Creating Tiles for Native Apps

The (mobile) end users can launch their native applications from SAP Mobile Start. A native app tile looks like the following image:

To achieve this, we must create a new app within the Site Manager that points to a native application. The following two special parameters are required:

1. URL to Launch App

   It is often referred to as custom URL or URL scheme and it has a specific format that is defined by the developers of the native app. An example used in the exercise that follows is for the SAP Concur native app, for which the URL scheme looks like this: concurmobile://. Calling this URL opens the native app in the corresponding operating system (iOS or Android). It is also possible to pass parameters to open specific screens or features within the native app – this is called deep-linking. For example, this URL scheme of SAP SuccessFactors to directly navigate into the org chart: bizx://?urlType=deeplink&deeplinkType=orgChart

   Note

   For custom native apps, you need to make sure that this URL scheme is implemented during development so that they can be launched via a native app tile in SAP Mobile Start.
2. URL to Install App

   This is the link (for example, to the store) from where the user can download the application if it is not already installed on the device.

As these URLs (especially the link to the respective store) may be different between operating systems, it is required to create separate native app tiles in Site Manager for iOS and Android. Only the correct tile shows up on the relevant device.