Anil Bavaraju - SAP Fiori Implementation and Development

The world is changing, and technology is at the center of everything we do. Younger generations are born into a world of rapid technological evolution, and millennials are entering the workforce with the mindset that simplicity is key. We are now a society equipped with mobile devices that allow us instant access to social networks and countless apps. Subsequently, end users are accustomed to a new and improved user experience. Businesses have caught onto this new demand quickly and have realized that enterprise software cannot be an exception. It is unacceptable to show end users the complexity of business software, and it has become imperative to provide a beautiful user experience. Businesses must change with the times if they want to stay relevant, and SAP has emerged as a leader in this evolution.

For the past few years, SAP has been rethinking enterprise software with a focus on end users. Enterprise software is powerful and covers end-to-end business processes. However, the end-to-end cycle is not one-size-fits-all. Depending on your role in an enterprise, you might need to see different data than a counterpart in your organization. For this reason, SAP set out to completely reimagine the end user experience. SAP began by focusing on the most commonly used business transactions, such as vacation requests, time entry, expense reporting, and so on. Then, SAP set out to develop a consistent and holistic user experience for SAP software. Five design guidelines were established to aid in this evolution: role-based, delightful, coherent, simple, and responsive. By keeping a focused alignment with growing end user demands, SAP quickly realized that apps needed to be created per role, allow users to complete their jobs easily, be consistent across offerings, and work intuitively on any device. In May 2013, SAP hit the mark and launched SAP Fiori as the new user experience for SAP.

Today, SAP Fiori consists of over 1,750 apps, ranging across all lines of business and industries and has been developed for SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business Suite, and SAP Fiori Cloud. To support the breadth of business transactions used by customers, SAP developed three supporting SAP Fiori app types: transactional, fact sheet, and analytical apps. Transactional apps support task-based access and support changes, as well as creations and approvals with guided navigation. Fact sheet apps allow you to search and explore essential information about objects and provide contextual navigation between related objects. Analytical apps provide a visual overview of a dedicated topic for further KPI-related analysis. Transactional app types can run on either an AS ABAP or SAP HANA database, but fact sheet and analytical app types require an SAP HANA database. All these app types are accessed using SAP Fiori launchpad, a web-based entry point for SAP business applications that allows end users to personalize their views.

While SAP worked to simplify business processes and to provide a delightful end user experience, they also realized that customers have individual needs, and out-of-the-box apps might not work for everyone. In recognition of this fact, SAP developed tools to support developers and designers in their implementation of SAP Fiori. Tools such as the SAP Web IDE provide developers everything they need to customize and extend the apps to work for their business, whereas the UI Theme Designer enables companies to easily brand their SAP Fiori launchpads and apps to align with their company brands and color schemes.