SAP Mobile Start now available for all RISE with SAP customers

As it goes by a well-known saying by Alfred Godfrey, ‘It is not that we use technology, we live technology’. Today’s workforce is highly digital and extend across diverse generations and varied industries. Professionals today tend to stay ahead of competition by being able to take actions immediately, stay up to date, on top of business activities anytime, anywhere thereby making use of mobile devices.  

All business content needs to be easily accessible and intuitively positioned. Just as it goes with the apps, we use in our day-to-day life to communicate and connect, the end user experience for business apps also needs to be as smooth, personal, and relevant. Therefore, with the launch of the SAP Mobile Start app in 2021, SAP is building major step toward fulfilling that objective and placing intelligent enterprise at the fingertip of every customer. 

What is SAP Mobile Start? 

SAP Mobile Start is a native app that serves as a mobile entry point to SAP’s business applications and content, providing users with a consumer-grade experience. Thoughtfully predefined content for typical persona and industry roles allows users to execute mobile-enabled business processes.  

In a day-to-day operation, people interact with multiple business processes and access data and applications from various systems. Today we have just S/4 HANA system, but it could be several systems in future. SAP Mobile Start helps to meet these business needs right from the smart devices and at fingertips. 

During my recent engagement with one of our customers, who were on their RISE journey, I realized they needed a solution where their field staff can update real time data about the day-to-day activities, maintain their financial transactions, get approvals for urgent business proposals on the fly from S/4 HANA system using their mobile devices. As the customer was on their RISE with SAP journey, they had access to SAP Launchpad service and SAP Mobile Start as part of their subscription. With the launchpad service, SAP Mobile Start is also available to access S/4 HANA and other applications from mobile device. Now, this was a quick win for the customer, as they can now: 

• Respond to action items immediately. It keeps you up to date with the latest information from your business systems through notifications and widgets. Tapping on either, you can respond to action items immediately and more easily, no matter where you are or what time of the day it is. It is up to you how many and what types of widgets you want to display. 
• Instant access to relevant native apps as well as Web-optimized apps, news feeds, and links as shown in the below image. 
• Quick access to business information on their fingertip, where they can quickly access the business information and apps that are most applicable to them, based on their usage patterns. The app is integrated with their mobile device’s search function, helping them more quickly find the content they are looking for. 

Ref: https://blogs.sap.com/2021/09/01/sap-mobile-start-the-new-native-entry-point-to-access-applications-contents/ 

SAP Mobile Start helped them meet these business needs right from their smart devices. In addition, they can now tailor experiences to each role’s habits and tasks using the mobile app. They can adjust it for individual roles and work styles, so that users can optimize their daily tasks. 

Reference: https://news.sap.com/2021/08/sap-mobile-start-launch/ 

SAP Mobile Start is bundled with RISE with SAP 

As it goes by the title of this blog, SAP Mobile Start is bundled with RISE offering. Also, the subscription for SAP Launchpad service is included for free for RISE with SAP S/4HANA customers.  

Infact, even the customers who have separately subscribed for SAP Launchpad service can use SAP Mobile Start, which can be downloaded for free from play store. 

SAP Mobile Start Integration Architecture  

SAP Mobile Start leverages SAP Business Technology Platform services. On the server-side SAP Mobile Start integrates with SAP Mobile Services, SAP Launchpad service, and SAP BTP notification service. 

• SAP Mobile Services acts as the single https endpoint and is used as authentication and routing server. 
• SAP Launchpad service is the strategic entry point for web-based applications provided by SAP’s product technology stacks (SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Concur, etc.). 
• SAP BTP notification service exposes enterprise notifications from SAP products like SAP S/4HANA on sites available via SAP Launchpad service. 

Barcode Scanning Using SAP Mobile Start 

The standard SAPUI5 barcode scanning functionalities of older SAPUI5 versions were reliant on the Cordova plugin, accessible via SAP Fiori Client. Therefore, some native device capabilities like barcode scanning of these versions are not supported by standard web browsers or SAP Mobile Start. 

In case you are looking for native features like camera integration for barcode scanning via SAP Fiori Client on different versions (1.90 and lower, or long-term maintenance version 1.84.17 or lower), then you must look at alternatives like QuaggaJS, ZXingJS and Scandit. You can refer to the following blog post on providing native barcode scanning on SAP Mobile Start. 

Setup SAP Launchpad Site and SAP Mobile Start with Federated Content from S/4 HANA 

If you are looking on how the content (roles, groups, apps etc.) that is already defined in SAP S/4HANA on-premise system can be easily made available on SAP Launchpad service using content federation and to then make it available for mobile users on SAP Mobile Start, then this blog is the right place to start on How to set up SAP Mobile Start in a productive landscape 

Enabling notifications for SAP Mobile Start and SAP Launchpad service

Enabling notifications for SAP S/4HANA on-premise implementations have been a common configuration step so far. With SAP Launchpad service, SAP Notification Service and SAP Mobile Start, there will be a growing need from customers to enable notifications on their site as well as for their mobile devices. This blog will be great start to know about how to set up the cloud notification channel and receive notifications on SAP Launchpad service and on SAP Mobile Start 

Task Center Integrated with SAP Mobile Start

Tasks can be processed with just one click and now the user no longer needs to install numerous inboxes from various applications. By providing a dedicated screen to access the tasks and notifications in the SAP Mobile Start application, the user has one place to easily process all their to-do activities.  This will reduce the time spent by approvers and improve the approval time for critical items. The Task Center integration in SAP Mobile Start allows access to all workflow tasks in one screen.  

Concisely, the key capabilities of Task Center in SAP Mobile Start are: 

• Get count of notifications and tasks 
• View workflow tasks from multiple SAP solutions in one list 
• Process tasks quickly with one click 
• See native details information or open them in the Line of Business(LoB) solution

SAP Mobile Start, a Door to Variety of Mobile Personas

With the launch of SAP Mobile Start, SAP stood on its promise of successfully delivering a new native mobile app which serves as a native entry point to Intelligent Enterprise.  

When thinking about mobile personas in the business context, there are several business areas which come to mind varying from Warehouse Clerk to Retail Store Managers, Finance Manager or Purchaser and Strategic Buyers. You can find more detailed explanations about these mobile personas from the blog post links below.  

SAP Mobile Start for the Purchaser and Strategic Buyer 

SAP Mobile Start for project managers 

SAP Mobile Start app for retail store managers 

SAP Mobile Start for the Finance Manager 

SAP Mobile Start for the Yard Logistics Operator 

SAP Mobile Start for the Purchaser and Strategic Buyer 

SAP Mobile Start for the Production Supervisor 

SAP Mobile Start for the Employee and Manager 

SAP Mobile Start for the Auditor 

SAP Mobile Start for the Purchaser and Strategic Buyer 

You can find the link to the eBook for Mobile Personas here. It covers more detail on the apps for each persona.

Try SAP Mobile Start

If you are looking to explore SAP Mobile Start, then you can read the blog post “SAP Mobile Start – Try yourself the new native entry point to the Intelligent enterprise” from Jean-Christophe NURY explaining how to download SAP Mobile Start from the app store and using the demo mode to familiarize yourself with the app features. Below is the link to the blog post. 

SAP Mobile Start – Try the new native entry point to the Intelligent enterprise | SAP Blogs 

If you have already setup your launchpad site, you can enable SAP Mobile Start from the Site Configuration. You can try this out in SAP BTP Trial environment too. Please follow the link to the blog post.

SAP Mobile Start – the new native entry point to access applications & contents | SAP Blogs 

SAP Mobile Start Community Page 

Have questions regarding SAP Mobile Start, feel free to visit the SAP Mobile Start Community Page here.