Product Information
New SAP Fiori launchpad content manager tool available for S/4HANA 1709 and 1809 customers
Latest Update Oct 1, 2019: A new version of the launchpad content manager is now available. Read my blog for detailed information about new features and capabilities.
Latest Update Aug 23, 2019: As there were several questions around this topic in the comments, a short clarification: Though the Content Manager tool is targeted towards managing SAP Fiori content in SAP S/4HANA, as the huge amount of available SAP Fiori apps, catalogs etc. created an immediate need for such a tool. Nevertheless, the tool itself is available with specific SAP NetWeaver/SAP_UI versions, as mentioned below. It can then be used both in a hub and embedded deployment of SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA.
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The new launchpad content manager has been released for SAP S/4HANA 1809 (with SAP_UI 7.53 SP04 and SAPUI5 1.60) and for 1709 (with SAP_UI 7.52 SP07 and SAPUI5 1.52) on July 1st and it is also planned to be released for SAP S/4HANA 1909 (with SAP_UI 7.54 SP00) in September 2019. Complementing the SAP Fiori launchpad designer as a configuration tool, it substantially simplifies the configuration of SAP Fiori launchpad content.
What do we mean by Fiori launchpad content?
Fiori launchpad content is all of the apps assigned to you as a business user for access via the launchpad. This includes apps you access
- on your Home Page by tiles or links,
- via the App Finder, the Home button, or SAP Fiori Search and
- via seamless app-to-app navigation (e.g. by drilling down on an Overview Page card or selecting a hyperlink in a List Report or Analytical List Page).
Technically, apps are collected into catalogs, and these catalogs are then assigned to your business role authorizing you to view and access all the apps in your catalogs.
What functionality does the content manager provide?
The content manager improves the creation and adaptation of SAP Fiori launchpad catalogs. You can use it both to explore existing content and to create your own catalogs by copying existing ones and adapting them to your needs.
The content manager has two tabs, one for managing catalogs and one for managing tiles and target mappings. You might select a catalog on the Catalogs tab to get a detailed list of all tiles and target mappings that are part of this catalog and see at a glance which tiles and target mappings match according to their intent and whether there are tiles without a matching target mapping in the catalog or vice versa.
On the Tiles/Target Mappings tab in contrast, you can select a tile, a target mapping, or a matching combination of both and see in which catalogs it exists. In addition, the Reference Detail field indicates whether the selected tile or target mapping was created in the catalog or is a reference.
Where does the content manager improve your experience compared to the SAP Fiori launchpad designer?
Here are some examples:
- While it can be very hard with the launchpad designer to find all corresponding tiles and target mappings for a given SAP Fiori application, you can now easily search for an SAP Fiori app, e.g. by entering the SAP Fiori ID that you find in the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library into the search field on the Tile/Target Mappings tab. You will immediately get a list of all tiles and target mappings that launch the SAP Fiori application.
- The content manager substantially improves the process of finding and correcting problems. Go to the Tile/Target Mappings tab and filter for Status Error or Warning to see all tiles, target mappings and combinations with errors and get further information on the issue.
- Creating your own catalogs is very easy with the content manager: After identifying a catalog that is similar to what you need, just create your own copy of the existing catalog. The new catalog contains references to the tiles and target mappings in the original catalog. You can now in a first step delete all unnecessary references by simply selecting them and choosing Remove Tiles/Target Mappings. In a second step, you can easily add all missing tiles and target mappings by searching the complete list of tile/target mappings, selecting the tiles and target mappings you would like to add and clicking the Add button.Therefore, the content manager is especially helpful for customizing the Rapid Activation content. The Rapid Activation for SAP Fiori in SAP S/4HANA task lists help customers to cut down the time needed to activate apps for SAP business roles (see Jocelyn Dart’s great blog on that topic). Once activated, you can start exploring the activated SAP Fiori content and comparing it to the real business roles in your company and you will probably find some need for adjustments here. This is where the content manager will enable you to make any changes you need in a very effective manner.
So, how do you run the launchpad content manager?
The launchpad content manager allows you to make system-wide or client-specific changes. For making system-wide changes in the configuration scope, you use transaction /UI2/FLPCM_CONF to access the content manager tool. For client-specific changes in the customizing scope, please use transaction /UI2/FLPCM_CUST.
For more details check out the SAP Fiori launchpad content manager documentation.
It’s more helpful..Thanks for sharing this info.
Thank you,
Syam
This looks really good and much more efficient than the Designer. Is there any plan to port this to the Netweaver Gateway? Thanks.
Hi Matthew, Not at this stage, although it's a good thought. Generally we aimed the tool at the huge scale of new UX in S/4HANA. Most ECC and Suite on HANA solutions have much fewer apps, so Launchpad Designer is considered sufficient.
HI Matthew
Actually I stand corrected! It is based on the NetWeaver version only. So as long as the NetWeaver version of your FES is at a high enough version - i.e. 7.52 SP07 (FES 4.0) or 7.53 SP04 (FES 5.0) you can make use of it - at least on the frontend. Similarly if you are running in hub mode then your backend will need to be on a high enough version to run it on the backend.
Please let us know how you go! We would love some feedback.
More details in SAP Note
2772270 - SAP Fiori Launchpad Content Manager
Enjoy!
Well, this should be a part of the Solution Manager in Executables list.
This should be managed centrally from there (Solution Documentation app), especially if you have few Fiori Launchpads, Fiorized Cloud Apps for Concur, Ariba, Successfactors, etc.
i would say the direction of the Blog is positive, but the solution need to be improved from the wholistic perspective and not just one S4HANA system.
Let’s just think about organisations with thousands of users...
DEV QAS PREPROD PROD dimension...
Here we go...
Hi Adi, Thanks for your comments. Definitely we are heading in that direction as we move towards Fiori 3 and more flexible content and integrated content from SAP Cloud solutions such as Concur, Ariba, SuccessFactors, and FieldGlass.
This tool is aimed at the immediate need to provide deal with the scale of assigning Fiori apps and classic apps to the Fiori launchpad in S/4HANA systems where we already have over 1.4K Fiori apps and over 10K apps when classic apps are included.
Most SaaS applications have a much smaller number of apps on their launchpads.
There is also a Customer Influence Project on the Fiori implementation experience if you are interested in getting involved in providing input to the longer term roadmap. Although official registration is closed, the first call has not yet been held, and you could still reach out to Customer Engagement Initiative to see if they can include you.
Hello Adi,
There is a free and open for contributors tool – Fiori Tracker - that is made to help with configuring a vast scale of Fiori and classic apps in Fiori launchpad. It runs on SAP Solution Manager and is made for the project teams to agree on and document Fiori launchpad configuration. Currently, its functions are on “to-be” state of Fiori launchpad configuration, with some “as-is” and provisioning part but we are developing it to have more. It helped us and the number of other teams to save a lot of time during projects. Let me know if you would like to learn more.
Regards
Greg
Greg
Awesome tool, albeit as a end to end Solution Architect I would prefer this to work seamlessly in Solution Manager Focused build since this requires Role based Business Process swim lane diagrams incorporated in SOLMAN Business Process management tool, while chARM will take care of the application lifecycle management (DEV QAS PREPROD PROD), so you will have the big picture end to end including an interface to the Test scripts.
I probably need to set up a session with you folks off line to learn about this and see what we can do in the future.
Cheers,
Adi
Hello Adi,
Thanks for your feedback. I will look into how we can adopt Fiori Tracker to work with Focused Build and get back with an update.
Regards
Greg
Hello again,
Solution Manager’s „Executable library” with apps linkage to business process steps indeed looks like a good candidate to keep the list of all applications in the project’s scope. At the moment “Executable library” is a simple list of apps without tens of functions that Fiori Tracker offers except two:
As one can put URL as the entry in the “Executable library,” customers using SolMan can link their process steps to application entry in Fiori Tracker, and they are doing that. As for enabling Fiori Tracker to trackback to process steps in SolMan, we would be happy to develop such a function if we have a customer interested in having it. We are putting it in our backlog for now.
Br
Greg
As agreed, this will be presented at Sydney SAP Tech Nights on November 12th 2019, so let's keep people desiring to come to our networking party in Sydney to hear about it - hereafter our registration link https://sitregparticipant-a5a504e08.dispatcher.hana.ondemand.com/#/Events/68
Hi Sibylle,
This looks very promising. However, as others have intimated, will this really only work with S/4HANA systems, or will it also work with hub-deployed Fiori Front End Servers? From your description, it seems that it should be relatively independent of the backend system, and relate more to the FES/Gateway system having the right SAP_UI release and SP level.
Cheers,
Matt
Hi Matt, Fiori content manager is available for both Embedded and Hub modes for SAP Fiori for S/4HANA.
Thanks, Jocelyn, though I'm still a bit unclear. If I run Fiori FES in Hub mode, the FLP is independent of the backend. The individual apps, or packages of apps, can be different depending on whether the backend is S/4HANA or Business Suite, but the FLP is the same in either case.
So, are you saying that Fiori Content Manager will not work if my backend is Suite and not S/4? It seems like it should work for both, because it's not about the individual apps, it's about the FLP and managing the Catalogs and Groups (and Roles).
Hi Matt, In a S/4HANA landscape the release version of your Fiori for S/4HANA FES is tightly coupled to your backend S/4HANA version. This makes it much easier for us to deliver to a guaranteed combination of Frontend/Backend versions. So at this stage we are only focussing on S/4HANA scenarios.
I agree it would be useful for Business Suite and Suite on HANA. However we feel the need is not so acute there so FES in front of Suite has not been included in our testing. Launchpad Designer continues to be the primary tool for Suite, and we still use Launchpad Designer for some use cases in S/4HANA.
This is very helpful. I am wondering whether it can show information about the SAP Role as well? I mean can it show information in below format so that we can know what all Fiori app is part of a specific SAP Role ?
SAP Role Catalog Fiori App Id
Hi Pankaj - Good thought! Yes Roles are coming in version 2 which is currently being worked on. Don't have a date for that yet - please stay tuned.
Hi Jocelyn,
It would be an awesome to have a tool to report on Roles to Fiori Applications.
That's the plan! Stay tuned. I will add an update once the new version is available. Not sure yet when that will be.
Hey Pankaj,
You can find out what all Fiori apps are part of the role with Fiori Tracker. Fiori Tracker has a function that shows you all apps that are configured for the chosen catalog:
You can drill down to Catalogs contained in the Role by using Role function:
Fiori Tracker is a free tool that you can install on your SAP Solution Manager or SAP Gateway. You can learn more here on http://fioritracker.org.
Hope it helps
Greg
https://blogs.sap.com/2019/09/30/further-enhancements-of-sap-fiori-launchpad-content-manager-tool-now-available/comment-page-1/#comment-475976
check this out.
Amazing!
This tool will be a lifesaver in many occasions for Fiori consultants.
Great! We'd love to hear your feedback Soumalya once you get a chance to use it!
Further enhancements of SAP Fiori launchpad content manager tool now available
https://blogs.sap.com/2019/09/30/further-enhancements-of-sap-fiori-launchpad-content-manager-tool-now-available/comment-page-1/#comment-475976
From using this tool I can clearly see the benefits, I love that fact that one can select tile and mapping in one click. There is an issue here though, that the tool doesnt allow for the selecting of individual t-codes and then inserting them all in one go, if this was introduced it would be fantastic. Please also consider including the group management here too, jumping back to the FLP_CUST to manage the groups is a pain.
Hi Expert, In my project we are activating more than 4500+ tiles. I have checked front end system and found that there is transaction code "/UI2/FLPCM"
and front system has SAP_UI 753 SP02, We are using hub deployment mode.
Please guide me how can i use Fiori launchpad content manager effectively.
Thank you! I will try it now!
I use this on a daily basis and much prefer it to the browser based customiser. Do you know if there is going to be anything for fiori groups?
Hi Phil,
I am glad to hear that you like the FLP content manager. Unfortunately, it is not planned to be extended for managing groups. Last year, we introduced the new option to structure the launchpad content with spaces and pages (see this blog) as an alternative to the homepage with groups. At some point in time, this new concept will replace the existing homepage and the groups. Therefore, we introduced new tools (SAP Fiori apps Manage launchpad spaces and Manage launchpad pages) for spaces and pages, but do not plan to add/enhance tooling for managing groups.
Regards,
Sibylle
Thanks Sibylle, the blog post you have recommended is great.
We're on 1909 at the moment with plans to move to the latest version in the New Year so look forward to using both the manage pages and spaces apps. I think these will help to improve the UX for my users.
Cheers,
Phil