Low cost mobile solution

[Former Member]

Hello All,

I have a small customer who wants to go mobile, but with a tightly constrained budget. What are our options? There will be only aprox. ten end users.

Thanks for your help.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Nicole,

We had a similar situation, and developed a system called zMob that allows easy creation of standard ABAP reports that are converted on the fly into mobile applications. More information is available in these SCN articles (disclaimer, authored by myself 😞

http://scn.sap.com/community/mobile/blog/2013/09/07/video-tutorial-on-creating-your-first-mobile-app...

http://scn.sap.com/community/abap/blog/2013/09/01/abap-report--mobile-application

And here's a screenshot and video demonstrating the functionality:

Regards,

  Jack

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

This looks interesting - I saw the video on SCN earlier in the week. How flexible is the mobile application - is it customizable? Can it show the result of existing reports or must the customer redevelop everything to work with this?

Thanks

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

No - you can take your existing reports and call them from a new report containing the same parameters. For example, say originally you had the report:

report Z_ORIGINAL.

parameters p_werks type werks.

start-of-selection.

write: 'do smg complicated with p_werks: ', p_werks.

Then this report could be wrapped with a zMob report as follows:

report Z_MOBILE_WRAP.

parameters p_werks type zmob=>ui_text.

start-of-selection.

data orig_werks type werks.

orig_werks = p_werks.

submit 'Z_ORIGINAL'

  with p_werks = orig_werks

  and return.

zMob would generate a mobile application from Z_MOBILE_WRAP, including a single input. Once data is posted, the report Z_ORIGINAL would be called with the value for p_werks posted in the mobile app, and the results would be shown on the screen to the user of the mobile application. In our example, if we were to enter the text "work hard" into the mobile app, the result screen would say "do smg complicated with p_werks: work hard".

A great example is the open source Microbe project: https://code.google.com/p/microbe/wiki/Home. Scroll down to the bottom for the goodies.

Here's a screen shot showing the connection between the report and the mobile app:

Note: the Hidden elements and Original Report sections are not shown in the production environment

Let me know if you have any more questions, I'm happy to be of service Regarding customisation, currently this is not possible, but plans are in the works!

[soldner · Accepted solution]

Jack, I don't know if you have another blog for zMob and I apologize to Nicole for hijacking this.

You aren't talking about a ALV type output are you? 

i didn't see many examples on the wiki,

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Steve,

As it happens I've been talking with Basar about integrating his solution into zMob which would allow developers to show ALV data in the START-OF-SELECTION section of their reports and zMob to relay the table data to the user. So yes, at some point in the near future zMob shall support ALV type output.

But currently zMob only supports outputting data using the write statement within the report, which is then processed for tags and rendered on the target device (see this site for examples.) Tags can be links to other reports, which allows the user to navigate from report to report.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

No problem Steve, this is an interesting question also!

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Does this support charts and graphs, or only tables of data? How would a developer pass table data to the mobile app?

Thanks

[soldner · Accepted solution]

And what about inputting data?  Nicole has z reports that update masterdata.

At work, I haven't gotten permission to develop mobile that update masterdata, we use a portal to do that. The mobile I've done just reports.  I used John Moy's example and developed webapps to view pay and time, and sm37/sm37/we05 for us developers who also must monitor our nightly processes. 

[basarozgur_kahraman · Accepted solution]

Hello Nicole,

Charts and graphs are created by mysapreport depending on the table. You need to create a ITS service that takes tcode & variant variable as input and return ALV data & ALV fieldcatalog in JSON format. Mysapreport parses ALV data and create table according to ALV fieldcatalog dynamicly. After creating service, developer no need to do anything to pass data to mobile.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Steve,

zMob would allow input of data via the mobile app, and the data would be posted back to the original report, allowing display of graphs and charts via mysapreport - it sounds like a combination of zMob and Basar's mysapreport would solve the problem

[soldner · Accepted solution]

This sounds promising for me, I don't know about Nicole though. 

I've got a CATS portal implementation to get thru before I can really focus on something else.  I have been developing BSP-JqueryMobile for a "mobile ESS portal" for us. So maybe about November I can circle back to see how zMob and mysapreport can work for us. 

I'll be lurking in the background now.

Thanks Nicole for such a great thread!!

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

After discussion with the customer, we're going to give this approach a try Thank you very much Jack, Basar and Steve for your help in clarifying the details. And thank you to every one who contributed ideas to my original question

[soldner · Accepted solution]

Nicole,

Would you post your experiences afterwards?

Good luck with the project!

Steve

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Steve,

Certainly, and thanks

[Former Member]

Another humble offer --> http://www.stoic.com

http://sutoiku.com/post/72820509124/nexus

[hofmann]

I have a small customer who wants to go mobile, but with a tightly constrained budget. What are our options? There will be only aprox. ten end users.

What kind of SAP system is your customer running? Is it a SAP ERP (ECC) or one of the "smaller" solutions like BBD?

Tight budget, 10 end users only? There is not much left. For SAP ERP, what comes to mind is SMP, Gateway, Porta On Device. All demand infrastructure, time and money. Almost all are overkill for 10 users.

The cheapest option should be Portal on Device, as you only need a Portal system, a developer that knows a little bit Java and HTML to connect to the ABAP system and expose it in HTML. A more or less skilled Java dev does this in 5 days, but it depends what you really need.

Gateway, SMP, etc normally come with its own servers, new technology and HTML / native coding part. In case you have to develop custom native apps, SMP is off the table ($$$).

Depending on what you already have and the sacrifices your 10 users are willing to do, maybe using a tablet and simply accessing the reports / application over HTTP can do it.

[basarozgur_kahraman]

Hello Nicole,

In my opinion, if a company uses SAP, it should first look for a solution in SAP. As mentioned above, you can look into netweaver gateway, odata services, sap ui5, SMP..

if you are looking for a cost and time effective way, third party applications can be alternative to you. As Jack's mention, With zMob and www.mysapreport.com you can build an cost effective solution.

With mysapreport you can mobilize existing ALV reports without any modification. To test it just create a ITS restful service (for instructions) and go to www.mysapreport.com , with  transaction and an existing variant you can run your reports on mobile. Mysapreport is a iOS web application, if you add it as a shortcut on any iOS device, you can run it in native application look. it is based on jquerymobile so you can run it on iOs, android, blackberry, windows phone, symbian, bada..(Also i run it on LG smart Tv ) it doesn't create selection screen so u can only run reports with variant, at this case zMob maybe be helpful..

if you need any support, don't hesitate to contact me

Regards

Basar Ozgur

Ps: Sap Hana Cloud Portal Team liked it,too

[soldner]

Very nice indeed!  Coding look clean and neat.  Very good transition to the charts.  Since I I running this on my desktop using Firefox, the iOS app just calls the URL?

And the URL calls the SAP backend web service for data to build the webpage? That simple?

[basarozgur_kahraman]

Hi Steve,

As you say, it is very simple to install it. Some of my customers want to use but They don't want to enter tcode and variant, so we plan to prepare a menu for each tcode&variant combination. In the back end, same sap service url will be called.

Ps: Web client link updated, new link: MySapReport

[SyambabuAllu]

Hi Nicole,

If you want build the low cost mobile solution go for the SAP NW Gateway and also no need to maintain separate server for this architecture .

Thanks,

Syam

[Former Member]

Neptune Application ... [REDACTED BY MODERATOR]

Thanks,

Chandrasen

[former_member184221]

How about you enroll yourself on six weeks of mobility study at openSAP .... free.

http://scn.sap.com/community/mobile/blog/2013/09/13/week-1--sap-mobility-course

[Former Member]

Hi Nicole,

It depends on programming skills of customer/implementation partner and also on what you wish to mobilize.

As many have said Gateway and SAPUI5  is great if you have javascript/html5 developers that are Eclipse proficient.

If your needs are covered by Fiori that is also a viable solution.

Personally I work at Neptune Software so I am of course a bit biased here. Neptune is a good solution for custom development (like your z reports) and also if the development team consists of ABAP developers.

Price is very affordable and you can download a trial for free to test it out.

Also the SMP Cloud is a very interesting product from SAP with affordable prices as it is based on a per user per month license.

[Former Member]

I posted this to Steve above, but if you work for Neptune then maybe you're the one to answer

Neptune looks complicated - I saw a series of articles that were published last week on SCN, and the steps required look endless. What sort of development is required, and how much effort would it be to convert existing ABAP reports to work with Neptune? How does it compare to zMob as mentioned above - it looks pretty trivial to convert the customers existing reports with zMob?

Thanks

[Former Member]

I think you saw the blog series that included all the installation steps etc.

Most ABAP'ers find the solution very easy.

You only need ABAP skills for the back end coding and use the drag drop designer for the UI.

Here are a few tutorial videos:

http://scn.sap.com/community/mobile/blog/2013/09/04/video-tutorial-on-creating-your-first-sapui5-app...

http://scn.sap.com/community/mobile/blog/2013/09/09/video-tutorial-sapui5-models-and-navigation-with...

[soldner]

There is another I ran across, Neptune.  Looks simpler but don't know about the price.

http://scn.sap.com/community/mobile/blog/2013/06/25/creating-html5-applications-from-the-scratch-for...

This works on all browsers.  SAPUI5 only supports a few.

[Former Member]

Neptune looks complicated - I saw a series of articles that were published last week on SCN, and the steps required look endless. What sort of development is required, and how much effort would it be to convert existing ABAP reports to work with Neptune?

Thanks

[former_member184221]

Try Fiori as an off the shelf solution.

https://experience.sap.com/fiori

[soldner]

Fiori for Time sheet. What costing options is there?  Just those in CATS?

Working on adding fund center (FISTL) to CATS since SAP hardcodes selected costing fields to update 2001/2002. And FISTL is not included in CATSDB.

Thanks for any info!

[Former Member]

Hi David, thanks for your response.

I see the cost of $150, presumably per device? What do I get for that price? Can Fiori be extended with additional functionality?

[Former Member]

You can find details on Fiori Here from help.sap.com but the answer to your question is yes.  You can extend the Fiori apps on 3 level, business level (backend stack), Gateway level and Frontend (eclipse, sapui5). 

More info on extending fiori can be found here.

[masa_139]

FYI. SAP Fiori main page in SCN. What is SAP Fiori

[former_member184221]

Yep, just those you configure in CATS

[soldner]

Hey David,

CATSDB does not have FISTL, however PTEX2000 does. That said, when you run the posting job, SAP has all of the costing fields except FISTL hardcoded to create a BDC table that uses PA30 to  update 2001/2002/ASSOB_HR.  No configuring there.

So creating a custom field in CATSDB allows us to configure/add it to the CATS webdynpro. A enhancement in one of their function modules got zzfundctr to PTEX2000-FISTL.  Now all that is left is to mod LPTEXF02 to add FISTL. 

And no help from SAP, of course! It is designed to work this way.

Oh yes, congrads on your latest award!!!  

[Former Member]

I'm not sure Fiori is right for the customer, sorry

[Former Member]

Just to add another option, available hopefully soon would be SAP Personas 2.0, HTML version that is currently in Ramp-up.  There is some licence costs involved and it is a new product with somewhat limited functionality at the start but something to be aware of at least.  That might be the tool that makes it super easy to mobilize and simplify user interfaces for users.

Another option with some licence involved would be Neptune, not very expensive, easily installed and your abap developers can quite quickly get to grips with developing SAPUI5/Jquery Mobile / Desktop apps which then can be wrapped into a phonegap based app or run directly in browser.

As you can probably see, the options are many but I would still go with NW Gateway and SAPUI5 or consider if some of the Fiori apps fit your need, pretty sure you can get a fair deal with SAP on the licence costs for 10 users. 

Br. Bjorn

Added link for SAP Personas.

[Former Member]

Hi Nicole,

depending on the services you want to provide and if your customer already runs an SAP Netweaver Portal then SAP's "Portal on Device" (PoD) is definitely an option.

If you want to get a quick overview then this document might be interesting:

PoD applications are executed on the Portal layer and are realized as Portal applications like e.g. iView implementations.

PoD is the way to go if:

• Netweaver Portal is operational and accessible from "outside"
• Your application has only little to none footprint with ECC - if your application for instance is meant to be a mobile frontend for transaction VA03 then "SAP Mobile Platform" (formerly known as "Sybase Unwired Platform" (SUP)) would be one way to go with SAP Gateway and UI5 being the other.
  Please bear in mind: SUP and Gateway both require additional infrastructure and licensing.
• You have Javascipt and especially jQueryMobile expertise as well as HTML5 know how available on the development team.
• PoD requires a thorough concept for its integration into an existing Netweaver Portal and requires a well versed Netweaver Portal administrator.

PoD is a no-go if:

• You are planning to massively utilize and tightly integrate with ECC.
• No Netweaver Portal. (obviously)
• Your customer already has SUP and/or Gateway licensed.

Regards,

  Chris

[Former Member]

Hi Nicole,

This is a loaded question however from a strategy perspective this is what I would do:

1) What SAP functionality they are interested in accessing from mobile devices and why (assuming they want to go mobile for this reason)

2) Survey the market to see if you find a COTS solution which maybe cheaper than developing in-house (Fiori transactions (online only), Syclo apps, 3rd party apps etc)

3) If you must develop your self then consider HTML5 (e.g. Sencha) with Netweaver Gateway as many folks have recommended on this thread

Hope this helps.

Narendra

[Former Member]

If it works, this (see below) may be a real low cost solution for you. I have used this technology in past on desktop side but not sure how well it works on iOS devices.

http://www.guixt.com/products/liquid_ui.php

[midhun_vp]

Using this technology with mobile devices would be challenging (Even desk too ). We have used the same for an offline desktop app. I would suggest to use other third party tools that consume Odata and it is recommended by SAP ( Cordova, Appcelerator etc.). In the future odata will support offline scenario too. Odata is a very powerful which is capable to send large amount of data between mobile and backend.

- Midhun VP

[midhun_vp]

When coming to sap mobile now we have a lot options. If the customer is not capable of paying buying the license for SMP ( SAP mobile platform ) they can go for Odata based mobile applications. So for that we need a NW gateway system. the NW gateway will talk to SAP servers.

We need to create Odata services for each transaction in SAP. The Odata services can be consumed in the devices. These apps will be online. Offline APIs are not available when we go for Odata based applications.

Again, SAP is providing SMP on cloud. That the customer don't want to spend much in the SUP servers. They need to pay on a monthly basis and comparatively it will be cheaper.

Lastly, SAP has released a set of 25 apps which are based on SAP UI 5 framework. These apps uses Odata services and it is cheap. If any of the business scenario you are looking for is available in these you can go for it.

- Midhun VP

[jmasters]

Bjorn and Midhun are both correct. Look at the SAP Netweaver Gateway option for exposing the services if you want to do custom development.

If you want to buy instead of build, look at SAP Fiori. Not sure I would classify as "cheap" (that's a relative term, isn't it? )  but you can find more info on it here: SAP Fiori Resource Library (Service Marketplace ID required)

Good luck!

[Former Member]

Hi,

Currently I would recommend using the Netweaver Gateway to expose SAP data, using SAPUI5 for the user interface and the phonegap/cordova if an app is required.  Use a reverse proxy, SAP Web Dispatcher or similar to make the solution secure from outside your intranet.  Benefits to using this method is that the apps can also work on a PC browser with little or not adjustments.   If these users that will use the functionality are already named users in SAP then there should be no licence costs, gateway can be installed on your current SAP ABAP stack system or a seperate system.  The overall costs should be minimal compared to a more full blown mobile server installation with SMP or similar but those apps should be able to run on the SMP server in the future if needed. 

Bjorn

[jmasters]

Hi Nicole,

What apps are the looking to bring on device?

[Former Member]

Hi Jeremy,

The customer has a cache of Z reports they've built up over the years for basic data entry, damage reports, notifications, etc. There's a lot of bespoke functionality in there, and it'd be nice to wrap these in some way - reimplementing everything could be problematic, as things have gotten complicated over the years with changing requirements.

Thanks,

[Former Member]

Hello Nicole

Online or Offline Application?

Device independent or specific platform?

best regards

alex

[Former Member]

Hi Alex,

Good questions, thanks. I believe the customer will only require online apps, focusing on Android and iOS (there's a little BYOD going on, but if it's cheaper to focus on one device and buy all employees the same then that would be possible.)

Regards,

[Former Member]

Hi Nicole,

Have you checked Capriza? with Capriza's ( an SAP partnrr) app designer, one can create a mobile HTML5 based app by simple interacting with an existing desktop app and choosing the right path and screen controls for a simplified light weight mobile app. Check http://www.capriza.com

• IT or business users can create suites of mobile apps that meet the specific needs of a sub-organization within a very short time (an hour or less), using Capriza's app designer and a FireFox browser.
• The Capriza platform enables the quick collection of feedback and iteration on existing mobile apps in order to ensure that end-users have an app that they will actually use. Capriza apps ("zapps") can be edited and replaced instantly with no download or update required by the users.
• Users only need the URL of a zapp and a browser to run the app. Capriza integrates seamlessly with an enterprise's MDM or existing BYOD program.

Let me know if additional information / demo would be helpful.

Regards,

Hila