I am pleased to announce the availability of the SAP Application Extension Methodology version 2.0. With this update we made some significant changes. In this blog, I would like to give you an overview about the methodology and the changes.

Motivation

Extensibility is a key capability, because it allows customers and partners to differentiate their business processes and develop extension applications on top of existing standard functionality.

If you face complex challenges like “clean core”, “cloud readiness” and “future proof” concepts, it becomes almost imperative to come up with a custom-tailored extension strategy for your organization.

This is where the SAP Application Extension Methodology can support and guide you by providing a structured, technology agnostic approach for customers and partners to define an organization specific extension strategy.

We want to support Enterprise Architects in assessing their extension use cases and defining an extension target solution in a structured and formalized way. Following this methodology will ensure, that you have an overview about possible technical extension building blocks and it will help you to decide on a future extension architecture.

Overview Phase 1 – 3

SAP Application Extension Methodology Overview

Phase 1: Assess Extension Use Case

Firstly, you assess your extension use case. In this phase you lay the foundation for any extension application use case based on the business context and requirements in a defined area.

You will understand your system context and create your extension application use case descriptions.

We provide templates for:

• System Context
• Business Context & Requirement
• Extension Application Use Case Description

Phase 2: Assess Extension Technology

In this phase we introduce different terms and concepts like extension styles, extension tasks and extension domains. You will get an overview about various extension technologies which we call technical extension building blocks. These building blocks in combination with the extension tasks will help you to translate business requirements into technical requirements.

Examples:

A very common example for an extension task is to add a custom field to a standard user interface. Let us assume you are in the context of SAP S/4HANA on-premise. In order to solve this extension task, you have various different ‘technical extension building blocks’ options.
Clever technical extension building blocks are ‘Custom Fields App‘ in combination with ‘Adapting Fiori UIs at Runtime’.

Another common extension task is to create a custom user interface. Many different building blocks are available, ranging from SAPUI5 freestyle UIs (with different deployment options) to Low-Code/No-Code UIs and Analytical UIs.

As part of the extension technology mapping, you will be able to explore different options which solve those and other extension tasks.

Phase 3: Define Extension Target Solution

Based on the overall requirements and the technology mapping in the previous phase, you can decide on technical extension building blocks to create your target solution. With the help of various decision guidance assets such as white papers and SAP Discovery Center Missions you can further enhance your target solution.

In the end of this phase, you will be able to create a target solution for example in form of a diagram. This will be the preparation for your implementation.

Next Steps:

You can learn more about the SAP Application Extension Methodology on the SAP Help Portal.

Please request access to our community via e-mail to: sapaem@sap.com and you will be invited to join.

Feel free to like, comment and ask your questions!

Talk to you soon,

Marco

Product Manager SAP Business Technology Platform

Join me online: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcomatha/