SAP Build Code Joule. The key: harness specialized agents for various tasks using just a single prompt. In his latest blog post, Xin Ye explains this new feature in detail by guiding through an end-to-end flow.

Migrating SAPUI5 Applications to TypeScript with the Help of Joule

As you probably know, Joule supports you with writing freestyle SAPUI5 code in SAP Build Code. Joule's latest feature offers an AI-driven migration of UI5 applications to TypeScript, which, compared to JavaScript, enables an improved development efficiency. This blog post, written by Martin Haeuser is dedicated to providing insights into the latest feature that offers AI-driven migration of SAPUI5 applications to TypeScript.

Differences between Extension Projects and Adaptation Projects in SAPUI5

Looking to enhance your SAPUI5 applications? The blog post "Extending SAPUI5 apps: Adaptation projects vs. Extension projects" written by my colleague Oliver Graeff, explores the flexibility of SAPUI5, which allows not just developers but also key users and end users to extend standard apps. Discover how developers harness the power of adaptation projects in SAP Business Application Studio, the development environment of SAP Build Code. While adaptation projects offer advanced, strategic solutions for code-based extensions, there are also the predecessor extension projects. To address frequent confusions, Oliver explains the differences between the two of them.

Deprecation of the karma-ui5 Plugin

SAPUI5 provides many testing options, like unit and integration tests, which are summarized in UI5 Testing. As the Karma test runner is deprecated since April 2023, the UI5 team now also has to deprecate karma-ui5. For further details, please read the following blog post from Oliver Graeff: Deprecation of karma-ui5 plugin.

SAP Fiori tools 2501 Update

SAP Fiori tools is consistently evolving, bringing innovative features that empower both experienced developers and casual users. The recent updates focus on harnessing AI, simplifying the user interface for adaptations, and enhancing the overall usability of the tools. Read this blog post written by Christoph Gollmick and discover how these new enhancements can elevate your SAP Fiori development journey.

SAP HANA SQL Notebooks in SAP Build, SAP Business Application Studio and Visual Studio Code

With SQL Notebooks you can incorporate SQL statements into your projects. It offers effortless access to your underlying SAP HANA database or HDI Container but also includes scripts for setup, adding test data, and delivering educational functions. In this blog post, Volker Saggau provides a comprehensive overview of SAP HANA SQL Notebooks in various environments such as SAP Build, SAP Business Application Studio, and Visual Studio Code.

For further information on new features, please check our roadmaps: roadmap for SAP Build Code, SAPUI5 Road Map. And have a look at What's New in SAP Build Code, the What's New Viewer for SAPUI5 and the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model Release Notes. If you want to stay up-to-date with news, learning resources, and product and strategy updates for SAP Build Code: follow our tag.

We look forward to seeing how you use these new capabilities to create innovative solutions and drive your projects forward. Stay tuned for more updates and happy coding! 😊

SAP Fiori launchpad: Hiding empty spaces and pages

2025-01-31T12:23:28.092000+01:00

What is this feature about?

Overview

Hiding empty spaces and pages is a new feature of SAP Fiori launchpad.

Essentially, this means that empty spaces and pages are removed from the space menu and are no longer shown in the App Finder.

To be more precise, if pages or spaces are empty—meaning they don’t contain any (1) role-based content or (2) device-type-based content—then it makes no sense to expose them. In such cases, it would serve no purpose for users to access them.

Benefits

The key benefit of this approach is that it enhances the user experience by preventing end users from encountering empty content.

Additionally, this feature gives administrators greater flexibility. They can organize content without worrying about creating empty pages or spaces since such pages will automatically be hidden from end users.

Restriction

End user personalization is not considered, mainly to optimize performance.

If a page is empty and users personalized it while the feature is disabled, enabling the feature later will cause that page to disappear, as only the original content defined by the administrators is considered.

Similarly, if users remove all tiles from a page through personalization, making it empty, the page won’t be hidden because it became empty due to user actions.

How to enable this feature?

As an administrator, it is possible to enable or disable the display of empty spaces and pages by toggling the parameter ‘SPACES_HIDE_EMPTY_SPACES_PAGES’ using the 'Manage Launchpad Settings' application.

If the toggle is ON, the space menu should hide any empty spaces and pages.

If the toggle is OFF, the space menu shows all spaces and pages, regardless of their content.

To enable or disable this setting, users must Edit and Save it. The changes to this configuration will take effect only after a refresh.

Feature release outlook

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

This feature is available with 2502 and will be offered as opt-in in this initial release, i.e., disabled by default.
For further information refer to the official documentation here.

SAP BTP ABAP environment

This feature is available with 2502 and will be offered as opt-in in this initial release, meaning it will be disabled by default and configurable.
This feature is planned* to be offered as opt-out with 2505, meaning it will be enabled by default and configurable. With 2508, it is planned* to be enabled by default and no longer configurable. (*Disclaimer: our plans are subject to change)

SAP Integrated Business Planning

This feature is available with 2502 and will be offered as opt-in in this initial release, i.e., disabled by default.

Upload of a custom logo to be displayed in an SAP Fiori launchpad shell

2025-02-02T13:28:14.333000+01:00

What is this feature about?

Overview

This feature enables users to replace the standard SAP logo with a custom logo by uploading an image file in the SAP Fiori launchpad.

As a result, the SAP Fiori launchpad shell can display a customized logo.

Benefits

Previously, customizing a logo required using custom themes via the UI theme designer to create these themes and replace the standard SAP logo with a customer-specific one. With this new feature, the benefit is a significant reduction in the administrative effort needed to update the logo in the SAP Fiori launchpad shell.

Restriction

Even though this feature allows customization of the logo to be displayed in the SAP Fiori launchpad shell, users are unable to revert to the original SAP logo once it’s replaced. Nevertheless, they have the option to replace the uploaded custom logo with another new image file if needed.

How to enable this feature?

As an administrator, it is possible to upload an image file as company logo using the parameter ‘COMPANY_LOGO_URL’ via the 'Manage Launchpad Settings' application as depicted in the screenshots below.

This parameter allows users to add their logo to all themes, including SAP standard themes and custom themes. The uploaded custom logo always takes precedence over any other logos (for e.g a logo defined by the custom theme).

It is also possible to maintain an accessible text for the custom logo using the parameter ‘COMPANY_LOGO_ACCESSIBLE_TEXT’.

This ensures that all users, including those with disabilities, can understand its purpose. This can be done by adding descriptive alt text (for e.g "CompanyName Logo, link to homepage") to aid in navigation and understanding.

To update the above two settings, users must Edit and Save it. The changes to the configurations will take effect only after a refresh.

Feature release outlook

This feature is included in the 2408 release for:

SAP S/4HANA Cloud public Edition (refer to the official documentation here)
SAP Integrated Business Planning
SAP BTP ABAP environment

SAP Fiori for Android – A Year in Review

2025-02-04T17:54:46.739000+01:00

SAP Fiori for Android got a new boost in 2024! We rolled out new and improved components and patterns, along with a suite of helpful resources like a revamped Figma design kit and video tutorials.

This upgrade gives app developers and designers enhanced tools to create top-notch enterprise apps on Android. Think of it as a supercharged toolkit for building sleek, user-friendly apps that seamlessly integrate into the SAP ecosystem.

New Figma Design Kit for SAP Fiori for Android

The Figma Design Kit “SAP Fiori for Android” is now available on the Figma Community. We’ve improved the kit providing a better user experience, added more helpful information, and fixed bugs to make designing enterprise apps smoother than ever.

Highlights:

Comprehensive information card: provides details on usage, technical names, updates, and the component description now links directly to the SAP Design Guidelines.
Window size classes support: enhances optimization for different screen sizes.
Improved component properties: provides a more structured layout and consistent naming.
New page layout: includes usage examples for each component and pattern.
Variables for styles: include color modes, accent colors, semantic colors, and icon sizes.
Page hierarchy: improved organization for better readability.

You can find the latest SAP Design Kits on Figma.com/community

SAP Fiori for Android Design Kit available on Figma Community

New Components & Patterns in the Design System

We’ve released new components and patterns for the design system! In addition, we’ve enhanced existing components and patterns with new features, accessibility improvements aligned with WCAG 2.2, and important bug fixes. Here are a few highlights of the year:

Feedback and Progress Indicators

Feedback patterns help users stay informed about intended or unintended situations during app usage. To ensure users are always aware of the system status, additional progress indicators have been added to the design system. These indicators support various use cases and help minimize the perception of disruption during loading or calculations. We introduce the following three new components and patterns:

Illustrated Message

The illustrated message pattern combines a solution-oriented message with an engaging illustration and a conversational tone. This approach transforms potentially negative situations into neutral or even positive experiences, making users feel understood and valued.

Illustrated Message in the SAP Design Guidelines

General empty, error and success states examples in the illustrated message

Multi-Message Handling

If multiple information, error, or warning messages occur at the same time, the new pattern of multi-message handling provides the user with a clear structure for processing them. Clear iconography and semantic colors guide users in prioritizing their actions based on the importance of each message.

Multiple Message Handling in the SAP Design Guidelines

Multi-message handling pattern on compact and expanded window size class

Skeleton Loading

A schematic skeleton representation of content helps communicate anticipated information to the user and allows the system to display partially loaded content while still fetching the complete data.

Skeleton Loading in the SAP Design Guidelines

Skeleton loading patterns with basic placeholders

Native File Viewer

The native file viewer allows users to preview their files without leaving the app's context. It supports images, videos, and text-based media.

Native File Viewer in the SAP Design Guidelines

Native file viewer in compact and expanded window size class

Multiple enhancements for our components and patterns

From “A” like “Attach” to “T” like “Timeline”, we’ve introduced multiple enhancements to our current components and patterns. You can find a summary of these updates from recent releases on the “What’s New” page in the Figma Design Kits.

What’s new page within the SAP Fiori for Android Design Kit for Figma

Updates for BTP SDK for Android

In 2024, SAP BTP SDK for Android published four major releases, featuring updates to UI components, foundation, flows, and more. Most components and patterns from the SAP Fiori for Android design system are also available out of the box through the SAP BTP SDK. Additionally, our components are now available in Jetpack Compose, making app development even more efficient.

To find out more, check out the release updates.

New Mobile Design System Services for SAP Customers and Partners

We are excited to announce that the SAP Design System Team now offers services for SAP customers and partners to learn about SAP Fiori for Android and iOS.

Registration form for an SAP Mobile Design Service

SAP Fiori for Android & iOS Release Rollouts

In the SAP Fiori for Android and iOS release rollouts, we showcase the latest UI additions and enhancements of the SAP BTP software development kits for Android and iOS. We will then conclude with a demo that walks you through the changes and improved component capabilities.

Based on the release schedule, up to four sessions are planned per calendar year.

Find more information on the Design Services page.

UX Feedback Session for Mobile Apps

In the UX Feedback Session for Mobile Apps, we'll explore your mobile solution and gather insights from your experience using the SAP BTP SDK/MDK for Android and iOS.

Our expert mobile UX design team will provide valuable feedback and answer your questions about your app's design and SAP Fiori mobile design components. We're excited to learn about your specific use cases and welcome your suggestions to further improve our mobile UX components.

Find more information on the Design Services page.

Publications

Google i/O

SAP Mobile Start was featured at Google i/O 2024 as the first adopter of adaptive layouts. Within the SAP Fiori for Android design system, we leverage adaptive layouts to deliver content for an optimized user experience across various form factors and window size classes.

Learn more about Adaptive Layouts in SAP Fiori for Android.

Using adaptive layouts to transform from a compact to an expanded window size class

DevToberfest 2024

DevToberfest, an SAP TechEd Event, is a celebration by developers for developers. It features expert insight, tutorials, collaboration opportunities, and coding sessions.

In our session “Build Elegant Enterprise Apps for Android with SAP Fiori and SAP Build Code”, Natalie Stainton and Mark Fogle will guide you through the process of designing and building a robust, scalable, and functional Android app tailored to your enterprise needs. From design to development, SAP Fiori for Android is used to create a delightful enterprise app. The session will showcase how SAP Fiori for Android is utilized from design to development.

Watch the replay

What’s Next

2025 just started. We are excited to announce more updates about SAP Fiori for Android. For the latest updates, please visit our SAP Fiori Design Guidelines.

Authors: Marisa Wollner (Design Manager, SAP Fiori for Android) and Yuepei Guo (Design Lead, SAP Fiori for Android)

CDS Custom entities with Association

2025-02-04T17:59:48.874000+01:00

Step 1- Create a CDS Root Custom Entity for the Header (using Eclipse tool)

Start by creating a root custom entity for the PO Header entity. This entity will have an association to the PO Items.

@ObjectModel.query.implementedBy:'ABAP:YCL_MM_PO_DETAILS'
@EndUserText.label: 'Header data'
define root custom entity YMM_PO_HEADER
// with parameters parameter_name : parameter_type
{
  key EBELN : ebeln;
      BUKRS : bukrs;
      BSTYP : ebstyp;
      BSART : esart;
      LOEKZ : loekz;
      _Items : composition[1..*] of YMM_PO_ITEM;
}

Step 2- Create a CDS custom entity for Item

Next, create a custom entity for PO Item. The Item entity will reference the Header entity using an association.

@ObjectModel.query.implementedBy:'ABAP:YCL_MM_PO_DETAILS'
@EndUserText.label: 'PO Item'
define custom entity YMM_PO_ITEM
// with parameters parameter_name : parameter_type
{
  key EBELN : ebeln;
  key EBELP : ebelp;
      MATNR : matnr;
      @Semantics.quantity.unitOfMeasure: 'MEINS'
      MENGE : bstmg;
      MEINS : bstme;
      @Semantics.amount.currencyCode: 'currency'
      NETPR : bprei;
      @Semantics.currencyCode
      currency : abap.cuky( 5 );
      _Header : association to parent YMM_PO_HEADER  on $projection.EBELN = _Header.EBELN;
}

Step 3- Create a your own Custom class which you mentioned in Entity

Now, create a custom ABAP class to implement the functionality behind your CDS entities. The class will implement the necessary interfaces.

@ObjectModel.query.implementedBy:'ABAP:YCL_MM_PO_DETAILS'

 interfaces IF_OO_ADT_CLASSRUN .
  interfaces IF_RAP_QUERY_PROVIDER .

Step 4- Implement the class

class YCL_MM_PO_DETAILS definition
  public
  final
  create public .

public section.


     types : begin of ty_header,
              EBELN type ebeln,
              BUKRS type bukrs,
              BSTYP type ebstyp,
              BSART type esart,
              LOEKZ type loekz,
             end of ty_header.

      data : lt_header type table of ty_header.

          types : begin of ty_item,
              EBELN type  ebeln,
              EBELP type ebelp,
              MATNR type matnr,
              MENGE type bstmg,
              MEINS type bstme,
              NETPR type bprei,
             end of ty_item.

      data : lt_item type table of ty_item.


  interfaces IF_OO_ADT_CLASSRUN .
  interfaces IF_RAP_QUERY_PROVIDER .
protected section.
private section.
ENDCLASS.



CLASS YCL_MM_PO_DETAILS IMPLEMENTATION.


  method IF_OO_ADT_CLASSRUN~MAIN.
  endmethod.


  method IF_RAP_QUERY_PROVIDER~SELECT.


     CASE io_request->get_entity_id( ).

   when 'YMM_PO_HEADER'.

   DATA(lt_parameters) = io_request->get_parameters( ).

   DATA(lv_offset) = io_request->get_paging( )->get_offset( ).
   DATA(lv_page_size) = io_request->get_paging( )->get_page_size( ).
   DATA(lv_header_filter) = io_request->get_filter( )->get_as_sql_string( ).

     DATA(lv_max_rows) = COND #( WHEN lv_page_size = if_rap_query_paging=>page_size_unlimited
                                THEN 0
                                ELSE lv_page_size ).

   select * from ekko
          where (lv_header_filter)
          order by EBELN
          into corresponding fields of table _header
         up to _max_rows  rows
         offset _offset.

* IF io_request->is_total_numb_of_rec_requested( ).
    io_response->set_total_number_of_records( lines( lt_header ) ).
 io_response->set_data( lt_header ).
* endif.

 when 'YMM_PO_ITEM'.

    DATA(lt_para_item) = io_request->get_parameters( ).

   DATA(lv_offset_item) = io_request->get_paging( )->get_offset( ).
   DATA(lv_page_size_item) = io_request->get_paging( )->get_page_size( ).
   DATA(lv_item_filter) = io_request->get_filter( )->get_as_sql_string( ).

     DATA(lv_max_rows_item) = COND #( WHEN lv_page_size_item = if_rap_query_paging=>page_size_unlimited
                                THEN 0
                                ELSE lv_page_size_item ).

   select * from ekpo
          where (lv_item_filter)
          order by EBELN
          into corresponding fields of table _item
         up to _max_rows  rows
         offset _max_rows_item.

    io_response->set_total_number_of_records( lines( lt_item ) ).
 io_response->set_data( lt_item ).

   endcase.


  endmethod.
ENDCLASS.

Note- If your Item entity is not getting triggered possibly you might have missed filter .

Step 5- Create Service definition for your root view entity and expose you entities

->Right click on your root view entity->Click new service definition

@EndUserText.label: 'Po Details'
define service YMM_PO {
  expose YMM_PO_HEADER as Header;
  expose YMM_PO_ITEM as Item;
}

Step 6- Create Service binding for your service definition

After defining the service, create a service binding to make the service available for consumption.

Right-click on your service definition and select New Service Binding.
Activate the service.

If your service is an OData V4 service, you may encounter issues during publishing. For assistance with publishing and activating your service, refer to this

https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blogs-by-members/publish-activate-an-odata-v4-service-group-in-sap/ba-p/13554191

Step 7- Test the GET Call with Association

Finally, test your service by making a GET request to retrieve the Header and Item details as a nested JSON structure.

Note- If you want to pass the URL with key value

Header('value')?$expand=_Items

If you're interested in consuming this data in RAP with a tree structure using Flexible Programming Model (FPM), feel free to reach out.

Enjoy Coding!

Thanks and Regards,
Thulasiram Ammati

SAP Fiori for Android and iOS 24.12 – New Enhancements and Branching for Design Kits

2025-02-05T06:27:36.309000+01:00

Wrapping up 2024 and starting into 2025, we keep continuously refining and advancing our mobile design system to empower mobile business app creation at scale. Thanks to insightful feedback from app teams, we've updated existing UI components and rolled out new ones to take mobile app experiences to the next level. We've also aimed for feature parity between SAP Fiori for Android and iOS to ensure a seamless experience and simplified application development across the platforms.

New Design Kits on Figma Community

The Figma Design Kits for Android, iOS, WatchOS and Wear OS are now available on the Figma Community. We’ve also improved the kits providing a better user experience, added more helpful information, and fixed bugs to make designing enterprise apps smoother than ever.

SAP Fiori Design Kits available on Figma Community

In our new Design Kits, your can find comprehensive information cards that provides details on usage, technical names, updates, and the component description now links directly to the SAP Design Guidelines. Besides this, we have Improved component properties, providing a more structured layout and consistent naming along Variables for styles - to include color modes, accent colors, semantic colors, and icon sizes.

You can find the latest SAP Design Kits on Figma.com/community

Introducing Branching Approach in Design Kit

No more creating new design kit versions – from release 24.12 onwards, our Design Kit is updated through a Figma branch, making it easier to update and maintain the library. Simply click on "See all branches" to view details about each update.

Design Kit Versioning with Branches

Major updates to the Design Kit and SDK are identified by release numbers such as 24.12 and include an overview of the updated components. Minor updates, identified by release numbers such as 24.12.1, include bug fixes as well as an overview of the affected components.

New in SAP Fiori for Android 24.12

Check out the latest UI enhancements and additions that our team has been working on for this release.

Avatars

The avatar component that is used to display user profiles, initials, placeholders, icons, or business-related images can now be used in an avatar group with an optional label.

See Avatars to find out more.

Avatar and avatar group variations on compact (left) and expanded screens (right)

Document Scanner

The document scanner leverages Google’s ML Kit, allowing users to digitize physical documents with an on-device flow. Users can select automatic or manual capture and easily edit, retake, or delete specific or all scanned documents.

For more information, check out the Document Scanner article in the SAP Fiori for Android Design Guidelines.

Document scanner using Google’s ML Kit

Loading State Button

The loading state button is a new button variant featuring a circular progress indicator that appears inside a button when a user-triggered, non-disruptive progress is being processed. It supports various layouts, including a left-aligned button, right-aligned button, two opposite buttons, and text only, with flexible positioning to adapt to different use cases.

See Loading State Button for more details.

From top to bottom: contained loading state button, tonal loading state button, text and icon loading state button

Object Cell

The object cell has been enhanced to provide a more flexible object cell structure and supports nested components such as the rating control and KPI. On top of that, nested components can be easily swapped as needed.

Refer to Object Cell for more details.

Object cells with single actions on the right

Section Header/Footer

The section header can now also be used as a section footer. It supports various layouts, including a left-aligned button, right-aligned button, two opposite buttons, and text only, with flexible positioning to adapt to different use cases.

Find out more about the Section Footer.

Section footer with left-aligned button and header (top) and right-aligned button and header (bottom)

Chip Form Cell

The chip form cell has been enhanced with a mandatory field indicator (*) that can be placed next to the label above the chip.

See Chips to learn more about this component.

Single selection chips

Attachment Form Cell

The attachment form cell also supports adding a mandatory field indicator as well as a helper text and an error state.

Check out the Attachent Form Cell article to learn more.

Attachment form cell as a mandatory field before validation (left) and after validation in error state (right)

Date and Range Picker

The date and range pickers are dialogs used to select a single date or a range of dates. For view-based picker dialogs, it is now possible to add a disabled state for dates and ranges, minimum/maximum selectable dates, and status indicator decorations for dates.

Selecting a range in the range picker

For more information, refer to Date & Time Pickers.

New in SAP Fiori for iOS 24.12

Next, let’s check out the SAP Fiori for iOS enhancements and additions.

Avatar/Avatar Group

The avatar/avatar group is a new standalone component that is customizable in terms of size, shape, color, and layout.

See Avatars and Images to find out more.

Examples of Avatars and Profile Images

Document Scanner

The new document scanner leverages Apple’s VisionKit, allowing users to digitize physical documents with an on-device flow. Users can select automatic or manual capture and easily edit, retake, or delete specific or all scanned documents.

Refer to Document Scanner for more details.

Document scanner

Object Cell

The object cell has been enhanced to provide more flexibility, which mirrors the modular structure of the card component including swappable nested elements such as the rating control.

Check out the Object Cell guideline article for more details.

Object cell single action variation

Form Cells

The form cell components have been updated with the option to add an asterisk to indicate mandatory fields.

See Attachment Form Cell, Filter Form Cell, Segmented Control Form Cell

Form cells with mandatory field indicator

Rating Control

The rating control now includes the option to display half stars for read-only ratings. You can also add optional leading and trailing text, and users benefit from improved accessibility features.

For more information, check out the Rating Control article in the SAP Fiori for iOS guidelines.

Rating control with label

Step Progress Indicator

The step progress indicator is a progress indicator for tracking and displaying a user’s state in a user flow. With the latest update, you can now choose to use icon nodes as an alternative to numeric and alphabetical nodes.

See Step Progress Indicator for more information.

Step progress indicator on compact (left) and expanded screens (right)

Multi-Message Handling

When a screen contains multiple messages, the banner can show an overview of the type and number of messages with an action link to open a multi-message handling detail view. In the multi-message detail view, it is possible to: filter for a specific message type, clear a single message or all messages of one type, and navigate to the location of the cell with the link.

For further details, see Multi-Message Handling.

Multi-message handling detail view on compact screen (left) and regular screen (right)

Resources

Design Guidelines

SAP Fiori Mobile Design Guidelines for Android and iOS

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

Design Kits for Figma

SAP Fiori for Android and iOS Design Kit

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 24.12 Design Kits | SAP Fiori for iOS 24.12 Design Kits

SAP Fiori Innovation Day in Silicon Valley highlighted how AI makes app development easier

2025-02-07T19:29:31.266000+01:00

Thanks to all the local customers who joined us for SAP Fiori Innovation Day in Silicon Valley on February 5, 2025. By the end of the day, everyone saw the latest and greatest AI innovations that guide business users through their SAP tasks more quickly and make developers more productive by automating and accelerating key parts of their work.

For many, the highlight was the hands-on session where they had the opportunity to build an SAP Fiori app, starting with a sketch of what they want the app to look like. They learned about generative AI, the Flexible Programming Model in SAP Fiori elements, and how to fine-tune apps using SAP Fiori tools.

My favorite part of the event were the conversations with customers during the breaks where I had a chance to learn more about their specific industries and the unique challenges they face. This reinforces the need for some level of customization in the starting page, induvial apps, and business processes.

Schedule for SAP Fiori Innovation Day in Silicon Valley

The day started with an overview of SAP Fiori and what this looks like in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Similar to how you would begin your day with SAP, we started with My Home and all the different ways you have to launch your SAP Fiori apps and make the page your own.

Graphic showing personalization options in My Home by creating the cards you want to see

We then showed examples of the SAP Fiori user experience across SAP S/4HANA, including many of the innovations that we have recently added to our public cloud version. We also presented several ways on how to create cards to show key information in My Home.

SAP Fiori includes more AI capabilities for business users

In the morning, we showed all the released AI functionality in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, much of which we introduced in 2502.

Easy filter – natural language searching in SAP Fiori elements list reports
Smart summarization – AI-created summary of SAP Fiori elements object pages
Card creation in My Home– several ways to create a card that you can add to My Home
Joule-assisted insight card creation in My Home– ask Joule for the information you need and create a card that you can add to My Home

We ended the day with some previews of planned AI functionality that will first be released into SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

Recap – a summary of what you missed when you were away from your SAP system
Assisted error resolution – providing more context on system errors with recommendations to resolve them
Microsoft CoPilot integration

Some of these are currently in beta testing with selected public cloud customers.

Clean core is how you can extend your SAP S/4HANA system.

One important area that many customers are interested in hearing about is how to extend their SAP S/4HANA systems. This could be creating new apps or moving existing customizations from their on-prem environments into their private cloud implementation. There are many options, some on-stack in your SAP S/4HANA Cloud system and some on the side in BTP.

Graphic of the options to extend your SAP S/4HANA Cloud system in a clean core way

RISE extensibility guide

GROW extensibility guide

The partners shared their vison for the future and how to get there

Event gold sponsors cbs, Lemongrass, and Qubittron presented about various use cases for AI and how they have helped customers overcome initial hesitation. They also shared their wisdom in a panel discussion that covered different dimensions of UX transformation along with SAP Fiori adoption, change management, and how to gain alignment among different stakeholders in an organization.

Thanks to everyone who made SAP Fiori Innovation Day a success

SAP Presenters (in order of appearance): Sebastian Steinhauer, Katja Zoch, Chad Leonard, Vikas Lodha, Dan Watters, Carolina Robertson, Sushant Priyadarshi, Conrad Bernal, Ashley Tung, Marcel Kassner

Gold partner sponsors: Qubittron, cbs Corporate Business Solutions, lemongrass

Silver partner sponsor: qBotica

Behind the scenes team: all the developers, architects, product managers and other colleagues who built the functionality and set up the demos and hands-on systems.

Without all the great customer interaction, questions, and conversations during meals and breaks, we would not have learned what’s most important to you as you move forward in each of your respective organizations in your UX transformation projects.

Next steps

Register for the monthly SAP Fiori development roundtable call to meet other developers and architects who build SAP Fiori apps.
Subscribe to the SAP Fiori development newsletter, in which we share updates on SAP Fiori elements, SAP Fiori tools, SAPUI5, and SAP Build Code every other month.
Read about last year’s SAP Fiori Innovation Days events in Heidelberg, Chicago, and Dublin.
Join us at an SAP Fiori Development Innovation Day in 2025 – we are finalizing the locations and dates.

SAP User Experience Q1/2025 Update – Part 1: Many New Innovations Available (AI, Joule and More)

2025-02-10T19:24:47.116000+01:00

This series of posts gives an overview of user experience innovations in the cloud from the last six months, covering our whole portfolio, in particular SAP SuccessFactors and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502. It also gives an overview of innovations in our UI technologies, making it ever easier to build and integrate UIs.

AI is revolutionizing user experience, giving users capabilities unheard of just a few years ago. SAP is harnessing the power of AI to help business users work more effectively: Joule is your copilot for seamless access to a variety of products a user needs, now covering 80% of the most-used transactions. Generative AI embedded in business applications gives users unprecedented insights and convenience. Beyond that, we continue to provide new applications with a great user experience, as well as UX-enhancing features.

How is AI, and especially generative AI, changing user experience for business users? Essentially via one or more of these patterns:

Summarizing business data in an easy to understand way – in text or graphical form.
Guiding and Recommending options or actions based on the current business context.
Creating proposals for texts or business data and entities such as assignments, performance goals with milestones etc., often based on natural language input.
Helping you write texts to people internally and externally, with our AI writing assistant.
Interacting via natural language with your application, e.g. search, filtering, analytical queries – as an alternative to established UI interactions.
Assisting you with all of the above, wherever you are, for all our cloud products – via Joule, your copilot for SAP systems.

Our overarching goal is to provide a great user experience everywhere. AI is a powerful means for achieving that, but of course you can also have a great user experience in applications without embedded AI.

A good user experience also needs to address teamwork, not just the experience of each individual – in other words, helping SAP users collaborate and work together.

I’ve collected examples from our latest releases to show how we are doing this – starting with our cross-product UX innovations in Joule and central entry points before looking at product UX innovations. Here is what the series will cover; as each part becomes available in the next couple of weeks I will update this list with links to each post:

Central UX Services (this post)
- Joule – latest UX innovations
- Central entry points and services:
  - SAP Start / SAP Build Work Zone
  - SAP Task Center
  - SAP Mobile Start
ERP: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502 and SAP Fiori launchpad (AI, Joule and More).
HR: SAP SuccessFactors (AI, Joule and More).
Spend: SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass.
Selling: SAP Customer Experience and SAP Industry Cloud – Retail.
Platform: SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Business Technology Platform.
UI Design and Technology – web and mobile.

Before we get started: if you haven’t already seen them, do have a look at the overview of public cloud UX innovations I posted in February and July 2024:

This series of posts includes Joule and AI UX highlights from the above products, but for a more comprehensive overview of our recent AI innovations and SAP’s Business AI strategy, with many UX examples, have a look at:

SAP Business AI: Release Highlights Q4 2024
White Paper: SAP Business AI.

Joule User Experience Innovations

Joule is the AI-powered copilot for SAP systems, offering a powerful new user experience, using natural language to access our cloud products and providing a seamless flow for the user.

Now, Joule is generally available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502, as well as for our central entry points in the web SAP Start and SAP Build Work Zone (both standard and advanced editions). You can find examples in the respective product sections in this series; this section focusses on generic capabilities recently introduced or coming soon for Joule. If you want an overview of what’s new, or want to set up Joule in your landscape, have a look at the documentation:

Joule already covers 80% of the most-used transactions in SAP systems and 1,200+ skills, tailored to business roles across SAP’s cloud portfolio such as hiring manager, billing specialist, procurement manager etc.

Joule Available on Mobile

Joule is also now generally available for mobile, running natively with SAP Mobile Start. Figure 1 shows examples of Joule running on a mobile phone.

Figure 1: Examples showing Joule integrated in SAP Mobile Start, showing from left to right: the start page, the informational pattern accessing SAP Help Portal, and the transactional pattern used to interact with SAP S/4HANA Cloud and then with SAP SuccessFactors. ALT Text: Four images are shown: the start page shows a “How can I help you” text, followed by some suggested prompts as buttons; the informational pattern shows the prompt “How can I customize a sales order”. Below that, the sixteen-line written answer is shown, followed by a “Search results” selector and three top search results. The navigational pattern shows the prompt “Show sales orders with delivery status not completed”, below that, the reply from Joule “Here’s what I’ve found” is followed by a card containing three lines and an “Open” button. A second transactional example with the prompt “Show profile of Maria Alvares”, followed by the result and a button for navigating to her profile.

On Apple devices you can now use Siri and Siri Shortcuts to seamlessly interact with Joule - which works even better with Apple Intelligence. Simply say "Hey Siri, ask SAP. Show my sales orders with delivery status not completed" and Joule will provide you with the respective content within the app.

Note that as of today, not all your prompts and web apps are supported on the phone; however, we are continuously adding further Joule business skills and scenarios.

Find out more here:

Joule on Mobile & Start Screen Personalization: SAP Mobile Start V2.1 - Release Update

Joule Analytical Pattern coming soon

In Q1/2025 we plan to provide a controlled release of the new analytical pattern for Joule, for those products listed above for which Joule is available. General availability currently planned for Q2/2025 (as usual for forward-looking statements, our plans are subject to change). It is powered by SAP Analytics Cloud, with data from models that are indexed by the Just Ask feature of SAP Analytics Cloud.

This means that Joule will soon support four interaction patterns, as shown in Figure 2.

Informational pattern, for querying written documents, such as SAP documentation in the SAP Help Portal, or customer policies etc.
Navigational pattern, for finding and navigating to applications.
Transactional pattern, for interacting directly with business applicatinos
Planned New: Analytical pattern, for answering analytical queries directly in Joule.

Figure 2: Joule Interaction Patterns. ALT text: four interaction patterns are shown: informational, with the prompt “what are the key rules for a team outing” followed by an eight-line answer and a link to a source document; navigational, showing a button “Go to Org Chart” after approving a position; transactional, with the text “Below are the new position details set to be hired starting today”, followed by a card summarizing the key details, and a prompt by the user “Send for approval”; Analytical, showing the prompt “What is the hiring versus attrition trend for this job role in the past 12 months?” and the answer shown as a chart with one line for hired and one for percentage attrition, plus numbers showing 124 similar roles hired and 6 role attrition.

Find out more about Joule for Analytics in this blog post:

Analytical Insights in Joule (powered by SAP Analytics Cloud), Controlled release in Q1 2025.

Outlook

We are working on making Joule available for further cloud products, as well as making it even more useful via agentic-AI, where Joule coordinates multi-agent systems. An AI agent can autonomously plan, reason, access external tools, work with other agents, and iteratively reflect on progress until it achieves its objective.

Joule will help SAP’s cloud users work faster, get instant insights, and achieve better outcomes by simply asking questions or telling the system what to do. Not only in English, but in their own language. We plan to allow users to interact with Joule in a growing number of languages including German, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. To get an idea of what is planned and what it could look like, accessing multiple products, using English and Spanish (with subtitles), have a look at this:

Video: AI is the new UI (3:00).

For more details of what is planned, have a look at the road map for Joule in the SAP Road Map Explorer:

Joule Road Map.

Central entry points and services

SAP Start

The integration with Joule in SAP Start is now generally available. The purpose of SAP Start is to bring together relevant business information from SAP for each user in one central place, and also to provide the one place to go to start your SAP applications in the cloud. SAP Start:

Gives you quick access to all your applications via the simple yet powerful search field;
New: Gives you direct access to your product home pages, as shown in Figure 3.
Proactively informs you about your to-dos from all products which are connected to the SAP Task Center;
Gives you key insights via insights cards from products connected to SAP Start,
Assists you with Joule, your copilot for working with SAP.

Figure 3: SAP Start, now with direct access to product home pages. This example shows direct access to three product home pages in the “Products” section: SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Fieldglass and SAP SuccessFactors. ALT Text: Below the “Products” section the screen shows the To-Dos section, with four cards for pending tasks, the first three with Approve and Reject buttons on them. Below that, the Insights section is shown, with two rows of four cards, starting with lists of My Statements of Work, My Workers, My Team, List of Top 4 Customer Projects.

Now, SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Integrated Business Planning support SAP Start, in addition to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Fieldglass. Other cloud products can be integrated to provide tasks via SAP Task Center. You can find out how to set up and integrate cloud products to SAP Start here:

Documentation: SAP Start.

SAP Build Work Zone

Joule is now also generally available for SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition:

Joule is Now Integrated into SAP Build Work Zone!

SAP Build Work Zone now allows you to integrate web UIs based on HTML5 from other SAP BTP subaccounts. This is done by creating an HTML5 business solution that acts as a content provider in the subaccount.

This business solution can be accessed not only by the local subaccount but also by remote subaccounts through destinations.
To set up an HTML5 business solution as a content provider, the provider subaccount needs to adjust the HTML5 code to include a cdm.json file, which defines the design-time business content such as roles, groups, spaces, and pages, along with destinations. Find out more here:
- Simplifying HTML5 Content Consumption Across Subaccounts.

In my blog post from February 2024, I explained that SAP Build Work Zone allows customers to define guided experiences, i.e. wizards, to guide users step-by-step through complex processes.

A major enhancement in the October 2024 release is the ability to model guided processes directly in SAP Build Process Automation, bringing powerful process automation to your SAP Build projects. Get an overview here:

Guided Experiences powered by SAP Build.

Just recently, a new wizard setting was added to allow the execution of the same wizard multiple times. This setting is available both in freestyle wizards and in wizards that are based on a Guided Process from SAP Build Process Automation. For example, an admin can enable this option on the Purchase Order wizard, and this will allow users to run this wizard multiple times to purchase different items.

Enhanced Page Builder Experience across SAP Build Work Zone:

The SAP Build Work Zone page builder experience has been significantly enhanced with new features. Users can now enjoy a widget context menu, the ability to move sections up and down, and a section configuration menu, as shown in Figure 4. Additionally, the option to show or hide section headers and various accessibility improvements make the editor more user-friendly and versatile.

Figure 4: SAP Build Work Zone enhanced page builder experience. ALT Text: the image shows a section of the Work Zone screen with a visual editor. The section is partitioned into three sub-sections, each with a button “Add Widget”, the rightmost one shows an open context menu for the button, which shows that you can also add a column. The leftmost section contains a simple list of items, the middle one a bar chart for Project Cloud Revenue, the rightmost a donut chart for Open SAP Incidents.

Here is the guide with recommendations and further details:

How to Build and Design a Workpage.

SAP Task Center

Users can conveniently access tasks from many different systems in one place – not only from SAP products, we also provide APIs for integrating tasks from 3rd-party products.

Even more conveniently, users can now be notified of new tasks via e-mail. Also, end user notifications can now be enabled if you are using SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition as central point of entry for accessing your business applications.

SAP Build Work Zone itself can also be set up as a task provider for SAP Task Center. This means that tasks created by SAP Build Work Zone will also appear in SAP Task Center.

Furthermore, SAP Task Center now allows users to forward approvals.

New Intelligent Recommendations Feature Available for SAP Build Process Automation Tasks

We are introducing AI to expedite task processing: intelligent recommendations leverage artificial intelligence to streamline and accelerate task approval processes. They assist users in making decisions by analyzing key attributes relevant to specific business cases and generating a confidence level in percent for their tasks. Figure 5 shows some approvals with a confidence level of 100%, and some with 97.5%.

Figure 5: New Intelligent Recommendations feature in SAP Task Center. ALT Text: An image of the task center list of tasks, with a filter bar at the top with seven fields available, and the field “Task Type” set to “Manager Approval”. The list shows six entries. The new column “Confidence Level” is highlighted, and shows 100% for the first four entries, and 97.5% for the last two.

Find out more here:

Enhance Task Approvals with the Power of AI.

SAP Mobile Start

Beyond providing Joule natively for mobile devices, SAP Mobile Start has recently introduced a number of user experience improvements with their 2.0 and 2.1 releases. Here, I would like to highlight the support for ‘new site experience’, giving users a more structured view of applications and information.

Figure 6: SAP Mobile Start with Spaces & Pages from new site experience. ALT Text: Two images of mobile phones. On the left the Apps page, which contains “My Apps Space” showing a list of three page names “Customer Management Page”, “Project management page” and “App Page”. On the right, the App Page is shown, with a list of six apps as cards, with an icon on the left of the app name. The first three (My Inbox, Monitor Situations, Manage My Timesheet) have coloured KPI values displayed on the right.

A further significant enhancement is the support of declarative UI integration cards, which are displayed embedded in the respective pages on the Apps screen.

Figure 7: SAP Mobile Start supports UI integration cards from SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition. ALT Text: Two mobile phone images. On the left Project Apps, which shows a flat card for Project Factsheet and below that a UI integration card showing overall status for active projects, with a list of five projects along with their overall status – four on track, one with “high risk” in red; at the bottom of the card a “See all” button. On the right two further UI integration cards are shown: a list of top 4 projects, and “Cost to Date – Timeline” containing a KPI number for the actual cost to date and below that a line chart of actual and planned cost per month.

For a good and satisfying user experience, being able to personalize the UI so that it fits with how you like to work is a key element. To this end, SAP Mobile Start has now introduced personalization of the start page, allowing you to rearrange the order of sections as well as hiding sections which you don’t need – take a look at it in Figure 8.

Figure 8: SAP Mobile Start personalization of the start screen. ALT Text: Four mobile phone images. On the left the start page, with the sections Insights and News visible. Next, an image of the edit screen, with five sections listed: Latest To-Dos, Favorites, Insights, App Suggestions (deselected), News. Next, an image of the five sections, all selected, now with Favorites first and Latest To-Dos second. On the right, the start page with the sections Favorites at the top (containing flat cards for apps), below that Latest To-Dos (containing larger cards for ToDos, one shocing a purchase requisition with Total Amount $799.99).

To find out more about recent innovations as well as what is planned in our road map, have a look at:

Continue Reading…

I hope you enjoyed this first part, covering cross-product UX services. Part 2 is now available:

SAP UX Q1/2025 Update – Part 2: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502 and SAP Fiori Launchpad.

I will post part three in the next few days, covering a large number of UX innovations in SAP SuccessFactors.

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:

Disable SAP GUI Security Pop-up when upload UI5 App in SAP

2025-02-13T08:34:08.457000+01:00

Introduction: It begins innocently enough. We run the report /UI5/UI5_REPOSITORY_LOAD, hoping to capture all the UI5 changes in SAP Transport. The report prompts us for a file location path and Transport request, and we obligingly provide the necessary details.

But little do we know, this is where the excitement begins. As we proceed, the SAP GUI Security pop-up starts making its presence felt – and felt, and felt, and felt. For each page, it politely (but persistently) asks for permission, ignoring our pleas to 'Remember My Decision.' It's like trying to reason with a determined toddler!

The result? A thrilling game of pop-up whack-a-mole that can last up to an hour or more, depending on the number of UI5 files that need to be uploaded. And just when you think it's all over, another pop-up appears, taunting you with its presence.

But wait, there's more! Just when you thought you'd finally tamed the pop-up beast, it rears its head again. If you have the misfortune of changing the file path for the next upload, the SAP GUI Security pop-up will gleefully start asking for permissions all over again.

Isn't it exhilarating to repeat the same process over and over? But fear not, we have a clever solution to gently tame this situation.

Enter the SAP GUI Logon Pad to vanquish the pop-up monster, simply:

Open the SAP GUI Logon Pad
Click on Options

Next click on Security → Security Configuration

Click on ‘Open Security Configuration' button under 'Security Module’ Box.

And choose ‘Default Action’ as ‘Allow’.

Boom! Issue resolved. The SAP GUI Security pop-up has been vanquished!
From this day forward, you shall upload your UI5 files in peace, without the incessant interruptions of those pesky pop-ups. It's a beautiful feeling, isn't it?
And don't worry, this solution is completely reversible. Once you've finished your upload, you can simply revert the settings back to their original state, and all will be right with the world again.

This ends the functionality.
Appreciate you stopping by and reading the article! Your comments, suggestions, and shares are greatly appreciated.

SAP UX Q1/2025 Update – Part 2: SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502 and SAP Fiori Launchpad

2025-02-14T06:00:00.025000+01:00

This second post in the series gives an overview of user experience innovations in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502 and the SAP Fiori launchpad. It covers Joule and many AI-based UX innovations, new collaboration capabilities as well as improvements in details.

Before reading this, do read the first blog post introducing the series and providing general information about Joule and central entry points and services:

SAP User Experience Q1/2025 Update – Part 1: Many New Innovations Available (AI, Joule and More).

The latest release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition comes with a large number of new AI-enabled user experience enhancements. I’ll give you an overview, starting with generic new capabilities applicable to all or many users, such as Joule and the My Home page in the SAP Fiori launchpad, before moving to innovations relevant for applications built with SAP Fiori elements as well as some individual application highlights. They are grouped into these sections:

Joule
SAP Fiori Launchpad and My Home
Collaboration: Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Copilot Integration
AI-based UX Innovations for SAP Fiori Apps
Situation Handling
UX Improvements in Details

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.

This video summarizes the main AI innovations which came with the 2502 release, the What’s New Viewer lists all the new UX features, and the blog post summarizes the new AI features supported by SAP Fiori elements technology:

Beta testing: Some of the new features presented below are only available via beta programs, not (yet) for productive use. If you are interested in testing any of the AI-assisted innovations, you can register here.

Joule

Generally Available

Joule is now generally available with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502.

Figure 1 shows examples for the three patterns available today with Joule. With the transactional pattern, you can use Joule to access application data directly, as well as getting an overview of your situations from business situation handling. Joule can also give you navigation links to relevant applications, either at the end of the list of results, or in response to a direct “Where can I…” question. With the informational pattern, you can query the documentation and get a brief summary along with up to three direct links to the source document(s).

Figure 1: Examples of Joule patterns in use in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. ALT Text: The image shows side by side two examples of the Transactional pattern, one Navigational and one Informational. #1 shows a list of sales orders, with ID and Sold-To-Party and an “Open” button, plus the prompt “Show me the most recent situations I should focus on first”. #2 shows the response: two cards with five-line details of each situation plus an indication of how many hours ago they were created. #3 shows the prompt “Where can I see sales orders issues?” and the reply which lists one app “Sales Order Fulfillment Issues (Version 2)” along with an “Open” button. #4 shows the prompt “Can I create a sales order from a pdf file?” and a seven-line answer “Yes, cou can…”, along with a link to the source document with its source “SAP Help Portal”.

Available Soon

Currently planned for Q1/2025 (with the usual disclaimer that plans can change): If a user regularly wants a specific overview of their data, such as blocked sales orders, or open orders for their top customers, they can use Joule to create insights cards for these queries and add them directly to the My Home page in the SAP Fiori launchpad. Watch an example below in Figure 2:

Figure 2: Using Joule to create an Insights Card and add it to My Home in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502. ALT Text: A short video embedded showing how a user enters the prompt “Please create a card for open sales orders for customer 10100003, including their ID, overall status and delivery date”. Joule then asks “What type of card would you like to create?” with buttons for “List” and “Table”. The user selects “List”, and a preview of the list is shown, along with buttons “Add card to My Home” and “Redo”. After selecting “Add..” the card is added as the leftmost Insights Card.

Watch this video to see all of the above examples in action:

Video: Joule, the AI Copilot – SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502.

SAP Fiori Launchpad and My Home

Automatic high-contrast and dark-mode detection, also for custom themes

Users can define on their front-end device’s operating system whether applications should appear in a light mode or a dark mode, or a high-contrast mode. Now SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition system takes these settings into account also for custom themes, in addition to SAP visual themes.

Technically this is done by the SAP Fiori launchpad supporting theme sets, which is a group of themes of the same family with different flavors – such as the Horizon theme, with a light and dark version along with high contrast black and high contrast white versions. Customers can create their own theme sets using the UI theme designer. Have a look at the documentation:

Theme Selection According to OS Settings.

Hiding empty pages and spaces

The apps which a user sees on a page on the SAP Fiori launchpad, and the pages which appear in a space, depend on a user’s authorizations. This can lead to a page being defined in such a way that certain users are not authorized to use any of the apps therein; similarly, a space can end up not having any pages available to a user. Now, if this happens, any such empty pages or spaces are hidden from the user, rather than being shown empty. Find out more here:

SAP Fiori launchpad: Hiding empty spaces and pages.

My Home shows Situations from the extended framework

Custom situations created using the Situation Handling extended framework are now also shown in the To-Dos section of My Home, along with the standard situations.

Improved About Dialog for Application Information

We have simplified the about screen, organizing it into separate tabs for Application, System and Environment information, so that there is a clear separation between the different types of information – see it in action in Figure 3:

Figure 3: New About dialog. ALT Text: A short video showing the list view of the Manage Sales Orders – Version 2 app. The user opens the user settings menu in the shell header bar, selects “about”, and a popover appears with the same design as the user settings, showing three separate tabs listed vertically on the left for “Application”, “System” and “Environment”, with “Application” the default. Application shows title and ID of the app, along with framework version; System shows the product, system and tenant name; Environment shows the client device type and user agent details.

Improvements for Administrators

Since 2408: administrators can easily set a customer logo using a new setting parameter COMPANY_LOGO_URL, no need to create a custom theme in SAP UI Theme Designer. Find out more:
- Upload of a custom logo to be displayed in an SAP Fiori launchpad shell.
- Documentation: Manage Launchpad Settings.
We have made it significantly easier to merge spaces & pages, and also support uploading and downloading them.
- Documentation: Merging Spaces.

Improvements for Developers at Customers and Partners

Customers and partners can now create launchpad-related object types in the ABAP development tools for Eclipse. For more details on this and the new developer guide, refer to

SAP Fiori Launchpad: Updates for Developers and Partners in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2502 ABAP Environment.

Beta: AI-Assisted Enterprise Search

This is an example of the AI pattern Interacting via natural language with your application. In this case, you can use natural language in the search field available at the top of every screen in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, making it even easier to benefit from powerful enterprise search capabilities.

Figure 4: AI-Assisted Enterprise Search (Beta) in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502. ALT Text: A short video showing how a user can enter in the search field in the shell header bar “Show me all sales orders with net value greater than 5000 eur” and get a corresponding list sales orders. The user than adds the text “that are in process” resulting in a list with fewer results.

Watch the full video:

Video: AI-Assisted Easy AI Search (Beta) (0:55 min.)

Beta: AI-Assisted Personalization: Adding Insights Cards

If you are on your My Home page at the Insights section, you can directly create new cards there with AI-assistance, without having to go via Joule. This is another example of the AI pattern Interacting via natural language with your application. Have a look here:

Video: AI-Assisted Smart Personalization of My Home (Beta) (1:00 min.)

Collaboration: Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Copilot Integration

To-Dos in Microsoft Teams

Important notifications should not go unnoticed, so we help to ensure that by providing an additional way for users to be notified about To-Dos from SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. Tasks which are shown on My Home can now also pushed to users via Microsoft Teams, where they show up as new activities – see Figure 5. As you can see, not only are users notified directly in Teams, they also get direct access to their task embedded in Teams and can take direct action, such as approve or reject a request.

Figure 5: Tasks from SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition appearing as activities in Microsoft Teams. ALT Text: The “Activity” tab in Microsoft Teams is shown , with a list showing on the left one activity “New tasks in SAP S/4HANA – There is 1 new task for you – ToDos” and on the right embedded within Teams the screen from My Inbox, showing the header data plus a list of Items and Bidders, and action buttons at the bottom for Approve, Reject, Show Log, Claim, Forward and Suspend.

See it in action here:

Video: To-Dos in Microsoft Teams (1:00 min.)

Beta: Microsoft Copilot Integration (Beta)

When collaborating with colleagues via Microsoft Teams or Microsoft Outlook, it is only natural to want to be able to access SAP data right where you are, rather than having to leave your context and go to separate windows to access the data. Hence we are working on integrating Microsoft Copilot with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, and continuing with the Beta program which I introduced to you in my July blog post. Find out more:

Video: Microsoft Copilot integration (2:25 min.)
If you are interested in trying this out, you can register here.

AI-Based UX Innovations for SAP Fiori Apps

Here I will focus on the AI-assisted innovations powered by SAP Fiori elements and SAP Business AI. Beyond these, I’d like to call out these two new capabilities which provide a great user experience thanks to AI and which are now generally available:

Cost Center Review Booklet, which uses AI to summarize financial reporting data in easy-to-understand language, which I features as a Beta in my July blog post. (An example of the Summarizing AI pattern).
Configuration for US tax jurisdictions, which uses SAP Business AI to make light work of something otherwise very complex and tricky (An example of the Creating Proposals AI pattern).

To get an overview of all of these and more have a look at these updates:

We are giving away something for free! We will give you free access to the underlying AI technology for the generally available AI-assisted features described below until end of July 2025! Interested? Sign-up for the Limited Promotion for AI-assisted Features in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

AI-Assisted Easy Filter

This is an example of the AI pattern Interacting via natural language with your application: in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, you can now easily filter lists in SAP Fiori elements list reports using natural language, rather than manually setting the filters for each field in the filter bar. We use SAP Business AI to interpret the query and identify the appropriate filter values. What is really cool is that the filter values identified are also displayed at the top of the list, so users can get confirmation that their text has been correctly interpreted. Figure 6 shows an example.

Figure 6: AI-assisted easy filter allows you to filter business data using natural language in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502. ALT Text: The Manage Sales Orders – Version 2 app is shown with one text entry field above the list of orders, containing the text “Show me all open sales orders with a delivery date for last quarter”. To the right of the text field the “Go” button has the AI icon on the left of the Go text. Below the text entry field identified filters are shown: Overall Status “Open”, Requested Delivery Date “10/01/2024 – 12/31/2024”.

Watch it in action here:

Video: AI-Assisted Easy Filter (55 seconds)

AI-Assisted Smart Summarization

As you may have guessed, this is an example of the Summarizing AI pattern, where users of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition can use the new smart summarization capability to generate personalizable summaries of object pages based on SAP Fiori elements. You simply select the sections you want to have included in the summary, and let smart summarization create a summary for you. You can edit the result, and copy it into your clipboard with just one click, ready to paste into an e-mail, chat or document. Figure 7 shows an example of a summary. If you want to see how to select the sections, watch this:

Video: AI-Assisted Smart Summarization (1:10 min.)

Figure 7: AI-Assisted Smart Summarization generates summaries of object pages based on SAP Fiori elements in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502. ALT Text: A popover is shown with formatted text, the Header saying “Order Summary”, followed by a brief description and then sections for “Data and Location”, with three bullet points for requested delivery date, document date and shipping address, “Key Highlights”, showing overall status, billing block status, net value and net sales volume (YTD). Only the section header “Summary Statistics” is visible at the bottom, the vertical scroll bar on the right indicates that there is more below.

Beta: 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 (beta) 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 8 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 8: AI-Assisted Error Explanation (Beta) 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)

Situation Handling

The 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.

Beta: AI-Assisted Situation Handling

With this release you can beta test a new feature which generates such recommendations using SAP Business AI. This is an example of the Guiding and Recommending AI pattern.

Figure 9 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 9: AI-Assisted Situation Handling (Beta) in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2502, 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.

If you are interested in testing any of the above AI-assisted innovations, you can register here.

UX Improvements in Details

As I never tire of saying: the details matter if you want to provide a great UX! We continue to work on these details, which can often result in higher satisfaction for users. With the 2502 release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, we bring you the following improvements.

All Data Dictionary Help Texts Available to Users

This feature was requested by many customers, and I am happy to announce that it is now available: all the help texts for individual fields which are stored in the back-end data dictionary are now available to users using the built-in help, powered by SAP Companion. In other words, users of SAP Fiori apps have access to the same help texts as were shown with the classic UIs such as SAP GUI. You can see an example in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Help texts for all fields now available in SAP Fiori apps. ALT Text: The Manage Purchase Contracts screen is shown, with question marks next to all fields and column headers. On the right the Help Topics are listed, with the Purchase Contract Number selected. Next to the corresponding column header a popover shows the definition text.

Column Size Persisted in Flexible Column Layout

When users open up an application which uses the Flexible Column Layout, it will now remember where the user had placed the separator last time, rather than putting it in the default position. Figure 11 shows an example where at the top you see the default position, and below you see the separator moved to the right slightly, so that all the text is visible in the table on the left. Next time the app is opened, the separator will open in the same place.

Figure 11: Flexible Column Layout now remembers the previously used column width. The image at the top shows the default column width, the image below shows the last column width the user chose. ALT Text: two images of Manage Cost Centers application is shown, the upper one has the separator bar between the list on the left and the details on the right further to the left than the image on the right.

New Options for Filtering Dates (Semantic Date Range)

We have two new features here:

We now offer the semantic date range also for selecting dates in the table settings dialog, if you want to define a specific filter on a given field in the table. (Note that the table settings dialog allows you to define filters on all the fields in the table, irrespective of which fields appear in the filter bar at the top of the screen).
I’m pleased to say that, on request of many users, we now provide the option to define filters on date fields for the “Last X days/weeks/months/… to date” as well as the “Next X days/weeks/months/… to date”, where users can specify the number “X”.

An example of how tricky such seemingly simple things can be: if, on December 11th, you choose “Last 2 months to date”, do you mean the period from November 1st to December 11th, which would be up to the current date but not a full two months, or do you mean “the last two full months”, i.e. October 1st to November 30th? Since both make sense, the selection screen gives users the option to choose, with the default being the “full month” case, described as “exclude current period”, as you can see in Figure 12.

Figure 12: New option for semantic date range. ALT Text: A list of cost centers shown in the Manage Cost Centers application, with a popover below the “Valid On” field in the filter bar showing “Last X Days / Weeks / Months / …”, a field for entering the number (2), a field for the unit of time (Months) and radio buttons to select “Exclude current period, with the period shown below the button ( 01.10.2024 – 30.11.2024)” or “Include current period (01.11.2024 – 11.12.2024)”.

Far More Options for Key Users to Adapt UIs

Key users can now make far more significant changes to UIs than before. For example, they can add a button to clear all filter values in the filter bar, remove buttons such as the “Export to Excel”, and much more. Figure 13 shows the options for configuring a table for example.

Figure 13: Many more options for Key Users to adapt UIs. ALT Text: UI Adaptation is shown switched on for the application Manage Bank Hierarchies, with a popover called “Configure Table” filling half the screen, and showing 12 options such as “Enable Table Export”, “Frozen Column Count” with a field for entering the number, “Sorting”, “Columns” etc.

Automatic Update of SAP Fiori Apps Upon Change of Data

There are quite a few cases where users would appreciate seeing absolutely up-to-date data in their application, so that the data is automatically updated if changes occur in the backend. These changes could be made by other users, or by automated background processing . An example for the latter is the Traceability Results application, which is now automatically updated if a batch run has created new traceability items.

Note that this only supported by applications built with SAP Fiori elements using OData V4.

Continue Reading…

I hope you enjoyed this second part, covering SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP Fiori launchpad. Part 3 is now available, covering a large number of UX innovations in SAP SuccessFactors:

SAP User Experience Q1/2025 Update – Part 3: SAP SuccessFactors (AI, Joule and More).

Tutorial: Creating Configurable Materials (KMAT) in SAP S/4HANA

2025-02-14T08:43:43.863000+01:00

Key Transactions:

We will be using the following SAP GUI transactions in this tutorial (while Fiori is emphasized for many areas, KMAT creation and configuration often still involve these core SAP GUI transactions):

CT04 - Create/Change Characteristics: To define the attributes that describe the configurable material's variations.
CL01 - Create/Change Class: To group related characteristics into classes.
MM01 - Create Material Master: To create the Configurable Material (KMAT) master record and assign the class.
(CU41, VK11/VK12, BOM/Routing - Briefly Mentioned for Configuration): For more advanced configuration aspects, briefly mention Configuration Profiles (CU41), Pricing Conditions (VK11/VK12), and Variant BOMs/Routings.

Step 1: Define Characteristics (Transaction CT04)

Purpose: Characteristics define the specific attributes or features that can vary for your configurable material. These are the "options" or "choices" customers can select when configuring the product.

Procedure (SAP GUI - Transaction CT04):

Execute Transaction CT04: Open SAP GUI and enter transaction code CT04 in the transaction field and press Enter.
Characteristic Name:
- In the "Characteristic" field, enter a name for your characteristic. Use a naming convention (e.g., Z_COLOR, Z_SIZE, Z_ENGINE_TYPE). Start with Z or Y for custom characteristics.
- Click the "Create" button (diskette icon).
Basic Data Tab:
- Description: Enter a Description and Short Description for your characteristic (e.g., "Color of Product", "Size in Inches", "Engine Type").
- Data Type: Select the appropriate Data Type from the dropdown. Choose the data type that best represents the characteristic's values:
  - CHAR - Character Format: For text-based values (e.g., colors like "Red", "Blue", "Green").
  - NUM - Numerical Format: For numeric values (e.g., size in inches, memory capacity in GB).
  - DATE - Date Format: For date values.
  - CURR - Currency Format: For currency values.
  - UNIT - Unit Format: For quantities with units.
- Length (for Character Format): If you chose "CHAR", specify the maximum Length of the characteristic value.
Values Tab (Define Allowed Values):
- Go to the "Values" tab. This is where you define the possible values that this characteristic can take.
- Single Values: For characteristics with a predefined list of options (like "Color"), enter each allowed value in a new row under the "Value" column and provide a corresponding "Description" (e.g., "Red", "Blue", "Green").
- Interval Values (for Numeric Characteristics): For numeric characteristics where you want to allow a range of values (like "Size"), you can define intervals or specify individual allowed numeric values.
- Example (for Characteristic "Z_COLOR" - Character, Single Values):
  - Value: RED Description: Red
  - Value: BLUE Description: Blue
  - Value: GREEN Description: Green
Units of Measure Tab (for Numeric Characteristics with Units):
- If you chose "NUM" or "UNIT" data type and the characteristic has a unit of measure (e.g., "Memory Capacity" in GB), go to the "Units of Measure" tab.
- Define the Units of Measure relevant for this characteristic (e.g., "GB" for Gigabytes, "MB" for Megabytes, "Inches" for size).
Additional Tabs (Optional): Explore other tabs like "Restrictions," "Intervals," "Documentation" for more advanced characteristic settings if needed, but for basic KMAT creation, "Basic Data" and "Values" are usually the most important.
Save Characteristic: Click the "Save" button (diskette icon) to save your characteristic.

Step 2: Create Classes (Transaction CL01)

Purpose: Classes are used to group together related Characteristics. Think of a Class as a container or category for a set of attributes that describe your configurable product.

Procedure (SAP GUI - Transaction CL01):

Execute Transaction CL01: Open SAP GUI and enter transaction code CL01 and press Enter.
Class Name:
- In the "Class" field, enter a name for your class. Use a naming convention (e.g., Z_CLASS_LAPTOP_CONFIG, Z_CLASS_CAR_OPTIONS). Start with Z or Y for custom classes.
- Class Type: In the "Class Type" field, select the appropriate Class Type. For Material Classification, use 001 - Material Class. Other Class Types exist for Batches (023), Variant Configuration (300), etc., but for basic material configuration, 001 is the standard.
- Click the "Create" button (diskette icon).
Basic Data Tab:
- Description: Enter a Description and Short Description for your class (e.g., "Laptop Configuration Class", "Car Options Class").
Characteristics Tab (Assign Characteristics to the Class):
- Go to the "Characteristics" tab.
- In the table, enter the Characteristic Names that you created in Step 1 (CT04) that are relevant to this Class. Enter one characteristic name per row.
- Example: If you created characteristics Z_COLOR, Z_SIZE, Z_ENGINE_TYPE, and you want to include all of them in the class Z_CLASS_CAR_OPTIONS, you would enter these three characteristic names on separate rows in the "Characteristics" tab.
Class Type Specific Data Tab (Optional): Explore the "Class type specific data" tab if you need to adjust settings specific to the chosen Class Type (001 - Material Class). For basic KMAT creation, defaults are often sufficient.
Save Class: Click the "Save" button (diskette icon) to save your class.

Step 3: Create the Configurable Material (KMAT) - Transaction MM01

Purpose: This is where you create the actual Material Master record for your configurable product. You will use the Material Type KMAT (Configurable Material) and assign the Class you created in Step 2 to this material.

Procedure (SAP GUI - Transaction MM01):

Execute Transaction MM01: Open SAP GUI and enter transaction code MM01 and press Enter.
Material Number: Enter a Material Number for your Configurable Material. You can use internal or external number assignment based on your system configuration.
Material Type: In the "Industry sector" and "Material type" fields, select:
- Industry sector: Choose the relevant industry sector for your material (e.g., "Mechanical Engineering", "Chemicals", "Retail").
- Material type: Select KMAT - Configurable Material from the Material Type dropdown list.
Select Views: In the "Select View(s)" dialog box, choose the relevant Material Master Views you need to create for your KMAT. At a minimum, you will typically need:
- Basic Data 1
- Basic Data 2
- Classification
- MRP 1, MRP 2, MRP 3, MRP 4 (MRP views are often needed for configurable materials, especially in production scenarios)
- Sales: Sales Org. 1, Sales: Sales Org. 2, Sales: General/Plant (Sales views if you sell this material)
- Purchasing (Purchasing views if you purchase this material or components)
- Accounting 1, Accounting 2
- Storage 1, Storage 2 (Storage views if you manage stock)
- Click "Continue" (Green Check Mark).
Organizational Levels: In the "Organizational Levels" dialog box, enter the necessary organizational data (Plant, Storage Location, Sales Organization, Distribution Channel, etc.) relevant to the views you selected. Click "Continue."
Maintain Material Master Data - Basic Data Views:
- Basic Data 1 Tab: Enter basic information:
  - Material Description: Enter a descriptive name for your Configurable Material (e.g., "Configurable Laptop Model XYZ", "Customizable Car Model ABC").
  - Base Unit of Measure: Select the base unit of measure (e.g., "EA" - Each).
  - Material Group: Assign a relevant Material Group.
  - External Material Group (Optional):
  - Other fields as needed.
- Basic Data 2 Tab: Enter further basic data as required (e.g., dimensions, weight, etc.).
Classification View - Assign the Class (Crucial):
- Navigate to the "Classification" view tab.
- Class Type: The Class Type will default to 001 (Material Class) if you are creating a KMAT.
- Class: In the "Class" field, enter the Class Name you created in Step 2 (CL01) (e.g., Z_CLASS_CAR_OPTIONS). Press Enter.
- Characteristic Values (Initial): After assigning the class, the system might display the characteristics assigned to that class. You can optionally enter default values for characteristics here in the Material Master, but often you will configure the configuration behavior more dynamically using Configuration Profiles (Step 4). For now, you can leave characteristic values blank or enter default values if appropriate.
MRP Views (MRP 1, 2, 3, 4):
- Go to the MRP views (MRP 1, MRP 2, MRP 3, MRP 4 tabs).
- MRP Type: Choose an appropriate MRP Type (e.g., PD - MRP, ND - No planning).
- MRP Controller: Assign an MRP Controller.
- Procurement Type: Define the procurement type (e.g., "F - External Procurement", "E - In-house production").
- Backflush Indicator (MRP 2 Tab): If this KMAT or its components are backflushed in production (automatic goods issue upon confirmation), set the "Backflush" indicator appropriately (e.g., '1' for backflush always). This is often relevant for configurable materials used in manufacturing.
- Availability Check: Configure availability check settings in MRP views if needed.
- Planning Strategy (MRP 3 Tab): If you are using planning strategies, select a strategy (e.g., Make-to-Stock, Make-to-Order).
Sales Views (Sales Org 1, Sales Org 2, Sales General/Plant):
- If you intend to sell this Configurable Material, maintain the Sales views.
- Sales Organization Data 1 Tab: Enter Sales Organization, Distribution Channel, Sales Unit, Delivering Plant, Tax Classification, etc.
- Sales Organization Data 2 Tab: Enter Material Pricing Group, Account Assignment Group, Material Statistics Group, etc.
- Sales: General/Plant Tab: Enter Availability Check Group, Transportation Group, Loading Group, etc.
Purchasing Views (Purchasing):
- If you purchase this Configurable Material or its components, maintain the Purchasing view.
- Enter Purchasing Group, Order Unit, Purchasing Value Key, etc.
Accounting Views (Accounting 1, Accounting 2):
- Accounting 1 Tab:
  - Valuation Class: Select the appropriate Valuation Class for your KMAT. This links the material to the correct G/L accounts for inventory postings.
  - Price Control: Choose S - Standard price or V - Moving average price for Price Control, depending on your valuation strategy. For configurable materials, standard price is often used but moving average price can also be applicable.
  - Standard Price (if Price Control 'S'): Enter a Standard Price.
- Accounting 2 Tab: Maintain further accounting data if needed.
Storage Views (Storage 1, Storage 2):
- If you manage stock of this KMAT, maintain the Storage views, specifying storage conditions, shelf life data, etc.
Save Configurable Material: Click the "Save" button (diskette icon) to save your Configurable Material Master record.

Step 4: Configure the Material - Advanced Steps (Brief Overview)

Once the KMAT material master is created with its class and characteristics, you need to define how it is configured. This involves more advanced configuration, typically using:

Configuration Profile (Transaction CU41):
- Create a Configuration Profile (using transaction CU41) and assign it to your KMAT material master (usually in the Basic Data 2 view, "Configuration profile" field).
- The Configuration Profile is where you define:
  - Configuration Strategy: How the configuration process should work (e.g., Variant Configuration).
  - Selection Conditions and Procedures: Rules and dependencies between characteristics.
  - User Interface settings for configuration.
Pricing Conditions (Transactions VK11, VK12):
- Set up pricing conditions (using transactions VK11, VK12) to define prices for the base KMAT and potential price surcharges or discounts based on characteristic values selected during configuration. You might use condition types like VA00 (Material Price), VAxx (Variant conditions), etc.
Variant Bill of Materials (BOM) and Routings:
- For manufactured configurable materials, you will often need to create Variant BOMs and Variant Routings. These are BOMs and Routings that are designed to adapt based on the characteristic values selected during configuration.
- Variant BOMs are created using transaction CS01 (or similar) and often use selection conditions or dependencies to include/exclude BOM components based on configuration choices.
- Variant Routings are created using transaction CA01 (or similar) and may include operations that are only relevant for certain configurations.

SAP Fiori Context for KMAT:

Material Master Display Apps: While creation is often in SAP GUI, you can use Fiori apps like "Material Master" or "Browse Materials" to display and review the KMAT material master data, including its classification and characteristic values.
Configuration Apps (Potentially): Depending on your S/4HANA version and configuration, there might be Fiori apps for simulating material configuration or for sales order configuration. However, full KMAT creation and detailed configuration setup are still often done in SAP GUI backend transactions like CT04, CL01, CU41, etc.

Important Considerations for KMAT Creation:

Planning is Crucial: Carefully plan your characteristics, classes, and configuration logic before you start creating them in SAP. Understand the product variations you need to represent and the attributes that define them.
Naming Conventions: Use clear and consistent naming conventions for Characteristics, Classes, and the KMAT material number to improve organization and maintainability.
Data Types and Values: Choose appropriate data types and define allowed values for characteristics carefully to ensure data integrity and correct configuration options.
Testing and Validation: Thoroughly test your configurable material after creation to ensure that the configuration logic works as expected, pricing is correctly determined, and manufacturing/procurement processes function correctly for different configurations.
Authorization: Ensure users involved in creating and maintaining configurable materials have the necessary authorizations for transactions like CT04, CL01, MM01, CU41, etc.
Complexity: Configurable Materials can become complex to set up and maintain, especially for highly configurable products. Start with simpler examples and gradually increase complexity as you gain experience.

In Summary:

Creating Configurable Materials (KMAT) in SAP S/4HANA involves a structured process of defining characteristics (CT04), grouping them into classes (CL01), creating the KMAT material master (MM01), and then further configuring the material using configuration profiles, pricing, and variant BOMs/routings. While some steps might still be primarily done in SAP GUI transactions, the result is a powerful way to manage product variations and offer customizable products within your SAP system. Remember to plan carefully, test thoroughly, and follow best practices for naming and data consistency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVzhutePrr0

Tutorial: Using the SAP S/4HANA Migration Cockpit App - Step-by-Step

2025-02-14T08:46:23.328000+01:00

Purpose:

This tutorial will guide you through the process of using the SAP S/4HANA Migration Cockpit app to migrate data to your S/4HANA system. The Migration Cockpit is a powerful, license-included tool designed for efficient data migration, especially when leveraging its pre-configured migration content.

Key Benefits of SAP Migration Cockpit:

S/4HANA Native App: Designed specifically for S/4HANA, replacing the older LTMC (Legacy Transfer Migration Cockpit) in S/4HANA OP (On-Premise) from version 2020 onwards. It is also the standard for S/4HANA Cloud.
Pre-configured Migration Content: Offers ready-to-use migration objects for various SAP business objects (e.g., Customers, Vendors, Materials, Business Partners, Financial Accounting data).
Automated Mapping: Provides pre-defined mapping between source data and target S/4HANA structures, significantly reducing manual mapping efforts.
Guided Migration Process: Provides a step-by-step approach, simplifying the migration workflow.
Data Validation and Simulation: Includes built-in data validation checks and simulation runs to identify potential issues before actual data migration.
License Included: Part of the standard S/4HANA license, no additional licensing cost.
Reduced Development Effort: Leveraging pre-configured content eliminates the need to build custom migration tools from scratch for many common migration scenarios.

Prerequisites:

SAP S/4HANA System Access: You need access to your SAP S/4HANA system (On-Premise or Cloud).
SAP Fiori Launchpad Access: Access to the SAP Fiori Launchpad to use the Migration Cockpit app.
Authorization: You need to have a user role assigned that grants you authorization to use the Migration Cockpit app and related data migration authorizations. Typically, roles related to "Data Migration" or "Business Configuration" are required.
Source Data: Your source data needs to be prepared in a supported format (e.g., CSV, XML, staging tables) based on the requirements of the chosen migration objects.

Step-by-Step Procedure:

Step 1: Access the Migration Cockpit Fiori App

Log in to SAP Fiori Launchpad: Open your web browser and navigate to your SAP S/4HANA Fiori Launchpad URL.
Log in: Enter your SAP User ID and Password.
Find the "Migration Cockpit" App:
- Use the Fiori Launchpad search bar (usually at the top) and enter "Migration Cockpit".
- Click on the tile named "Migration Cockpit" to open the application.
(If you cannot find the app, ensure you have the necessary roles and authorizations assigned to your user. Contact your system administrator if needed.)

Step 2: Create a Migration Project

A Migration Project is a container to organize your migration activities.

"Create" Button: In the Migration Cockpit app, click on the "Create" button to create a new migration project.
Project Details: In the "Create Project" dialog box:
- Project Name: Enter a meaningful name for your migration project (e.g., "Customer Master Migration - Go-Live", "Material Data Load - Initial Setup"). Choose a name that clearly indicates the scope of the migration.
- Description (Optional): Enter a brief description of the project.
- Mass Transfer ID (Automatically Generated): The system will automatically generate a Mass Transfer ID. This is a technical identifier for the project.
- Click "Create".
Project Created: The system will create the migration project, and you will be taken to the project overview screen.

Step 3: Select Migration Objects

Migration Objects are pre-defined templates for migrating specific types of data (e.g., Business Partner, Material, Customer, etc.).

"Migration Objects" Tile: In your Migration Project overview, you will see a tile labeled "Migration Objects". Click on this tile to select the migration objects.
Browse Migration Objects: The system will display a list of available Migration Objects, categorized by area (e.g., Business Partner, Finance, Logistics, Product).
- Search and Filter: Use the search bar or filters to find the specific Migration Objects you need for your data migration. For example, search for "Customer", "Vendor", "Material", "G/L Account", etc.
- Select Objects: Select the checkbox next to each Migration Object you want to include in your project.
"OK" or "Add Objects" Button: Once you have selected all necessary Migration Objects, click "OK" or a button like "Add Objects to Project" to add them to your migration project.
Migration Objects Added to Project: The selected Migration Objects will now be listed within your Migration Project overview.

Step 4: Download Migration Template (for Selected Object)

For each Migration Object you've added, you need to download the migration template. This template is typically a Microsoft Excel file (XLSX) or CSV file with predefined columns that correspond to the target fields in SAP S/4HANA.

Select Migration Object: In your project overview, click on the Migration Object for which you want to download the template (e.g., "Business Partner").
"Download File Template" Button: On the Migration Object details screen, look for and click the "Download File Template" button.
Choose Template Type (if prompted): You might be prompted to choose between different template types (e.g., XLSX, CSV). Select the desired format (XLSX is generally recommended for ease of use).
Save Template File: Save the downloaded template file (e.g., Excel file) to your local computer.

Step 5: Populate the Migration Template with Source Data

Open the Template File: Open the downloaded template file (e.g., Excel file) using Microsoft Excel or a compatible spreadsheet application.
Understand Template Structure: Review the structure of the template. It will typically have:
- Worksheets: Multiple worksheets might exist for different parts of the Migration Object (e.g., one for general data, one for addresses, one for bank details for Business Partner).
- Columns: Each column header in the worksheet represents a field in the target SAP S/4HANA data structure. Pay close attention to the column headers and instructions in the template. Some columns might be mandatory, some optional. Data types and formats might be specified (e.g., date format, numeric format). Read any "Instructions" or "Information" tabs in the template.
Populate with Source Data: Carefully copy or enter your source data into the corresponding columns of the template.
- Data Transformation (if needed): You might need to perform data transformation or cleansing in your source data or within the template to ensure it matches the expected format and values in SAP S/4HANA. For example, date format conversions, value mapping (e.g., mapping source country codes to SAP country codes), etc.
- Mandatory Fields: Ensure you provide data for all mandatory fields (usually indicated in the template or documentation).
- Data Validation: As you populate the data, consider performing basic data validation to catch errors early (e.g., data type checks, format checks, value range checks).
Save the Populated Template: Save the populated template file.

Step 6: Upload the Data to the Migration Cockpit

Go back to Migration Cockpit App: Return to the "Migration Cockpit" Fiori app and your Migration Project and selected Migration Object.
"Upload File" Button: On the Migration Object details screen, look for and click the "Upload File" button (or a similar button for uploading data).
Select Data File: In the "Upload File" dialog box, browse to and select the populated template file (e.g., Excel file) from your local computer.
Upload and Parsing: Click "Upload" or "Open". The Migration Cockpit will upload the file and start parsing the data from the file. You will see progress indicators.
Data Validation: The Migration Cockpit performs automatic data validation checks based on the pre-defined rules for the Migration Object.
Review Validation Results: After parsing and validation, the app will display the validation results.
- Successes: Records that passed validation without errors.
- Errors: Records that failed validation and need correction.
- Warnings: Records with potential issues that might require review (but may still be processed).
- Download Error Log (if errors exist): If there are errors, download the error log file. This log file will provide details about the errors encountered for each record.
Correct Data Errors (if any):
- Analyze Error Log: Open the error log file and carefully analyze the error messages. They will typically indicate which fields have errors and what the issues are (e.g., incorrect data type, invalid value, missing mandatory field).
- Correct Data in Template: Go back to your populated template file, locate the records with errors (usually identified by record number/row number in the error log), and correct the data in the template based on the error messages.
- Re-upload Corrected File: After correcting the data, save the corrected template file and re-upload the corrected file to the Migration Cockpit (repeat Step 6). Repeat this process of error analysis, correction, and re-upload until you have resolved all critical errors and ideally warnings as well.

Step 7: Simulate Migration (Highly Recommended)

Before performing the actual data migration, it's strongly recommended to run a Simulation. This simulates the data migration process without actually creating or changing data in your productive SAP S/4HANA system. It helps you identify potential issues that might not be caught by data validation alone.

"Simulate" Button: On the Migration Object details screen, click the "Simulate" button (or a similar button for simulation).
Simulation Run: The Migration Cockpit will perform a simulation run using your uploaded data and the selected Migration Object. This might take some time depending on the data volume and object complexity.
Review Simulation Results: After the simulation completes, review the simulation results.
- Successes: Records that would be successfully migrated in a real run.
- Errors (Simulation Errors): Simulation might identify further errors that were not caught in the initial validation. These errors must be addressed before the actual migration.
- Warnings (Simulation Warnings): Review warnings. They might indicate potential data quality issues or areas for improvement.
- Download Simulation Log (if errors or warnings): If there are simulation errors or warnings, download the simulation log to get details and analyze the issues.
Correct Data/Configuration (if needed): If the simulation reveals errors, you will need to:
- Analyze Simulation Errors: Analyze the simulation error log.
- Correct Data in Template OR Configuration: The errors might be due to data issues in your template that need correction (repeat Step 6 error correction process). Or, in more complex cases, the simulation might highlight configuration gaps or issues in your SAP S/4HANA system that need to be addressed by your SAP configuration team.
- Re-simulate: After making corrections, re-simulate the migration to confirm the issues are resolved.

Step 8: Migrate Data (Execute Migration)

Once you have successfully simulated the migration and resolved any errors, you can proceed with the actual data migration (Execute Migration). This step will create or update data in your SAP S/4HANA system.

"Migrate" Button (or "Execute Migration"): On the Migration Object details screen, click the "Migrate" button (or a similar button like "Execute Migration"). Be absolutely sure you are ready to migrate real data before clicking this button!
Confirmation Prompt: The system might display a confirmation prompt asking if you are sure you want to proceed with the migration. Confirm only if you are ready.
Data Migration Run: The Migration Cockpit will execute the data migration process. This might take a significant amount of time depending on the volume of data and the complexity of the Migration Objects. You will see progress indicators.
Migration Results: After the migration run completes, review the migration results.
- Successes: Records that were successfully migrated to SAP S/4HANA.
- Errors (Migration Errors): If there are any errors during the migration run, the app will report them. Migration errors need immediate attention.
- Warnings (Migration Warnings): Review warnings.
Download Migration Log (if errors or for audit): Download the migration log file. This log contains detailed information about the migration run, including successes, errors, warnings, and processing steps. Keep this log for audit purposes and error analysis.
Handle Migration Errors (if any):
- Analyze Migration Error Log: If there are migration errors, download and analyze the error log file.
- Correct Data or Configuration: Identify the root cause of the errors. This might require data correction in your template, or it could indicate configuration issues in SAP S/4HANA that need to be addressed by your SAP configuration team.
- Re-migrate (Corrected Data): After correcting the issues, you might need to re-upload corrected data (if data errors) and re-run the migration process for the failed records. The Migration Cockpit often allows you to re-migrate only the failed records, rather than re-migrating the entire file.

Step 9: Post-Migration Activities (Data Validation and Reconciliation)

After the Migration Cockpit reports successful migration, it's essential to perform post-migration data validation and reconciliation to ensure data accuracy and completeness in your SAP S/4HANA system.

Data Validation: Verify that the migrated data is correctly created or updated in SAP S/4HANA as expected.
- Sample Checks: Perform sample checks in SAP S/4HANA using relevant Fiori apps or SAP GUI transactions to review migrated data (e.g., display Business Partners, Materials, Customers, etc.).
- Reporting: Run reports in SAP S/4HANA to compare data before and after migration to verify data completeness and accuracy.
- Business User Verification: Involve business users to review migrated data in their respective areas to ensure it meets their requirements.
Data Reconciliation: Reconcile the migrated data against your source data to ensure that all intended data has been migrated and that there are no data losses or inconsistencies.
Document Migration Results: Document the entire migration process, including:
- Migration Project Name and Mass Transfer ID.
- Migration Objects used.
- Source data files and templates.
- Validation and simulation results.
- Migration execution logs.
- Data validation and reconciliation results.
- Any issues encountered and their resolutions.

Summary:

The SAP S/4HANA Migration Cockpit app is a powerful and efficient tool for data migration, especially for standard business objects. By following these steps – creating a project, selecting migration objects, preparing data templates, uploading, validating, simulating, migrating, and verifying – you can effectively migrate data to your S/4HANA system using the pre-configured content and guided process provided by the Migration Cockpit. Remember to pay close attention to data quality, validation results, and error handling throughout the migration process.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mickaelquesnot_gusap-s4-hanamigration-cockpit-app-step-activity-7292063808523567104-LPfA?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAJPDL8BjpJe3thZB6t04k7Z2hRVHhboAec

#SAP

The Ultimate Guide to SAPUI5 Personalization Engine: Fixing Hidden Issues

2025-02-16T12:30:00.035000+01:00

Hello, fellow enthusiasts!

Today, I’m excited to dive into the Personalization Engine and its role in enhancing personalization settings in SAPUI5 Freestyle apps—especially when Smart Controls aren’t an option. The sap.m.p13n.Engine library provides a powerful way to achieve the same level of flexibility and user experience as a Smart Table with built-in personalization.

While there are several blogs covering its implementation, many tend to overlook critical details that can cause unexpected issues in certain scenarios. That’s exactly where this blog comes in—to bridge those gaps and help you fully harness the potential of this control.

Let’s get started! 🚀

Importance of Maintaining IDs in the Personalization Engine

First and foremost, it’s essential to assign unique IDs to all relevant controls—from the view or fragment to the table where personalization is applied, including the personalization control itself.

This is crucial because the Personalization Engine is part of SAPUI5 Flexibility Services, which relies on these IDs to persist user-specific changes. Without proper IDs, you may run into unexpected issues related to personalization storage and retrieval like below

In my case, I needed a personalization settings button in my view. To ensure everything functioned correctly, I:

Defined the view ID in the manifest.json

Assigned an ID to the personalization control within the view

<vm:VariantManagement id="p13nVm" for="TableId"/>

Set an ID for the associated table

<Table id="TableId" visible="true" growing="true" growingThreshold="20" 
   mode="SingleSelectLeft" sticky="ColumnHeaders,HeaderToolbar" 
   selectionChange="onSelectionChange" 
   popinLayout="Block" inset="false" items="{ path:'oModel>/oData' }" 
   updateStarted="onUpdateStarted" updateFinished="onUpdateFinished" 
   autoPopinMode="true" fixedLayout="Strict">

For a deeper understanding of why IDs matter in the Personalization Engine, check out these helpful resources:

Including Dependent Libraries for the Personalization Engine

To ensure the Personalization Engine functions correctly, you must include the necessary dependencies in your manifest.json and/or XML file.

Specifically, make sure to add the following library:

sap.ui.fl – SAPUI5 Flexibility Library

Here’s an example of how to include the required namespaces in an XML view:

<core:FragmentDefinition xmlns:mvc="sap.ui.core.mvc" displayBlock="true" 
    xmlns="sap.m" 
    xmlns:l="sap.ui.layout" 
    xmlns:f="sap.ui.layout.form"
    xmlns:core="sap.ui.core" 
    xmlns:p13n="sap.m.p13n" 
    xmlns:plugins="sap.m.plugins"
    xmlns:vm="sap.ui.fl.variants" 
    xmlns:sap.ui.fl="sap.ui.fl">

Here’s an example of how to include the required libraries in an manifest.json file:

Changing the Selection Mode in the Personalization Dialog

By default, the Personalization Engine Dialog in SAPUI5 sets the selection panel mode to "ClearAll". This means that users can only deselect all columns at once. Once fully deselected, the selection is disabled, and users must manually reselect each column one by one.

To improve the user experience, you can modify this behavior and enable a "SelectAll" mode, allowing users to select and deselect all columns with a single action.

How to Change the Selection Mode ?

To update the selection mode from "ClearAll" to "SelectAll", modify the open dialog event in your personalization settings. Here’s how you can do it:

openPersoDialog: function(aPanels, oContext) {
    var oTable = oContext.getView().byId("TableId");    
    Engine.getInstance().show(oTable, ["Columns", 
            "Sorter","Groups"]).then(function(oPopup) {
        var oContent = oPopup.getContent();
        for (var i in oContent) {
            if (oContent[i].getCurrentViewKey() === "Columns") {
            
          oContent[i].getCurrentViewContent().setMultiSelectMode("SelectAll");
            }
        }
    });
}

How This Works

In my personalization dialog, I have three panels:

Column Selection
Sorting
Grouping

To modify the selection behavior, I retrieve the panel where CurrentViewKey is "Columns" and update the multiSelectMode property to "SelectAll". This ensures that users can now select or deselect all columns in one click, improving usability.

Hope this helps enhance your understanding of the Personalization Engine! 😊

Happy Learning!

Best Regards,

Imtiaz N

SAP User Experience Q1/2025 Update – Part 3: SAP SuccessFactors (AI, Joule and More)

2025-02-18T13:59:06.192000+01:00

This third post in my series gives an overview of user experience innovations in SAP SuccessFactors. It covers Joule and many AI-based UX innovations along with enhanced user experiences. By following the career of Emma, who starts by applying for a job and then grows within the company, you can see how Generative AI embedded in business applications helps business users work more effectively, giving them unprecedented insights and convenience.

Before reading this, do read the first blog post introducing the series and providing general information about Joule and central entry points and services, the AI patterns presented here, along with links to all the published parts of this blog post series:

SAP User Experience Q1/2025 Update – Part 1: Many New Innovations Available (AI, Joule and More).

SAP SuccessFactors

The 2H2024 release comes with a large number of UX innovations across the whole portfolio, including more than 30 new AI capabilities and over 15 new Joule capabilities.

In the following sections, I’ll summarize the main highlights by following the career of Emma, and showing how the new AI-powered UX innovations help:

Emma to find the right job which match her skills when applying to join the company.
Her manager and HR colleagues to set up onboarding for her, i.e. writing welcome message, supported by the AI writing assistant, and defining required activities.
Emma and her manager to manage day-to-day requests and approvals directly in Microsoft Teams, such as requesting or approving time off, approving time sheets. Both benefit from natural language search in Microsoft Teams.
Emma to learn new skills with the new learning experience.
Managers to formulate new assignments to extend their teams.
Emma to advance further in her career by recommending potential new roles which build on her current skills, as well as giving her career insights about which skill she needs to grow to get to her chosen new role.
Her manager to give her well-formulated, unbiased and actionable feedback, supported by the AI writing assistant. This helps Emma grow in her job.
Her manager to get an overview of Emma’s compensation, with an AI-generated summary, including information about where she stands compared to others.

To get the complete picture of all the new SuccessFactors innovations, have a look at these two overviews, plus this must-see video summarizing the AI innovations:

In case you haven’t already seen the overview of UX innovations introduced with the 1H2024 release, have a look at my blog post from last July:

SAP UX Latest 2024 Innovations in Public Cloud: Joule, GenAI and More.

AI Helping Candidates Find the Right Job Based on their Skills

Emma is looking for a new job in a different company and would like to quickly identify those jobs which best match her skills. In the past this was a painstaking task, scanning all the promising-sounding jobs and trying to work out which fitted best. But Emma is applying to a company using SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, and wow: all she has to do is upload her resume, and AI extracts the skills and shows the open roles which best match her skills. Even better, the AI-assisted job skills feature provides a view of the specific skills required for each role, giving candidates insight into additional opportunities. These skills, generated directly from job descriptions, are displayed on the job details page for easy reference, as you can see in Figure 1. This an example of the Guiding and Recommending AI pattern.

Figure 1: AI-assisted skills-matching for candidates applying for jobs using SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting. ALT Text: The image shows two screenshots. On the left a Skills Matching screen with a popover for uploading a resume. Below the field with the filename of the uploaded resume, a green success message reads “Resume checked”. Below that 40 skills are listed in six rows, one button per skill. The popover has two action buttons: “View Jobs” and “Cancel”. The screen on the right shows the list of recommended jobs, with filters “My Skills”, “USA” and “California” selected: five jobs are listed, all with an indicator “Skills Matched”.

AI-Assisted Onboarding of New Hires

Let us now assume that Emma has been hired for the new job. (A reminder here: her manager would have been able to use AI-assistance in generating the interview questions, as I highlighted in my blog post from July 2024.)

Her manager can now use the AI copilot Joule to accelerate task completion and effectively manage tasks. Joule allows hiring managers and HR colleagues to view and initiate pending tasks, such as data review, forms, and e-signatures. It also offers a conversational way for new hires to complete activities and receive recommendations and guidance during onboarding. Figure 2 shows an example.

Hiring managers and HR teams can leverage AI-assisted writing for welcome and farewell messages, ensuring good communication tone and clarity, and avoiding unconscious bias (I’ll tell you more about the writing assistant in the section on performance feedback below), as you can see in Figure X. (An example of the Creating Proposals AI pattern).

A New Hire Onboarding guided tour, enabled by SAP Companion, is now available from the Open Help icon in the Onboarding Checklist. The guided tour assists first time or unfamiliar users with navigating through their onboarding tasks, helping improve completion rates and reduce time to hire. You can see an example in Figure 2, or watch it in action here:

Video: Enhancements to New Hire Onboarding Journey (1:03 min.)

Figure 2: AI-assisted onboarding in SAP SuccessFactors. ALT Text: Three screenshots are shown: First from Joule, where the user asked “Show my pending tasks for onboarding”, and received three tasks (New Hire Data Review, Complete Section 2 of Form 1-9, Final Review), each with a “Select” button. The user selected “New Hire Data Review” and received a list of three new hires, with a “View More” link. Second a “Write Welcome Message” screen where an initial text is visible along with a drop-down list with entries “Enhance Writing”, “Change Tone” (with sub-entries “Make More Professional; Personable; Constructive”, “Make Shorter”, “Make Longer”, “Make Bulleted List” and “Translate”. Third, “Your Onboarding Checklist” showing a list of tasks, with “Onboarding Data Collection” selected and showing a form on the right for entering personal data.

Find out more here:

2H 2024: AI-Driven Innovations to Streamline Productivity in SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding

SAP SuccessFactors Requests and Approvals in Microsoft Teams

Emma uses Microsoft Teams for collaborating with colleagues at work, so spends quite a lot of time in that environment. With the SAP SuccessFactors 2H2024 release, she can now, directly in Microsoft Teams:

Submit time-off requests;
View upcoming absences;
Sync holidays maintained in SAP SuccessFactors to her calendar in Microsoft Teams.

Similarly, her manager can

approve time-off requests directly in Microsoft Teams;
delegate performance appraisals to colleagues to help manage responsibilities on each other’s behalf.

All employees can use the improved natural language natural-language search function now available in Microsoft Teams, which makes it easy to find tasks and information and initiate action with simple language commands.

Figure 3: Approve SAP SuccessFactors time sheet and change of position in Microsoft Teams. ALT Text: A screenshot of Microsoft Teams with a card listing 12 actions in four rows: Manage My Data, Manage My Team, Request Feedback, Give Feedback, Clock My Time, View My Pay Statement, Create Activity, Delegate My Workflow, Request Time Off, Sync Absences to Calendar, Sync Holidays to Calendar, Recognize. Below that a card showing an approved time sheet for a week. At the bottom a card “Change Position” with the status in red “Approval Pending”. The card contains information about the position, dates effective on and submitted on as well as submitted by, and provides “Approve” and “Approve with Comments” buttons.

AI-Assisted Learning

In this release AI tools help learning administrators maintain their organization’s skills-based learning attributes.

For Emma, this means that she gets AI-based recommendations for learnings that suit her individual profile, as well as mandatory trainings. We have enhanced the SAP SuccessFactors mobile app so that Emma can download learning content, as well as receiving these recommendations and information about new and required learnings – as shown in Figure 4. This is also an example of the Guiding and Recommending AI pattern.

Figure 4: Enhanced learning experience with the SAP SuccessFactors mobile app. ALT Text: The image shows three mobile phone examples of Learning – New Learning Experience. On the left “My Downloads” showing a card with “Employee health and wellness …” due on 11/18/24, with a “Launch Content” button. Below that an illustrated image with text “Your device is offline. You can still make progress on any downloaded content…” In the middle a screen showing a new offering, with a “Learn More” button, and a section “Required learning” showing one card and a “View All (7)” link. On the right a section “Latest Bookmarks” with a “Topic of the Month” card, and a section “Suggested for Me” and a “View All (12)” link, showing a card “Standards of Ethical Conduct”.

Emma’s manager benefits from the initial release of a new refreshed manager view which helps to quickly identify and address action items, such as outstanding learning activities that need to be completed.

This blog post gives an overview of additional new enhancements in usability of SAP SuccessFactors Learning:

SAP SuccessFactors Learning: What’s New in the 2H 2024 Release.

AI-Assisted Assignment Creation

Managers looking to attract employees to internal assignments can now use AI-assisted assignment creation to make their lives easier: just write a descriptive sentence or two describing the assignment you want to create, and generate a proposal assignment in SAP SuccessFactors (Figure 5). This is another example of the Creating Proposals AI pattern.

Figure 5: AI-assisted assignment creation in SAP SuccessFactors. ALT Text: a screenshot “Create Assignment” with “Hi, Daniela Olivera” in the middle, above a label “Tell us what you want to create:” above a text entry field containing “We are initiating a six-months long machine learning project and are in search of 2 highly skilled software engineer.”, next to a “Generate” button containing the AI icon. Below that a label “Other ways to create an assignment”, above two wide selection panels “Create from Scratch” and “Copy from Existing Assignments”.

Should a manager want to fill a new position, rather than a short-term assignment, they can use the AI-assisted generation of job descriptions which was introduced a year ago (see my February 2024 blog post )

AI-Assisted Role Recommendations and Career Insights

After a few years at the company, Emma is confident that she can grow into a more demanding role. But which ones make sense for her? SAP SuccessFactors now provides AI assistance by making recommendations for roles which she could well grow into based on her current skills. Figure 6 shows what this looks like, with the Top Matches shown in a card carousel.

Figure 6: AI-Assisted Role Recommendations with SAP SuccessFactors Career and Talent Development. ALT Text: Screenshot of “Explore Career Options” showing a row of selectable cards with illustrations for “Top Matches”, another row for “Next Career Move” and the top half of a third row “Trending Roles”. The user’s mouse pointer is over the “Sustainable Innovation Lead” card.

She decides to look at the role Sustainable Innovation Lead. When selecting it, she is taken to an overview of the role. There she sees which skills and attributes she already has for the role, along with those which she needs to work on to improve in order to take on the role (Figure 7).

Figure 7: The role overview with SAP SuccessFactors Career and Talent Development. ALT Text: Screenshot of Growth Portfolio displaying the role “Sustainable Innovation Lead”. The top of the screen has a section “About This Role” with one line of text. Below that a section “Skills and Attributes to Improve” showing a row of four cards showing a horizontal line chart for proficiency on a scale of 0 to 5, with an indicator showing the necessary skill level for the role, and the chart showing the user’s current skill level. Below that a section “Skills and Attributes You Have” showing a similar row of four cards. The user’s mouse pointer is over the button “Add as Target Role”.

After adding this a target role, she would like to find out more about how she can best go about improving the skills which have been mentioned as needing improvement. Here SAP SuccessFactors is again at hand with AI-assistance. As you can see in Figure 8, after the previous step of adding the role as a target role she is given the option to generate AI-powered career insights. She chooses to do that, and gets a comprehensive overview of where she currently stands along with suggestions for how to improve the skills which she needs to work on.

Figure 8: AI-Assisted Career Insights with SAP SuccessFactors Career and Talent Development. ALT Text: The image shows a screenshot of the top of the Growth Portfolio app showing “Sustainable Innovation Lead” with the user’s mouse over the “Generate” button, containing the AI icon. An arrow from there points to the screenshot of the whole page below, where two columns of long text are shown under the heading “Boost your career with AI-powered insights!”. The long text has sections called “Summary”, “Suggestions for Improvement”, with sub-sections “Agile Methodology”, “Delivering High Quality Work” and “Creating and Maintaining Networks”.

The above three examples showcased the Creating Proposals as well as the Summarizing AI patterns.

AI-Assisted Performance Feedback

Emma and her colleagues appreciate getting timely and actionable feedback on their work, hearing what went well but also what could be improved. Since not every manager is a naturally talented writer, we introduced the AI writing assistant with the 1H2024 release (see my July blog post) (An example of the Creating Proposals AI pattern). This has now been improved further with the introduction of the Text Analyzer, which checks texts for any unconscious biases and other safety attributes (Figure 9). This helps all managers, because employees are far more likely to follow actionable feedback that they can relate to.

Figure 9: The new Text Analyzer in the AI writing assistant in SAP SuccessFactors. ALT Text: The screenshot on the left shows the drop-down of the writing assistant with the entry “Text Analyzer” in focus. A large arrow points from there to the screenshot on the right showing a popover “Use AI capabilities” with two sections: “Sentence with issue”, containing “the background noise was very annoying and distracted from what was otherwise a quality presentation”, with “very annoying” in red, and “Suggested text”, containing “the background noise was disruptive and distracted from what was otherwise a quality presentation”. The paragraph below that reads “The term “very annoying” is considered impolite and unprofessional. It can be perceived as disrespectful and may not be appropriate in a professional context”.

Another new feature are the contextual actions which are proposed in areas like spot awards and 360 review forms with some pre-defined frequently used comments across all industries – for example the option to generate a text for “Produces accurate and timely written reports”.

Emma recently received a 360-degree review, which contained a lot of lengthy and complex feedback. Fortunately, she was able to use the new AI-assisted 360-degree review capability introduced with the 2H2024 release. This gave her actionable insights and a feedback summary that highlighted her strengths and areas for improvement. Also, she received insightful comments and suggested improvements based on reviewer inputs and ratings on skills, goals, and competencies. This uses both the Summarizing and Creating Proposals AI patterns.

AI-Assisted Employee Compensation Insights

When it’s time for the salary round, the system gives managers comprehensive data on their employees’ overall compensation, that they have had to interpret themselves. But no longer! With AI assistance, SAP SuccessFactors provides compensation insights, summarizing the overall situation for a given employee and providing pertinent insights regarding compensation history, one-off payments, job progression, pay band position and more (Figure 10). As you probably guessed, this is an example of the Summarizing AI pattern.

Figure 10: AI-assisted compensation insights in SAP SuccessFactors. ALT Text: A screenshot of Compensation Information with a popover “Compensation Insights” containing a Summary section, with seven lines of text, followed by an “Insights” section with four numbered sub-sections containing further details: (1) Compensation History (2) One-Off Payments (3) Job Progression (4) Pay Band Position.

Continued soon…

I hope you enjoyed this third part, covering SAP SuccessFactors – and showing concrete examples of how Generative AI embedded in business applications helps business users work more effectively, giving them unprecedented insights and convenience.

I will post part four later this week, covering latest UX innovations in SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass, i.e. applications for managing your spend (procurement) and external workforce.

Part 1 of the series lists all the parts, and links to those parts that have already been published:

SAP User Experience Q1/2025 Update – Part 1: Many New Innovations Available (AI, Joule and More).

For general information on design at SAP and SAP Fiori, check out:

SAP Community - SAP Fiori

Fiori Apps in Minutes using RAP framework/generator

Layouts Básicos e Floorplans do SAP Fiori

SAP UI5 Frontend Application - Debug using AI Assistance in Chrome DevTools

Enhancing Coding Experience with AI Assistance in Chrome DevTools

Sources TabYou just have to right-click on the element and click on “Ask AI”.

Console Errors:

Network Tab - Ask AI

Final Words

Building Dynamic Pop Ups using oDataV4 RAP Service in Fiori applications

Should we use promises ?

Introduction

Introduction to Asynchrony and Promises in JS

Why is it widely used in Fiori?

What are the best practices and things to avoid?

Conclusion

Simplify how users find and share data: new AI features in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (2502)

Filter business data using natural language

Summarize object pages with the help of AI

Personalize your SAP S/4HANA My Home page with Joule

“How can I try this out?”

A note on data protection in AI solutions from SAP

Product Updates for SAP Build Code – January 2025 Edition

SAP Fiori launchpad: Hiding empty spaces and pages

Overview

Benefits

Restriction

How to enable this feature?

Feature release outlook

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

SAP BTP ABAP environment

SAP Integrated Business Planning

Upload of a custom logo to be displayed in an SAP Fiori launchpad shell

Feature release outlook

SAP Fiori for Android – A Year in Review

New Figma Design Kit for SAP Fiori for Android

Highlights:

New Components & Patterns in the Design System

Feedback and Progress Indicators

Illustrated Message

Multi-Message Handling

Skeleton Loading

Native File Viewer

Multiple enhancements for our components and patterns

Updates for BTP SDK for Android

New Mobile Design System Services for SAP Customers and Partners

SAP Fiori for Android & iOS Release Rollouts

UX Feedback Session for Mobile Apps

Publications

Google i/O

DevToberfest 2024

What’s Next

CDS Custom entities with Association

SAP Fiori for Android and iOS 24.12 – New Enhancements and Branching for Design Kits

New Design Kits on Figma Community

Introducing Branching Approach in Design Kit

New in SAP Fiori for Android 24.12

Avatars

Document Scanner

Loading State Button

Object Cell

Section Header/Footer

Chip Form Cell

Attachment Form Cell

Date and Range Picker

New in SAP Fiori for iOS 24.12

Avatar/Avatar Group

Document Scanner

Object Cell

Form Cells

Rating Control

Step Progress Indicator

Multi-Message Handling

Resources

Design Guidelines

Design Kits for Figma

SAP Fiori Innovation Day in Silicon Valley highlighted how AI makes app development easier

SAP User Experience Q1/2025 Update – Part 1: Many New Innovations Available (AI, Joule and More)

Joule User Experience Innovations

Joule Available on Mobile

Sources Tab

You just have to right-click on the element and click on “Ask AI”.