Documenting Fiori Launchpad with Fiori Tracker

This blog post should interest you if you have no doubts about the Reasons to document Fiori Launchpad configuration externally and Why you need a tool for Fiori launchpad documentation?

The blog post explains how to document your Fiori Launchpad configuration using a free Fiori Tracker tool (Apache License 2.0). Fiori Tracker is available to anyone for download and installation. Once installed in your system, you can start documenting your SAP Fiori launchpad contents.

To start documenting your applications and catalogs together with links between them, you need to install “Fiori Tracker Core,” which brings two new Fiori applications to your launchpad:

1. FT Applications (with relation: To-be catalogs) – for keeping “To-be” records of applications in scope
2. FT Catalogs (with relation: To-be apps) – for keeping “To-be” records of catalogs in scope

Fiori Tracker Core group tiles

Identification

Let’s start with addressing the need for application identification. The solution we have in Fiori Tracker is the following:

We identify applications by relying on the convention used by SAP when specifying the App Id in the Fiori Applications library. This approach tackles two key aspects:

– Identification of standard applications that represent the majority of applications in projects

– Linking an application to its official documentation

Standard applications already have their App ID in the convention:

• F<NNN> for SAP Fiori apps
• <SAP Gui transaction code> for the apps that SAP adopted for running in Fiori launchpad and are based on classic SAP Gui transactions

This naming convention leaves app IDs starting with “Z” and “Y” for custom applications and extensions of the standard applications. So, for example, “Z2342” where “2342” could be your WRICEF or change request number.

Whenever you add the application to your records, we recommend using the ID in the form described above.

Documenting Fiori launchpad-enabled applications

First, you need to record all applications you plan to enable in your Fiori launchpad. You do that with the “FT Applications” app. The app starts with the current list of all applications in your project scope.

Starting view of the “FT Applications” app

With the “Add” function, you can add a new application entry:

Create an application record form in the “FT Applications” app

The recorded details include the following:

• App ID – application prevents the creation of duplicates.
• Tile title – The title might be different from the official application name.
• Name – Contains the official application name.
• Area – You can choose a functional area. The area comes from the configurable list of areas specific to your project.
• Type – You can choose the type of application. The choice comes from the list of configurable types specific to your project. Fiori Tracker comes with predefined application types.

Technical catalog, Semantic object, action, and flags indicating if the app can start directly and is a lighthouse app is optional. They either serve as additional information, or you can use them after installing optional Fiori Tracker suite components.

Documenting Fiori launchpad catalogs

Once you finish with applications, you can create documentation entries for your launchpad Business Catalogs. The app to manage catalogs is called “FT Catalogs” and starts with the list of the catalogs in the project scope:

Starting view of the “FT Catalogs” app

Add button creates an entry for the new catalog:

Create catalog record form in the “FT Catalogs” app

The app uses the same functional area set to assign catalog and Fiori Tracker reports on a specific stream or assign a stream default person responsible for sing-offs.

Maintaining mapping between catalogs and applications

Once all catalogs are in, you can map applications to catalogs. You can do that from a catalog perspective by opening chosen catalog detail view and its “Applications To-be” relation and selecting “Edit”:

View with a chosen catalog record and its “Applications To-Be” relation in the “FT Catalogs” app

Edit view for mapping application in “FT Catalogs” app

All marked apps get assigned to the catalog. In the same way as for catalogs, the mapping function is available from an application perspective:

Edit view for mapping catalogs in the “FT Applications” app

These two apps will significantly reduce the time the project and support team need to agree on and handle the launchpad catalogs and their apps. In addition, optional components link the application and catalog to other information records like roles, test users’ passwords, sign-off records, or application usage data.

I’m curious to hear your opinions on using Fiori Tracker  – feel free to comment, contact me on Linkedin, or discuss on Discord with others using Fiori Tracker.

I hope I have inspired you to give Fiori Tracker a go, and I wish you all the best in keeping your SAP Fiori launchpad team and users happy.

You can download and learn more about Fiori Track on its help page: https://help.fioritracker.org/.

You can integrate the Fiori Tracker with the Fiori Apps Usage Report which will give you the application start count for each of your Fiori apps. You can read more about it in Apps usage report for SAP Fiori launchpad (Monitoring SAP Fiori applications).