Accessing SAP Fiori Launchpad

From his experience at his former job, Adam was used to working with SAP GUI to access on-premise-based SAP systems of SAP Business Suite (such as SAP ECC). This is no longer valid for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, which only provides an HTTP(s) based access for both end users and administrators.

As the access to SAP systems with the help of a Web Browser is a significant change for Adam, he again asks Carl to show him how to access SAP applications in the context of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

For this, Carl connects to the SAP Fiori Launchpad of his partner's demo system landscape and explains the role of SAP Fiori Launchpad.

He explains that SAP Fiori launchpad is the central entry point to apps on mobile and desktop devices. It provides users with the relevant information they need at a glance and focuses on their needs and how they work.

Carl points out that – after successful authentication with the help of the Identity Authentication Service – users are redirected directly to the entry page of SAP Fiori Launchpad for the system they are logged into.

SAP Fiori launchpad is a shell that hosts apps built with different UI technologies, and provides these apps with services such as navigation, personalization, embedded support, and application configuration.

It is the entry point to apps on mobile and desktop devices. It gives users the relevant information they need at a glance and centers on their needs and how they work. The new design of the launchpad displays a panoramic user interface. Users can focus on their daily work and track what's happening in other areas.

The following image illustrates the components associated with this type of SAP Fiori Launchpad, which we would like to discuss:

After logon, My Home in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition gets started.

My Home has become the standard entry page. This page is divided into different sections. Users can view their To Dos, Pages, Apps, Activities, and Insights on this page. They can personalize the entry page to hide or display specific sections and the content maintained within these sections:

You see the following elements:

System information bar

If your administrator has enabled it, you see a system info bar above the shell bar. It indicates a system-specific icon and the tenant information. The standard bar color is orange; your administrator can define the colors. With this, you can easily identify which system you're currently working in when you work with different systems.

Note

The system information bar is not shown in production systems, but in test or quality systems.

Shell Bar

The shell contains a shell bar on top and footer areas with various buttons, icons, and a logo. A default footer with SAP Fiori launchpad is not provided out of the box.

The shell bar icons on the top right are explained from left to right:

• Search: Opens a global search user interface for finding apps and objects.
• Joule: Launches Joule, SAP's generative AI copilot.
• Digital Assistant: Launches the digital assistant or collaborative tool.
• Give Feedback
• Help: Opens the in-app help. The help panel appears with help content or further information on how to find help. You can also use F1 to open the help.
• Notifications: This opens the Notifications window with alerts, tasks, or requests related to your business role. The icon also shows a badge with the number of new notifications you have received.
• User Actions Menu: This icon usually shows the initials of your user name. It opens the user actions menu. We will have a closer look at this later.

On the top left-hand side:

Company or brand logo:

Displays the default SAP logo that you can replace with your logo using the UI theme designer. If you click on it, you return to the home page if you are not already there. On a smaller screen, this might be replaced by a home icon. If you work with pages and spaces, clicking on the logo will open the page again on which you opened the app.

Hamburger Menu

Use the Hamburger Menu to pin/unpin Pages!

My Home

My Home is the standard entry page, and it's divided into different sections:

• To-Dos: This section shows the tasks and situations that need your attention
• News: This section is enabled by default, displays user-relevant news and other updates, and can also be configured by administrators
• Pages: This section displays unique pages of your configured spaces
• Apps: This section displays your configured favorite apps, your recently used apps, your most used items, and certain apps that SAP Business AI recommends.
• Insights Tiles: This section displays dynamic content you can use to monitor valuable KPIs at a glance.
• Insights Cards: This section displays analytical, list, and table cards on the entry page.

Following the "Make it Mine" approach, you can personalize the entry page to hide or display specific sections and their content.

Shell

When you launch apps from the SAP Fiori launchpad, the apps run within a shell. The shell is the outer frame of the SAP Fiori launchpad.

Message icon

When an entry you make produces an error or a warning, a message icon is displayed in the lower left corner of the user settings window. The icon shows the number of problems. Click on the icon to see detailed information about the warnings or errors. The following figure shows an example.

Within the Shell bar, you find the Search function on the top right corner (magnifier icon):

First, you may filter what kind of results you want to see by choosing one of the shown options on the left of the search bar. The default option is All. We changed it to Apps as shown in the Screenshot.

In the second step, we enter Business User as we are interested in which applications are available to manage Business Users.

As a result, we all have apps with the words Business, and User within the tile title. By choosing the tile you will use, this tile will be open.

More information can be found in the SAP Help Portal – SAP Fiori Launchpad for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. For example, the available Search Operators.

The user actions menu offers user-related options, e.g., to open apps, to change the launchpad layout, or to contact support.

The following screenshot shows three possibilities of the user action menu (2 to 4):

To open the user actions menu, click your profile picture, your initials (e.g., EA), or the (User Actions Menu) icon located at the top right corner of the shell header (1).

Recent Activities

Displays a Quick Access dialog with an interactive history of the items you have searched for in Enterprise Search and worked with recently. The apps or objects are listed chronologically.

Frequently Used:

Displays the apps you have searched for in Enterprise Search and used most frequently over the last 30 days. Only days working in the launchpad are counted. The apps are listed in order of usage frequency, with the most used listed first. An app must be used at least twice to appear in the list.

App Finder

A convenient tool for finding apps and adding them to your launchpad.

Settings

(2) A central area where you can view and maintain the settings for your launchpad.

Edit Current Page

(3) This option is only available on the space level of the Fiori Launchpad. For example, Administration. It lets you access the currently shown page in edit mode to organize your launchpad to suit your daily tasks. Once you have completed your editing, exit edit mode by clicking Done at the bottom of the page or choosing Exit Edit Mode in the user actions menu.

Note

This option is only available if your administrator has enabled the personalization option.

About

Display information for a specific app and the launchpad.

My User Sessions

Use this option to view the sessions associated with your user, containing locks in SAP GUI or SAP Fiori launchpad. If a session blocks one of your apps, you can delete it in the My User Sessions area. Caution: Please note that deleting sessions related to drafts is impossible.

Sign Out

Use this option to end your session in the launchpad.

My Home Settings

(4) This option is only available on the My Home level. Enables you to access your personal My Home in edit mode so that you can organize My Home to suit your daily tasks. For example, to turn the visibility of the different sections on or off. Once you have completed your editing, exit edit mode by clicking Done at the bottom of the page or choosing Exit Edit Mode in the user actions menu.

Note

This option is only available if you have My Home activated and your administrator has turned off the personalization option

For more information, please consult:

SAP Help Portal – SAP Fiori Launchpad for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition – User Guide.

This feature enables you to author and manage news that appears on the My Home in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition entry page. As an administrator, you can use this app to author and manage the news that appears on My Home in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition entry page. You can view, edit, and delete news articles, news groups, and news images.

For more information, see SAP Help Portal – Manage News.

Learn how to manage the launchpad spaces and pages, as well as create and edit pages and spaces.

The following section describes how to create and edit your own spaces, define specific pages for different user groups, and edit existing pages. This figure shows how the layout with spaces and pages looks and how the various elements work together:

In our example, the slide displays:

• Space: My Home, Administration, Accounts Payable
• Page: Extensibility, Identity and Access Management
• Section: Users and Roles, User and Role Groups
• Tiles: Maintain Business Roles, …. , Maintain Business Role Group

The spaces mode was developed to offer more flexibility to influence the launchpad layout for specific user groups.

Pages are assigned to users via spaces that are assigned to business roles. The business role defines which users see a particular space. If you enable spaces for your users and define specific spaces and pages for them, you can reach a better fit.

By defining pages with meaningful sections, you can define in which order the apps are sorted on the page. You can, e.g., sort the most used apps in the top-level section and then create separate sections for those that belong together. SAP delivers predefined spaces and pages that you can use to start

There are several tools you use and several prerequisites that have to be met to create and manage spaces and pages:

• Maintain Business Roles: Here, you create a space and select the role the space belongs to.
• The business catalog SAP_CORE_BC_UI_FLD is assigned to you. It contains the following apps:
  • Manage Launchpad Spaces app: You create and manage spaces and define the page assignment. You can also check to which business roles a space is assigned. This app has two main views: the spaces overview and the space details.
  • Manage Launchpad Pages app: This app allows you to create new pages, define their content, and edit existing pages. It has two main views: the page overview and the page details.
• The business role template SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR provides access to the catalog.
• The adaptation transport organizer (ATO) must be configured and activated. When you create, copy, or delete spaces or pages, they are transported using the ATO.
• When you want to translate your own pages and spaces, you can use the built-in translation option.

For example, the app Manage Launchpad Pages shown in the screenshot:

With this app, you can manage the launchpad pages, define the layout of pages, and edit, copy, or delete existing pages:

• See all pages available in your launchpad.
• Copy an SAP-delivered page or a customer-created page.
• Define a page layout and select apps that should be displayed.
• Edit an existing page: Delete, Rename, Add Sections, Delete or Add Apps.
• Delete a customer-created page.

For more information, please consult:

To use the app, you need the following:

• Business catalog: SAP_CORE_BC_UI
• Business role: SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR

With this app, you can display and change parameters to configure different aspects of the launchpad:

Here are some configuration examples:

• SYS_INFO_BAR: Select whether all users should see the system information bar, which shows an icon and the tenant name and role (PROD, TEST, or DEV).
• SYS_INFO_BAR_COLOR: Select a color for the system information bar. The following colors are available: red, orange, green, violet, gray, pink, and blue. For most colors, a second shade is provided. When an SAP dark theme or high-contrast theme is selected, the selected color is adapted accordingly.
• HOMEPAGE_PERSONALIZATION Specify whether users can personalize the content displayed on the pages. When set to false, the user can't perform the following actions: Move, rename, delete, reset, or create sections. Move or remove tiles. When false, the app finder is also disabled for users. Hint: But when the parameter APPFINDER_ENABLED is set to true, the app finder is always available, even if HOMEPAGE_PERSONALIZATION is set to false. Note that this setting doesn't influence My Home. Users can edit it anytime when My Home is enabled (parameter SPACES_MYHOME).
• SESSION_TIMEOUT_INTERVAL_IN_MINUTES Enter the timeout period in minutes according to the platform's session timeout configuration. If you enter -1, you turn off the timeout.
• SESSION_TIMEOUT_REMINDER_IN_MINUTES Enter the time in minutes before session timeout when the keep alive pop-up window should be displayed. If you enter 0, no dialog will be displayed. SESSION_TIMEOUT_STOP_DATA_REFRESH determines when a user is inactive before the tiles stop sending polling data refresh requests. After a defined idle time, the ABAP server terminates the session for security reasons. Enter the time in minutes. If you enter -1, you turn off the timeout.

For the complete list, please consult SAP Help Portal – SAP Fiori Launchpad for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition – Administration Guide.

• SAP Help Portal – SAP Fiori Launchpad for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
• Demo to Manage Launchpad Pages (please copy and paste the link as it can't be provided in another way: https://education.hana.ondemand.com/education/pub/s4/index.html?show=project!PR_45C47351F5B9089D:uebung#43)
• SAP Learning – Learning the Basics of SAP Fiori

• For more information on the spaces and pages, see the blog Switching from Groups to Spaces and Pages in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition, which includes a comparison of the layout with spaces and pages with the previous layout with groups.

• For security recommendations, Carl advises Adam to read the corresponding section in the Protect Your SAP S/4HANA Cloud documentation.