SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP12 now available. SAPUI5 applets, easier SAP Fiori launchpad integration, native barcode scanning

During the past year, many customers took the time to share their digital transformation success stories with us and request new functionality to make the process easier. We heard about upgrade and enhancement projects being delayed, so people were focusing on extracting more value from their existing investments in SAP S/4HANA or ECC. SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP12 includes functionality to add new capabilities to flavors, integrate them into the SAP Fiori launchpad, and package them “to-go” with native device capabilities such using the camera or barcode scanning. In this release announcement, we will focus on a few innovations that have received positive feedback during our user group meetings.

• SAPUI5 Applets
• Scanning Barcodes
• Central SAP Fiori launchpad Integration
• Fiori icon fonts

SAPUI5 Applets let you add capabilities to your flavors

To add advanced new functionality to their flavors, some customers have used the SAP Screen Personas script editor to create long JavaScript programs and run them in a GuiHtmlViewer control. We have seen scripts that were hundreds or even thousands of lines long.

While this approach was effective for them, with SP12, we have introduced a better way with SAPUI5 Applets. The biggest advantage is that you can create your JavaScript programs in a focused IDE with proper version control and debugging capabilities. Then, run these programs by calling them in a simple script.

An SAPUI5 Applet is an independent, self-contained and isolated SAPUI5 component that is developed outside SAP Screen Personas and deployed on an SAP ABAP Backend SAPUI5 repository. SAPUI5 development and deployment take place in a dedicated development environment such as SAP Business Application Studio or Visual Studio Code, following standard SAPUI5 Fiori App development practices.

The SAP Screen Personas Admin transaction provides facilities to read the SAPUI5 repository content and determine components in an allowlist that can be then inserted in flavors that run in the Slipstream Engine.

The SAP Screen Personas flavor editor allows users to select the UI5 Applet containers, define where they will appear on the screen, and assign SAP Screen Personas scripts. The scripts act as adapters by enabling access to the SAPUI5 Applet component service APIs and view models to enable omnidirectional data flow for state synchronization.

Scanning barcodes is possible through the browser

With the sunset of the SAP Fiori Client, we created a new way to add barcode scanning to flavors. The barcode scanner in SAP Screen Personas allows users to scan barcodes using any modern HTML5 browser that supports camera access through the MediaDevices interface. It is also possible to access barcode scanning functionality in SAP Fiori Client, if you still wanted to use it.

The button to access the barcode scanner can be added to input controls from the Flavor Editor without additional scripting. After adding a scanner button to an input field, a new script will be added to the flavor. This is what maps the scanner button to the input field. This simple script is bound to the scanner button’s onClick event and defines a callback action (onBarcodeFound) and launches the barcode scanner using the new scripting API session.utils.startBarcodeScanner. You can use this new scripting API method for custom barcode scanning scenarios.

Pressing the Scan button while in runtime mode will open a popup for the device camera. Point the camera at the relevant barcode. The barcode will be scanned, the popup will close, and the scanned value will appear in the input field.

Integrate your flavors into the central SAP Fiori launchpad

The Slipstream Engine launchpad plug-in is an SAP Fiori launchpad runtime extension which is designed to improve user experience. When running Slipstream Engine in the SAP Fiori launchpad, it provides better integration with the classic SAP GUI screens.

The plug-in also enables support of native screen navigation. If the Slipstream Engine tile is loaded, the SAP Fiori launchpad back button triggers the screen back action or navigates to the SAP Fiori launchpad home page if no back action is defined for the current screen (no native back button). In addition, the plug-in enables the SAP Fiori launchpad built-in busy indicator to indicate time consuming transaction activities such as backend requests.

With the new feature, the plug-in will automatically navigate back to the caller intent if the Launchpad back button is pressed on the Slipstream Engine entry screen, regardless of DYNPRO back button state.

The old approach takes users back to the previous intent only when the DYNPRO back button is not present or is disabled. This requires an SAP Screen Personas flavor with changes to disable the DYNPRO back button on a specific screen (usually the entry screen of a transaction) to take users to the SAP Fiori launchpad home screen. Otherwise, most likely users will navigate to the SMEN transaction and only then to the SAP Fiori launchpad home page.

SAP Fiori icon fonts give you more display options

As of SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP12, SAP Fiori icon fonts are available in Slipstream Engine. They can be accessed from the icon gallery in the Flavor Editor.

In order to apply an icon font to a control, select the control in the Flavor Editor, click the Fill & Icon button under the Home tab, and then choose Insert Icon from Gallery from the Set Icon dropdown. All icon fonts are listed under the UI5 Icon-Fonts category.

Icon fonts can also be added to flavors from the Advanced Property Editor by providing the icon name for the iconId property. Icon IDs for SAP Fiori icons must in in format UI5:iconName. Icon names can be found in the Icon Explorer

Compare various versions of SAP Screen Personas.

Support through 2040

I really hope this one makes customers, partners, and colleagues realize that SAP Screen Personas is a key part of SAP’s long-term user experience strategy. SAP Screen Personas remains a fast, easy, cost-effective, and low-risk way to provide the SAP Fiori user experience for SAP GUI transactions.

Here is our current support strategy for SAP Screen Personas 3.0.

1. SAP Screen Personas 3.0 is aligned with SAP S/4HANA support. This is now through 2040.
2. We support the current as well as the two previous Service Packs. What does this mean to you?
   • SP12 will receive continuous innovation
   • SP11 will get important fixes and selected down ports
   • SP10 will receive emergency fixes
   • SP09 and earlier will no longer be supported (time to upgrade!)

System requirements

SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP12 works on a variety of systems from SAP S/4HANA to some much older versions. Specifically:

For SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP12, the supported kernel releases and their corresponding minimum and recommended (as of December 14, 2020) patch levels are listed below. You do not need to update your kernel to move to the latest version of SAP Screen Personas, if your system is on a supported kernel release.

Kernel release 781 –> No minimum patch level

Kernel release 777 –> No minimum patch level –> Recommended patch level 100 or higher

Kernel release 773 –> No minimum patch level –> Recommended patch level 201 or higher

Kernel release 753 –> Minimum patch level 27 –> Recommended patch level 615 or higher

Kernel release 749 –> Minimum patch level 400 –> Recommended patch level 800 or higher

Kernel release 722 –> Minimum patch level 400 –> Recommended patch level 900 or higher

See the SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP12 Master Note 2986592 for more details and updated recommendations.

For SAP S/4HANA 1809, 1909, 2020 customers who use Slipstream Engine

There is a known Slipstream Engine compatibility issue when backend sessions cannot be created due to a kernel limitation in the SAP Stack Kernel version 773 and above. Unfortunately, the kernel compatibility issues are introduced on components outside our scope of responsibility, and measures are currently being taken to address the problem with high priority. Please consider creating a BC-PER incident ticket to discuss the possible solutions.

Continuous improvement

We already have some exciting things planned for SP13, so please send us your requests (via email or as a comment to this blog) for anything you would like to see in SP14 and beyond.

Next Steps

• Watch the Productivity Power Play video about SP12. (coming soon)
• Upgrade to SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP12 (requires valid NetWeaver License).
• Take the free Introduction to SAP Screen Personas openSAP class to get a foundation for starting your project.
• Extend your knowledge with the Using SAP Screen Personas for Advanced Scenarios openSAP class to go deeper into how to use the product.
• Extend your flavors from your desktop to all your devices with our Building Mobile Applications with SAP Screen Personas
• Learn more on the SAP Help Portal for SAP Screen Personas with articles and videos on a variety of topics.

For the SAP Screen Personas product team, Peter Spielvogel.