{"id":49591,"date":"2022-02-09T11:33:52","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T10:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pikon.com\/?p=49591"},"modified":"2023-08-22T13:45:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T11:45:33","slug":"a-brief-introduction-to-sap-fiori","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pikon.com\/en\/blog\/a-brief-introduction-to-sap-fiori\/","title":{"rendered":"What is SAP Fiori? An introduction to SAP’s new UI for S\/4HANA"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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In 2013, SAP saw its renowned classic GUI revolutionised with the first instalment of SAP Fiori, a user experience (UX) for SAP software. What originally started with a small number of apps has since evolved significantly and integrated various solutions such as SAP S\/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, SAP Ariba and SAP Analytics Cloud. Fiori\u2019s goal was to introduce a new approach to app design, development and navigation. This approach could serve as both a complement to and replacement of the original user interface. The latter is often referred to as a Fiori First mentality. Five adjectives were set to steer its past, current and future development: simple, coherent, adaptive, delightful and role-based. In other words, Fiori seeks to improve its users’ experience, productivity and insight by offering an intuitive, consistent, intelligent, and customizable interface, which runs on any device (e.g. desktop, smartphone, tablet). Moving away from excessive navigation menus and content structures, a simple set of apps grants employees quick access to the functionalities and information they require on the regular to fulfil their business functions. In what follows, this article will dive deeper into SAP Fiori\u2019s look and feel, and how it could bring value to your business.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The ingredients of the Fiori Launchpad<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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At the foundation of SAP Fiori lies a collection of applications. Traditionally, these can be classified in \u2018transactional apps\u2019, \u2018analytical apps\u2019 and \u2018info sheets\u2019. Transactional apps correspond with the classic SAP transactions used to launch well-known process steps. They do not necessarily match perfectly with the original transactions, but may also focus on specific parts of a transaction, specific use contexts, or brand-new S\/4HANA business processes. If required, any missing (custom) GUI apps can nevertheless still be transformed into transactional Fiori applications. Analytical apps promote the monitoring of KPIs, live status indicators such as the number of outstanding invoices, charts, and other relevant, actionable figures. Lastly, info sheets deliver formalised information and reports. They smooth down the navigation to both related info sheets and transactional apps. Of late, the distinction between the previously mentioned three types of apps has nonetheless been watered down, and hybrid forms have emerged. By way of illustration, \u2018overview pages\u2019 constitute small-scale dashboards within a certain business domain. Flexible and customizable, they present a set of cards containing intel from and entry points to various other apps. An example of an overview page can be found in Figure 1. A browsable collection of all Fiori apps provided by SAP can be found online in the\u00a0<\/span>Fiori App Library<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Figure 1: Example of an Accounts Receivable overview page.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The allocation of applications to SAP users occurs through catalogues and user roles. Business catalogues are collections of apps required by a certain user group, which are mindful of both the business context and any dependencies among the apps. When assigning a catalogue to one or more user roles, all users in possession of the role(s) will be able to avail themselves of the apps included. SAP offers template business roles and catalogues, which can be explored, copied, and tailored to a business’s specific needs. For all SAP applications, the required standard catalogues or roles are given in the\u00a0<\/span>Fiori App Library<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tDo you have any questions about Fiori?\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Don’t hesitate to request more information by leaving a comment in the comments section below or request a webmeeting with our experts.<\/p>

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Request a web meeting<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Regardless of the device used, the Fiori Launchpad constitutes a users main entry point to his apps. On the Launchpad applications are depicted as either a tile or a hyperlink and can be arranged on a single home page or a set of spaces. The home page (Figure 2) is the original concept and offers a single level of structuring page content. When applying the principle of the home page, an administrator can assign one or more meaningful groups of apps to a user role. These groups can be either custom-made or based on an SAP standard. They will, by default, appear on the users’ Launchpad home page. To avoid unnecessary clutter and inferior system performance, groups should only contain the most frequently used apps in a users’ assigned catalogues. Less frequently used apps can still be accessed by the user via the Launchpad\u2019s search bar, navigation menu or App Finder. The second possible Launchpad layout is the ‘spaces’ concept (Figure 3). Only available for release SAP S\/4HANA 2020 or higher, ‘spaces’ offer their users a more stable and structured display, consisting of three levels of flexibility. The highest level, the space itself, should be designed to support the tasks of a certain business role. On the second content level, a space contains one or more pages, which are built around a certain work context. On the third level, you can arrange apps in different sections. Once again, administrators determine which spaces appear by default on a user groups Launchpad. These spaces can be custom-made or based on SAP standards and, to avoid unnecessary complexity, should only feature a minimal set of the users most essential apps.
At this point, the home page and spaces concepts can be applied interchangeably, depending on the administrators or users preferences. It is nonetheless SAP\u2019s intention to fully switch over to the spaces concept in the future.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Figure 2: Fiori 2.0 Launchpad for the standard Accounts Receivable Accountant role, featuring six standard groups (e.g. Daily Business, Disputes, Correspondence) at once (\u2018anchor bar\u2019). <\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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After the initial creation by the Launchpad administer, both the home page and spaces can still be fine-tuned by the users, based on their circumstances and cognitive needs. You can rearrange displayed apps to fit their workflow, hide extraneous applications, and integrate undisplayed apps from a user’s catalogues. There is the possibility to alter app titles and descriptions, and the user can choose between a visualisation as a tile or a hyperlink. Similarly, entire groups and sections can be rearranged, hidden, added or renamed. When applying the group concept, users can equally choose whether all groups appear at once (anchor bar) or if only one group is visual at a time (tab bar).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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As mentioned before, the Launchpad is also fully responsive and will automatically conform to any type of device or screen resolution.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Figure 3: Fiori 3 Launchpad featuring three standard spaces (Fiori Launchpad, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable). The Accounts Receivable space is opened on the Overview page, which contains two visible sections (Quick Access and To-Do List), each with their own apps.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Special Fiori features<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Since its initial introduction in 2013, three different Fiori upgrades have successively seen the light of day: SAP Fiori (2013, starting from SAP Business Suite), Fiori 2.0 (2016, starting from SAP S\/4HANA 1610) and Fiori 3 (2019, starting from SAP S\/4HANA 1809). So far, every SAP S\/4HANA release has brought a series of new apps, updates to existing apps, technical and performance improvements, and new functionalities.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Some of these functionalities worth mentioning are User Profiling, Fiori Enterprise Search, Fiori Notifications and Fiori Default Values.<\/p>