App Support for the SAP Fiori Launchpad

As a former inhouse consultant I found it challenging sometimes to maintain and support apps in the SAP Fiori launchpad, especially when I was new to the topic and had little training in this area. In general checking the settings of an app, in terms of user authorization, configuration and customizing can be pretty time consuming.

Luckily now the SAP Fiori launchpad plug-in App Support can help you troubleshoot some of the most common problems that might occur for an app, most prominently authorization issues on the front-end or back-end server. This might prove especially useful during the initial implementation phase of an app.

App support is available for SAP S/4HANA as part of the SAP_UI component from the following versions:

• SAP_UI 7.54 SP06 in S/4HANA 1909 SP04 or Frontend Server 6.0 SP04 
• SAP_UI 7.55 SP02 in S/4HANA 2020 FPS01 or Frontend Server 2020 SP01 
• SAP_UI 7.56 in S/4HANA 2021 or Frontend Server 2021

Please note, this information is the current status of planning and subject to change. In the following post, I will describe the basic functions and sections of App Support.

How to start App Support

Depending on your setup, you can start App Support directly from within the app you want to check. Simply navigate from the user actions menu:

Start App Support from the user menu

If it is not displayed in the user actions menu, refer to the setup information here:
https://help.sap.com/docs/ABAP_PLATFORM_NEW/a7b390faab1140c087b8926571e942b7/2fb0c6924bc346e5a25d975a2f457dd1.html?version=latest

Also note, that App Support is currently not available on the home screen of the launchpad. 

If you are more of a hands-on person, feel free to stop reading here and give the tool a spin. It is fairly straight forward and it is not possible to break anything with it. Otherwise continue reading for a more detailed explanation of the various areas of the plug-in.

Overview

After the dialog opens you will see a menu on the left-hand side. The structure and contents of the menu highly depend on the inspected app, your landscape and your authorizations. For example it would be possible to only have the menu option Authorization Errors for several back-end servers.

The App Information section provides information on the app context

In addition, you are prompted that log messages have been identified for your user. You may download these logs in a spreadsheet format and send them to the next level of support, for example a user admin.

Front-End/ Back-End Server Checks

The top-level menu options are relevant for the servers of the app in question. On these menu options you’ll find various checks on the app configuration. This might turn out quite helpful during the setup phase of an app. When there is a warning icon leading the menu option, you should better look into the checks. In this example the OData service is inactive for the corresponding app:

OData Service inactive on Front-End Server

The checks depend on the app type and are not the same for each app. For example, it would not make sense to look for OData services in a WebDynpro app but checking the NWBC ICF service might provide important insights.

Logs in General

Each error menu option displays directly the amount of log entries in the corresponding view. Depending on your authorizations, all logs can display the messages for your own user, or for any other user. Simply change the name in the User field. In addition, it is possible to navigate to the log transactions following the link next to the User:

Change user or navigate to transaction ST22

Each log basically represents a transaction in the corresponding system. Authorization errors will display the same results as transaction SU53, Gateway Errors represent /IWFND/ERROR_LOG, back-end errors are /IWBEP/ERROR_LOG and runtime errors correspond to ST22.

Summary

While App Support does not really contain “new” checks and insights, it can be a real time-saver, when it comes to troubleshooting. You don’t have to figure out which systems are involved and then go through various transactions. App Support combines the most important information required for analyzing apps in the SAP Fiori launchpad.

For Questions and Answers on SAP Fiori – please see the SAP Community Q&A area and feel free to post your own questions.

I hope you found this blog post helpful – feel free to leave comments and feedback, you can follow the SAP Fiori Launchpad tag to receive updates on blog posts here.