SAP Mobile Cards – a microapp development platform for the Intelligent Enterprise

What is a microapp?
If simple is better, then microapps are in fashion. Microapps are far removed from larger, more complex mobile apps or websites. They are small, specific, and highly targeted to a function or a process the user needs. Microapps save time and create efficiencies by reducing the need to open and navigate large websites or large mobile and desktop apps. They deliver the precise functionality and present it simply so a function can be processed quickly and easily.

Why are microapps relevant to the Intelligent Enterprise?
Because of their simple nature and low-cost development, microapps help companies maximize time to value. Companies can quickly build dozens of microapps to create processing and functional efficiencies across a wide variety of use cases in the Intelligent Enterprise. Microapps can help SAP customers “Run Faster” by providing users quick & easy access to valuable targeted information wherever they may be.

SAP Mobile Card Kit

SAP Mobile Cards and the mobile card kit is the microapp development platform. It is a feature of the SAP Cloud Platform’s Mobile Services. Mobile Card development is quick and requires very little skills / ramp up for companies with web developers.

The Basics:

• The mobile client for SAP Mobile Card kit feature is named SAP Mobile Cards.
• The SAP Mobile Cards app is a native app for IOS,Android and also supports WeChat. The app is responsible for displaying business content (cards).
• A microapp = 1 SAP Mobile Card instance (this could be a single Mobile Card or a set of related cards. For example: Unified Inbox approvals)
• The SAP Mobile Cards client is available from iTunes, Google Play, or can be custom built & branded with the Mobile Services build service.
• Each microapp that is created is delivered as an HTML “card” into the SAP Mobile Cards app
• Cards have a Wallet / Passbook style feel and are extremely simple to navigate.
• Cards can have a front and a backside
• The SAP Mobile Cards native app can host an unlimited number of un-related microapps that come from any OData or REST data service (SAP or non-SAP).
• Each individual Mobile Card integrates with the mobile device to leverage the native device capabilities for using the phone dialer, iMessage, email, maps.
• Each individual Mobile Card can be updated automatically, gets push notifications, can leverage location services, and is available in the event the network is not.
• Develop the SAP Mobile Cards HTML and CSS using either the SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services administrator or the Web IDE Full Stack (must install the Web IDE Extension for Mobile Services App Development Tools)

Learn More:

Download the SAP Mobile Cards app and click “Try the Demo”
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sap-mobile-cards/id1168110623?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sap.content2go

SAP Mobile Cards Developer landing page:
https://developers.sap.com/topics/mobile-cards.html

Interactive Tutorials:
https://www.sap.com/developer/tutorial-navigator/mobile-interactive-tutorials/content2go.html

Learn about the other mobile app development capabilities of the SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services:
https://blogs.sap.com/2017/06/21/sap-cloud-platform-mobile-services-development-options/#comparison

SAP Community:
https://blogs.sap.com/?s=sap+mobile+cards