SAP Flash Island is a new/upcoming feature in SAP Netweaver and the discussions about what kind of features we could/would expect in these Islands have already started. SAP and Adobe have already given some examples - and for people working within the SAP area, the upcoming Flash Islands could open up for quite new features and possibilities.
The other day - I ran into an interesiting project at Adobe Labs. A project called Adobe Cocomo which is in it’s final testphase. It’s a set of hosted services which will make it easy to add social capabilities to your Adobe Flex application (Flash Island). You will need to download a SWC to use in the SAP Flash Island project - with this Cocomo interface it will be quite easy to use some of the following features in your SAP Flash Island:
- VoIP Audio
- Webcam Video
- Chat
- Multi-User Whiteboards
- Real-Time File Sharing
- User Management
- Roles and Permissions
- Robust Data Messaging
You might think - “… why implement features we already have in Skype or Messenger in a WebDynpro application”? Well - with a SAP Flash Island you will have a welldefined integration path to the backend system, masterdata, transactional data and authorizations - and could consider to use this as input (and output) to the Flash application. So suddenly you could display a snapshot of the latest sales figures at the multi user white board and discuss the sales progress in a Webcam, VoIP or chat session - just as an example of the possibilities.
Six Thinking Hats
You might take it a step further - and look at some of the methods behind the “Six Thinking Hats” (also known as “The de Bono Hats system”) and use them as an inspiration to enhance the SAP/Cocomo features and end up with a SAP Flash Island application which will do much more than Skype or Messenger - and it will be integrated with SAP Netweaver.
Read more:
Adobe Labs Cocomo website
Six Thinking Hats/The de Bono Hats system
An Adobe Flex template project for SAP Flash Islands
SAP ABAP developers: How to get started with Adobe FLEX - part II