What’s New in SAP Build Apps – Release Highlights April 2023

One of our main goals with SAP Build is to bring these low- and no-code solutions closer together for a fully integrated experience. With that in mind, we’re kicking off a new quarterly blog series to share highlights from the latest feature releases for SAP Build Apps. 

See also release blogs from SAP Build Process Automation and SAP Build Work Zone. 

Release Highlights: 

• Chart components 
• Inline Frame (iFrame) component 
• First new app page renamed from ‘Empty page’ to ‘Home page’ 
• Improved booster in onboarding process

Chart Components

Creating data visualizations within your app is now easier than ever with the new native view components for Charts. Over the years, we’ve seen some determined developers in the community find their own hacky ways of showing chart images, though it also might have required fetching a new image every time the data was updated. Previously in Build Apps, you could also use the D3.js/Google Charts component, though this required adding in JavaScript, which is certainly not true to no-code. It was also not possible to use the Google Charts component for web apps, whereas the new Chart Components support both web and mobile.

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There are four new chart components now available: line chart, bar chart, area chart, and pie chart. They can be found and installed from the Marketplace and dragged directly onto the canvas. All that’s needed is to bring your own data resource and add the desired values, which can be configured in the component properties. 

Chart components come with preset style defaults, though like everything else in Build Apps, can easily be modified and customized to fit with your style preferences, including color, animation, labels, and more. 

iFrame Component

It’s now possible to embed an external website or HTML into an application with the new Inline Frame (iFrame) view component. Previously, you may have used WebView in your mobile apps to capture this capability. The new iFrame component supports web applications and opens up a huge range of possibilities for more customizeable apps. It can be installed from the Marketplace. 

For an exciting use case of the iFrame component, check out Kirill Leventcov’s latest blog: Embed React Components to SAP Build Apps 

‘Empty Page’ renamed to ‘Home Page’

When you create a new app project, the first page of your app is now labeled as ‘Home Page’ by default. Previously, the label was ‘Empty Page,’ but after conducting several user experience studies over the last year, we found that the name was confusing, especially for first-time users. The new name is a small but hopefully helpful UX improvement for Build Apps.

New and improved Build Apps Booster 

We have updated and improved the Build Apps Booster that lets you get started and run SAP Build Apps! Previously, it was required to configure the subaccount and create a custom IAS tenant separately when setting up your BTP account. With the new Booster, these steps are already included and make the entire onboarding process faster and smoother.

We’ve updated the steps in the blog SAP Build Apps Free Tier Individual Access as well as the instructional video. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you need support! 

Also check out the recent webinar: SAP Build Apps Onboarding Journey

📚 Want to learn more about Build Apps? Find out how you can build apps, automations, and sites without professional coding skills to easily digitalize your daily work by exploring SAP’s free learning content on SAP Build. It is designed for business users who want to rapidly develop software using little or no code at all, working only with visual programming tools and drag-and-drop components. Check out even more role-based learning resources and opportunities to get certified in one place on SAP Learning site.

Let us know what you think of the new features and keep an eye on our roadmap for more updates. We’re happy to connect if you need any assistance with getting started!

👉 For the full list of releases, see the documentation: What’s New for SAP Build Apps