SAP S/4HANA: Let’s simplify how we extend the business core and enhance the user experience

New season, new personal horizons with Cloud ERP UX Engineering

For me, autumn will forever remain synonymous with exciting new opportunities to learn, whether that be a new term at school or university or in the workplace. I’m sure this unites many of us within this community! With memories of academia at the forefront of my mind, it’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been fortunate enough to spend the last 20 years on my very own learning journey at SAP in User Assistance, Product Management, and SAP Learning (openSAP). In each of these roles, I’ve been motivated by wanting to help professional business users, developers, and students become proficient at working with SAP software and get the most out of the latest technology innovations to extend standard software offerings. For me, at the core of all business is not just data, but normal people, like you and I, who rely on SAP to help them excel in their work. It’s your daily experience of working with our software that my colleagues and I strive to help improve.

For the last 2 years, I’ve been working with a fantastic and talented team of like-minded colleagues on understanding how we can optimize the user experience of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition for partners, IT administrators, and business users. Building on these insights and my knowledge of integration and extension scenarios for SAP Business Technology Platform, I’m excited to be starting a six-month fellowship working alongside our esteemed product management colleagues in SAP UX Engineering. Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing my experiences and knowledge of SAP S/4HANA extensibility scenarios with you, together with considerations for optimizing the user experience. I’m keen to help convey just how easy it is to adapt SAP’s ERP offering to suit individual business requirements by extending and optimizing apps as needed, all while simplifying the user experience, keeping the core lean, and ensuring that maintenance efforts remain at a minimum.

Learning resources

If, like me, you’re passionate about good user experience and want to gain a better understanding of the SAP S/4HANA extensibility options available, I recommend the following resources as a starting point:

SAP Learning:

• Developing and Extending SAP Fiori Elements Apps | openSAP
• Getting Started with In-App Extensibility in SAP S/4HANA
• Developing Extensions Using SAP S/4HANA Cloud, ABAP Environment
• Developing an SAP Fiori Elements App Based on a CAP OData V4 Service

SAP Community:

• Creating an SAP S/4HANA extension app in 60 minutes

Expert papers:

• Extend SAP S/4HANA in the cloud and on premise with ABAP-based extensions
• Custom Extensions in SAP S/4HANA Implementations – A Practical Guide for Senior IT

In November, I’m looking forward to SAP TechEd in 2023 where we can learn directly from SAP experts and partners about the latest innovations for app development, AI, and how to keep the cloud ERP core lean and clean.

For an overview of user experience sessions, I recommend you check out the following blogs from my colleague, Peter Spielvogel, and sign up:

• User experience sessions at TechEd 2023 Virtual | SAP Blogs
• User experience sessions at TechEd 2023 Bangalore | SAP Blogs

What are you keen to learn about this season?

Of course, it’s all about community here, so the reason I write this blog is to ask that you please share your experiences of developing and extending apps for SAP S/4HANA using SAP Fiori elements and SAP Fiori tools with us. What are your current learning goals? What are your ERP extensibility requirements? Perhaps you have a specific question? If so, let me know and my colleagues and I will do our best to help you.

Here’s to a new season of learning opportunities for us all!