Planned End of Support of Internet Explorer 11 for SAPUI5 and Fiori Launchpad

In today’s fast changing internet market, technical innovation leads to shorter browser release cycles and increasing browser features,web standards and capibilities. In order to leverage these features in SAPUI5, browsers need to continously receive these innovations.

Internet Explorer 11 is the last major version of Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 11 will continue receiving security updates and technical support for the lifecycle of the version of Windows on which it is installed (see also lifecycle-faq for Internet Explorer external link).

SAPUI5 and Fiori launchpad plan to end support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 as future direction.

a future (not before end of 2021) desupport for IE in Fiori Launchpad (and SAPUI5) could affect legacy web applications, which run in Fiori Launchpad and require Internet Explorer 11, e.g. applications which use active browser plugins

Integration of SAPUI5 applications in SAP GUI for Windows via the SAP HTML Control also use the Microsoft Internet Explorer Control. Alternatives for this IE control are presently under investigation.

I will update this blog with further details, when available.

While the purpose of a browser is quite obvious to Internet users, the role it can play in a SAP environment might be of interest. The browser can actually be seen as a UI Client. Many SAP applications developed using web-based frameworks or libraries such as SAPUI5, Fiori, Web Dynpro ABAP or Business Server Pages (BSP) can be directly displayed using a browser.

Neither the standalone browser nor the UI framework provide enterprise features like role based access, object-based navigation or other features that support the shell and canvas concept. This is the purpose of Fiori launchpad, SAP Business Client or the SAP Enterprise Portal.

For general information about SAP support of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Edge see SAP Note 1672817 – Browser: Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer Support Policy Note

For general information about supported browser for NetWeaver see also SAP Note 1728946 – Browser: Browser Support Strategy for NetWeaver.

For more information about SAPUI5 browser support, see SAP Note 1716423 – SAPUI5 Browser Support. For more information about Fiori application browser support, see SAP Note 1935915 – Fiori for Business Suite: Browser / Devices / OS Information.

A SAPUI5 version overview is available at https://sapui5.hana.ondemand.com/versionoverview.html.

For details about SAPUI5 versioning, see the respective SAPUI5 documentation