Introduction
In preparation of switching to Spaces and Pages from 2402 Release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, I have been working with many customers. In this series of blogs, I will share our common experience with you to make this transition smoother.
This blog discusses the best practices in deploying Spaces and Pages.
Short Summary of Spaces and Pages
SAP started rolling out Spaces and Pages in S/4HANA Cloud 2005 release. The intention is to flexibly organize the end user’s Fiori app layout by user’s personas in a hierarchy of spaces, pages, sections and apps. Depending on a business role, one or more spaces can be assigned.
To make spaces and pages working for customers, SAP released many preferred spaces and pages. In other words, you can adopt these out of box spaces and pages assigned to SAP business role templates, or business roles derived from SAP business role templates, or those home-made business roles. The result is a consistent and almost maintenance free (checking and adapting at each major upgrade are still needed) Fiori app layout in your Launchpad. See my blog How to Use Spaces and Pages in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition for further explanation.
However, many customers didn’t bother to investigate or adopt this feature in the past years. They kept on using the classical group layout (one layer only: groups and apps). One customer I talked to has over 200 self-defined business roles; none of them has assigned spaces and pages. With the first day of switching to Spaces by Default, the end user’s screen will look like this (simulated by my colleague Marco Valencia), an empty MyHome:
The Empty Fiori Launchpad (Spaces by Default, without Assigning Any Spaces and Pages to Business Roles)
Before switching, the business users are accustomed to see Fiori apps in the below Classical Homepage.
The Classical Homepage Layout (Groups by Default Setting)
To avoid a surprise like above, and do the right things about Spaces and Pages, I am going to discuss the best practices starting from setting the Cloud Mindset.
Cloud Mindset
My colleague Jan Musil has a well written blog Updated 5 Golden Rules for implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The very first golden rule is as following:
- Foster cloud mindset by adhering to Fit-to-Standard and Agile Deployment detailed in SAP Activate
To put it blankly, Cloud Mindset means adopting standard functions and features. Period.
I have been with SAP for 20+ years and involved in many customer projects. Been there, seen that and done that. Last week, I had a call with one partner consultant. He mentioned that while one selling point of SAP solutions is its flexibility or customization capability to fit all sorts of requirements from customers, the flip side of this flexibility is an increased difficulty in upgrading. Customers wrote millions of lines of codes without even realizing there are similar standard functions. The learning from the past on-premises solution deployment is to adhere to standard functions and features, especially for the cloud solutions when the upgrades happen so often and not under your control. You don’t have time and resources to deal with customizations every six months while the solutions are upgraded by SAP.
Talking about business roles, spaces and pages, there are even less justifications to create your own objects. Here is how authorization is designed in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition: Access to all Fiori Apps is controlled by Business Catalogs. Relevant Business Catalogs are grouped together to become Business Roles. Most Business Roles have relevant Spaces and Pages assigned based on personas. When a user is assigned one or more relevant Business Roles, the user has access to those Fiori Apps following Spaces and Pages assignment (refer to my blog on this topic). That is the Fit-to-Standard approach.
Best Practices in Deploying Spaces and Pages
With the aforementioned “Cloud Mindset” in mind, let’s discuss the Best Practices in deploying Spaces and Pages.
Best Practice 1 – Using SAP Standard Business Roles and Associated Spaces and Pages for Your 90% Needs, And Using Favorites for Remaining 10% Needs
Arming yourself with the cloud mindset, you can easily make your business roles by copying from SAP predefined business role/space/page templates to fit most of your business needs. Let’s say that covers 90% of your needs. There might be exceptions from predefined business role/space/page templates. What are we going to do with the remaining 10%? The answer is using the Favorites section in My Home.
For example, I have a user needs to access Fiori App Create Billing Documents. From the SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library, I found out two Business Catalogs grant access to this app.
- SAP_RFM_BC_STORE_SLSORDFUL_PC
- SAP_SD_BC_BIL_DOC_PC
On top of that, there are multiple business roles, spaces and pages covering this Fiori App as the below figure shows.
Access Info for Fiori App Create Billing Documents
Let’s assume this is not a so popular app, and only one business role Z_CREATE_BILLING_DOC includes the business catalog SAP_SD_BC_BIL_DOC_PC without any space and page assignment (see figure), because it is rarely used.
Build One Custom Business Role with One Business Catalog
To make this app visible to the user, you just assign the business role Z_CREATE_BILLING_DOC to the user. Then ask the user to add the app in the Favorites section (see below). It is easy and quick.
Add an App to the Favorites If Not Available in Standard Spaces and Pages
Another solution is to create a new space based on SAP standard spaces, for example Z_BR_BILLING_CLERK. It depends on the effort of creation, and future maintenance. Personally, I would not go that route unless I have many apps like this one.
Creating a Custom Space to Accommodate a Rarely Used App
Best Practice 2 – Adapting SAP Standard Spaces/Pages to be Your Spaces/Pages
Besides using SAP standard spaces and pages, the 2nd most popular approach is to adapt a standard one. There are a few benefits:
- You save time from designing a new space and its associated pages from scratch.
- You still have the flexibility to include only those apps you want in the custom spaces and pages.
Note: Different from predefined business role templates, when you create your own spaces and pages by copying from a predefined one, the system doesn't track the change of your spaces and pages. During the next upgrade, you need to check it out.
Let’s still use above custom space ZBR_BILLING_CLERK as an example. It is a copy from SAP standard space SAP_BR_BILLING_CLERK. By default, there are four pages within this space. Since this space is assigned to a custom business role Z_CREATE_BILLING_DOC, which has one business catalog SAP_SD_BC_BIL_DOC_PC, only limited apps are visible (see my another blog Switching to Spaces and Pages Experience Sharing - Assigning Standard S&P to Your Own Business Roles for further explanation). For example, Page Sales Commissions and Incentives shows no apps; Page Billing Process shows two apps.
No Apps Shown in Page Sales Commissions and Incentives
Two Apps Shown in Page Billing Process
By editing this space, I can either Remove or Hide a page to simplify the space.
Hide a Page in a Space
Here is the final appearance of this custom space with only three apps on one page.
Appearance of Custom Space ZBR_BILLING_CLERK
Best Practice 3 – Checking Changes of SAP Standard Business Roles/Spaces/Pages at Each Upgrade
At each major upgrade, there might be changes to SAP Standard Business Roles, Spaces and Pages. SAP publishes a SAP Note to address that each time. For example, for 2402 upgrade, the SAP Note is 3404825 - Identity and Access Management (IAM): Change Overview for SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2402. In the Note, there is an attachment called Delta_S4CE_BR_240-2308.xlsx, which lists the delta changes from 2308 release.
The Excel file has many worksheets detailing the changes in each area. I am writing a separate blog discussing how to adjust your existing business roles in preparation for the upgrade. Please stay tuned…
Best Practice 4 – Designing Business Roles/Spaces/Pages from End User’s Input, Not Excel Sheet. And Keep the Number to the Minimum.
To prepare this Best Practice, I had several discussions with our consultants on the projects. Besides using SAP standard business roles/spaces/pages, they interviewed end users to decide which one fit to their business needs. If no standard ones are available, they will design a new one by adapting standard templates to save the time. Each custom business role/space/page was created carefully. The total number should be kept at a minimum.
In contrast, I saw several customers having hundreds of custom business roles. I don’t know if they were carefully designed with end user input one by one, or just extrapolate on an Excel sheet to cover all the scenarios you can think of. As a direct result, I heard some cases that a large portion of custom business roles were not being used, only collecting dust in the system.
Best Practice 5 – Following a Good Naming Convention
For the convenience of maintenance and differentiate custom ones from SAP standard ones, we need to establish a systematic naming convention for business roles, spaces and pages. I have discussed this topic in detail in my blog Naming and Tracking Your Business Roles, Spaces and Pages in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 3-System Landscap....
Conclusion
Since customers need to transition to Spaces and Pages, I am outlining five best practices from my involvement with customer projects. The core of the best practices is the cloud mindset, i.e., using SAP predefined Business Role Templates, Spaces and Pages on most occasions. If there are exceptions, adapting these objects is still better than creating new ones from scratch for the sake of long-term maintenance, especially considering we have major upgrades every six months.
My Blogs on Spaces and Pages
- Switching to Spaces and Pages Experience Sharing - Best Practices in Deploying Spaces and Pages (this blog)
- Switching to Spaces and Pages Experience Sharing - Assigning Standard S&P to Your Own Business Roles
- Switching to Spaces and Pages Experience Sharing - Using Display Security Audit Log Fiori App
- Naming and Tracking Your Business Roles, Spaces and Pages in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 3-System Landscap...
- Transport Your Spaces and Pages Configurations in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud 3-System Landscape Systems
- How to Use Spaces and Pages in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition
My Colleagues’ Blogs on Spaces and Pages
- SAP User Experience in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402
- Get to Know the New Spaces Concept for SAP Fiori Launchpad
- Manage Spaces and Pages for SAP Fiori Launchpad
- How to Efficiently Switch from Groups to Spaces and Pages: Best Practice with Predefined Spaces and ...
- Getting Familiar with Spaces and Pages in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
- Switching from Groups to Spaces and Pages in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition
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