Video series on flexible programming model for SAP Fiori elements

The flexible programming model allows you to create or extend SAP Fiori elements apps with custom code and custom controller logic. It gives developers more flexibility when building SAP Fiori elements applications as they no longer need to decide up front whether to use a floorplan or create a freestyle app. With the flexible programming model, your custom apps gain the benefits of SAP Fiori elements (developer productivity and UX consistency) with added flexibility to meet your needs.

Although we have documentation in the flexible programming model explorer, we wanted to provide additional information so you can understand how the flexible programming model works and the best ways to use it when building SAP Fiori elements applications. To do this, we have asked two of our architects, Marcel Wächter and Nicolas Lunet, to explain the flexible programming model in a video series.

In five short episodes, they answer these questions and much more.

• What is the flexible programming model?
• What are building blocks?
• How do you build freestyle apps with SAP Fiori elements?

The flexible programming model video series explains how to use the flexible programming model in your SAP Fiori elements apps.

Here’s a short episode guide:

• Episode 0 – introduction to flexible programming model, when to use it
• Episode 1 – tour of the flexible programming model explorer
• Episode 2 – how to extend your application with custom UI5 controls
• Episode 3 – how to extend your application with building blocks
• Episode 4 – how to build freestyle applications using SAP Fiori elements and the flexible programming model

We are starting to use the flexible programming model and SAP Fiori elements for OData V4 to build apps for SAP S/4HANA, public edition, private edition, and on-prem. There are several advantages of using the flexible programming model.

• It lowers your maintenance effort and increases the lifecycle stability of apps by reducing the amount of custom SAPUI5 coding you need when building apps that don’t follow the standard SAP Fiori elements floorplans.
• It boosts developer efficiency by letting you leverage standard SAP Fiori elements functionality, such as draft handling or side effects, in custom sections or custom apps.
• It helps you enforce UX consistency in the custom parts of your applications.

To get the most value from this video series, I recommend you have several windows open, which will either require a very large monitor or multiple monitors: the video series for reference, the flexible programming model explorer, another browser window to download the code samples (links are listed with each video), and your development environment to try things out as Nicolas and Marcel explain them.

Watch the series and let us know in the comments if you have additional questions. Also, please share your success stories on how you are using the flexible programming model to build new SAP Fiori elements apps.

On behalf of the SAP Fiori elements product team, Peter Spielvogel.