Improving User Experience is something SAP has been increasingly focusing on for the past couple of years. SAP UX affects all areas of SAP and to let the customers experience the new UX, SAP has released the latest RDS packages of UX for Personas and Fiori. This will make it easier for customers to experience the new face of SAP fairly quickly and understand the benefits of new UX while using it. Before I move on to provide the overview of RDS solutions offered by SAP, let us quickly understand what UX is, how it is different from UI and what is Personas and Fiori
UX and how is it different from UI?
User experience is something that covers all attributes of the end-user’s interaction with the product, company and its services. The first requirement for a typical user experience is to meet the exact needs of the customer. Then it’s the simplicity and elegance with some delightfulness. If you are able to think beyond what customer actually wants you can then deliver a true user experience. In order to achieve high-quality user experience for SAP a robust ERP system, there must be a seamless identification of tasks, different transactions within multiple streams such as supply chain, finance, sales merged with industrial and interface design.
It’s also important to distinguish the total user experience from the user interface (UI), even though the UI is obviously an extremely important part of the design. As an SAP UX example, consider a Fiori app that provides creation of Purchase order from Purchase requisition. Even if the UI for creating the PO is perfect, the UX will be poor for a user who cannot easily find the PRs he needs convert from the list of many.
Fiori, The new face of SAP
Fiori started with 25 apps and now represent the renewal of entire SAP User Experience (UX) across all different products. Fiori is the vision where all UX will converge and will be the biggest renewal since SAP evolved into SAP R/3 in 1992. The idea of Fiori came from Design Thinking. Design thinking creates a product which is an intersect of Feasibility, Viability and Desirability.
Personas – Simplified GUI
Personas was invented when customers started to ask for a simplified user screens to make their end users more productive and happier with the classic SAP solutions. SAP worked with several co-innovation partners and came up with SAP Screen Personas. SAP Screen Personas delivers a new personalization option for modifying SAP GUI screens. With Personas, authorized end-users can modify screens with what they need on the screen to optimize usability and productivity. SAP Screen Personas provides a simple, drag and drop approach to modify many common SAP GUI screens to make them more usable as well as more visually appealing
A) SAP FIORI RAPID DEPLOYMENT SOLUTION (RDS)
Companies using SAP can now deploy SAP Fiori apps faster with predictable outcomes and at much lower cost using the SAP RDS packages. With the quick deployment, SAP customers can boost employee productivity and reduce total cost of ownership. New SAP Fiori apps (RDS) V6.20 was released for download on SAP Service Marketplace on 6th of July, 2015. With this RDS you can deploy any SAP Fiori app, including analytical and fact sheet apps that requires the SAP HANA platform as a prerequisite. The RDS provides best practices and straight forward step-by-step documentation free of charge with wide variety of optional services to choose from.
1. Pre-Requisites
There are different pre-requisites for different databases, some of which are common across database. In this article I will cover the pre-requisites of apps that run on ECC.
SAP Gateway Deployment Options – One of the pre-requisite is to deploy SAP Netweaver Gateway and there are two possible options of deployment a) Central Hub deployment of SAP Gateway b) Embedded deployment of SAP Gateway as explained in the below pic
ECC system should be SAP ERP 6.0 SPS 15 and above
SAP Net Weaver Gateway 2.0 SPS 06 should be installed
SAP Netweaver AS ABAP 7.00 SPS21 and above
SAP Netweaver UI Add-On
2. What‘s new with the SAP Fiori apps rapid-deployment solution V6.20
S/4 HANA: SAP Fiori apps rapid-deployment solution now includes app types which are required for SAP’s new product S/4 HANA (e.g. WebDynpro)
Additional Pre-Requisite Checks for several transactional Fiori apps, which will help to check what SAP backend configuration settings are added before starting to deploy the specific Fiori app.
Additional possibility to explore the SAP Fiori apps rapid deployment content via the SAP Cloud on tablet and even smartphones. http://hana.ondemand.com
New Service Options for S/4HANA and Mobilizing the Fiori apps.
3. App Types
All Apps Types are included to the SAP Fiori apps rapid-deployment solution. SAP Fiori apps rapid-deployment solution also includes app types which are required for S/4 HANA Implementation (WebDynpro / FPM) and SAP RDS package. It covers:
SAP Fiori Transactional Apps Deployment
SAP Fiori Analytical Apps Deployment
SAP Fiori Factsheet Apps Deployment
SAP Fiori Smart Business Enablement
SAP Fiori Advanced Security Setup
SAP Fiori Integration with SAP Enterprise Portal
Mobilizing SAP Fiori Apps
SAP Fiori Apps Extensibility and Customization
SAP Fiori Launchpad Operation
From the above 9 RDS solutions offered, I would touch upon few details under SAP Fiori Transactional Apps Deployment, SAP Fiori Advanced Security Setup and Mobilizing SAP Fiori Apps
3.1 SAP Fiori Transactional Apps Deployment – RDS transactional App covers the following apps
Below are the steps to deploy a transactional app that runs on ECC
Generic configuration for transactional apps
Settings in the SAP Gateway System
Add OData and UI5 Services
Activate OData and UI5 Services
Assign the Backend Role for the User
Settings for the SAP Fiori Launchpad
Assign a User to the SAP Fiori Launchpad
Use of SAP Fiori apps reference library
App-specific configuration using the SAP Fiori apps reference library
Additional app-specific configuration
Generic Settings for Manager-Role Applications
Additional Configuration Steps Approve Requests
Additional Configuration Steps for SAP Fiori Apps for SAP CRM
Additional Configuration Steps Report Quality Issue / My Quality Tasks
Troubleshooting
3.2 SAP Fiori Advanced Security Setup
The RDS package covers the following key security elements
Set up of SSO SAML 2.0 (Single Sign On)
Set up of SSO X.509 (Single Sign On)
Set up of SSO with KERBEROS
SSO using SAP Authenticator on Mobile Devices
For more details on how SAP security is addressed with Fiori, please email to me at fmohsin@csc.com
3.3 Mobilizing SAP Fiori Apps
Key Functionality of mobilizing an app covered in this RDS release are
Running Launchpad In SAP Fiori Client
Installing the SAP Fiori Client
Launching the SAP Fiori Client
Configuring the SAP Fiori Client
Custom Fiori Client from SAP Mobile Platform SDK
Fiori Client can also be connected via SAP Mobile Platform or HCP mobile services.
B) SAP PERSONAS RAPID DEPLOYMENT SOLUTION (RDS)
Customers would be able to improve end-user satisfaction and productivity through RDS for SAP Screen Personas (SSP). Personas allow tailoring ABAP Dynpro screens to customer needs. With various service options, SAP helps customers optimize a business process by designing and creating new screens.
Below are the Pre-requisites to implement RDS Personas
EHP1 for SAP Net Weaver 7.3 SP08
EHP6 for SAP ERP 6.0 SP08
SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP1
The updated SAP Screen Personas rapid-deployment solution provides pre-configured business processes for the following areas:
SAP Screen Personas set-up and configuration
Pre-built SAP Screen Personas flavors
Fiori style guidelines to design and develop SAP Screen Personas flavors
Different designs of pre-built flavors that demonstrate variety and possibility of SAP Screen Personas
Pre-defined business scenarios based on SAP Best Practices™ baseline package
Sales Order Processing
Quotation for Procurement
Credit Management
Performance tricks and tips
Useful scripting SAP Best Practices™ content and examples
Administration tool, transport management, authorization and roles and flavor migration
Optimization of services offerings
Following diagram explains the business scope items to implement RDS Personas
Below are the steps listed to implement an RDS personas
Set up and Configurations
System Setup and Preparation
Introduction of Screen Personas Environment
Design and Develop Screen Personas Flavors
Migration Flavors from 2.0 to 3.0
Fiori Style Design and Development Guideline
SAP Fiori Guidelines
SAP Fiori Style Guide for SAP Screen Personas Flavors
Best Practices for Flavors Design
Pre-built Screen Personas Fiori-like and General Flavors
Sales Order Processing
Quotation for Procurement
Credit Management
Best Practices
Best Practices for Administration Tasks
Performance Tips and Tricks
Scripting Best Practices and Examples
Optimization Services Offering
Discover – Analyze Business Process
Design – Create Preliminary Prototypes
Deliver – Develop Prototypes
Business Needs
Improvement of UI
Improving users/employees productivity
Customer complains about usability of SAP GUI screens
Delivery Approach
Landscape Check, Installation & Configuration
Customer Enablement Workshop
One optimized customer specific use case
Design with end-user involvement
Implemented optimized use case (incl. Key User training)
Presentation of measurable value
User acceptance testing and go-live support
Value and Benefits
Improve productivity by providing only essential screen elements and data to complete transactions faster and accurately
Increase user satisfaction with less-complex screens
Reduce costs by eliminating the need for programmers or scripting expertise
Please visit http://scn.sap.com/community/ux-rds for more details on SAP UX RDS
SAP has also provided RDS Solutions Mobile solutions for the following products
SAP Mobile Platform rapid-deployment solution V6.30
SAP Work Manager rapid-deployment solution V3.62
SAP Mobile Secure rapid-deployment solution V7
Images and content reference has been taken from SAP RDS http://scn.sap.com/