Using the Fiori Launchpad for same user with different catalogs/groups?

[MattHarding]

Hi All,

Firstly, Fiori seems to be spread over SAP for Mobile, UI5 and this space, and since it's really not SAP for mobile or UI5, I've posted here???

My question is related to leveraging the Fiori Launchpad in a non-standard way in an existing Portal environment.

Imagine we have a Manager Self Service Launchpad and an Employee Self Service Launchpad. In the Fiori UX, it is meant to be a single Launchpad with separate catalogues for ESS and MSS, but with an existing deployment of SAP Portal with various navigation, it's a bit presumptuous to think we can throw away the whole Portal navigation and replace it with a single launchpad; hence we want to make the launchpad completely different based upon the entry point (for the same user).

e.g. MSS Launchpad would not show ESS tiles, and vice versa.

Is this possible today without customising the Launchpad?  From my initial investigation, it doesn't appear possible. There appears to be a few URL parameters you can leverage with Fiori Launchpad (around caching predominantly), but would be good to know of any other tricks of the trade.

Thanks,

Matt

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt.

The Fiori launchpad is just an SICF link.

If you go into transaction SICF and follow the path down until you find it.

What would stop you from copying this and creating a second SICF fiori launchpad link called ZMSSLaunchpad or something similar.

You could even create two copies. Leaving the original as a base.

Call one ZESSLaunchpad and the second ZMSSlaunchpad.

You configure launchpad one to show ESS

Configure launchpad two to show MSS

You then create just a simple hyperlink from the MSS and ESS Portal roles to these new links.

You should be able to use SSO as well by exporting the portal certificate into the Fiori ABAP server.

Regards

James

[MattHarding · Accepted solution]

Hi James,

If you can explain how to configure one launchpad to display a completely different set of tiles by default; then this would work, but I don't believe there is a SICF based configuration for Launchpad.  Have you come across any way to configure launchpad differently based on the SICF node?

Thanks,

Matt

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt

I think if you create two sicf entries for the UI5 Launchpad.

This would then give you two completely different launchpads, both operating independently of each other.

The standard launchpad is

/sap/bc/ui5_ui5/ui2/ushell/shells/abap/FioriLaunchpad.html

Whats stopping you creating a SICF node

/sap/bc/ui5_ui5/ui2/ushell/shells/abap/FioriESSLaunchpad.html

as a copy of /sap/bc/ui5_ui5/ui2/ushell/shells/abap/FioriLaunchpad.html

and a second launchpad

/sap/bc/ui5_ui5/ui2/ushell/shells/abap/FioriMSSLaunchpad.html

so when your in the SAP Portal you point ESS users at /FioriESSLaunchpad.html

and MSS users at /FioriMSSLaunchpad.html

If you go into SICF and copy paste /sap/bc/ui5_ui5/ui2/ushell/shells/abap/FioriLaunchpad.html

Is should give you the option of creating a new path.

Anyway. Its an Idea 😉

Regards

James

[MattHarding · Accepted solution]

Hi James,

It will definitely give me two Launchpads, but you configure the launchpad(s) through sap/bc/ui5_ui5/sap/arsrvc_upb_admn and there's no reference in that to link launchpads to different ICF nodes - hence the only way I see this working is by an enhancement that looks at the calling URL to filter the response automatically.

e.g. My concern is the Launchpad administration tool does not support setting up catalogs that can be linked to a single ICF node or similar. e.g. The concept of cockpits in NWBC is not supported in the Fiori Launchpad.

Thanks for the idea though 🙂

Cheers,

Matt

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt

its an interesting problem as we - Sheffield University will be probably be coming across a similar issue soon.

We use EP/ESS/MSS and SRM and are looking to implement Fiori

It looks like this can be done though roles assigned to users

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_fiori_erp_100/helpdata/en/0a/a5665239086d2de10000000a44176d/content.htm

"Use the technical catalogs delivered by SAP as repositories to create your own catalogs as an administrator. To display specific apps to a user by default in the entry page of the SAP Fiori launchpad, create a group. Then add apps from your catalog to the group."

[MattHarding · Accepted solution]

Hi James,

Unfortunately a manager is also an employee, plus many other potential roles; so as soon as you add the groups to a role the user has, all launchpads will display the same thing.

Maybe there's a secret "just for this group" flag but I'm guessing SAP would have to tell us (if not, there should be).

Cheers,

Matt

[masa_139 · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt,

It is a good idea that if launchpad supports a parameter like "launchpad.html?topgroup=ESS" and launchpad changes the sequence of group display order.

A workaround is calling individual app by specifying intent parameter like

launchpad.html#TravelRequest-approve.

When you pass intent (Semantic Object - Action) after #, specified app is launched directly.

For detail about intent, please take a look Understanding launchpad object relationship with screenshots.

Regards, Masa

SAP Customer Experience Group - CEG

[MattHarding · Accepted solution]

Thanks Masa. If I was thinking more cross solution, I would suggest the following URL parameter:

launchpad.html?cockpit=ZESS which would then look at only ZESS cockpit PFCG roles (like NWBC does), and use the groups available to that cockpit). Just changing the order of things would be confusing to a user going to ESS and seeing MSS tiles.

I realise it's a legacy design approach, but we're a long way off replacing a portal (be it SAP Portal, NWBC, Sharepoint, etc); with a single Launchpad for a user, and it's probably a little presumptuous of SAP designers to think they can be the single launchpad for a company.

In terms of a direct launch, with a portal in place, I'm not sure this makes much sense as in a portal wouldn't you just use OBN directly to the underlying Tile application and hence you wouldn't have users navigating back to the launchpad incorrectly in this scenario?

Also, that link is very useful. Thanks for that too.

Cheers,

Matt

[masa_139 · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt,

With intent, launchpad is actually loaded.  Right after launchpad is loaded, the specified app is launched. User can go back to home and see all groups.

Regards, Masa

SAP Customer Experience Group - CEG

[MattHarding · Accepted solution]

Thanks Masa -Hence,this would probably not be desired behaviour in a Portal environment.

[masa_139 · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt,

Could you also share other requirements about using launchpad from Portal?

Do you want to switch off personalize functions?

+ Selecting an app from catalog

+ Re-ordering apps display sequence/location

+ Creating personalized my group

+ Searching an app

Those are now common experience in mobile phone/tablet. What are expectations about personalize functions from Portal users?

Regards, Masa

SAP Customer Experience Group - CEG

[MattHarding · Accepted solution]

Sure - though some of it depends on what the final solution could be:

As a hypothetical example which sort of represents my client's requirements:

. Start with a portal that has standard navigation, and we need to replace ESS and MSS with an ESS launchpad and a MSS launchpad to keep it inline with the other navigation.

. Once in ESS, they should have full personalisation functionality for ESS tiles, but no access to non-ESS tiles.

. Same applies for MSS.

e.g. We need to ensure ESS launchpad remains focused on ESS and MSS, focused on MSS.

If thinking about mobile users, we would probably deploy a single fiori launchpad page that has ESS and MSS contained within it per how it is designed to work.

Let me know if that does not paint a clear picture,

Matt

[masa_139 · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for sharing. The last question. Are the requirements from IT management point of view(IT team) or end user usability point of view (Business users)?

Regards, Masa

SAP Customer Experience Group - CEG

[MattHarding · Accepted solution]

Good question - It's not a technical requirement from the IT team per se, but more a UX design when discussing how this will could work with the business (this relates to a new set of UI5 applications in development targeting both Portal users and mobile users). 

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt

I've been playing with Fiori for the past couple of weeks ! The way simple way to solve this issue is multiple roles i think

Create one called ZHCM Employee. Which contains the HCM group and catalogue

You then assign this to everyone.

then another role called ZHCM Manager for example. This only contains the Approval applications.

When a manager is both an employee and a manager they get assigned both roles. And have access to the correct applications.

This is all achieved around the PFGC roles assigned to each specific user.

Using the PFGC group and catalogue assignments, i think you can achieve exactly what you require.

You can create custom  groups and catalogues as well restricting employee access.

Might have a blog post coming up soon. !

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt,

I came across this discussion and was wondering if you had any luck regarding this.

We have a similar requirement from our business and it concerns how we brand our mobile applications. We are using mobile applications long before fiori came into existence and we publish apps(for ipads and iphones) based on the roles - Employee, Manager, Sales Rep, etc. unfortunately, the single launchpad concept doesn't help us a bit.

I had actually started a thread, wondering if the same is possible.

Currently I am still trying to understand sap/bc/ui5_ui5/sap/arsrvc_upb_admn to find a possible way to get this working.

@James: I would really like to see how you achieve this by using 1 user, both employee an manager PFCG roles assigned to this user and get 2 different launchpads working for the user - 1 as employee and other as manager. I'll be very eagerly waiting.

Regards,

Varun

[MattHarding · Accepted solution]

James - Varun is right that while the security you mention will ensure that you only get what you are authorised to get, it still doesn't get away from a single landing page for the launchpad, albeit tailored to your authorisation. 

Varun - No progress here, apart from thinking about doing an enhancement to look at the URL and remove groups programmatically based on the entry point. Hardest part is ensuring that people understand what we're asking for which is multiple entry points that provide different Launchpad configuration/groups based on the URL. Hopefully SAP is reading this and will provide some better feedback soon (on either of our discussions ).

Cheers,

Matt

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Matt,

Looks like we have SAP's attention. Have a look at my thread.

Also, i figured out how to control the visibility of groups in the launchpad dynamically via code in the service PAGE_BUILDER_PERS. Now i need to figure out a way to use a URI parameter to get the correct entry point.

My launchpad URL would be like this

/sap/bc/ui5_ui5/ui2/ushell/shells/abap/FioriLaunchpad.html?sap-client=100&sap-language=EN&zfiori-role=MANAGER

Any suggestions of on how i can pass the value of the URI parameter zfiori-role from the above URL to the Data Provider class for the service PAGE_BUILDER_PERS?

I plan to create a small customizing table which holds the zfiori-role & group pairs.

Regards,

Varun

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt

You don't need more than one launchpad ?

"Varun - No progress here, apart from thinking about doing an enhancement to look at the URL and remove groups programmatically based on the entry point"

You can remove groups visible to every user based on the PFGC roles.

You can create Z Groups etc and then assign these and catalogues per individual user in PFGC.

The way its setup, you could create a "Launch Pad" Per employee if thats what you want.

Create a custom Z Group, Custom Z Catalogue.

Assign these to an employee using the roles in PFGC. Job done.

You don't need more than one launch pad i think !

The assignment of roles to users and the assignment of groups and catalogs to these roles in PFGC takes care of this

Its a very weird concept the way sap have set it up but this solves you problems.

[MattHarding · Accepted solution]

Hi James,

Think of the requirement this way:

User goes to Launchpad 1 - sees _only_ Process based transactions for their job.

Same user goes to Launchpad 2 - Sees _only_ Employee Self Service transactions.

If you think of the old Portal set-up that has ESS, MSS and other - we would want to replace the ESS with a launchpad, but it still can only contain ESS transactions.

Hope that helps,

Matt

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt

Think of it like this.

a user of the SAP Portal is assigned roles, based on those roles what is displayed to them can change, similar to ESS / MSS roles.

You wouldn't really differentiate between process based transactions or ess based transactions.

You would give a fiori user access to two Catalogs, One for ESS based transactions and One for processes based transactions.

Or Maybe three catalogs process, managerial, and ess.

The Groups then arrange the access to these catalogs, based on a similar mapping.

All you would need would be one launch pad, with three catalogs. ESS / MSS / and Process.

Thats how i would see it working. 

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Varun, I am wondering if you figured out how to pass the URI parameter "zfiori-role" from the launchpad URL to the data provider class for the service PAGE_BUILDER_PERS?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Shyam,

No, since it was just too much modification oriented development, i didn't follow that approach. And SAP mentioned they will consider this in coming releases. So, it was just too much effort to follow the approcah i thought of earlier.

Instead now we are using our own custom landing pages for each role. So, we end up not using the fiori launchpad at all. We have developed separate applications with tiles for all the applications pertaining that particular role.

Regards,

Varun

[julie_hodgson3]

Hey Matt,

did you find the answer yet?

Would be really great to group tiles by Launchpad. One way to simplify a users index. I wanted to create a link to "Decision Support" and put a persons reporting and Business Objects tiles here. I tried the cockpit option but that still displayed all the users tiles.

The idea of having multiple entries in SICF seems "easiest" but as you say no good if you can't link catalogs/groups/tiles to the service.

This post is quite old so here's hoping you found the answer!

cheers,

Julie Hodgson

[MattHarding]

Hi Julie,

I have the answer from a UX design perspective but it's not the answer you are hoping for:

In essence if you go down the track of SAP Business Client 6.0 (new name for NWBC) then there's an option in there to have the FLP as the landing page.  Navigation in this version from Tiles to SAPGUI transactions is supported for thick client, and it effectively does away with Portal style navigation.  i.e. Use of Intents rather than OBN (kind of at least) .

Best bet is to look at the Fiori Roadmap and Strategy presentation from SAP (or possibly the roadmap or post on SCN about NWBC 6.0).

The launchpad will look pretty messy for a system admin person who has everything, but most people should end up with a launchpad that has under 20 or so links (allegedly).  On top of this though, I believe the Overview Page (only recently available and still being enhanced with more features) is where aspects such as HANA style KPI dashboards linking to transactions and analysis to action style tiles will end up in the future UX designs.

You know where to find me if you need more help with this .

Cheers,

Matt