Navigating the SAP Fiori Launchpad

SAP Fiori is a design language that ensures a consistent user experience across different systems. Whether you are working in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP Cloud ALM, or SAP Central Business Configuration, you will encounter a common look and feel.

The SAP Fiori design concept is built on five core principles to ensure the user experience is:

• Role-based
• Adaptive
• Simple
• Coherent
• Delightful

By using SAP Fiori, SAP provides task-focused apps and role-based processes that optimize how users interact with their software solutions.

To understand the shift in design, consider how workplace dynamics have changed. In the past, employees often stayed with one company for their entire career, using the same tools for decades. Today, people change roles and companies more frequently.

Consequently, software must be intuitive and easy to learn so that employees can quickly become productive in new positions.

A classic example is the Goods Movement app (transaction code: MIGO). This single application handles many different types of goods movements, such as transferring materials between warehouses or managing shipments with external suppliers.

While this comprehensive app is still available in SAP S/4HANA deployments, its functions have been separated into several task-focused SAP Fiori apps.

This approach allows experienced users to continue using the original interface in a web-based format while providing a more streamlined experience for new users.

For instance, instead of using the complex Goods Movement app, a user would choose a specific SAP Fiori app based on their task:

• To record a delivery from a supplier, use the Post Goods Receipt for Inbound Delivery app.
• To return incorrect items to a supplier, use the Return Delivery app.

These specialized apps are much easier to master because they focus on one primary function. Well-designed software should be intuitive enough to guide the user without extensive training.

The SAP Fiori Launchpad serves as the central entry point for all applications a user is authorized to access. The layout is organized into spaces and pages assigned to specific business roles.

The default landing page is My Home. To the right, users can see their job-specific apps grouped within spaces.

While most apps work on both desktop and mobile, the SAP Mobile Start app must be configured via SAP Build Work Zone to allow users to access relevant business apps on mobile devices.

Because SAP Mobile Start is the mobile companion to the SAP Fiori Launchpad, the partner and customer project teams should collaborate on its setup. This ensures the customer understands how to maintain the settings and manage access. The customer's IT contact must grant permissions for SAP Build Work Zone, which operates on the SAP Business Technology Platform.

My Home is a cross-device entry page that allows users to personalize their view. It consists of the following sections:

• To-Dos: Consolidates tasks from the My Inbox app and alerts from the situation handling framework.
• Pages: Contains a News tile and a list of Pages.
  • News: This tile is managed by administrators. We recommend using the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency (RASD) tool to provide users with relevant release updates.
  • Pages: Displays the first eight pages based on the user's assigned business roles.
• Apps and Activities: Shows a user's favorite apps and recently used system activities.
• Insights: Features Tiles and Cards.
  • Tiles: Populated automatically based on the monitoring apps available to the user.
  • Cards: Allows users to add analytical, list, or table cards for quick data visualization.

Spaces and Pages is the standard layout for the SAP Fiori Launchpad. While business roles and catalogs define what apps a user can access, a space defines how those apps are organized and displayed.

If a business role does not have an assigned space, no apps will appear on the launchpad. Therefore, every business role must have a space. SAP provides standard space templates for all business role templates.

Spaces and pages act as information containers. Usually, one space is assigned per business role. A space contains one or more pages, and each page organizes apps into sections.

For example, the Administration space contains eleven pages. To assign a business role, an administrator would open the Administration space and navigate to Identity and Access Management→Users and Roles to find the Maintain Business Roles app.

Follow this tutorial to learn how to navigate the SAP Fiori Launchpad.

The SAP Fiori Apps Reference Library is a key resource for exploring the functionality of apps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. It provides details such as:

• Required business roles and catalogs for app access.
• Assigned spaces and pages.
• Technical data, including app IDs, supported releases, and mobile availability.
• Direct links to App Documentation in the SAP Help Portal.