SAP Syclo development or preconfigurated apps?

[Former Member]

Hi all,

I keep on researching SAP Mobility solutions, and now I've come to Syclo. There are so many options when it comes to mobility that I am trying to figure out when to use one or another.

Does anybody have a clear roadmap when it comes to Mobile solutions ? What are the differences and when to use each one ?

As to Syclo, I have seen that it has some "standard" solutions such as Work Management, and I would like to know if using this platform, custom mobile apps can be developed, or the only thing that can be done is customize this standard solutions.

I have read that no native apps can be developed within Syclo environment? what about apps such as the HWC from Sybase?

Thank you all for your help!

Best regards,

Lorena

[resmi_sadasivan2]

Hi Lorena,

If you got relevant details to proceed, please make this thread answered.

Thanks

Resmi

[Former Member]

Thanks for your replies.

When it comes to learning, which would you recommend ? which option has more growth perspective ?

I didn't find many tutorials on Syclo, and I really don't know if I can download it...

[midhun_vp]

Technology changes time to time. Both Syclo and SUP are of good scope. It is your choice to select which one you have to go with based on the opportunity you have.

Like SUP you can't find tutorials for Syclo.You can find the documentation here,

resource.syclo.com

Syclo is all based on Standard apps. The documentation will be provided by SAP. You can download the documents and software from SAP Market Place.

- Midhun VP

[mark_pe]

Lorena,

For Syclo, there are classes being offered.

http://scn.sap.com/thread/3293796 (I think this link still is being updated)

- The best class is the Agentry Essential class (the Hello World class) - helps you from the ground up.

- Followed by SAP Work Manager 5.3 (this you will learn the different methods or BAPI) you need to process

- There are also other articles by SAP Wiki users all around on their steps on how they did their projects and look for them.

Also more videos or training are being implemented for tutorial on specific advance features like:

1. Showing an HTML page
2. Put a Map in your App
3. How to do Server clustering
4. GPS Location
5. Localization (different languages) Toolbar
6. Learning to use the Test Environment (developer debugging tool)
7. How to design or use the List tile view (pretty screen and smart layout for your mobile device) - good for iOS or Android design. Works with Windows Mobile too.
8. ActiveX control - how to design an interface with ActiveX so you can interface it with other hardware/software and others.

Most of these docs or tutorials are still in the Syclo resource center (but hosted in SAP server).

The technique to access it is if you are interested is to email support@syclo.com and specify your relationship with SAP (your customer information, account and others) to get access to these development tools and knowledge. The person who watches this may give you access (login credentials). - this may change more when more Syclo items will get integrated but til then this can be the route to the tutorials, manuals and others.  There are internal efforts to migrate most of the documents in the SAP WIKI and KB articles undergoing. Another part is if you get access, you get access to the search engine of Syclo that has access to the how to's and knowledge base (you just type of your question in the search and it may return a lot of articles).

Manuals

http://resource.syclo.com/development/agentry/technical/book-pages

Training Videos

http://resource.syclo.com/development/agentry/technical/training-videos

Knowledge Base

http://resource.syclo.com/development/agentry/technical/knowledgebase-articles (but if you really have a question on the topic, you can just use the search engine in the resource center and see what hits you get from manuals to knowledge base articles to forum topics)

The old Syclo forums (in the resource center) may not be watched anymore though.

Another known thing is that there are integration going on right now between the SUP and Syclo solutions going into SMP 2.3 and a newer architecture later in SMP 3.0. This is why technology always changes. But until that gets released and fully tested by the community (production runs) most of the customers who used Syclo-Agentry still designs on the Agentry 6.0.30 (or earlier) for their custom application. The SAP Work Manager 5.3 may get respec when the new SMP integration occurs and the new version that will get released in the future may be different (we don't know yet).

As far as I know, if you want to use the new release coming out for SMP (Agentry + SUP + interface with Afaria and others) it is considered as a new install (no upgrade - might be too difficult on existing projects) for the Syclo part. So all existing projects will remain in the Agentry 6.0.3X release and earlier.

All information here may change too.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Mark

[midhun_vp]

Syclo is a similar platform like SUP ( Now SUP and Syclo comes in same platform called SMP ). Syclo has standard apps such as Work Manager, Sales Manager etc. It is difficult to develop a custom using Syclo from the scratch. Usally the standard apps are customized based on the requirement using Java.

So if there is a requirement for custom apps what SAP would prefer is SUP. It is easy to develop custom apps for all requirements like offline apps/HWC apps/online apps.

In the pipeline SAP is going to keep Odata as the common data modelling in all the platforms like Syclo, SUP, NW gateway and Sybase Mobiliser. So in future things may change.

- Midhun VP

[mark_pe]

Lorena,

Yes Syclo have some standard apps like Work Manager but do you know that all other partners of the world like Accenture, Ventureforth, Ascom and others have custom apps from the ground up using Syclo - Agentry. Basically they build their own mobile apps from the ground up.  If you look at all their products they look so different. Some even built an app to support the Archibus backend.

They basically just brand it their own (use their own company logo and others).

You would see custom apps like third party hardware interfacing with the mobile client using the ActiveX control of Agentry to some simple apps that coordinates with an IBM backend or Oracle backend.

You use Agentry. If you need a class on Agentry, they will teach you the "Hello World" on how to design an mobile app from scratch. In essence, designing your objects, properties, screen (how big you want your screen), what platform (iOS, Android, Win32, WinCE), the buttons, the logo and others..

Hope this helps.

Mark