SAP S/4HANA 2021 has been released and with it the SAP Fiori front-end server 2021 and they bring many interesting innovations in the area of SAP Fiori launchpad, both on the user experience side and for the administrator.
Thomas Reiss recently published a great blog post about what is new with SAP S/4HANA and SAP Fiori 3 explaining the improvements in the SAP Fiori launchpad experience and the brand-new native mobile app SAP Mobile Start, so in this blog post, I would like to first focus on the administrator enhancements.
A very helpful innovation in SAP Fiori launchpad administration is the new support for adjusting launchpad content after an upgrade. With this addition, administrators can use the SAP Fiori launchpad content manager after a system upgrade to check the status of the upgraded launchpad content and identify the items that have been set to deprecated or obsolete in the new release. They can find this information in the new field "Transaction Status"(1). In addition, an aggregated status is also visible on the Catalogs and Roles tabs (2).
After identifying outdated items, the launchpad content manager also allows the administrator to perform the required adjustments of the launchpad content, e.g. replacing the tiles/target mappings of deprecated or obsolete apps with the tiles/target mappings of the successor apps (3) or removing them completely. Please check out Ruth Groene's detailed blog post on this topic and the documentation for more detailed information.
Successor applications can also be displayed in the launchpad content aggregator.
2. Automatic synchronization of exposed launchpad content with SAP BTP
Administrators can now choose to notify launchpads on SAP BTP when there is new, changed, or removed exposed content available. This allows SAP Launchpad service (BTP) administrators to set up automatic updates of SAP S/4HANA content, whenever there are changes on the S/4HANA side, instead of manually fetching the updated content. To learn more, see Set Up Automatic Updates.
3. Spaces and pages administration
Administrators can now set a sort priority value (ranging from -100 to +100) for a space in the Manage Launchpad Spaces app to define the order in which spaces should appear at the top of the screen. In addition, they can define whether spaces should be sorted by space ID or by space title in case no or identical priority values are assigned. Please see the documentation for more details.
On top of that, it is now getting easier for space/page administrators to check if SAP-delivered spaces and pages meet their needs. They can now see the assigned pages of an SAP-delivered space in the Manage Launchpad Spaces app and both assigned spaces and a page contents preview of a page in the Manage Launchpad Pages app.
4. SAP Fiori launchpad application manager enhancement
There are several enhancements to the launchpad app manager tool which allow administrators now to
5. Enhanced PFCG integration
You can now navigate from Role Maintenance to the corresponding design-time tool when launchpad-related nodes are selected.
In addition, these are the main innovations related to user experience:
You can find information about these innovations and some additional minor enhancements in the What’s new section in the documentation.
Thomas Reiss recently published a great blog post about what is new with SAP S/4HANA and SAP Fiori 3 explaining the improvements in the SAP Fiori launchpad experience and the brand-new native mobile app SAP Mobile Start, so in this blog post, I would like to first focus on the administrator enhancements.
- Upgrade support
A very helpful innovation in SAP Fiori launchpad administration is the new support for adjusting launchpad content after an upgrade. With this addition, administrators can use the SAP Fiori launchpad content manager after a system upgrade to check the status of the upgraded launchpad content and identify the items that have been set to deprecated or obsolete in the new release. They can find this information in the new field "Transaction Status"(1). In addition, an aggregated status is also visible on the Catalogs and Roles tabs (2).
After identifying outdated items, the launchpad content manager also allows the administrator to perform the required adjustments of the launchpad content, e.g. replacing the tiles/target mappings of deprecated or obsolete apps with the tiles/target mappings of the successor apps (3) or removing them completely. Please check out Ruth Groene's detailed blog post on this topic and the documentation for more detailed information.
Upgrade support in FLP content manager
Successor applications can also be displayed in the launchpad content aggregator.
2. Automatic synchronization of exposed launchpad content with SAP BTP
Administrators can now choose to notify launchpads on SAP BTP when there is new, changed, or removed exposed content available. This allows SAP Launchpad service (BTP) administrators to set up automatic updates of SAP S/4HANA content, whenever there are changes on the S/4HANA side, instead of manually fetching the updated content. To learn more, see Set Up Automatic Updates.
3. Spaces and pages administration
Administrators can now set a sort priority value (ranging from -100 to +100) for a space in the Manage Launchpad Spaces app to define the order in which spaces should appear at the top of the screen. In addition, they can define whether spaces should be sorted by space ID or by space title in case no or identical priority values are assigned. Please see the documentation for more details.
On top of that, it is now getting easier for space/page administrators to check if SAP-delivered spaces and pages meet their needs. They can now see the assigned pages of an SAP-delivered space in the Manage Launchpad Spaces app and both assigned spaces and a page contents preview of a page in the Manage Launchpad Pages app.
4. SAP Fiori launchpad application manager enhancement
There are several enhancements to the launchpad app manager tool which allow administrators now to
- Create empty technical catalogs,
- Delete empty technical catalogs
- Check selected app descriptor items to make sure all mandatory fields are set.
5. Enhanced PFCG integration
You can now navigate from Role Maintenance to the corresponding design-time tool when launchpad-related nodes are selected.
In addition, these are the main innovations related to user experience:
- The My Home space gives users the option to create their personal start page by defining and structuring their own favorites according to their needs. This also allows to restrict personalization to the My Home space to prevent users changing the spaces and pages provided by the administrator.
- Two new tile types (flat and flat-wide) and a new visualization of links allow for a clearer structuring of the content in pages and spaces mode.
- Enhanced options for key user adaptation e.g., for adapting object pages and overview pages and for visualizing recent changes.
You can find information about these innovations and some additional minor enhancements in the What’s new section in the documentation.
- SAP Managed Tags:
