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Author's profile photo Simon Kemp

SAP Business Client Options and SAP UI Landscape Configuration

If you’ve been using Business Client 4 (a.k.a NWBC 4) for a while and are moving to version 5 or 6, or even if you are just starting out on your Business Client journey you will likely be faced with setting up system connections for the Business Client system selector. When faced with this recently I needed to refresh my memory on how all this worked so went to the SAP Help documentation and had a read…

Administrator Configuration – User Interface Add-On for SAP NetWeaver – SAP Library

On the face of it is seemed fairly straightforward but as soon as I started digging in a bit I realised that I was not fully understanding how it was working. After a bit of trial and error I think I’ve worked out what’s going on so I thought I’d share it here and hopefully save others some of the pain.

So to cut to the chase this was my “AH-HA” moment… In NWBC 4 you basically had the NwbcOptions.xml file in which you could configure all the options for NWBC as well as the system connection details. In BC 5 and 6 you still have the NwbcOptions.xml BUT you no longer configure the system connection details in this file, it is only used purely for NWBC options, no systems. You also still have the NwbcRemoteOptions.xml file in which you can point to a remote NwbcOptions.xml file (e.g. one you store on a web server or file share) – but to reiterate this is only for NWBC options not for system connections.

So “Where do the system details go now?” I hear you ask…

All the system details are now stored in the SAPUILandscape XML files. That’s files with an “s”… yes there are two of them. One that is for end user defined systems called SAPUILandscape.xml and one for administrator defined systems SAPUILandscapeGlobal.xml. They are both located in the same folder on the user’s PC (%APPDATA%/SAP/Common).

NWBCUILandscape.jpg

So as an administrator if you would like to make a standard set of systems available to all your end users you can create the SAPUILandscapeGlobal.xml file and distribute it to your users. You can either push the file to the end user’s PC or you can let the end user pull the file from a web server or file share. The documentation actually does a fairly decent job of explaining that:

There are a couple of ways to achieve the distribution of the centrally defined connection settings. One way is you can set the location of the file in the registry, via key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\SAP\SAPLogon\Options, for example you might do this via a group policy setting that is pushed out to users. Alternatively you can push out a version of the SAPUILandscapeGlobal.xml file to the local PC (maybe you package it up and it is included when the user installs NWBC).

Inside that SAPUILandscapeGlobal.xml file you can point to additional files located on a file share or web server. The part of the file you need to take care of to do this is the <Includes></Includes> section. You can even include multiple files, they need to be in the format of the SAPUILandscape.xml file and then they will be merged and included for you.


<Includes>
     <Include index="1" url="http://myserver.mydomain/mySAPUILandscape.xml"/>
</Includes>

This works similarly to how the NwbcRemoteOptions.xml file worked in NWBC 4 for system connections, allowing you to maintain the list of systems centrally and have them automagically update on the NWBC client.

Well I hope that’s been helpful to you. If it has please let me know and if you have any questions or comments or can add anything to this please do below. Thanks.

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      17 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Lutz Rottmann
      Lutz Rottmann

      Hi Simon, thanks for these great hints!

      Did you play around with RFC based clients like ABAP in Eclipse, Analysis for Office and Design Studio? At least those three ignored connections that were centrally defined e.g. on a global share in the past.

      It would be really great to know which options are supported by alle clients and which are not.

      Thanks a lot,

      Lutz

      Author's profile photo Simon Kemp
      Simon Kemp
      Blog Post Author

      Sorry Lutz I haven't (yet) 🙂

      Author's profile photo S ISIT SAP Basis Design
      S ISIT SAP Basis Design

      That's the point !

      SAP should align all their client tools to use the same logon mechanism. There are still tools relying on sap logon INI file or on on the local UI landscape file only.
      It's a pity all tools cannot easily use a global landscape file. Hoping this will change.
      The global landscape is a major improvement for large organizations with more than a hundred of thousands PC worlwide (this what we have) to simplify the deployment process.

       

      Author's profile photo Joachim Rees
      Joachim Rees

      Hey Simon,

      it's a really good overview, thank you!

      I've been using BC 6 for some weeks now, and just added the systems I need to it, so I never really payed attention to where those are stored.

      But maybe I'll have a look at those files, now.

      Another smal comment: I'd say there is no "Business Client 4" - it's

      NWBC 4

      NWBC 5

      BC 6

      (...and probably BC 7 at some point in the future).

      -> Up to Version 5 it was (and is) called NetWeaverBussinessClient, from version 6 on it was changed to just BussinessClient – but old products keep theire old names, to avoid confusion.

      Best

      Joachim

      Author's profile photo Simon Kemp
      Simon Kemp
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks Joachim, yes you are right better to keep the old names rather than add to the confusion 😛

      Author's profile photo Christoph Ostrop
      Christoph Ostrop

                                  Joachim Rees wrote:

      Hey Simon,

      Another smal comment: I'd say there is no "Business Client 4" - it's

      NWBC 4

      NWBC 5

      BC 6

      (...and probably BC 7 at some point in the future).

      -> Up to Version 5 it was (and is) called NetWeaverBussinessClient, from version 6 on it was changed to just BussinessClient – but old products keep theire old names, to avoid confusion.

      Best

      Joachim

      is it to avoid confusion or to increase confusion ?

      😕

      as far as i understood:

      now we got 2 actual NWBC or BC: (for desktop)

      (both working with SAPGUI-7.40)

      - NWBC 5.0 is THE NWBC for the sap business-suite 7.xx

      - BC 6.0 is THE BC for the S/4HANA

      the only difference (up to now) is that BC-6.0 is (a NWBC-5.0) with the additional ability to use and startup the fiori-launchpad

      Author's profile photo Simon Kemp
      Simon Kemp
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Christoph,

      Yes I have to admit the BC 5 vs BC 6 is still confusing to me, to my simple ways of thinking usually a v6 would replace a v5 of any product, but apparently not in this case. Both v5 and v6 seem to be supported until the same end date and each seems to be getting independent updates (e.g. v5 supports windows 10, but v6 doesn't yet...) But that's probably a topic for a whole other blog post 😀

      Cheers,

      Simon

      Author's profile photo Julie Plummer
      Julie Plummer

      Hi Christoph, Simon, everyone,

      Sorry, no, that's not true.

      Versions are: NWBC 4, NWBC 5, BC 6. BC is the direct successor to NWBC 5.

      BC 6 is the newest Business Client version for both SAP BS 7.x (and BS 6.x) AND SAP S/4HANA.

      If you are currently on NWBC 4 (no longer supported), we recommend upgrade to BC 6.

      If you are currently on NWBC 5 (latest patch), we will continue to support you.

      We are working on support for Win 10 in BC 6.

      BC 6.0 PL1 now supports Win 10.

      Does that help?

      Julie Plummer (SAP BC Product Management).

      PS Simon: Thanks for the blog.

      Author's profile photo Simon Kemp
      Simon Kemp
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Julie,

      That's the clearest messaging I've seen on this topic so far, thank you for being so direct and clear. Based on that I see no reason to choose NWBC 5 instead of BC 6, although I am sure you understand that there has been confusion esp. since Win10 support is on NWBC 5 only currently.

      Thanks,

      Simon

      Author's profile photo Julie Plummer
      Julie Plummer

      "since Win10 support is on NWBC 5 only currently" - yes that was true, but is no longer true (just for anyone who may have missed it) - Both NWBC 5.0 and BC 6.0 support Win 10.

      Best wishes Julie.

      Author's profile photo Christoph Ostrop
      Christoph Ostrop

      Hi, Simon,

      we are just facing the same issue to deploy system-configuration files for NWBC for several Clients.

      we did "try and error" several times because of remaining SAPUIlandscape-files and SAPUIlandscapeglobal-files in other directories of <currentuser>/%AppData%/roaming/SAP/....  or <defaultuser>%AppData%/local/SAP/......

      at last, we only needed a SAPUIlandscapeglobal.XML in c:\ProgramData\SAP\common\

      and removed all other SAPUIlandscapeglobal.XML in all user-directories.

      Starting the NWBC for a user, the global-configuration was used and loaded for user-NWBC-sessions.

      HTH

      Christoph

      Author's profile photo Matt Fraser
      Matt Fraser

      Simon,

      Couldn't you utilize the same SAPGUI Installation Server mechanism for distributing a centralized configuration file for NWBC in the same way one would for SAPGUI? In other words, keep the SAPUILandscapeGlobal.xml file on a central server, and use scripts in the installation routine to configure the SAPLogon Options to point to that central server?

      Cheers,

      Matt

      Author's profile photo Simon Kemp
      Simon Kemp
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Matt,

      I have to confess I have no experience using the SAPGUI Installation Server, but what you are saying sounds very plausible.

      Cheers,

      Simon

      Author's profile photo Matt Fraser
      Matt Fraser

      A year and a half ago I wrote a six-part series about setting up the SAPGUI Installation Server. It's focused on SAPGUI 7.30, but with adaptation it works for 7.40 as well, and I do believe the method could be adapted for NWBC. Have a look through at your convenience, but I think the most relevant part for this purpose is SAPGUI Installation Server Part 5 - Scripting.

      Cheers,

      Matt

      Author's profile photo Giovanny Gonzalez
      Giovanny Gonzalez

       

      Hello everyone,

      I recently migrated NWBC 5.0 to NBC 6.0, I have configured the saplogon entries in a shared directory, when I tried to log in from NBC 6.0 I got a connection error, I understood that the migration was transparent. However, I have tried completely uninstalling NWBC 5.0 and installing NBC 6.0 on clean and error persists:

       

      If you have any comments or answers, I thank you !!

       

      Author's profile photo Simon Kemp
      Simon Kemp
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Giovanny, does the URL work if you paste it into a browser? Have you clicked the "Test in Browser" button?

      Author's profile photo Giovanny Gonzalez
      Giovanny Gonzalez

      Hi !! Thanks for your answer, if I checked the URL from the browser and opened it, the error was related to permissions on the network