Thanks to all the customers who attended one of our SAP Screen Personas sessions during SAP TechEd 2020. There was a 20-minute lecture (IIS130) and 2-hour hands-on workshop (IIS201), supported by colleagues from around the world (see below). The questions from the audience focused on a variety of topics which we have grouped into several sections for readability.
What is the difference between SAP Fiori and SAP Screen Personas and when to use what?
SAP Screen Personas is a fast and easy way to provide your users the SAP Fiori user experience. If all the business logic exists in a SAP GUI transaction code (in ECC or SAP S/4HANA), but the screen is too busy or requires too many clicks, SAP Screen Personas will often be a great way to simplify the screens for your users.
For building new functionality, we generally recommend SAP Fiori elements and/or SAPUI5.
What is the licensing fee for SAP Screen Personas? Does it make any difference between SAP S/4HANA and ECC?
Does SAP Screen Personas require an additional license for ECC?:
SAP Screen Personas is included in the Netweaver license, so there is no additional charge to download and install the add-on for either SAP S/4HANA or ECC.
Can I get a full learning video of SAP Screen Personas?
We have three openSAP courses on SAP Screen Personas that you can take:
You can access the SAP TechEd 2020 hands-on exercise here:
https://github.com/SAP-samples/teched2020-IIS201
Is SAP Screen Personas a way to enhance the classic SAP screens to look like SAP Fiori screens with most necessary fields?
Yes. You can simplify an existing transaction and give it a SAP Fiori look and feel. As soon as you are faced with needing additional / new functionality, or there is no existing ERP transaction available, then it would be better to either look for an existing SAP Fiori app, or enhance an existing SAP Fiori app based on your needs. If neither these is possible, then build your own custom app.
What is the tool to build SAP Screen Personas? What technology is involved?
You need to install the SAP Screen Personas add-on your server side (works on both SAP S/4HANA and ECC). This can be done on a central server or however your company set-up is. As soon as you have installed it, the admins and flavor creators need authorizations to build flavors. Most business users have the skills to create and modify flavors. People who want to create advanced scripts would benefit from knowing JavaScript.
What is transaction code for creating SAP Screen Personas?
What transaction or URL to use to open SAP Screen Personas (script engine) to simplify the GUI screen?
If you mean what transaction codes can be modified, then any transaction that runs in the SAP GUI for HTML can be simplified with SAP Screen Personas. Even custom transactions that you have created. The script engine is part of the flavor editor. It is accessible if you have permissions to edit flavors.
Can you add full background graphics to SAP Screen Personas?
Yes, this is possible and many customers use background images to add their own branding to the screens. However, large images might slow performance, similar to having large graphics on any Web page.
Can I add controls to screen? And the logic backend/frontend?
Yes, you can add controls to the screen, including buttons, labels, notes, containers to run small SAPUI5 programs, drop-down lists, and more. SAP Screen Personas follows the business logic of the underlying transaction. You can add scripts to your flavors to automate user actions to improve employee productivity.
Does Personas work with Analytical Apps or is it productive with Web GUI apps only?
SAP Screen Personas simplifies SAP GUI for HTML transactions, also known as Web GUI apps. Analytical apps are typically SAP Fiori apps built using SAPUI5. You would use SAP Business Application Studio (next generation of Web IDE) to modify those.
What is the strategy roadmap of SAP for SAP Screen Personas?
SAP Screen Personas is part of the overall SAP Fiori roadmap. https://www.sap.com/documents/2017/06/88e8295c-c37c-0010-82c7-eda71af511fa.gate.html
How do we adjust design for Landscape and Portrait orientation on phones?
You build two flavors each based on the width of the screen. Then, when you rotate the phone, it will automatically switch between them.
Would this be possible to use for transactions used in handheld devices which use resized smaller screens?
Are SAP Screen Personas flavors device dependent? like do we need to create one flavor for each device type?
Is there any automatic detection of screen to resize as per the phone screen as different models will have different screen layout?
If I put the flavor for iPad, will the same screen work on other devices?
Will it get automatically align with different iPhone version screen size?
SAP Screen Personas automatically renders the flavor based on the width settings in the flavors you build. Typically, you create the main flavor and then create adaptive versions for each screen size. This is a matter of moving the controls on the screen to fit the device size. Many organizations create flavors for desktop, tablet, large phone, and small phone. After you have the main flavor, it should take less than an hour to create the adaptive versions for different screen sizes.
Do I need the SAP Fiori Client to use SAP Screen Personas on a phone?
No. You can use SAP Screen Personas on a phone or tablet using SAP GUI for HTML (tablet only) or Slipstream Engine (phone or tablet) to render the screens without the SAP Fiori Client.
How will SAP Screen Personas/ Slipstream Engine utilize a mobile device’s capabilities (like the camera) now that SAP is withdrawing the SAP Fiori Client?
SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP12 introduced new ways to access the native device capabilities without the SAP Fiori Client.
Does SAP Screen Personas support offline extensibility for GUI screens, like SAP Fiori?
SAP Screen Personas is for online applications only. There is no offline capability and we are not planning to add this. For offline, we recommend building an SAP Fiori app.
While working with SAP Screen Personas in our ECC environment, we observed some challenges with customer transactions with upload options. Are there any limitations when we propose SAP Screen Personas?
SAP Screen Personas works with most controls, including custom transactions. Some controls (especially regarding file upload) work only in SAP GUI for Windows and not the browser. This could be the problem you are seeing.
Does SAP Screen Personas have any issue with the Excel upload?
Content of tables and grids can be downloaded as CSV files. SAP Screen Personas does not feature any Excel/CSV specific upload capability.
Can we create variants and save?
SAP Screen Personas works with variant screens.
For transactions like vendor create/change/display, they are different screens. Is there any easy method in which we could bring those fields to one screen rather than adding custom fields and do scripting?
You can simplify the transaction for one of the transaction codes and copy the flavor using the admin transaction to replicate the look, feel, and most functionality. You will still need to have three separate transaction codes. Using scripting, you can switch seamlessly between them, but there will still be three t-codes.
Is SAP Screen Personas applicable to all standard SAP Fiori apps for SAP S/4HANA?
SAP Screen Personas can simplify the SAP GUI screens in SAP S/4HANA. It is not for modifying standard SAP Fiori apps, which are based on SAPUI5, rather than Dynpro, which is the rendering technology behind the SAP GUI screens.
Are demo-flavors/examples delivered within each SAP S/4HANA system (or ECC)?
We do not ship any sample flavors with SAP Screen Personas. The SAP Screen Personas flavor gallery includes some examples you can use for ideas, but they are only intended to be used as a starting point for building your own flavors.
In the future will users only use SAP Fiori? Fiori also opens all transactions as well as Slipstream. What is the advantage of promoting one or the other to the user?
The plan is to eventually deliver all ERP functionality with the SAP Fiori user experience. SAP Screen Personas can be used to simplify SAP GUI screens, including custom transactions, to ensure your end users have a consistent, simple, and delightful user experience.
Is SAP Screen Personas needed to install in SAP S/4HANA or auto add-on?
You still need to install the add-on in SAP S/4HANA, same as for ECC. You can download it from the SAP Service Marketplace.
How do all these screens work for ECC 6.0 EHP 7 version? Also from which version of Netweaver are these Fiori / Screen personas applicable?
SAP Screen Personas works with systems going back to a 700 basis and 722 kernel. The full system requirements are listed in the latest release announcement or the master note.
How flexible is SAP Screen Personas when trying to automate transactions with pre-filled fields from the SAP Fiori launchpad?
SAP Screen Personas can move information between screens within the SAP GUI, either inside a single transaction or even between different transaction codes. You would use the scripting engine to do this.
It is possible to use semantic navigation objects to pass info from SAP Fiori launchpad to SAP Screen Personas flavors and vice versa. This blog post describes the process: https://blogs.sap.com/2019/12/10/leveraging-launchpad-intent-based-navigation-to-pass-custom-values-...
Should users who use apps but not all processes have SAP Fiori apps use SAP Fiori launchpad or Slipstream Engine?
We recommend using SAP Fiori launchpad as the single entry point to your SAP ERP system. From the SAP Fiori launchpad, you can open SAP Fiori apps, SAP Web GUI screens (with or with SAP Screen Personas simplifications), or flavors running in the Slipstream Engine.
Can a Web Dynpro transaction be converted using Screen Personas?
Can be Screen Personas be used to convert also Web Dynpro applications to Fiori UX?
You can simplify Web Dynpro transactions with SAP Screen Personas when you want to hide fields or do simple changes. As soon as you need to do something more complex, then we recommend you use Floorplan Manager.
Is it possible provision SAP Screen Personas flavors to the SAP Fiori launchpad?
Yes, many customer launch flavors from the SAP Fiori launchpad, along side SAPUI5-based SAP Fiori apps.
Is Screen Personas a service available in Cloud Platform or directly to SAP GUI?
SAP Screen Personas is an add-on to your SAP S/4HANA or ECC system.
If you have additional questions, you can ask in the comments area below or use the answers function inside the SAP Community. Be sure to set "SAP Screen Personas" as the SAP Managed Tag.
Thank you to the team that helped run these sessions.
For the SAP Screen Personas product team, peter.spielvogel.
- Basic functionality
- Mobile functionality
- Advanced functionality
- SAP S/4HANA and SAP Screen Personas
- ECC and SAP Screen Personas
- Integration with other solutions
Basic SAP Screen Personas functionality
What is the difference between SAP Fiori and SAP Screen Personas and when to use what?
SAP Screen Personas is a fast and easy way to provide your users the SAP Fiori user experience. If all the business logic exists in a SAP GUI transaction code (in ECC or SAP S/4HANA), but the screen is too busy or requires too many clicks, SAP Screen Personas will often be a great way to simplify the screens for your users.
For building new functionality, we generally recommend SAP Fiori elements and/or SAPUI5.
What is the licensing fee for SAP Screen Personas? Does it make any difference between SAP S/4HANA and ECC?
Does SAP Screen Personas require an additional license for ECC?:
SAP Screen Personas is included in the Netweaver license, so there is no additional charge to download and install the add-on for either SAP S/4HANA or ECC.
Can I get a full learning video of SAP Screen Personas?
We have three openSAP courses on SAP Screen Personas that you can take:
- Introduction to SAP Screen Personas: https://open.sap.com/courses/sps2
- Using SAP Screen Personas for Advanced Scenarios: https://open.sap.com/courses/sps3
- Building Mobile Applications with SAP Screen Personas: https://open.sap.com/courses/sps4
You can access the SAP TechEd 2020 hands-on exercise here:
https://github.com/SAP-samples/teched2020-IIS201
Is SAP Screen Personas a way to enhance the classic SAP screens to look like SAP Fiori screens with most necessary fields?
Yes. You can simplify an existing transaction and give it a SAP Fiori look and feel. As soon as you are faced with needing additional / new functionality, or there is no existing ERP transaction available, then it would be better to either look for an existing SAP Fiori app, or enhance an existing SAP Fiori app based on your needs. If neither these is possible, then build your own custom app.
What is the tool to build SAP Screen Personas? What technology is involved?
You need to install the SAP Screen Personas add-on your server side (works on both SAP S/4HANA and ECC). This can be done on a central server or however your company set-up is. As soon as you have installed it, the admins and flavor creators need authorizations to build flavors. Most business users have the skills to create and modify flavors. People who want to create advanced scripts would benefit from knowing JavaScript.
What is transaction code for creating SAP Screen Personas?
What transaction or URL to use to open SAP Screen Personas (script engine) to simplify the GUI screen?
If you mean what transaction codes can be modified, then any transaction that runs in the SAP GUI for HTML can be simplified with SAP Screen Personas. Even custom transactions that you have created. The script engine is part of the flavor editor. It is accessible if you have permissions to edit flavors.
Can you add full background graphics to SAP Screen Personas?
Yes, this is possible and many customers use background images to add their own branding to the screens. However, large images might slow performance, similar to having large graphics on any Web page.
Can I add controls to screen? And the logic backend/frontend?
Yes, you can add controls to the screen, including buttons, labels, notes, containers to run small SAPUI5 programs, drop-down lists, and more. SAP Screen Personas follows the business logic of the underlying transaction. You can add scripts to your flavors to automate user actions to improve employee productivity.
Does Personas work with Analytical Apps or is it productive with Web GUI apps only?
SAP Screen Personas simplifies SAP GUI for HTML transactions, also known as Web GUI apps. Analytical apps are typically SAP Fiori apps built using SAPUI5. You would use SAP Business Application Studio (next generation of Web IDE) to modify those.
What is the strategy roadmap of SAP for SAP Screen Personas?
SAP Screen Personas is part of the overall SAP Fiori roadmap. https://www.sap.com/documents/2017/06/88e8295c-c37c-0010-82c7-eda71af511fa.gate.html
SAP Screen Personas mobile functionality
How do we adjust design for Landscape and Portrait orientation on phones?
You build two flavors each based on the width of the screen. Then, when you rotate the phone, it will automatically switch between them.
Would this be possible to use for transactions used in handheld devices which use resized smaller screens?
Are SAP Screen Personas flavors device dependent? like do we need to create one flavor for each device type?
Is there any automatic detection of screen to resize as per the phone screen as different models will have different screen layout?
If I put the flavor for iPad, will the same screen work on other devices?
Will it get automatically align with different iPhone version screen size?
SAP Screen Personas automatically renders the flavor based on the width settings in the flavors you build. Typically, you create the main flavor and then create adaptive versions for each screen size. This is a matter of moving the controls on the screen to fit the device size. Many organizations create flavors for desktop, tablet, large phone, and small phone. After you have the main flavor, it should take less than an hour to create the adaptive versions for different screen sizes.
Do I need the SAP Fiori Client to use SAP Screen Personas on a phone?
No. You can use SAP Screen Personas on a phone or tablet using SAP GUI for HTML (tablet only) or Slipstream Engine (phone or tablet) to render the screens without the SAP Fiori Client.
How will SAP Screen Personas/ Slipstream Engine utilize a mobile device’s capabilities (like the camera) now that SAP is withdrawing the SAP Fiori Client?
SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP12 introduced new ways to access the native device capabilities without the SAP Fiori Client.
Does SAP Screen Personas support offline extensibility for GUI screens, like SAP Fiori?
SAP Screen Personas is for online applications only. There is no offline capability and we are not planning to add this. For offline, we recommend building an SAP Fiori app.
Advanced functionality in SAP Screen Personas
While working with SAP Screen Personas in our ECC environment, we observed some challenges with customer transactions with upload options. Are there any limitations when we propose SAP Screen Personas?
SAP Screen Personas works with most controls, including custom transactions. Some controls (especially regarding file upload) work only in SAP GUI for Windows and not the browser. This could be the problem you are seeing.
Does SAP Screen Personas have any issue with the Excel upload?
Content of tables and grids can be downloaded as CSV files. SAP Screen Personas does not feature any Excel/CSV specific upload capability.
Can we create variants and save?
SAP Screen Personas works with variant screens.
For transactions like vendor create/change/display, they are different screens. Is there any easy method in which we could bring those fields to one screen rather than adding custom fields and do scripting?
You can simplify the transaction for one of the transaction codes and copy the flavor using the admin transaction to replicate the look, feel, and most functionality. You will still need to have three separate transaction codes. Using scripting, you can switch seamlessly between them, but there will still be three t-codes.
SAP S/4HANA and SAP Screen Personas
Is SAP Screen Personas applicable to all standard SAP Fiori apps for SAP S/4HANA?
SAP Screen Personas can simplify the SAP GUI screens in SAP S/4HANA. It is not for modifying standard SAP Fiori apps, which are based on SAPUI5, rather than Dynpro, which is the rendering technology behind the SAP GUI screens.
Are demo-flavors/examples delivered within each SAP S/4HANA system (or ECC)?
We do not ship any sample flavors with SAP Screen Personas. The SAP Screen Personas flavor gallery includes some examples you can use for ideas, but they are only intended to be used as a starting point for building your own flavors.
In the future will users only use SAP Fiori? Fiori also opens all transactions as well as Slipstream. What is the advantage of promoting one or the other to the user?
The plan is to eventually deliver all ERP functionality with the SAP Fiori user experience. SAP Screen Personas can be used to simplify SAP GUI screens, including custom transactions, to ensure your end users have a consistent, simple, and delightful user experience.
Is SAP Screen Personas needed to install in SAP S/4HANA or auto add-on?
You still need to install the add-on in SAP S/4HANA, same as for ECC. You can download it from the SAP Service Marketplace.
ECC and SAP Screen Personas
How do all these screens work for ECC 6.0 EHP 7 version? Also from which version of Netweaver are these Fiori / Screen personas applicable?
SAP Screen Personas works with systems going back to a 700 basis and 722 kernel. The full system requirements are listed in the latest release announcement or the master note.
SAP Screen Personas and Integration with other solutions
How flexible is SAP Screen Personas when trying to automate transactions with pre-filled fields from the SAP Fiori launchpad?
SAP Screen Personas can move information between screens within the SAP GUI, either inside a single transaction or even between different transaction codes. You would use the scripting engine to do this.
It is possible to use semantic navigation objects to pass info from SAP Fiori launchpad to SAP Screen Personas flavors and vice versa. This blog post describes the process: https://blogs.sap.com/2019/12/10/leveraging-launchpad-intent-based-navigation-to-pass-custom-values-...
Should users who use apps but not all processes have SAP Fiori apps use SAP Fiori launchpad or Slipstream Engine?
We recommend using SAP Fiori launchpad as the single entry point to your SAP ERP system. From the SAP Fiori launchpad, you can open SAP Fiori apps, SAP Web GUI screens (with or with SAP Screen Personas simplifications), or flavors running in the Slipstream Engine.
Can a Web Dynpro transaction be converted using Screen Personas?
Can be Screen Personas be used to convert also Web Dynpro applications to Fiori UX?
You can simplify Web Dynpro transactions with SAP Screen Personas when you want to hide fields or do simple changes. As soon as you need to do something more complex, then we recommend you use Floorplan Manager.
Is it possible provision SAP Screen Personas flavors to the SAP Fiori launchpad?
Yes, many customer launch flavors from the SAP Fiori launchpad, along side SAPUI5-based SAP Fiori apps.
Is Screen Personas a service available in Cloud Platform or directly to SAP GUI?
SAP Screen Personas is an add-on to your SAP S/4HANA or ECC system.
Other topics
If you have additional questions, you can ask in the comments area below or use the answers function inside the SAP Community. Be sure to set "SAP Screen Personas" as the SAP Managed Tag.
Thank you to the team that helped run these sessions.
- Europe: Krists, Sylvia, Artemijs, Kristina
- U.S.: Tamas, Vandana, Conrad
For the SAP Screen Personas product team, peter.spielvogel.
- SAP Managed Tags:
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