Consume SAP Enterprise Portal content from SAP Cloud Platform Portal, enjoy the benefits of a cloud solution and switch over in gradual phases.

More and more SAP Enterprise Portal customers seek to switch over their portal scenarios to Cloud.

No matter what the trigger for the transition is, whether it is the need to reduce operational costs and avoid upgrades and patch installations, the increased need to modernize the user experience and provide best in class usability for users including mobile access, or the need to provide frequent updates for users and shorten the release cycles, the benefits of moving to the cloud solution are clear.

However, organizations that plan to carry out this transition, sometimes face technical challenges when introducing some existing Enterprise Portal capabilities in SAP Cloud Platform Portal. This is due to the fact that these solutions differ by design and in some cases introduce different capabilities. While the ultimate goal is to modernize the entire portal solution to cloud, switching over some capabilities to cloud require high effort and introduce a real challenge to the transition.

Introducing SAP Enterprise Portal as a Content Provider

SAP Enterprise Portal as a Content Provider, that was released today as part of SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.5 SP11, is designed to address this need. It allows you to expose various on-premise Enterprise Portal apps (iViews) to be accessible from your SAP Cloud Platform Portal. By switching from Enterprise Portal to cloud in phases, you can bypass some of the technical challenges of the transition. You gain a swift start to your Cloud Portal solution allowing you to seamlessly integrate to Enterprise Portal content.

Here is a list that  shows how this solution can help you overcome some challenges:

1. Some old UI technologies are not supported in Cloud Portal and cannot be integrated into it. These technologies include Web Dynpro Java, CRM Web UI FW, SAP GUI for Windows and more. You can consume these technologies from Cloud Portal using this solution.
2. Some Enterprise Portal applications contain a high level of customizations and capabilities that require effort to run in the Cloud.
3. Cloud Portal offers a cloud based solution for document management. If you have many documents in Knowledge Management or a high level of customizations in your Knowledge Management implementation, you will be able to access Knowledge Management content using Enterprise Portal as a Content Provider.
4. Cloud Portal offer modern collaboration assets through SAP JAM integration. Using this solution you can access Enterprise Portal Wikis and XML forums from the cloud.

After configuring Enterprise Portal as a Content Provider in your SAP Cloud Platform, end users can customize their Cloud Portal Launchpad sites and launch iViews that they have permissions to access.

How to configure and use Enterprise Portal as a Content Provider

A detailed explanation on how to configure Enterprise Portal as a content provider is available in this documentation.

Below are the highlights of the configuration:

Step 1: In order to use Enterprise Portal as a Content Provider, you first need to upgrade your Enterprise Portal version to SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.5 SP11.

Step 2: Make sure you have installed and configured SAP Cloud Connector to be able to access your own premise landscape from the cloud.

Step 3: You then need to configure a dedicated destination in your SAP Cloud Platform to point to your Enterprise Portal in the following way

Step 4: Configure SSO to your SAP Enterprise Portal in order to seamlessly navigate to Enterprise Portal content

Step 5: Create a dedicated app with App Type: Shell Plugin, and Shell Plugin Type: Enterprise Portal Content. Note that this Shell Plugin Type is available only if you have configured the destination as explained in step 3 correctly.

Step 6: Publish the site

After completing these configuration steps, end users can  navigate to the App Finder in the Me Area and within User Menu, view the Enterprise Portal content hierarchy and pin Apps to group\s of a their Launchpad site

All apps that are added are available in the Launchpad site. The Apps coming from Enterprise Portal are launched in a different browser tab.

Tell us what you think

So far, we have received great feedback about this tool in the different early access programs. We would be very happy to hear what you think about this tool and to learn how we can help you with the transition.

Looking forward to hearing from you and getting your feedback about this new exciting capability.