Introduction

Last oktober SAP announced that the Hybrid App Toolkit (HAT) was incorporated in the Fiori Mobile Service in SAP Hana Cloud Platform (HCP):

Starting with the October release (on or about October 9^th), things start to get interesting, with the incorporation of the Hybrid Application Toolkit into the Fiori mobile service.  But it’s way more than that.  With the October release SAP will integrate Fiori mobile experience into Web IDE, with the goal of providing  simple, cloud only solution for delivering an optimized mobile experience for Fiori apps.

Especially the “Cloud Build Service” part got my attention. This service now can be used to build Hybrid Kapsel/Fiori apps in the cloud. Which sounds GREAT! ( I’m using the HAT for some time now, i’ve spent hours, if not days and dozens GB of disk space for configuring and updating my local development environment to be able to build Hybrid Fiori/Kapsel apps.)

In this blog I will try out these new features documenting the steps as a walk through and write down my findings.

Walk through – Prerequisites

The service is available in the Hana Cloud Platform Trial. This is available at https://hanatrial.ondemand.com.The Cloud Build service has dependencies with multiple HCP Services.

Activate the following Services under the Services tab in your trial account cockpit

• Fiori Mobile
• Development & Operations
• Portal Service

Some of the following  stept are setup automatically when activating the services on HCP Trial Accounts. For productive tennants of HCP this may be need

Setup Fiori Mobile
1. Open the Services Page of your HCP Cockpit
2. Go to Service Configuration > Configure Fiori Mobile

3. Assign the Following Roles: Account Admin, App Catalog Admin, App Catalog Publisher, Mobile Place User by clicking on a role and then assign a user.

Check/configure roles of other Services

The following steps are executed in the same way as the previous step:

• Make Sure you assign your s-number to the Administrator Role of the Mobile Packager Service
• Make Sure you assign your s-number to the Administrator Role for the Development and Operations Service
• Make Sure you assign your s-number to the TENANT_ADMIN Role for the Portal Service

Check Destination

Make Sure If the destination “mobileservices” is automatically created or add one manually (for productive HCP Accounts). You can use the following settings under Connectivity > Destinations :

Create A Portal Site ( Fiori Launchpad )

1. Open the Services Page of your HCP Cockpit.

2. Click on Create new site.

3. Enter a name and select SAP Fiori Launchpad and click Create.

4 In the Site overview click on edit, and then Publish. After it has been published set is as default.

Enable HAT
In WEB IDE Enable the Hybrid App Toolkit Plugin

1. Go to SAP Web IDE
2. Go to Tools > Preferences > Plugins
3. Enable hybrid app toolkit plugin

4. Click Save

Aquire or create Signing profile /certificate

To Build iOS apps you need to acquire your apple signing certificate.
For Android apps you can to create a signing profile using the Java keytool.

1. Open terminal

2. Use the following command:
keytool -genkey -v -keystore [your Appname].keystore -alias [your Appname Alias] -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000

3. Hit enter and follow instructions. Here you have to enter your certificate details like City, Country, Organisation etc

Write down the password and keystore alias, these are needed later.

Walk through – Executing a build

Now the prerequisites are complete, we can start using the Cloud Build Service.
Keep in mind that the Cloud Build Service currently only works with a web IDE project that’s built using one of the following WEB IDE templates:

• SAP Fiori Master-Detail Application
• SAPUI5 Application
• CRUD Master-Detail Application
• SAP Fiori Worklist Application

1. Right click your project and Select Fiori Build Service > Build packaged app

2. If not done before you have to Deploy the app to HCP. Name your app and app version and click Deploy.

3. The app then needs to be Registered to the Fiori Launchpad (the portal site created previously) Click Register to SAP Fiori Launchpad and follow the steps of the wizard. (Tile Configuration and assignment)

And click on finish.

The app is now deployed to HCP and registered on the Fiori Launchpad.

4. Again Right click project and Select Fiori Build Service > Build packaged app.

Now the Configure Fiori Mobile Build Settings wizard starst.

4.1 Enter an app name (or it is automatically filled using the WEB IDE project settings parameters)
4.2 An App Icon can be selected or uploaded (this is the app icon shown on the homescreen of your phone)
4.3 Click Next

5. Select platform (1) and Signing profile (2) or create a new signing profile (3)

A new Android Signing Profile can be entered. Name the Profile (1) and use the keystorefile (2), password (3) and Alias (4) created earlier.

Click on OK. and then on Build to trigger the build proces.
The Status and logs of the build can be seen in the console. This is available in WEB IDE by clicking on the log button on the bottom right.

If the build is complete after a while, you receive an email confirmation with a downloadlink. WEB IDE wil show you a QR code that you can use to download the hybrid app to the mobile device.

You can then manage your builds in the Fiori Mobile Admin Console. (HCP Cockpit > Services > Fiori mobile > Go to Admin Console. This admin Console can be used to configure and manage SAP Mobile Place. This is the end  end user portal. It is aan Enterprise App store that can be used to browse and download Mobile apps.

The Enterprise App store (SAP Mobile Place) can be reached by going to https://trial-[YOUR Number]trial.sapmobileplace.com. (scanning the QR code wil bring you to the specific app in SAP Mobile Place.)

After installing the app, enter your HCP credentials to log in.

After that the app runs on your android device as a Hybrid Fiori Mobile App.

Findings

+  The integration between SAP Web IDE, and SAP Mobile Secure is great. After configuring all the prerequisites it’s easy to build a project and then download, install and run it on a device.
+   Also the integration with Mobile Place is very useful in the development proces. It’s possible to publish the app in “trial mode” to make an app available to a specific set of test users.
+   Mobile Place works great as an internal app distribution platform without the need of an Mobile Device Management platform. Apps can be downloaded to non-managed devices as well.

–  The Fiori mobile service Build Feature is only available for a couple of Web IDE templates and the app needs to be running on HCP and added to the Fiori Launchpad.
–  An important feature that i’m missing is the use of Kapsel plugins. The Hybrid App Toolkit is turned off by default, but it looks like it’s still mandatory for building Kapsel Apps as it seems like it is not possible to build a Hybrid Kapsel app in Web IDE using the Cloud Build Service. There is a possibility to add plugins to your Hybrid app, but Kapsel plugins are missing.