SAP River App in a Day
The recipe below shows you how to make a one River Application in one day.
Ingredients:
- 7 x people from companies with ideas for apps
- 2 x River Developers from SAP Israel (freshly imported)
- 2 x River Developers (local variety)
- 1 x HANA box at SP7 running ERP
- 1 x SAP Mentor
- Whiteboards / flip charts / pens
- Coffee / sandwiches and cakes
Method:
- Introduce all the ingredients to each other and after some small talk get down to discussing the applications they would like to see created.
- For each application idea discuss how that could be achieved with SAP River, considering where the data for the application will be sourced/delivered to SAP River (SAP HANA) platform and the business logic.
- Select the application to create based on input from the SAP River developers and the companies, trying to select something that isn’t too hard….but isn’t too easy – we selected Smart Incident Report/Alerting, an application that would tweet patterns it found in incidents reported (e.g lots happening in this location).
- Design the first cut of the applications and let the developers get to work.
- Whilst the app is cooking, take the time to explore what SAP River is and where it fits with the SAP innovation toolset.
- Check on the App every 15-20 minutes with playbacks of the code to the team.
- After 2 hours start adding more complex features until everyone feels that they have a great understanding of how SAP River fits together.
Thanks to everyone who took part and I would recommend this recipe to anyone trying to understand SAP River.
As one of the 7 I do agree that the format worked very well. Whenever I want to learn a new technology I always find it much easier to do that when I have an actual application to try and build. Having to produce something forces you to think about details that you might otherwise gloss over if just studying in abstract. While us 7 didn't get to do any actual coding, talking through issues with a real life app in mind did make us and the presenters discuss things like app security and interaction with ERP in more detail then I suspect we would have otherwise.
I really enjoyed the day - thanks to Owen Pettiford and all involved in organising it.
Steve.
As one of the River expert in the room, it was a great opportunity for me to meet the future River's customers unplugged. Thank you Owen Pettiford for inviting us.
Yoram