As the first integration scenario, this unit will explain the integration scenarios made possible by one of the default solution components, the Launchpad. It is an integral part of SAP Build Work Zone, and its goal is to bring the SAP Fiori tiles from different business application areas into SAP Build Work Zone. Also known as Applications, it enables centralized access to business applications (SAP and non-SAP), for the users of the digital workspace, all in one place.
Manual Integration and Content Federation
Unlike other integrations covered further on, the launchpad is fully embedded in the application shell. In runtime, users can then access the content they need to fulfill their tasks from a central point of entry.
SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition, includes built-in launchpad and allows to access all business apps from one place. Identity propagation eliminates a need to setup additional security roles for SAP business apps.
More details about integration of Business Content for Launchpad:
- Manual Integration: Integrate different applications, for example, deployed on SAP S/4HANA on premise, SAP BTP Cloud Foundry, ABAP environment, SAP SuccessFactors deep links, or even third party applications.
- Content Federation: Expose content of various content providers into your subaccount: SAP S/4HANA on premise, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP IBP, SAP Enterprise Portal, or SAP BTP Cloud Foundry. Content providers support both Cloud as well as on-premise solutions. Each remote content provider uses a tool for exposing its content in a format that is suitable for integration. The integration of the exposed content is done at the role level. All content items related to these roles, including apps, groups, and catalogs, are also integrated, and are all visible in the runtime.
Launchpad Integration
Content provider exposes content (for example applications or roles) from a back end system to make it available within SAP Build Work Zone. Content providers can expose content from cloud and on-premise systems.
There are two integration scenarios:
- Federation
The federation scenario consists of a content exposure step, which is done on the content provider side, and a content consumption step, which is done on SAP Build Work Zone.
- Manual Integration
In this scenario, the administrator manages the application configuration. Apps, groups, and catalogs are added manually, and assigned to the business roles.
To configure both manual integration and content federation scenarios, SAP Build Work Zone company administrators can access the relevant administration UI - the so-called design time (DT) - via the overall Work Zone administration console → External Integrations → Business Content → Content Manager option.
Local and Central Entry Point
Particularly in the context of application-centric integration scenarios, questions on establishing local versus global entry points may arise. SAP Build Work Zone spanning across different SAP and third party applications target the area of a global / central entry point. This is to be understood as complementing existing local entry points, for example, a product home page from an SAP cloud solution or the local SAP Fiori Launchpad in SAP S/4HANA. The integration scenarios discussed in this and other lessons, help understand which scenarios of integrating content from these different local entry points can be utilized in SAP Build Work Zone.
The following chart helps identify the different variants based on two dimensions:
- Type of systems: On-premise and cloud, from bottom to top.
- Number of systems: Starting from one system and until many, from left to the right.
Depending on the complexity of the system landscape, different scenarios could be considered, such as the embedded SAP Fiori Launchpad in SAP S/4HANA.