The most important part of a tile is its navigation information, containing an intent, which connects to a target mapping. An intent is short for intention and consists of a semantic object (for example, sales order) and action (for example, display). If the user wants to see the details of a sales order, their intention is to display a sales order. SAP Fiori adds this intention behind the SAP Fiori launchpad (FLP) URL, separated by a # to call a target mapping that has this intent defined. In this way, it is possible to call an application using HTTP, without showing the real URL of the application, but instead mapping the request to an internally-defined target.
Intent-based navigation is highly flexible. It is not important how the intent is created. It can be a tile in the FLP, or any other function in any other app that the user is working with. Apps just need to start a navigation using an intent, and the target mapping available for the current user is called. Which intent is called depends on the user role of the user starting the navigation. This means that the same intent can lead to different results for different users.
Target mappings contain the information about which app to start, which parameters to use, and on which device types. They are identified by its intent, and the combination of semantic object and action. If the user clicks a tile, the intent-based navigation defined in the tile is started. The suitable target mapping then calls the target app defined.
Technical catalogs (TC) cut tiles and target mappings (TM) by solution area and are therefore the technical definition source. Business catalogs (BC) reference tiles and target mappings (TM) of technical catalogs (TC) according to segregation of duty. Business catalog groups (BCG) contain apps from various business catalogs (BC), merging a subtopic.
The SAP Fiori launchpad content manager complements the SAP Fiori launchpad designer. It offers the following features:
- Exploring launchpad content
- Creating and configuring catalogs
- Displaying role assignments for catalogs
- Displaying the service activation status for apps
- Displaying issues with launchpad content
The following is not supported in the launchpad content manager:
- Creating, changing, or deleting original tiles and target mappings. Please use the launchpad designer or the mass maintenance tool instead.
- Managing custom tiles (displaying information about custom tiles and adding them to catalogs). Please use the launchpad designer instead.
A typical use case is creating your own custom catalogs, by copying the catalogs delivered by SAP as templates/samples. The copied catalogs will include references to the tiles and target mappings in the SAP catalog. You can remove the reference tiles and target mappings you don’t need from your copied catalogs. You can also identify which apps are missing in your copied catalogs and add references to the corresponding tiles and target mappings to your catalog.
The launchpad content manager allows you to make system-wide or client-specific changes: Use transaction /UI2/FLPCM_CONF to make system-wide changes, and transaction /UI2/FLPCM_CUST to make changes for the current client (customizing scope).
