Product Information
What you should know on SAP Enterprise Portal on SAP NetWeaver 7.5 and the Transition to the Cloud
Note: this blog was updated January 2021!
This blog provides you with important information you should know about SAP Enterprise Portal on NetWeaver 7.5. It will also be updated by me when new interesting information is available.
In general SAP NetWeaver 7.5 is available since October, 2015. You can visit this blog as landing page to be the central place to point to new and relevant content.
Concerning SAP Enterprise Portal 7.5, it is recommended by us (Enterprise Portal Product management team) as the new go-to-release for on-premise customers by leveraging latest enhancements and improvements of the SAP NetWeaver stack. SAP Fiori is the leading user experience in SAP Enterprise Portal 7.5 allowing customers to easily adopt a simplified SAP Fiori experience and renovate their application portal as a modern user centric entry point. Customers can also benefit from easy integration and consumption of SAP applications and of SAP S/4HANA apps via wizard and pre-configured content packages.
News
- The mainstream maintenance of NW 7.5 Java stack is going through December 2027, with extended maintenance until end of 2030 (SAP note 1648480). The end of mainstream maintenance dates for SAP EP versions 7.4 and older remain unchanged, and maintenance for these products will end on December 31, 2020. See also the following SAP Note: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2912858.
- SAP also fully aligns the maintenance strategy for SAP NetWeaver 7.5 with SAP Business Suite 7. More information in Karl Kessler’s blog on SAP Community.
- SAPUI5 1.71 will be the last supported long-term release for SAP NetWeaver Java platform. It is planned that no further UI5 version above 1.71 will be delivered and supported with NetWeaver java and respectively with Enterprise Portal. More information in the following SAP notes: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2261419 and 2673298 – Mapping support package of SAPUI5 CLIENT RT AS JAVA 7.50 to UI5 versions – SAP ONE Support Launchpad.
SAP Portal on NetWeaver 7.5 Overview
If you are interested in a general overview on Portal on NetWeaver 7.5, check out this presentation (an updated version will be available soon in Q1 2021).
Check out also the product page on SAP Community about SAP Enterprise Portal.
SAP Enterprise Portal Roadmap
Please note that no functional enhancements are planned anymore for SAP EP on SAP NetWeaver 7.5 (starting with SAP NW SPS17). A roadmap is also not available anymore. You can also check the release notes to get updated about released features (see section Features in Detail).
Standards Based Framework Pages
For Enterprise Portal 7.5, we highly recommend that you change your framework page to one of the following standards based framework pages:
- Ajax Framework Page standards mode (AFP Standards)
- Fiori Framework Page (FLP@EP)
- Custom Standards based framework page
For more information, see this blog.
SAP Fiori Launchpad on Enterprise Portal
Fiori Launchpad on Enterprise Portal 7.5 was being renovated according to the Fiori design paradigm and it was one focus of the development for NW 7.5. All important features of Fiori 1.0 and 2.0 found their way into Enterprise Portal, for example “Me Area”, notifications, overview pages etc. Note that regarding Fiori 3 not all features will be available for Enterprise Portal (see section Features in Detail SAP NW 7.5 SPS17).
You can still have two flavors on one Portal platform: the Ajax Framework page for intranet or administration scenarios (desktop only) and the Fiori Framework page for cross device scenarios (responsive design) and optimized for Fiori launchpad.
You want to know about the benefits you can expect by implementing SAP Fiori launchpad on Enterprise Portal? Then check out this one pager.
Note that Fiori Framework Page works only with standards mode in all browsers since it is based on UI5 technology.
You might ask yourself: why not access Fiori Launchpad directly from Frontend server? Why do we still need a Portal? There are very good reasons to run the launchpad on SAP Portal with the Fiori Framework Page:
- In the Portal you can consume (almost) all the UI technologies that SAP used in the past 15+ years, while with the launchpad on the ABAP Frontend server you have limitations
- Assume that you are running BW/BI/BOBJ reports and you want to integrate them to the launchpad – the best integration will be achieved with the Enterprise Portal
- Assume that you are running WebDynpro Java apps (custom or SAP delivered) and you want to integrate them to the launhcpad – the best integration will be achieved with the portal and Fiori Framework Page
- If you are using the Portal for SSO, complex roles, etc. – in many cases this can be achieved only with the Portal
All in all we provide you the options and it is up to you to select the best option for your specific business needs.
Recommended reading:
Enterprise Portal and Fiori Launchpad Central Note
Overview Information on Fiori launchpad on Enterprise Portal
Read also this story about a customer journey to Fiori launchpad on Enterprise Portal.
Fiori Launchpad on Enterprise Portal and Best Practices
Learn how you can map your traditional Portal navigation with the navigation on the Fiori launchpad.
Learn how to implement SAP Fiori launchpad on Enterprise Portal: Recommendations and Frequently Asked Questions.
Features in Detail
In the following blogs and release notes you can find detailed information about support package stacks which are available.
SAP NetWeaver 7.50 SPS17 with some Fiori 3 features and support for SAPUI5 1.71 as well as with SAP Quartz Light theme for SAP Fiori 3:
- Note that not all Fiori 3 design elements and features are available for SAP Enterprise Portal (the spaces and pages concept will not be available). Until now there are no plans to add additional Fiori 3 features.
- Note that also no further UI5 version above 1.71 will be delivered and supported with NW Java platform and with SAP Enterprise Portal. Check out this SAP note 2261419 – Maintenance Strategy for FLP on Portal – SAP ONE Support Launchpad.
Version Interoperability between SAP Business Suite and SAP NetWeaver 7.5
For version interoperability between SAP NetWeaver and SAP Business Suite consult SAP Note 1388258. We recommend to check out the slide Adjusted Version Interoperability for SAP Business Suite, which is added to the note as attachment.
Content and Business Packages
You might wonder if Business Packages are still working on SAP NetWeaver 7.5? For details and what needs to be done, read this SAP Note: 2304435 – SAP ERP for SAP NetWeaver 7.5 hub systems.
With the consumption of Fiori content into Enterprise Portal, we also consider Fiori content as the “new business packages”. Fiori content can be consumed from ABAP Frontend server by using the remote catalogs integration procedure: you use the remote content editor to assign content from front-end servers to a role. You can also use the editor to search for content, such as SAP Fiori catalogs and SAP Fiori groups, in the available remote system, and then assign them to categories.
With the release of the SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition, additional remote catalogs and groups are now available. Administrators can use the remote content editor to assign SAP S/4HANA content to portal roles.
I also recommend portal content administrators reading this blog and learn about the administration tasks required for enabling SAP Fiori launchpad on Portal. It contains pre-configured sample content that you can import into your portal. In only a few steps you can easily run the SAP Fiori launchpad experience within the SAP NetWeaver Portal environment. Give it a try!
Theming and Branding
In SAP NetWeaver 7.5 the UI theme designer is the only theming tool in Enterprise Portal and it will fully replace the theme editor.
Wikis and Forums
The wiki and forum application is not available in SAP Enterprise Portal 7.5 add-on. However, you still can technically install and use the 7.4 based version of the wiki application (as of SAP NetWeaver 7.4 SPS 13 (Java SPS12) and higher) on top of SAP Enterprise Portal 7.5.
Check out these notes for wikis and forums.
Read this SAP documentation for wikis and forums.
All of the above means that the end of maintenance for wikis & forums was December 2020, which was the official end of maintenance date for EP 7.40 and the add-ons on EP 7.40.
Depricated Features
Also other features are deprecated in SAP NetWeaver 7.5, as for example Mobile Framework Page, Real Time Collaboration, Mashups im WPC.
Read notes 2447267 and 2204286 to get a list of all deprecated features
Portal Upgrade
If your SAP Enterprise Portal release is still on 7.0x there is time to start upgrading: at the end of 2017 SAP NetWeaver 7.0X Java stack will no longer be supported (see PAM for more information and SAP Note 1648480). SAP highly recommends upgrading to SAP Enterprise Portal 7.5, which has the longest maintenance period, and which includes many new features including the Fiori Framework Page and other features that are only available in the latest releases.
Use this page as central information. It includes all the relevant links to the relevant pages/documentation, such as: upgrade master guide, troubleshooting guide, business packages support, etc.
Read also:
Why Should I upgrade my SAP Enterprise Portal
Troubleshooting guide after SAP Enterprise Portal Upgrade
The Future of SAP Portal ?
When you consider about upgrading your Portal, this consideration might also be connected with a decision on the future of your Portal in general.
As a general strategic approach, we recommend to transition your SAP Enterprise Portal use cases to SAP BTP, multi-cloud environment (cloud foundry). A transition to the Neo environment of SAP BTP and to the Cloud Portal service is not recommended anymore. SAP BTP is SAP’s strategic integration and extension platform. SAP follows a multi-cloud approach, which enables organizations to run the platform and its services on the cloud infrastructure of selected hyper-scaler partners (Alibaba, Amazon, Google, Microsoft). To help driving innovative digital experiences initiatives, SAP further invests in flexible UX services, tools and UI technologies to develop custom apps and extensions using SAP Business Application Studio and SAP Fiori tools.
Going forward we recommend SAP Enterprise Portal customers considering a transition to SAP BTP multi-cloud environment, in particular to the Launchpad service. As SAP puts major investments in SAP BTP, customers automatically get the latest SAP Fiori UX innovations (for example SAP Fiori 3). SAP recommends adopting SAP Launchpad service for new projects, and gradually transition existing SAP EP based scenarios to SAP BTP. For more information about SAP Launchpad service, see this overview presentation and the product page on SAP Community. More information and recommendations about EP transition to SAP BTP will be added here in the next months.
Documentation
Documentation SAP NetWeaver 7.5
Fiori Launchpad scenario documentation
SAP Portal on SAP Community
Visit the SAP Portal Community Topic Page
You have a question on SAP Enterprise Portal? Discuss your questions in the SAP Portal Community: Create your question on https://answers.sap.com/index.html and tag it with “SAP Enterprise Portal”.
very nice blog thank you.
Whats about KM ? Whats SAP recomendations for my customers. They use a lot of custom wdpro java applications, Portal applications and KM views. What is the future of that in 7.5?
Best regards.
Hi Julio!
Concerning KM: this is not in the focus of NW 7.5 development. There will be no additional features. What is available is the mobile access to documents via SAP Mobile Documents integration with Knowledge Management.
Best regards
Vera
Hi Vera,
Thanks for the detailed information!
However, under the section SAP Fiori Launchpad on Enterprise Portal you have given a screen shot showing a Fiori Launchpad on Enterprise Portal in the Fiori 2.0 design with SAP Belize theme – looking at this it seems that the theme is sap_belize_plus (Belize Deep) and not sap_belize.
Regards,
Saurabh
Hi Saurabh!
Yes, thanks, strictly speaking it is the Belize Plus theme, I corrected it in the blog.
Best regards
Vera
Hi Vera,
Very useful blog.
one of our customer currently having portal 7.02 and using ESS version 603. planning to upgrade portal to directly 7.5 and want to upgrade to ESS 633 Business package, because Portal 7.5 supports only ESS 633 (Java WD) .
when will be the date of support ends for ESS 633?
Is any issues if we use ESS 633 in EP 7.5?
Regards,
Srini
Hi Srini!
I will talk with some people in the team and get back to you soon.
Best regards
Vera
Hi Srinivasu,
We are ourselves in the middle of a portal upgrade from 7.01 to 7.5, with an EhP4 ABAP backend. So, like your customer, we are updating the SAP_ESS component on the portal from 603 to 633. We haven't gone live yet with the upgrade -- we're in the DEV stage -- but so far there are no issues with this.
Cheers,
Matt
Hi Srini!
Please checkout this blog https://blogs.sap.com/2013/01/09/upgrading-to-nw-portal-73-what-to-do-with-essmss/ and you could post your question as comment under the blog.
Best regards
Vera
Hello Vera,
I understand the NetWeaver 7.5 is the recommended version for now, but, looking at the PAM, the EOM is 2022, just 2 years more than the version 7.4.
We upgraded our ECC, Portal and BW systems to 7.4. ECC and BW EOM is 2025 but Portal is 2020. We are looking for a solution where Portal could also be supported for a longer period.
It seems SAP is following the EOM from Oracle for the JRE 1.8 that's also 2022. Does it also means we should expect a new NetWeaver Java version for the second semester of 2017 based in the new Java 9 from Oracle?
Thanks,
Fabricio
Hi Fabricio!
Sorry for the late reply. I tried to contact Shani to anser your questions 🙂 But I think you participated in our “Design the Future of Your SAP Enterprise Portal” MTE session on March 23 and Shani answered your question in the call. She told you that a new Java version should be not expected and that 2022 is end of maintenance. The recommended strategy for customers is to move to Cloud Portal. There is this microsite for customers who are still on 7.0 and need to decide already this year http://sapsupport.info/future-of-ep/.
Best regards
Vera
Hi Vera,
very informative blog 🙂
We are planning to upgrade EP from NW7.31 SPS16 -> NW7.50 SPS07 and switch to FFP/FLP on Portal, because that gives us the possibility to integrate future Fiori Apps (from Fiori Frontend Server) and gradually migrate old content to Fiori over the next years and then finally switch from Portal to Fiori Frontend Server only. And it also provides a personalized start page to the user.
I have some questions about using Fiori FFP in EP:
a) is it true, that the design can only be adapted to company CI/CD by means of colors - using Theme Designer - but position and size of content in the Framework Page (Header..) can not be modified, nor can additional links or JavaScript be integrated?
b) how can a user with Desktop PC efficiently/directly switch from one application to another without first going back to the start page (in AFP he could use the menu)?
c) is there some legacy content that is not easy to integrate with FFP/FLP, for example HTMLB(*UWL*, SRM), Federated (BW) Content, BExWeb/WebI/Crystal and BI/BO, BSP?
d) what should we consider when using MS Edge or MS IE (Enterprise Mode) with non-Fiori-content using FFP?
Kind regards,
Manuel
Hi Manuel
Sorry for the late reply, I had some vacation in between and also consulted some developer experts for the answers 🙂
regarding a)
In general you can edit colors and sizes but not positioning AFAIK, regarding links and Javascript you have hooks in the code where you can inject your Javascript they are called plugins and they are documented here: https://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw75/helpdata/en/95/c96973b8484a6f83ab60142b81cc12/frameset.htm
regarding b) There is no real way of navigating between apps without going through the homepage, however you can add "related links", bookmarks and in Fiori 2 you also have "users recent" which shows you the recent apps the user has used.
regarding c) There is no easy answer for this question as it requires configuration from the portal admin for each technology/application separately.
regarding d) MS-IE Enterprise mode is not supported in portal at all, this is documented in SAP Notes.Non-UI5 technologies such as HTMLB/WD etc. do not support MS Edge, this should be answered for each technology specifically you can find it in the PAM.
Best regards
Vera
Hi Vera,
Great Blog.In NW 7.5 SP 7 is the notification area added in the portal FFP just like the Gateway?
Regards
Radhika
Hi Radhika!
I am not sure what you mean by notification area? If you mean this as Fiori 2.0 element (Fiori notifications), then this is not part of the SPS07 delivery.
Best regards
Vera
Hi Vera,
Thank you.Yes i meant Fiori notification area in the launchpad.
Any estimate as to when it will be released for portal?
Regards
Radhika
Hi Radhika!
The Fiori notifications are planned to come but it is not yet decided for which support package.
Best regards
Vera
Hello Vera,
Excellent blog and well described.
A quick query, while designing the Portal, there are queries around performance, in this case what will be better AJAX framework or FIORI framework, in NW 7.5 ?
Thanks
Pranay
Hi Pranay!
Performance is not the reason, why you should use FFP or AFP. It is relevant which scenario you would like to implement in Enterprise Portal. If you want to use Fiori Launchpad on Portal and you also want to enable it for mobile scenarios, the FFP is a must. AFP is for desktop scenarios only and also the right framework page for admin scenarios. You can have even both flavors in the same Portal, AFP for admins and power users, and FFP for endusers and mobile scenarios. Performance is also always depending on the content of the Portal, so a general rule is hard to say. We are also always rolling our performance improvements of FLP on Portal for almost every support package stack.
Best regards
Vera
Hi Vera Gutbrod,
First of all, Nice blog that gives me an idea about the upgrade.
I have few doubts as i am new to a NW portal upgrade. My Client needs to upgrade from SAP NW portal 7.02 to 7.5.
Let me know what are the questionnaire i need to ask or i need to frame as a checklist while getting the KT from Client(Previous developments are not done by us). Client doesn’t have any documentation for the previous portal implementation and lots of NWDI track created and other developments are done.
Now he is planning for a portal upgrade. He also wants to know after the upgrade can he use:
Java webdynpro track as such he using?.
How the portal upgrade will taken back up ?
What are the additional features he will get in 7.5?
Srinivasu Y did you face any problem on your upgrade?.
Looking for experts to revert back as our upgrade started and we are not aware where to start.
Regards,
Veera.
Hi Veera!
I can give you the links to our most important upgrade information:
ANd concerning features in SAP NW 7.5 Portal, you will find this in the release notes and also the blogs that I have written, for example: https://blogs.sap.com/2016/12/19/differences-between-sap-enterprise-portal-on-sap-netweaver-7.40-and-sap-netweaver-7.50/.
For all your specific questions, please create a questions on the community in the forums, and use the tag “SAP Enterprise Portal”. I assume that other consultants or experts will send you their feedback.
Best regards
Vera
Hi Vera Gutbrod ,
Thanks for your kind reply.
We just started the Upgrade and we have so many undefined NWDI tracks available. Hard to identify it.
Is there is any seperate tool available that says are we doing right upgrade.?
Thanks in advance.
Veera,
Hello Vera Gutbrod
THanks for your knowledge sharing. We have SAP EP 7.31 SP19 and have Hub system for FIORI. I want to know how can we get the roles tab in the Fiori launchpad as per attached screen shot.
IS it possible to achieve this in our current environment?
Regards
Keshari
Hi Keshari!
Sorry for the late reply - vacation time. It is not possible to achieve this configuration under your current environment. This option is available from NW 7.50 SPS07 and only in Fiori 2.0 design. This is also the link in the documentation https://help.sap.com/viewer/825e9222e7ad4fe1988c6cc600bda779/7.5.8/en-US/7d7c418af0904b95be5602231ef90b26.html.
Best regards
Vera
HI Vera
We have upgraded our ui5 library to 1.38 and achieve the requirements
Thanks
Keshari
Hi vera, could I have a question about NW 7.5 Portal? I would like to activate SSO and I need to add BW host to trusted server, but button "Add Trusted system" doesn't work. I checked parameters
Hi Fritz!
For this specific question, please create a question on SAP Community, with tag SAP Enterprise Portal.
Best regards
Vera
Is SSL enabled in both instances?
I Vera.
Is it possible to upgrade SAP Enterprise Portal from 7.02 to 7.5 maintaining SAP ERP 6.05 SP 16 on SAP Netweaver ABAP 7.02 SP 19? Thank you.
Hi Miguel!
Also for this specific question, I would like to ask you to create a question on SAP Community, with tag SAP Enterprise Portal.
Best regards
Vera
Hello Vera,
What is future of on premise SAP Enterprise Portal beyond 2024?
Regards,
Vinod
Hi Vinod!
It is not possible at the moment to predict if mainstream maintenance of NW JAVA will be extended beyond 2024.
Concerning the future of EP there are some recommendations in my updated presentation on EP 7.5. (have a look at this section in the presentation).
For existing SAP Enterprise Portals customers we recommend considering a transition to SAP Cloud Platform Portal in the long run.
Customers, who do not want to do a complete content migration to the cloud, can also consider using EP as a content provider for Cloud Portal, see documentation.
We also offer several other tools supporting the transition from EP to the cloud (see again in my EP 7.5 presentation).
Best regards
Vera
Thank you Vera for information. I will update the customer accordingly.
As I understand, EP is supported until Dec, 31. 2024 due to Java version 8 support ends March, 2025.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_version_history
December 2020 for Oracle (personal use)
At least September 2023 for AdoptOpenJDK
May I expect that SAP will release next version of EP (on-premise) ?
Hi Andy!
With SAP Enterprise Portal we are following the official maintenance strategy of SAP NetWeaver. At the moment no next SAP NetWeaver release is officially planned or announced beyond Dec. 31 2024 for Java stack. As soon as there will be some additional information or updates on this plan, I will update this blog.
Best regards
Vera