1.3 Types of SAP Fiori Apps
Whether you want to create or track purchase orders, keep an eye on new business opportunities, or simply display your invoices, SAP Fiori apps help you easily handle business tasks. As of the writing of this book (December 2016), there three types of applications that form the SAP Fiori portfolio: transactional, fact sheet, and analytical apps. Before we jump into the details of each of these app types, we’ll illustrate the SAP Fiori journey through individual app developments (see Figure 1.21).
Figure 1.21 SAP Fiori Timeline
It all started in May 2013 (during the SAP SAPPHIRE event). That was when SAP released the first 25 SAP Fiori apps; they were transactional apps that focused on self-service scenarios, Employee Self-Service (ESS) and Manager Self-Service (MSS). From there, SAP began rapidly developing new apps, and in November 2013, SAP introduced two new app types: fact sheet and analytical apps. SAP then continued to expand the scope of apps, from SAP ERP to any database to SAP HANA databases. In May 2014, SAP introduced SAP Fiori apps for different LOBs and industries.
Table 1.6 shows the product shipments, with the release dates and the number of apps SAP delivered during that time. You can see that the SAP Fiori team is releasing more and more apps every quarter.
| Shipments | Release Month | No. of Apps (Cumulative) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | May 2013 | 25 |
| 2 | Nov. 2013 | 226 |
| 3 | Feb. 2014 | 236 |
| 4 | May 2014 | 325 |
| 5 | July 2014 | 383 |
| 6 | Oct. 2014 | 484 |
| 7 | Jan. 2015 | 495 |
| 8 | Dec. 2016 | 1,139 |
Table 1.6 SAP Fiori Shipments
As of December 2016, SAP had released 7,671 SAP Fiori apps in total. Table 1.7 shows a breakdown of the SAP Fiori apps by app type. Out of 7,671 apps, 1,139 apps are SAP Fiori apps, and the remaining six thousand plus apps are standard SAP GUI transactions; most of the apps require SAP S/4HANA.
| App Types | No. of Apps |
|---|---|
| Transactional | 618 |
| Fact sheet | 176 |
| Analytical | 345 |
| Total | 1,139 |
Table 1.7 SAP Fiori Wave 8
As SAP Fiori apps continued to be developed, new business requirements arose. Soon, businesses were looking for personalized key performance indicators (KPIs) based on user roles. To address this, SAP developed SAP Fiori apps for different roles—for example, cash managers, transportation managers, marketing executives, MRP controllers, and so on.
This further enhanced SAP’s UX strategy and SAP Fiori’s customizability. For example, transportation managers could now view transportation costs for the year to date or view the average percentage utilization of weight or volume by transportation orders created to date. Similarly, a marketing manager role enabled marketing managers to plan their yearly budgets using the My Marketing Budget app, and provided them with all initiatives ready for release via the Release Campaigns app.
Table 1.8 shows an overview of the different SAP Fiori user roles across industries and LOBs.
| Industries | Cross-LOB |
|---|---|
Retail
|
|
Oil and gas
|
|
Insurance
|
|
Higher education
|
|
Public sector
|
|
Banking
|
Table 1.8 SAP Fiori User Roles for Industries and LOBs
This historical overview provides an outlook of what we can expect for future development trends for SAP Fiori apps. The next three sections will explore the three types of apps.
1.3.1 Transactional Apps
Transactional apps enable users to perform transactional activities such as creating, changing, or approving. These activities are accomplished with guided navigation. Figure 1.22 shows the high-level system landscape for transactional apps.
Figure 1.22 Transactional Apps Architecture
When a user launches a transactional app, the launch request is sent from the client/browser to the ABAP front-end server. Communication between the client and the ABAP front-end server happens via OData HTTP/HTTPS protocols.
The ABAP front-end server contains the UI layers, which house the following components:
-
Product-specific UI components
- Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Supply Chain Management (SCM)
- And more
-
Infrastructure components
- Central UI components
- SAPUI5 control library
- SAP Fiori launchpad
- SAP Gateway with OData enablement
Front-end components from the ABAP front-end server connect to the business logic in the ABAP back-end server through a trusted RFC connection. The underlying database for a transactional app can be any database or an SAP HANA database. SAP recommends SAP HANA for the best performance.
In this book, we’ll discuss the implementation of transactional apps in Chapter 4 and the creation/extension process in Chapter 9.
1.3.2 Fact Sheet Apps
Fact sheet apps enable users to view essential contextual information or a 360-degree view of specific central objects used in their business operations. You can call fact sheet apps from the search results displayed in SAP Fiori launchpad, from other fact sheets, or from transactional and analytical apps. For example, users can drilldown from a fact sheet app to a related business partner or master data record. Figure 1.23 shows the high-level system landscape for fact sheet apps.
When a user launches a fact sheet app, the launch request is sent from the client/browser to SAP Web Dispatcher (reverse proxy). Communication between the client and SAP Web Dispatcher occurs via OData HTTP/HTTPS protocols. SAP Web Dispatcher sends INA search protocol requests to the search models in the ABAP back-end server.
The ABAP front-end contains product-specific UI components and infrastructure components. The ABAP back-end server comprises the SAP Business Suite with the business logic, search models, OData services, and model provider. Fact sheet apps run only on an SAP HANA database and require an ABAP stack.
In this book, we’ll discuss the implementation of fact sheet apps in Chapter 5 and the creation/extension process in Chapter 10.
Figure 1.23 Fact Sheet Apps Architecture
1.3.3 Analytical Apps
Analytical apps provide insight into business information, allowing users to analyze and evaluate strategic or operational KPIs in real-time on a large volume of data in a simplified front-end for enterprise control. These types of apps combine the data and analytical power of SAP HANA with the integration and interface components of SAP Business Suite. Figure 1.24 shows the high-level system landscape for analytical apps.
Figure 1.24 Analytical Apps Architecture
When a user launches an analytical app, the launch request is sent from the client/browser to SAP Web Dispatcher, which sends the OData calls to the ABAP front-end server or SAP HANA XS. As with transactional and fact sheet apps, the ABAP front-end for analytical apps contains product-specific UI and infrastructure components. The ABAP back-end server comprises the SAP Business Suite with the business logic. In addition, SAP HANA XS also contains the following:
- SAP Fiori app content for the different SAP Business Suite products
- KPI modeling framework
- A generic drill-down app
- VDM reuse content
Analytical apps run only on an SAP HANA database and use VDMs.
In this book, we’ll discuss the implementation of analytical apps in Chapter 6 and the creation/extension process in Chapter 11.
Our focus in this book is to demonstrate how to implement, create, customize, extend, and develop these three app types. In the next section, we’ll explore the related SAP technologies that will allow us to perform these functions.