It’s Trial Time for ABAP in SAP Business Technology Platform

Update history:

•  12.11.2019 – Added a “What’s new section”
•  03.10.2020 – New screen shots showing the new “Booster”
•  28.01.2021 – Changed the product name to SAP Business Technology Platform ABAP Environment

You have asked. We have listened.

Since SAP TechEd 2019 in Las Vegas the long awaited trial version of the SAP Cloud Platform, ABAP Environment is now available. Everybody can now get their hands dirty and can try out, for example the new ABAP RESTful Programming Model.

What do you need as prerequisites ?

• • You have created a trial account on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP): Get a Free Trial Account on SAP Business Technology Platform.
  • You have installed the ABAP Development Tools (ADT). Get the ABAP Development Tools (ADT), section „Procedure“.

Where do I find ABAP trial ?

The ABAP trial is part of the Cloud Foundry trial and can be easily accessed via the SAP BTP trial access https://cockpit.hanatrial.ondemand.com in just 3 steps.

1. 1. Click on Enter Your Trial Account.
   2. Click on Boosters in the menu on the left hand side
   3. Choose the tile Prepare an Account for ABAP Trial and follow the wizard

For a detailed step-by-step description check out our Onboarding Tutorial.

A short description of the onboarding process can also be found in the SAP Online Help.

What are the Rules of the Game ?

This trial is a Shared Offering. Opposed to other trial offerings in SAP BTP this is a shared trial offering. Trial users share an instance of the same backend system. As in an on premise ABAP development system the content is not separated which means you are able to see and change all objects that other developers have created. And they can see and change the objects that you have developed. As a result we ask you to be careful when editing objects. So you should always be sure to replace the placeholders XXX provided in our tutorials (e.g.zcl_generate_travel_data_XXX) with an unused 3-digit number or 3-character combination.

It’s for educational purposes only. The system may only be used to educate yourself. You must not use it for any other purposes.

It has a limited lifetime. The total lifetime of the shared ABAP trial system is bound to the lifetime of your trial account in the Cloud Foundry environment.  A trial account in the Cloud Foundry environment has a default period of utilization of 30 days. You can extend the trial period to a maximum of 90 days, after which your account is automatically deleted. At the end of the maximum usage period you will see a message like the following.

After your trial account has been deleted, you can create a new trial account in the Cloud Foundry environment, unless you would like to purchase an enterprise account as described in the SAP Online Help.

What is in that box and how can I import code?

For your convenience we have preinstalled the Flight Reference Scenario for the ABAP RESTful Programming Model. So no need for you to install it again. The Flight Reference Scenario provides sample data and services as well as legacy business logic to get familiar with the ABAP RESTful Programming Model. You can check out the end-to-end scenarios or build your own app based on the reference scenario and sample data.

As described in Use abapGit to Transform ABAP Source Code to the Cloud you can also import your own code into the trial system. This is possible using the abapGit client that comes with the ABAP Development Tools. But remember, this is a shared trial, so you must not upload anything beside your own demo code.

Though it is not possible to use the destination service and on premise connectivity (see section Known limitations) I have described a workaround to call remote OData services in a blog (see section Related blogs)

What should I do if I have a question or an issue ?

If you have questions or if you are stuck with something you can post your problem in the Q&A section of SCN using the tag SAP Cloud Platform, ABAP environment | SAP | SAP Blogs .

Known limitations

Due to the shared trial approach, the following features are limited:

• Limited access to the apps of the administrator’s SAP Fiori Launchpad
  • No apps for Identity and Access Management (IAM)
  • No apps for Communication Management
  • No app for Software Component Lifecycle
• No support for custom Identity Provider (IdP)

Most important limitations that result from the technical limitations above:

• No usage of Destination Service
• No usage of On Premise Connectivity
• Business Roles can’t be created nor assigned
• Custom Authorization Objects & Fields can’t be used

Related blogs

• It’s Steampunk now
• SAP Cloud Platform ABAP Environment – Release 1908
• How to call a remote OData service from the trial version of SAP Cloud Platform ABAP environment
• The RAP Generator
• How to use the RAP Generator

Where do I find further information ?

• SAP Help Portal – ABAP RESTful Programming Model
• Product Information – SAP Business Technology Platform ABAP environment
• Learning Journey – SAP Business Technology Platform ABAP Environment – Trial

Whats’s new?

• The RAP Generator has been installed on all trial systems
• All trial systems have been upgraded to 2008 that supports Draft.
• As a new region you can now choose US East (VA) in Amazon Web Services (AWS)