Technical Articles
SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA – Searching for Target Mapping Parameters using the launchpad content manager
This is a tip from a recent SAP S/4HANA project in the Asia-Pacific Japan region. The customer had noticed that some apps have the target mapping parameter sap-keep-alive = true. They were curious to know which other apps had this parameter. How do we find them? SAP Fiori launchpad content manager to the rescue!
The behaviour of these SAP Fiori apps is slightly different (in a good way) when navigating to and from the SAP Fiori app to classic user interfaces. You can find out more about Keep Alive in the SAP Fiori launchpad guide in the SAP Help Portal. But “keep alive” is not the main point of this blog post!
There are many situations where you might want to track down a particular parameter for an app. Maybe you are using the same app in different roles. Maybe you noticed a useful feature – such as user defaults – and want to use the same approach on a different app. Or just find everywhere that a particular parameter has been used, e.g. Extended User Defaults for Company Code as explained in Applying User Defaults in SAP S/4HANA.
This is where the Fiori launchpad content manager is really useful!
Simply enter your SAP S/4HANA system using SAP GUI (SAP GUI for Windows or SAP GUI for HTML). Go to the Fiori launchpad content manager in the client-specific customizing (CUST) scope, i.e. using SAP GUI Transaction /UI2/FLPCM_CUST.
Launchpad content manager in customizing (CUST) scope
Now you do need to know a little bit about how app information is organized. That’s a whole topic in itself and you will find more on this in the blog series Understanding Business Roles.
The essential concept you need to know for this kind of search is that the parameter will be held on the target mapping.
Conceptual relationships between users, business roles, business catalogs and their components
Because you want to search for a target mapping parameter, you go to the Tiles/Target Mappings tab, enter your search term, and press the Go button.
Launchpad content manager – Tiles/Target Mappings tab
You then get a result list of all target mappings with that parameter.
Result list of target mappings with the sap-keep-alive parameter
You can confirm that your list really does refer to that parameter by selecting any of the rows and pressing the Details button.
Detail of a row of the result list showing target mapping parameters
Having understood the difference between business catalogs and technical catalogs – as explained in Adding Custom Content to Business Roles – to use this information, you will usually want to know where the originals are stored, which is usually the technical catalog.
To find out where the originals are stored, use the Change Layout… feature to add the original catalog for the Target Mapping ID – i.e. the source technical catalog for the target mapping.
Change Layout… feature in the Result List header
Then in the Change Layout dialog move the Original Target Mapping Catalog ID from the Column Set right-hand pane to the Displayed Columns left-hand pane using the arrow heads between the 2 panes.
Change Layout dialog – Selecting columns from the Column Set to add to the Displayed Columns
By default the selected column will be added to the bottom of the Displayed Columns. You can then further adjust where the column appears by using the arrow head buttons at the top of the Displayed Columns pane.
Change Layout dialog – adjusting the order of the Displayed Columns
The end result is a quick list of all the relevant target mappings and their source catalogs.
Result list showing Original Target Mapping Catalog ID column
You can search on other parameters, such as User Defaults
You can also use the launchpad content manager search on other parameters such as User Defaults parameters.
For example, to find every target mapping that can accept multiple company codes maintained in the User Defaults section of the Settings in the User Actions menu (or in releases S/4HANA 1809 or lower, in the Me area. All you need to know is the format for User Defaults which is explained in Applying User Defaults in SAP S/4HANA. You can find further information on the available formats in the SAP Fiori launchpad guide section Configuring Navigation Parameters with User-Specific Default Values.
Result list of target mappings with parameter UserDefault.Extended.CompanyCode
Becoming a SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA guru
For more on what the launchpad content manager can do, look at some of the other blog posts in our blog series on Understanding Business Roles such as:
You’ll find much more on the community topic page for SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA
Other helpful links in the SAP Community:
- Follow our tag SAP S/4HANA RIG for more from the SAP S/4HANA Customer Care and RIG
- See all questions and answers about SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA
- Follow SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA for more blogs and updates
- Ask a Question about SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA
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Hi! Jocelyn,
This is very informative blog. We use this transaction a lot as it provides many options via toolbar. By reading above details it will now become more powerful.
We are also exploring if there is a way to find out change log to the catalog. Developers make changes to catalog often and it is very helpful if such activity is captured somewhere.
Thanks,
AQIB
Hi Aquib, thanks for the encouragement! Re a change log - so far no, but I know that is something we are asking for.
Hi Jocelyn! Thanks for very valuable piece of information. I was struggling to find all such information in one place.
One relatively related question - is there way to extend standard target mapping in SAP's standard catalog with additional parameters? GUI transaction sitting behind the mapping can accept more parameters which we would need in our scenario. Allow additional parameters checkbox is not marked by the way.
Thank you
Hi Pavel
Not yet... but wait for announcements with SAP Fiori front-end server for SAP S/4HANA 2022.
In earlier releases you need to copy the technical catalog entry to your own custom technical catalog, make your adjustments in your copy, and then change the reference in your business catalog to your custom technical catalog
Best
Jocelyn
Hello Jocelyn
Thanks very much for your help, with your blog
About target mapping parameters, where can we find a list of available parameters and where can we find these announcements on the updates for FES
Best regards
Frederick
Hi Frederick,
For announcements on the updates of SAP Fiori and FES it is best to watch the blogs from Thomas Reiss and Carola Steinmaier
Parameters can be viewed in the launchpad app manager transaction MM_APP
Best
Jocelyn