SAP Learning Journey

Accessing SAP Mobile Services Settings

Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Adjust mobile-specific settings such as passcode policy

Overview

The SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition subscription includes an SAP Mobile Services instance that is used by the SAP Mobile Start app as an https endpoint for authentication and routing. It provides an Admin Cockpit that allows administrators to access logs and configure specific settings for the app.

In this lesson, you will learn:

  • How to access the SAP Mobile Services Admin Cockpit
  • The most important settings related to app security (for example, Passcode Policy) and features (for example, widgets)

Access SAP Mobile Services for SAP Mobile Start

Access SAP Mobile Services

To access the SAP Mobile Services Admin Cockpit for SAP Mobile Start, perform the following steps:

  1. Create the MobileTenantAdmin role collection.

    You must have the right authorizations to access any SAP BTP service. The role MobileAdmin that brings the required authorizations should be available in the subaccount to access SAP Mobile Services. SAP BTP cockpit allows assigning of role collections rather than an individual role to a user. You need to do the following:

    • Create a new role collection; recommended to be called MobileTenantAdmin in the subaccount
    • Add the MobileAdmin role to this role collection
    • Assign the MobileTenantAdmin role collection to your user

    Once your user is assigned to the MobileTenantAdmin role collection, you will be able to access the SAP Mobile Services Admin Cockpit.

    Hint

    The admin-user credentials you use to log in to SAP Mobile Services depends on the setup you followed for user authentication.

    It is the same user that you used to access the Site Manager in units 3 and 4:
    • If you used default identity provider (as in unit 3), it is a platform user
    • If you used Identity Authentication (as in Unit 4), it is an Identity Authentication user

  2. Construct the URL of the SAP Mobile Services Admin Cockpit.

    To access the SAP Mobile Services Admin Cockpit, you must construct the URL for the same. It is similar to the SAP Mobile Services host created for the managed app configuration that was covered in the previous lesson. It is easiest to start with the SAP Build Work Zone URL and add an "m" between the "<tenant-subdomain>" and ".launchpad", and then add the path "/mobileservices/admin" at the end.

    Structurehttps://<tenant-subdomain>.m.launchpad.cfapps.<region>.hana.ondemand.com/mobileservices/admin
    Examplehttps://mytenant123.m.launchpad.cfapps.eu10.hana.ondemand.com/mobileservices/admin

    You can access this URL using a browser and log in with the user credentials to which the role collection MobileTenantAdmin has been assigned. It is also useful to bookmark this URL for later usage. You can use the following exercise to learn how to perform the required steps.

The following exercise guides you through the process in more detail:

ExerciseStart Exercise

Summary

With this, you have successfully accessed the SAP Mobile Services Admin Cockpit.

In the following section, you will learn about the most interesting settings on security and features that can be configured via SAP Mobile Services.

Adjusting Passcode Policy Settings

As seen during the first onboarding to SAP Mobile Start, it is required to create a passcode for additional security. By default, this passcode should have a minimum length of 8 digits/characters and it is possible to allow biometric authentication (for example, face ID, fingerprint) upon successful passcode creation.

As an admin, it is possible to adjust this policy within SAP Mobile Services. It can either be fully disabled or the properties can be edited. For example, you can define the required length, expiration time frame, or whether biometric authentication should be allowed.

Watch the following video to learn how to adjust passcode policy settings:

You can find more information about the different settings on this help page.

Configuring Feature Flags

Different feature flags, which allow the administrators to enable or disable certain app features, are available.

You can find the feature flags in the same page (SAP Mobile Services → Mobile Settings Exchange → Client Configuration) as the passcode policy. Scroll down to the Feature Flag section. It should look like the following screenshot:

The highlighted section shows the feature flags that are specific for SAP Mobile Start. You can also identify them by their ID, which starts with com.cap.mobile.start. Via the toggle on the right side (the Active column), you can decide whether to enable or disable them. Let’s have a look at what they do.

  • GlobalWidgets

    Currently, there are two different widget types available: the Business Info Widget and the News Widget. This flag decides whether the end users are allowed to make use of these widgets on their mobile device home screen.

    Note

    You can learn how to add widgets to the device home screen in this blog post.

  • SAPMobileStartBrowserIOS

    SAP Mobile Start version 1.6 for iOS introduced a new and improved in-app browser experience for UI5 and web apps. For new customers, this is enabled by default; existing customers have to enable it manually using this feature flag.

    Note
    After changing between browsers, the end user will be asked to sign in to the SAP Mobile Start app again.
  • ShareAndExternalBrowser

    This option decides whether the end users are allowed to share and open links in external browsers.

    Note
    Setting this feature flag to Off automatically enables the new browser experience on all iOS devices and in-app browser on all Android devices (replacing Chrome custom tabs).
  • Smartwatch

    SAP Mobile Start version 1.6 introduced the support for smartwatches. It shows the latest to-dos and monitoring information. It is also possible to filter the different to-do types, drill into details, and take actions directly from the smartwatch. You can enable or disable the use of the watch app with this feature flag.

The list of feature flags might change in future as new app features are introduced. You can find information on all available SAP Mobile Start feature flags in this documentation.

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