SAP Fiori Tools: Deploy to ABAP server

In my previous blog post SAP Fiori Tools – SAPUI5 Freestyle App, I’ve shown how to set up a SAPUI5 Freestyle App using SAP Fiori Tools. After you have finished building and testing your UI5 app, the next logical thing to do is prepare it for deployment. In this blog post, I will show how to deploy a SAPUI5 App to the ABAP server using SAP Fiori Tools.

 

 

Prerequisites

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• SAP Business Application Studio
• Visual Studio Code with SAP Fiori Tools extension installed
• ABAP server (in this demo, I’m using S/4HANA)
• The OData Service to Load Data to the SAPUI5 ABAP Repository is activated

 

UI5 Tooling

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As I’ve already mentioned in my previous blog post, UI5 Tooling is one of the many tools behind SAP Fiori Tools. UI5 Tooling is also responsible for deploying the UI5 App to multiple target systems, including the ABAP server.

If you are still using the SAPUI5 Tools for Eclipse, then you should read this blog post — SAPUI5 Tools for Eclipse – Now is the Time to Look for Alternatives. In short, SAPUI5 Tools for Eclipse has been officially retired. And while SAP WebIDE can still be used to deploy UI5 App to ABAP server, SAP has been promoting the next generation IDE which is SAP Business Application Studio, and therefore, its use for deploying UI5 App to ABAP. And from SAP Business Application Studio, the tool that is used to deploy the UI5 app is the UI5 Tooling.

To sum it up, we are already in the 3rd generation of SAPUI5 Tools in the form of UI5 Tooling. And through this tool, you can utilize it by using your preferred development IDE. While this tool opens up the possibility to be used with the IDE of your choosing, it may be not so straight-forward to use for those who are very used to using SAP WebIDE. Hence, I’ve created this blog post, to show how it can be used to deploy your UI5 App to the ABAP server.

 

Deploy to ABAP server

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The base project for this demo is the solution from my previous blog post — SAP Fiori Tools – SAPUI5 Freestyle App. If you followed through the demo on that blog post, then you’re good to proceed with the steps detailed in this blog post. But in case you didn’t have the solution, you can find the solution in the link below:

https://github.com/jcailan/cap-samples/tree/blog-fiori-tools

However, you need to make sure that you have installed modules if you are using the Visual Studio Code. Now, with the base project ready, let’s start the deployment process.

• 1. Inspect the scripts inside the package.json file. The initial state of the package.json have the deploy script looking like below:

"deploy": "fiori add deploy-config"

As you can see, if you run the deploy script, it will execute the command and generate the deploy config.

• 2. Execute the deploy script on the command line:

> npm run deploy

Note: On your terminal, you need to be inside the gwsample folder before you execute the command — npm run deploy.

You will be prompted to answer the information like ABAP Package and Transport Request number — see below screenshot for more details:

Notice that the deploy script in package.json has been updated with:

"deploy": "ui5 build preload --config ui5-deploy.yaml"

Also, ui5-deploy.yaml file has been created. This serves as the deployment descriptor for the UI5 app.

specVersion: "1.0"
metadata:
  name: "gwsample"
type: application
ui5Theme: sap_fiori_3
builder:
  customTasks:
    - name: deploy-to-abap
      afterTask: generateVersionInfo
      configuration:
        target:
          url: http://sample.host.com:8000
        app:
          name: gwsample
          package: Z_DEMO_UI5_TOOLING
          transport: <your.transport.request>

• 3. Update the deployment descriptor ui5-deploy.yaml file with the configuration for your server credentials. And also make sure that the name of the app starts with Z or Y for the customer namespace (every ABAPer should already know this).

specVersion: "1.0"
metadata:
  name: "gwsample"
type: application
ui5Theme: sap_fiori_3
builder:
  customTasks:
    - name: deploy-to-abap
      afterTask: generateVersionInfo
      configuration:
        target:
          url: http://<your server hostname>:<port> # <-- modify this
          client: <development client> # <-- modify this
          auth: basic
        credentials:
          username: env:UI5_USERNAME
          password: env:UI5_PASSWORD
        app:
          name: zgwsample # <-- modify this
          package: Z_DEMO_UI5_TOOLING
          transport: <your transport request from previous step>

You can follow through the changes from the template above, but keep the credentials section unchanged because we will define UI5_USERNAME and UI5_PASSWORD as environment variables in the next step. We are doing this because you don’t want your username and password to be part of the project files that you commit to git.

• 4. Create the .env file that will contain the values of environment variables UI5_USERNAME and UI5_PASSWORD. The file should have below entries:

UI5_USERNAME=<your username>
UI5_PASSWORD=<your password>

Note: This .env file shouldn’t be committed to git, therefore, create an entry for this file in your .gitignore file to make sure that it doesn’t get committed to git. If you’re not using git then you can ignore this step.

• 5. Now that the deployment setup is complete, it’s time to execute the deploy command again:

> npm run deploy

If everything executed smoothly, you will get a series of logs printed in the terminal, and it will end with the following messages:

info builder:custom deploy-to-abap Deployment Successful.
info builder:builder Build succeeded in 20 s
info builder:builder Executing cleanup tasks...

Note that before the actual deployment, the tool builds the UI5 project first and do the minification of UI5 files and the generation of the *preload.js files. So the tool is already taking care of all the best practices build process before the actual deployment.

 

Test the Deployed UI5 App

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• 1. Go to SICF tcode and search for your app by using the app name as the value for the service name. Once found, test the app by right-clicking on the ui5 app node and click on test service. This will launch the URL of your UI5 app, and you should see the below results:

That’s it! You’ve deployed a SAPUI5 App using SAP Fiori Tools / UI5 Tooling!

 

Closing

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Now you see how easy it is to deploy a SAPUI5 App using the new UI5 Tooling. Hopefully, this blog post can help you with transitioning from your current preferred tool into using this new SAPUI5 Tooling.

The beauty of this tooling is openness because you can use it on your preferred IDE. And to further ease your transition, I suggest for you to gain a basic understanding of Node.js runtime (if you haven’t acquired this yet).

 

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Appreciate it if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions. Cheers!~