Introducing the User Interface

SAP EPPM Project System (PS) applications/ transactions are available in different user interfaces, one of it being SAP Fiori. A short overview on SAP Fiori is given in this lesson. The following lesson covers the alternative, more "classical" user interface SAP GUI, that is still available in SAP S/4HANA.

SAP Fiori is a consistent and holistic user experience for business users for all lines of business and across devices and deployment options.

The SAP Fiori concept is fundamentally a simplification of the user experience relying on modern design principles such as role-based, responsive, simple, coherent, and delightful:

• Role-based means designed for you, your needs, and how you work.
• Adaptive means that it adapts to multiple use cases and devices.
• Coherent means that it provides one fluid, intuitive experience.
• Simple means that it includes only what is necessary.
• Delightful means that it makes an emotional connection.

The SAP Fiori design is the visual design, information architecture, colors, and interaction patterns defined in the SAP Fiori design guidelines. Based on user roles and business processes, SAP Fiori simplifies doing business. SAP Fiori sets the standard for enterprise user experience by removing unnecessary complexity. We put users in control of their business tasks by giving them only what they need. This is reflected in the five design principles already mentioned.

A while ago, SAP released a version of SAP Fiori known as SAP Fiori 3. SAP Fiori 3 supports multi-page spaces, giving users stable, well-structured, and access to essential apps that can be personalized. Users can also benefit from SAP's continuous improvements in SAP Fiori 3 situation handling capabilities. App developers benefit from the SAP Fiori controls for SAP Fiori native apps for iOS and Android that SAP Fiori 3 offers, as well as from SAP's next-generation IDE (Integrated Development Environment) in the cloud, SAP Business Application Studio, and SAP Fiori tools for SAP Fiori 3.

A consistent and delightful home page experience is a crucial element of SAP Fiori 3: it delivers a significant improvement for end users accessing the system via the SAP Fiori launchpad as the single entry point for their work.

Supporting intelligence is also an area where SAP Fiori 3 focuses on situation handling, with improved situation pages and message-based situations being critical elements in SAP Fiori 3.

SAP provides space and page templates per business role for SAP S/4HANA, making it easy for customers to structure the layout of the SAP Fiori launchpad for their end users. This layout remains stable, even if a user is assigned to more roles later.

An SAP Fiori space represents an area of work, typically corresponding to one or more business roles. You can structure each space using pages for various work contexts and optionally use sections to further group the work within a page.

Users can easily personalize their pages by adding or removing tiles or sections.

All SAP Fiori apps utilize the SAPUI5 and SAP Gateway technologies. The three types of SAP Fiori apps differentiate in the following ways: (In terms of usage of additional technologies).

• Transactional Apps

  ABAP provides the classic approach for functions of a business system.

  Available for SAP S/4HANA and Business Suite on any DB.

• Analytical Apps

  Use of analytical capabilities of SAP HANA to provide insights into business data.

  Available for SAP S/4HANA and Business Suite on SAP HANA.

• Fact Sheet Apps

  Use of Enterprise Search capabilities of SAP HANA to provide search results.

  Available for SAP S/4HANA and Business Suite on SAP HANA.

In the SAP Fiori apps library, you can search for applications and get information on them.

The SAP Fiori launchpad can be visually adapted and customized using the UI Theme Designer. It is designed according to the simple and intuitive SAP Fiori user experience while supporting established UI technologies (such as Web Dynpro ABAP and SAP GUI for HTML).

The figure Transactional SAP Fiori Apps: Change WBS Element Status shows the SAP Fiori transactional application Change WBS Element Status, which supports the user in maintaining the status values of WBS elements and network activities. You will find the standard views and functionalities as this is a transactional app.

You can also use the existing SAP GUI transactions in the SAP Fiori launchpad, the SAP Business Client, or via your web browser. Most SAP GUI transactions exist in S/4HANA as well.

Spaces, pages, and sections are the recommended way to structure the SAP Fiori Launchpad menu. The setup can be done globally by the administrator or the users have the choice to decide if they want to use spaces or not.

SAP provides space and page templates per business role for SAP S/4HANA, making it easy for customers to structure the layout of the SAP Fiori launchpad for their end users. This layout remains stable, even if a user is assigned to more roles later.

An SAP Fiori space represents an area of work, typically corresponding to one or more business roles. You can structure each space using pages for various work contexts, and optionally use sections to further group the work within a page.

Users can easily personalize their pages, by adding or removing tiles, or adding or removing sections.

There are several means available to semantically structure and visualize the content of a space. Use multiple pages and sections to semantically structure the content of a space. Page and section titles may help identify the tasks that the content relates to. Tiles are used to visualize the content of a space. Besides tiles, more options to visualize the content will be available in later releases.

A space comes with a predefined set of apps related to the user’s business role. The idea is to show only the most important and most used apps per space that users need to complete their daily tasks.

To further structure a space you might use one or multiple pages depended on the number of assigned apps associated with the users’ business role. Users still can access all apps in the app finder which they might use to add apps to their pages or to directly launch apps that they rarely use.

Sections can be used to semantically structure the content of a page. To ensure consistency across pages within a space and across spaces, we recommend using a section called "Quick Access" to summarize the most important apps, and/or a section called "Insights" to summarize the most important analytical apps.

The usage of multiple pages might be the case for business roles which have many apps assigned. Each page should then reflect one self-contained work-context. Aim for lean pages and show only the most important and used apps on each page. Therefore, a page serves as a "favorites" page.

Overview page: If you would like to provide a page which summarizes the most important and most used apps across the multiple work-context pages, use a term which summarizes the most important tasks of the whole space or use "Overview" as page title. The overview page may contain additional overall apps or generic apps such as My Inbox. To ensure consistency position this page as the first page on a multiple-pages space.

To aim for lean pages do not overwhelm sections with apps, go for lean pages instead. Check the chapter tiles to choose appropriate tile types.

The spaces concept gives users more than one page to access their SAP Fiori launchpad content. In fact, the concept envisages that users can access multiple spaces, and each space itself can have one or more pages. Each page can have its content portioned into sections, similar to the groups used before. As a result, users have two levels with which to structure their content instead of just one: multiple spaces (each with one page), and multiple sections per page, for example, spaces and sections. The following diagram shows this with an example for the space Accounts Receivable.

If the user-specific flag has been activated in Customizing, the user can enable or disable spaces on his own.

When you work with your SAP S/4 HANA system, you are able to start the SAP Easy Access menu. Here, you can select transactions via a menu path or through executing the transaction code. If you migrated your "old" SAP ECC system to SAP S/4 HANA, you could opt to work with the classic SAP GUI transactions.

Most of the transactions used in SAP Project System (PS) are actually renewed SAP GUI transaction. This means, you could also logon to the backend system directly and use the same transactions, with or without the SAP Fiori theme Quartz.

The Project Builder appears the same way as in SAP ECC. The design has been adopted to the new themes, but the functionality remains the same.

Even in the SAP GUI, you can set the options in such a way that the appearance is similar to the design the SAP Fiori apps are using. In this case you have to choose the Quartz theme in the SAP GUI options. This only works on an SAP S/4HANA system.