SAP Mobile App development

[Former Member]

Hi All

We are looking to implement SAP mobile. We need to find out the development platform to develop the apps for Androids.

Can you please share some good links from where to start?

What are the pre requisites to develop an app for Android?

BR

Sidra Hasan

[midhun_vp · Accepted solution]

Given below information helps you,

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-8803#section2

Tutorial Cross platform mobile app

- Midhun VP

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Midhun

Your blog is definitely very helpful.

I need to justify why to go for HWC instead of other options mentioned by Prathik below.

BR

Sidra

[midhun_vp · Accepted solution]

When you look at SAP Mobile Platform now we have a lot of technologies available to develop a mobile app that talks to SAP. That includes mobile platforms and frameworks.

The major platforms in the SAP mobile technologies are:

1. SUP
2. Syclo
3. NW gateway
4. Sybase Mobiliser.

SAPUI5, PhoneGap, Sencha, Appcelerator etc are some major frameworks based on web technologies that helps to develop cross platform mobile app.

SUP is a strong platform capable of developing different types of cusotom mobile apps.

Given below are the types of mobile apps possible using SUP ,

• Native offline - It is based on the development of MBOs. Offline capabilities will be present
• Native online - It is based on the Odata services exposed from NW gateway. In this case NW gateway and SUP will be present in the mobile architecture. Offline capabilities will be absent.
• Online apps - It is based on the web technologies such as javascript, html and css. In this case we can use the the frameworks such as Phonegap, sencha and appcelerator for developing good looking and featured apps.

Customs apps using Syclo is difficult to develop and it is used for existing apps released. That means there are apps already released by SAP which are based on Syclo and these apps will be configured to the customers.

Deciding which approach to go with depends on the functionality of the required application and resources available with you.

You can use NW gateway alone to develop app talking to SAP server (Odata services exposed from NW gateway is consumed directly in devices), but SAP recommended way of development is using SMP/SUP.

I haven't recommend HWC, based on your requirement only you have to decide which approach you have to go with.

What type of application you are planning to develop, is it s complex application that manages with large amount of data or a small app like PO approval, are you planning to use any middleware like SUP or Syclo ?

- Midhun VP

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Midhun

I appreciate your help. We are intending to develop applications for approvals and data trends in graphs with details initially.

What would you suggest based on your experience?

Regards

Sidra

[bill_froelich]

Midhum,

Why do you say custom apps using Syclo is difficult?  Developing in Syclo (Agentry) has a learning curve not unlike any of the other technologies that are part of the SAP Moblie Platform.  Is it different from developing for HWC or SUP? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean it should be labeled as difficult.

As you mentioned, users need to evaluate the business requirements for the mobile app and then select the technology that best matches those requirements.  Agentry is also a strong platform and provides excellent offline capabilities and cross platform deployment as well just to name a couple key features. Android is certainly a supported platform for Agentry.  Since we don't have a lot of details about the type of application we can't really make a recommendation yet.

Also, with the introduction of the SAP Mobile Platform and moving forward I personally do not believe SAP has a recommended approach anymore.  With all the different technologies under the SMP platform the recommendation will be to evaluate the best technology for your application rather than trying for force users into one specific technology.

Every option under the SMP platform has it strengths (and weaknesses), but please keep in mind that what you may label difficult, for someone else it may be simple using the same technology.

--Bill

[Former Member]

Hi Bill,

I guess we are talking different use cases here, for service type Apps like Work Manager etc. then Syclo is fine, but I don't think you would choose to develop a new application from scratch in Syclo would you? For me personally this would be exponentially slower than either native or HTML5.

I would say that creating a modern, responsive UI/UX that you would expect from a consumer facing application is definitely difficult, if not impossible, with Syclo in my experience. There are definite advantages to the meta-data driven approach, but by definition it abstracts you from the nitty gritty of the UI, a problem not faced by native/HTML5 developers.

Gregor

[bill_froelich]

Gregor,

I agree that the choice of tools is all about the use case.  In terms of developing a new application from scratch I would certainly look at Agentry as an option for that application but again it depends on the requirements.

--Bill

[agentry_src]

Hi Gregor,

I have heard that before, but then I was delivering SMP 2.3 Partner Enablement workshops where I kept running into partners who already had delivered apps created from scratch in the Agentry platform.  One reason development was considered difficult was the requirement to build the ABAP side from scratch.

With SMP 2.3 there is now a Foundation Addon which contains many of the core ABAP structures which formerly were only available by purchasing a license for one of those service type apps.  With the basic ABAP built in, it becomes much less of an effort.  Still takes some time to become familiar with the design conventions, but much easier now.

Regards, Mike

SAP Rapid Innovation Group - RIG

[Former Member]

Hi Mike and Bill,

Thanks for the comments,

Do you know if there is any documentation on the Foundation Addon available?

The new version of Work Manager for Android and IOS  looks great!:

SAP Work Manager for Tablet - Android Apps on Google Play

Gregor

[Former Member]

Well, everything's possible, and you've got many options! And that's one very important thing to consider: keeping your options open.

You mention that you are looking at workflow apps right now, which actually is not an uncommon starting point for mobilising a business. At the same time, it does make great sense to consider possible, future business scenarios - be it offline, be it native vs. hybrid apps, or be it different business models beyond B2E. There's a place for all of them. Hint: Mobile Strategy

And this is exactly where the strength of SMP comes in.

In particular the new release of the SAP Mobile Platform expands on the integration path we embarked on with the previous version, and it now unifies technology which was previously available as seperate products: Sybase Unwired Platform, Sybase Mobiliser, Syclo Agentry and SAP NetWeaver Gateway. And of course we packed lots of new innovations in. With this, SMP is future proof, it will support your current and future requirements, be it for B2E, B2C and B2B use cases.

At the same time, SMP 3.0 makes a huge step towards open standards such as HTML5, Cordova, OSGi Spring, OData and HTTP REST, and offers a broad set of platform Services like onboarding, reporting etc. What do you gain from that? Much increased developer productivity and more efficient operations & administrations.

I have collected much information on SMP 3.0 on this site with many cross links.

Cheers!

[i834235]

Gregor,

In newer version of SAP Work Manager components are  separated into foundation Add-on and ERP Add-on,  Foundation Add-on mainly contains all core components used  by mobile application which manages Change detection layer, Business logic layer , Integration layer and logging etc.  where as ERP Add-on primaryly consist of mainly business logic.

if you have worked on older version of SAP Work Manager 5.3 whatever we had under package /syclo/core is re-packaged and re-factored into foundation Add-on.

We have some techncial details and documentation available in service.sap.com under

SAP Mobile Solutions-> Mobile Add-On for SAP-> MOBILE ADD-ON FOR ERP->MOBILE ADD-ON FOR ERP 6.1.    I hope that's what your looking for.

Also refer some of the OSS notes for addtional details :-

1936034    SAP Work Manager 6.0 ABAP AddOn Installation Master Note 

1828657    Release strategy for the ABAP add-ons SMFND, SMERP, SMISU, and SMCRM 

1928523    Software Release Note - SAP Work Manager 6.0 

1913103    SMP 2.3 SP03 Release Notes Information

Let's us know if you have any further quesitons.

Thanks

Manju  -  SAP Rapid Innovation Group - RIG

[agentry_src]

Hi Gregor,

I hope Manju's information is sufficient, but if not let us know.  I would especially look over the release notes for SMP 2.3 which includes the Foundation Addon.  I have not been through all the documentation for SMP 2.3 (there is a lot of it), but if you go to the Overview Page for SAP for Mobile and look for Jan Gerritt Groeneveld's SMP page, there a lots of links there along with the Agentry is here to stay page.

Regards, Mike

SAP Rapid Innovation Group - RIG

[midhun_vp]

Sorry for my late replay, I was busy with my SAP Teched sessions, Bangalore.

Coming to the point on custom app development using Syclo, SAP itself is not recommending the approach of doing so, the answer for this you can find from Syclo product team itself (hope http://scn.sap.com/people/wim.verhelst can give more information on this).

When we say custom apps, the SAP recommended approaches are to go with go with SMP - Odata native or Hybrid or web, based on the business requirement.

- Midhun VP

[jason_latko]

Midhun,

I noticed from your Linkedin profile that you have expertise with Sybase/SUP but no experience with Syclo Agentry.  Can you be more specific as to where you heard that SAP does not recommend building custom mobile applications using Agentry, or why you would personally not recommend it?  You also say that the Syclo product team can verify this, but I asked around, and nobody here at Syclo knows why anybody would make that claim since we promote quite the opposite and have helped oversee many complete custom Agentry based projects running for customers in production.  Thanks,

Jason Latko - Senior Product Developer at SAP

[Former Member]

Midhun,

To add on the support team often works partners that need some help creating or updating their own application.  These application did not use any starting application, but was fully built by the partner.

Ventureforth's Mi2K Work and Stores Applications: news-university

EIS's Mobilizing MES Syclo and EIS Announce a Partnership to Streamline Manufacturing Execution Processes

Mainstream's CrossFrom: Mobility | Mainstream Software

We also often work with customers and partners making changes to their own \ customers application.  That includes creating new fields on screens to connecting the server to backend system troubleshooting issues with pushing objects from the backend to the clients.

Stephen Streeter - Senior Support Engineer at SAP

Message was edited by: Steve Streeter

[midhun_vp]

Jason,

I don't have vast experience in Syclo app development. But I have experience in development of a basic Syclo app from scratch. I had a discussion with from SAP few days before at Teched, during the discussion he mentioned that SAP do not recommend development of custom apps using Syclo to bring the customers business processes in mobile, instead the recommended way is developing custom apps using Syclo and sell it to different clients. I missed the question why is it so? It would be great if he can answer it in this discussion or anyone else from SAP can answer this.

- Midhun VP

[midhun_vp]

Hi Jason,

After few discussions I got a point on why Syclo agentry is not recommended for custom apps, the licensing of Syclo agentry is based on the existing applications. ie Now if I am developing a custom application for my client they need to buy the license of any existing agentry app to use the app I built from scratch, since there is no license available only for agentry development and production environment.

In SUP it's not the case. The client can buy the development setup and develop any number of apps. Please share your views, conclusion may be wrong too.

Midhun VP

[agentry_src]

Hi Midhun,

I think you need to go back up and re-read Manju's and Jan-G's posts regarding the integration of the Agentry Foundation into the SMP.  There is no longer any need to buy an Agentry (what you refer to as a Syclo agentry) app in order to build a custom Agentry application.  The tools now come with SMP.

I would ask that you get Wim Verhelst to post where this official SAP postion is coming from.  I suspect that you would have some difficulty finding anything current.  There was a reason to split the Agentry Addon so that the Foundation portion was made available in SMP.

I will leave it to the student as an exercise to figure out what reason SAP could have had for doing so. 

Regards, Mike

SAP Customer Experience Group - CEG

[midhun_vp]

Hi Mike,

In a SAP system if I want to run my custom application I should have the smart config portal add on, where I can get it ?, Since its coming only with existing application, ex. work manager. So the situation is that the customer has to buy the app ex. work manager in order to run my custom app.

Midhun VP

[i834235]

Hello Midhun,

As Mike indicated,there is no need to buy  Work Manager or  Inventory Manager applications to build custom application on SAP using Agentry.  You  need to install  "Agentry SAP Framework Foundation"  add-on in SAP backend which contains  all core framework required for building  custom application from the scratch  which is part of SMP SDK. All the business suite mobile application are bundled into a different Add-on which you install  when you  buyMobile applications like Work Manager or Inventory Manager. Once you have  "Agentry SAP Framework Foundation"  add-on installed in  the backend you build config panel entries for custom application.

Please refer to this posting ( http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-47550).

Thanks

Manju.

SAP Mobility - RIG

[Former Member]

Hi , ,

I really appreciate the way you guys helping everyone to solve their syclo queries, I've been working on syclo for a long time now and I'm really enjoying it.

Only thing which i would like to highlight here is while working on syclo app developments, I struggled to get the documentations, to give an example lets say there is a requirement where i need to implement Push functionality from scratch or exchange framework configuration form scratch specially for SAP back-ends, I din't find a proper end to end docs on these concepts.

I hope you guys must have something to share, Would be really good if you can highlight on this.

Regards,

Abhishek Wajge

[agentry_src]

Hi Abhishek,

Have you looked at the landing page?  It is a work in progress as not all the documents from the Syclo Resource Center have been migrated to SCN yet.  But with the help of the folks you named along with Manju, Mark Pe, et. al., we are trying to make it the one stop shop for all things Agentry.

Regards, Mike

SAP Customer Experience Group - CEG

[midhun_vp]

You are right, I can develop an app from scratch using the SDK. But if I want to sell my app to a customer what type of license they have to buy from SAP in order to use my app ?

Midhun VP

[Former Member]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your reply, Yes I've gone thru the Agentry landing page and it's very useful but as I said when we talk about sap back-ends and advanced concepts like server push and complete exchange framework logic then I believe a good documentation need to be available something like #How-to Build an Agentry based mobile app from scratch connecting to an SAP back-end Part1.

If you are trying to make it the one stop shop then I would like to suggest that these docs need to be part of agentry landing page so we can even go into the advanced concepts.

Regards,

Abhishek Wajge

[i834235]

There is the already document  available to  create exchange object from scratch refer "" .    We will try add   how-to-guide "To create  Push object  and configuration"  from scratch  soon.

Thanks

Manju  Mobility - RIG.

[prathik]

Hi Hasan,

There are many options to implement a solution for SAP Mobile platform,

1) You can create an HTML5 application and package the application for native OS(in your case       andriod) by using phoneGap by deveoping a cordova project

- PhoneGap API Documentation

2)  You can develop a native android app by consuming oData device using REST APIs using Netweaver gateway for creating the oData service.

- http://scn.sap.com/community/netweaver-gateway/blog/2013/06/11/how-to-create-android-application-con...

3) You can develop a SAPUI5 application and then package it using phonegap for android OS

- http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/front-end/blog/2013/11/11/packaging-sapui5-application...

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Prathik

[Former Member]

Thanks Prathik

So if we want to go for cross mobile platform , we should go for SUP ??

[prathik]

Hi Hasan,

               For cross mobile platform i'd say SAPUI5 ( basically a SAP based UI API built over  HTML5 n javascript ) is a better option as it makes development a lot more easier, because eventually you can package it using phoneGap for different mobile OS( android, iOS...) but it comes with a few disadvantages( like not being able to leverage certain functionalities offered by native API).

     SUP has now become SMP3.0 and the trend of using MBOs is fading away and kapsel is the new HWC approach for SMP ( http://scn.sap.com/blogs/johnwargo/2013/10/21/an-introduction-to-smp-kapsel).

With so many developments, improvements and changes happening in the mobility front, I think consuming REST based web services using oData approach would be the safest choice and for the front end you can go for SAPUI5 / (HTML5 & Js) and package the app using phoneGap for cross-platform development .

If your target is for a specific platform then you can go for native development(iOS, android) which consumes REST based services and the data can be exposed using Netweaver Gateway which helps you create oData services to unleash the data from SAP system.

Regards,

Prathik.

[prathik]

Just to add to my previous point, using SUP/SMP lets you monitor the devices connecting to the system which is an added feature from the security perspective.

Regards,

Prathik

[Former Member]

Thanks Prathik

What about Mobile Infrastructure available with SAP Ntweaver?? Is it any different  from SUP??

Can we build application ONLY with SAP MI or we have to have SUP?

BR

Sidra

[prathik]

Sorry Sidra, I haven't worked on SAP MI so far, So I wont be able to suggest anything related to SAP MI.

Best Regards,

Prathik

[Former Member]

Thanks Prathik

I believe SMP is an evolved form of SAP MI, isnt it??

What are the software & hardware requirement to go for SMP/SUP option to develop application for HWC??

Best Regards

SH

[prathik]

Hi SH,

           Yes there are so many things that are put together as a part of SMP 3.0 like gateway, mobiliser etc, SMP 2.3 , is an evolved version now which supports development for HWC, I'd say say SMP3.0 is a better option considering the future road map of SAP , I'm yet to try my hands on SMP3.0.

Regards,

Prathik