SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP07 now available. More mobile capabilities, more enterprise features.

Thank you to our SAP Screen Personas customers for rapidly adopting the Slipstream Engine. It seems we are fulfilling a need to run classic SAP GUI transactions on mobile devices. SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP07 builds on that foundation and adds more mobile capabilities, more enterprise readiness features, and over 150 enhancements.

“Given that virtually everything we are pushing is via the Fiori platform with the more modern mobile enabled type of functionality I am only looking at delivering via the Slipstream Engine as opposed to the WebGUI because of its better rendering on mobile devices”
– Jamie Hastings, Senior Systems Analyst, Transalta Corporation

We are also seeing a rapid uptake in the SAP S/4HANA installed base, who are using SAP Screen Personas to complete the Fiori vision of having simple and beautiful screens that run on any device.

While there are many new features in SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP07, we will discuss three big innovations in this blog:

• Full editing in Slipstream Engine
• Mobile preview for different device sizes
• New Viewport feature to simplify complex screens

SAP Screen Personas Flavor editor now works in Slipstream Engine

In the last service pack, we introduced the Slipstream Engine to render SAP Screen Personas on mobile devices. Now, we have added the SAP Screen Personas editor to the Slipstream Engine so you can create flavors and render them in the same environment. So, you have a complete, end-to-end, what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) platform for simplifying your classic SAP GUI Screens. The SAP Screen Personas editor works on the desktop only (yes, the Slipstream Engine runs on desktops as well as tablets and phones) as you need the full screen real estate to build flavors. The flavor editor includes scripting, theming, templates, and everything you need for creating mobile (or desktop) flavors. With the editor running in the Slipstream Engine, there is no need to fine-tune your flavors due to rendering differences between Slipstream Engine and the Web GUI.

Mobile preview makes it easier to build flavors for different sized devices

To make it faster to build flavors for a variety of tablets and phones, we added a mobile preview feature to the flavor editor. Now, you can preview what the flavors will look like on iPads, iPhones, and Android devices, all while staying in the editor environment.

New Viewport Scripting API simplifies complex screens

As more customers use SAP Screen Personas for more complex tasks, they occasionally create flavors that perform many functions behind the scenes to present a simple screen to users. This could include showing and hiding different parts of the screen and even moving controls around dynamically to give users a manageable amount of information to process at a time. To handle these business scenarios more easily, we created a new feature called Viewports.

“The new Viewport API in SAP Screen Personas allows us to simplify a very complex screen and provide the right amount of information to our users, without overwhelming them. It replaces a large script, reducing the maintenance effort and greatly improving performance.”
– Ingrid Schwarz – VP IT Applications, Penguin Random House LLC

Viewports break a large, complex screen into smaller pieces, only showing your users the required fields for each stage in a business process. You can even use Viewports to create a guided, step-by-step approach for your users, where you can add or hide different functions.

To summarize, viewports

• reduce complexity for your users
• improve performance and loading time
• allow for a more efficient flavor structure
• lead to easier development and maintenance

In SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP07, viewports are available as an API in the scripting engine. We are working on a GUI to simplify working with viewports.

See SP07 at SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference

We will be showing SAP Screen Personas SP07 at SAPPHIRE now and the ASUG Annual Conference.

• SAP Screen Personas as Part of the SAP Fiori User Experience: With the latest version of SAP Screen Personas software, SAP has made it even easier to create SAP Fiori-inspired flavors that run on your desktop, tablet, or phone. Themes, templates, and best-practice guides allow many customers to create a seamless user experience and go live with SAP Fiori-inspired screens within weeks, often with no development resources. Wednesday, June, 6, 2018 at 11am.
• Roundtable: Going Mobile With SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA Using a Mix of SAP Screen Personas and SAP Fiori Apps: Join this roundtable discussion on how to render classic SAP ERP transactions on your tablet or phone. The presenters will discuss how to choose between SAP Screen Personas software flavors and custom SAP Fiori apps to balance functionality, time to value, development cost, and maintenance costs. This talk will also cover the latest SAP technologies for mobilizing flavors. Wednesday, June, 6, 2018 at 2:30pm.

Support runs through 2023

Here is our current support strategy for SAP Screen Personas 3.0.

1. SAP Screen Personas 3.0 will be supported until at least Dec. 31, 2023. This rolling 5-year support is the same as S/4HANA. This is a minimum of five years from the release of this service pack, rounded to end of the calendar year.
2. We support the current as well as the two previous Service Packs. What does this mean to you?
   • SP07 will receive continuous innovation
   • SP06 will get important fixes and selected down ports
   • SP05 will receive emergency fixes
   • SP04 and earlier will no longer be supported

System requirements

SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP7 works on a variety of systems from SAP S/4HANA to some much older versions. Specifically:

For SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP07, the supported kernel releases and their corresponding minimum and recommended (as of May 24, 2018) patch levels are listed below:

Kernel release 753 –> Minimum patch level 27   –> Recommended patch level: latest available

Kernel release 749 –> Minimum patch level 400 –> Recommended patch level 400 or higher

Kernel release 745 –> Minimum patch level 600 –> Recommended patch level 600 or higher

Kernel release 742 is out of maintenance. We no longer test on this kernel release.

Kernel release 722 –> Minimum patch level 400 –> Recommended patch level 500 or higher

See the SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP07 Master Note 2633027 for more details and updated recommendations.

Continuous improvement

The SAP Screen Personas team is planning to continue to enhance mobile capabilities and address the growing needs of enterprise customers that are striving to become intelligent enterprises.

Please send us your requests (via email or as a comment to this blog) for anything you would like to see in SP08 and beyond.

Next Steps

Upgrade to SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP7 (requires valid NetWeaver License).

Take the free Introduction to SAP Screen Personas openSAP class to get a foundation for starting your project.

Extend your knowledge with the Using SAP Screen Personas for Advanced Scenarios openSAP class to go deeper into how to use the product.

Learn more from our knowledge base with articles on a variety of topics.

Watch the Productivity Power Play episode on SP07.

For the SAP Screen Personas product team, Peter Spielvogel.