Fiori Frequently Asked Technical Questions
Table of Contents SAP Fiori General Overview ...........................................................................................................1 SAP Fiori Technical Overview ........................................................................................................1 SAP Fiori Applications ....................................................................................................................3 SRM Applications ..........................................................................................................................3 Approval Applications ....................................................................................................................4 My Spend Applications ..................................................................................................................5 Time Sheet Applications ................................................................................................................5 Travel Applications ........................................................................................................................5 SAP Fiori Extensibility .....................................................................................................................5 Theme Designer ............................................................................................................................5 SAP Fiori - Architecture ..................................................................................................................7 SAP Fiori - Security .........................................................................................................................7
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1. SAP FIORI – GENERAL OVERVIEW
Where can I find information about Fiori? Experience SAP Fiori – Microsite SAP Fiori on HANA Marketplace SAP Fiori on SAP Store
Where do I find information on SAP Fiori Implementation? Upcoming offers and promotions for SAP Fiori can be found at the following sites: SAP Fiori on HANA Marketplace SAP Fiori on SAP Store
What is the overall SAP strategy regarding apps and their architecture? (For example: UI5/Web Apps / Gateway without SMP for lightweight (productivity) and SMP for more complex, offline scenarios?) Starting with SMP 3.0, the SAP Mobile Platform is planned to support SAP Fiori, adding enhanced capabilities. New information on this topic will be posted as soon as it is available.
To what extent can Fiori replace UWL? (Supported types of tasks and workflow engines) Technically, Fiori and UWL have very little to do with each other from an architecture perspective; the common point is that both products can display items coming from the SAP Business Workflow Engine or SAP Business Process Management (BPM) engine. The difference lies in the technology stack. At this stage, Fiori cannot cover everything that UWL does, for example: ad-hoc workflows, substitution, personalization, customization of task and work lists etc. Currently, the Activity and User Decision step types are supported by Fiori. Web Activity and Form step types require an adjustment of the workflow template. See the article on SCN on Pros and Cons for SAP Business Workflow and SAP NetWeaver BPM
What is the difference between Fiori and Personas? SAP Fiori is a set of 25 apps that deliver a simple, intuitive user experience across your customers’ most frequently used business transactions. The design offers a seamless experience from desktops to mobile devices, which allows individuals to accomplish tasks quickly and easily. SAP Screen Personas provides a simple, drag and drop approach to modify most SAP GUI screens. It enables IT and business users to simplify business application screens quickly and easily without any programming knowledge. SAP Screen Personas improves the end-user productivity, visual appeal, and performance of SAP. For more information please search on SCN using ‘SAP Fiori and Screen Personas’ as the filter.
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2. SAP FIORI – TECHNICAL OVERVIEW
Do customizations in Employee Self Service/Manager Self Service have an effect on Fiori or do they carry over to Fiori? There is not a one answer fits all for this question; each Fiori app is handled differently in terms of customizations. For example, in the employee my leave request app it was discovered that customizations were not being fetched correctly. There has since been an SAP note issued for this (SAP Note: 1621488), but it is best to handle these questions on an app by app basis. If you have specific customization questions please talk directly to your SAP consultant or an SAP RIG member.
Fiori is released for ECC6 and above. Is there is a workaround for connecting with older versions? No, there is no workaround for this. SAP ECC 6.0 SPS 15 is the minimum mandatory requirement to run SAP Fiori. There are a few reasons for this, with the first being maintenance support. For example, the extended maintenance for ECC 5.0 ended in 2013. Another reason is compatibility for some of the apps, for example the level of compatibility for the HR apps can only be found in SAP ECC 6.0. For customers running an older ECC version they will need to upgrade to ECC 6.0 SPS 15 before implementing and configuring Fiori applications. To view the Prerequisite Checklist for Fiori please read the installation guide and make sure to read the Lessons Learned and other useful tips on the ‘What is SAP Fiori’ SCN page.
Is any offline time entry capability planned for Fiori? If not, is there a planned release date/guidance for an offline version? To date, SAP Fiori does not support offline mode for any of the apps. There are future plans to provide offline integration with SMP however this is not finalized so stay tuned for more specifics on how this will work.
Is it possible to add custom developed UI5 app to the Fiori launch page? Yes, it is possible to customize the UI5 launch page. You will need to use the eclipse UI5 plugin to accomplish custom development. If you want to change the colors you can use the SAP theme designer. For more information on this topic please reference the SAP Fiori Learning Materials – Day 3 SAPUI5 and Theme Designer
3. SAP FIORI APPLICATIONS a. SAP Fiori SRM Applications
Q. For the SRM Fiori apps, there is a requirement to implement the SRM UI Add-on (SRMNXP001). Do I need to configure the SRM UI Add-on before I start the implementation? Yes customization of SRM UI Add on is a prerequisite for the SRM Fiori Apps.
Q. Does SAP Fiori support “limit shopping carts” and service hierarchies? Limit is supported. There is no way for creating SC with service hierarchy in the standard. App does not need to support service hierarchy.
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Q. What catalog within SRM is the Shopping Cart application using by default? Can the Fiori app use / access 3rd party catalogs? If so, is this out of the box configuration or customization? There is no ‘default’ catalog for the My Shopping Cart app. Customers would need to extract their catalog (either internal MDM or an external catalog) into TREX using OCI 5.0 or MDM_API component. The catalog data that is extracted here is used while creating shopping carts. Note the mandatory component required for this app is SRM User Interface Add-On which provides the framework to consider catalog data. For more information please read the SRM User Interface Guide on SAP Service Marketplace.
Q. What are the Comprehensive Technical Requirements for Approve Shopping Carts SAP Fiori application? The comprehensive technical requirements for all Fiori applications can be found in the installation guide.
b. SAP Fiori – Approval Applications
Q. How do the Fiori Approval apps deal with displaying attachments? This needs to be checked on an individual app basis. And devices
Q. How do the Fiori Approval apps display attachments from Document Management System? It is a job for backend application. If backend application handles attachment with DMS, Fiori can show attachment.
Q. The Fiori Approve Purchase Requisition Approval (PRA) workflow currently supports line item approval via task type TS00007986. Is it possible to use header level approval via task type TS20000159 instead? This feature is not currently supported but is on the roadmap for a future SP or release.
Q. How does a user get notified if a new workflow arrives for them to approve in Fiori? Can email notifications be set-up? There are a couple ways for users to be notified of a new workflow: Email notification from backend. If email notification background job is set up, approvers will get emails with a hyper link. When the hyper link is selected SAP Fiori app is launched. By refreshing launch page When the launch page is refreshed, Fiori will display a number in the upper right hand corner of the corresponding tiles on the Launchpad indicating the number of approvals. See the image below of the Approve Purchase Orders app that has the number 58 in the corner indicating there are 58 approval requests.
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By mobile app push notification This is not yet available in SAP Fiori but it is planned to be a future function with the SAP Mobile Platform.
Q. Does the "Approve Requests" Fiori App allow the approvals of Approve Direct Account payable Invoices and Approve Accounts Receivables Invoices if this is what the customer has in ESS/MSS? Yes, Approve Requests can handle any “Approve” workflow scenarios using SAP Business Workflow. Approve Requests cannot have different UIs for scenarios. It has only generic text display area. Text should be formatted by task description text or BADI.
c. SAP Fiori – My Spend Applications
Q. Where is the MySpend app pulling the data from? All of the data used for the Fiori My Spend App is pulled from the CO (Controlling) part of the backend ECC6 system. For more information please visit service marketplace to view a power point presentation that details this more clearly.
Q. In the MySpend App, what if the manager has responsibility for multiple cost centers / departments; can it display all of them? Yes, this is permission based so the manager will need to create groups of cost center users/departments to be able to view them all. Permissions are handled in the backend ECC system using transaction: PFCG
d. SAP Fiori – My Timesheet Applications
Q. Can the My Timesheet app support copy paste a worksheet from one week/month to the next one? The Fiori app has an ‘auto suggest’ feature which, if switched on, will use the entries of the previous week as a default for the current week. For more information on this please refer to the Fiori installation guide or view the list of BADIs needed for my timesheet.
Q. What kind of data does the CATS worklists pass to the SAP Fiori My Timesheet app? The suggested list in the Fiori timesheet shows both the CATS worklist and the recently used entries (in the same session).
e. SAP Fiori – Travel Applications
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Q. Why do I get a null reference error when I open the FIORI travel request app? When configuring Fiori apps the number one thing to remember is to get the backend ERP/SRM applications up and running first. For this specific app, the user should be able to create a travel request in the SAP GUI transaction without Fiori being setup. If this does not work then Fiori will also not work. Ensuring the backend applications are configured properly with the consistent master data will save tremendous amounts of time when troubleshooting.
4. SAP FIORI EXTENSIBILITY – THEME DESIGNER
Q. What is the SAP Theme Designer? The SAP Theme Designer is a browser based tool that allows users to create their own themes to adapt the visual appearance of applications. Users can develop themes by modifying one of the theme templates provided by SAP or they could edit existing custom themes. For example, you could change the color scheme, the size and type of fonts, or add your company’s logo. The tool supports various UI technologies including Web Dynpro, ABAP, SAPUI5, and SAP NetWeaver Business Client. The SAP UI Theme Designer is available to customers via the UI Add-On 1.0 SPS 04 for SAP NetWeaver (7.0/7.01/7.02/7.03/7.31). For more information, check out this helpful blog on using the Theme Designer.
Q. How can I install the THEMEDESIGNER tool? What are the pre-requisites? The SAP Theme Designer is available via the UI Add-On for SAP NetWeaver (7.0/7.01/7.02/7.03/7.31) Please reference Note 1852401 – UI Theme Designer for SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP (Main SAP Note) for a detailed description of the installation steps and corresponding SAP Notes to implement. http://service.sap.com/swdc http://help.sap.com/nw-uiaddon
Q. How do I include a customer logo to the launch page of Fiori? Using the UI Theme Designer ‘Quick’ tab you can easily add your company’s logo. The parameter is Company logo which holds the URL of the logo of your company. Or you can simply use the drag and drop feature and drop your company logo into the company logo input field dialog box. Note that this parameter only affects the logo of the SAPUI5 shell but not the logo of the SAPUI5 Application-Header control.
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Q. How do I update the base .css file with a customer's corporate colors? The base .css file can be updated with a customer’s corporate colors using Theme Designer tool. With Quick Theming the color scheme can be changed in few clicks: 1) Log in to the Gateway system and start transaction /UI5/THEME_DESIGNER 2) Select the SAP delivered Theme and hit Edit and Click on the Color square in the line of Highlight Color 3) Change the color as needed and hit Ok You can also change the Toggle Item color with CSS: 4) Press CSS 5) Enter the following lines in Snippet 1 .sapUIMeTabContainerBtnInfo, .sapUIMeTabContainerBtnNotes, .sapUIMeTabContainerBtnAttachments, .sapUIMeTabContainerBtnPeople { background-color: #999 !important; } 6) Finally Publish the Theme
Q. How can I customize tile for an app to have only a static image? You can use the Theme Designer tool. With Quick the help of Expert Theming the background image can be changed. 1) Log in to the Gateway system and start transaction /UI5/THEME_DESIGNER 2) Select the SAP delivered Theme and hit Expert. Then Click on sapUIGlobalBackgroundImage 3) Upload an image and hit OK You can also change the image with the Quick Theming. Then you have to choose the Background Image.
Q. How can I customize Fiori UI? Using the SAP Theme Designer, themes can be customized for SAP Fiori. Additionally, all the source codes are stored in the gateway server so customers can download this source code to the eclipse tool and enhance the UI. 1. -
Clarity on what can be added through extension and what cannot be added through custom extensions. As a general reference through custom extensions you can add: Gateway enhancements to extend the workflow, redefine an app’s Gateway Service or add a new collection to the Gateway Service UI enhancements to extend the workflow Customize the app login screen For more information please read the Standard Extensibility Documentation.
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5. SAP FIORI – ARCHITECTURE
Q. Is it possible to connect several different ERP Systems from the SAP NetWeaver Gateway to fetch the data for Fiori? Yes. Backend system aliases for the service have to be maintained in the /IWFND/MAINT_SERVICE transaction.
Q. Is there a way to use the user's logon language maintained in the user profile in SAP (SU01) language as the language for Fiori? No. Browser language is taken as logon language. Users can specify language with saplanguage=EN parameter.
Q. What are the deployment options for NetWeaver Gateway – Central Hub or Embedded with SRM? The deployment options for NetWeaver Gateway are independent of the SRM system. Please check the SRM installation and configuration guides. For additional information check Embedded versus Hub Deployment documentation
Q. Do I need a three tier landscape with SAP Fiori? In general, SAP recommends the usage of a three tier landscape for better management of an application lifecycle. The final decision on what landscape is best will need to be decided on an individual customer basis, taking into consideration the customer’s particular architecture and focus. For more information please review the SAP Fiori Architecture overview document.
6. SAP FIORI – SECURITY
Q. If the customer wants to use SAP portal for centralized authentication, can SAP Fiori apps be configured to do that? Yes. There is an iView template for HTML5 app. Apps are called with mySAP SSO logon ticket
Q. How can a user securely access SAP Fiori from outside the corporate network? SAP Fiori applications support the following authentication and single sign-on mechanisms: SAML 2.0 Single-Sign On SAP Logon Tickets (MYSAPSS02) Be sure to read the SAP Fiori Security Guide as other options may be available for you as well. Additional documentation on single sign-on implementation using SAML 2.0 based authentication in conjunction with IdP (Identity Provider) software such as SAP IDP, Ping Federate or Microsoft’s Active Directory Federation Service (AD FS). Find more information on SCN, overview of SSL and complete configuration guide for SAML 2.0.
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