Fiori: Single User: Multiple launchpad instances. Is it possible?

[Former Member]

Hi Everyone,

Just imagine if apple provides only 1 single app on your iphone which you would then need to use for all you tasks like phone, messaging, email, calendar, calulator, maps, etc. Does this sound appealing to you? I strongly believe not!. It feels same in the case of sap fiori as well and i think it needs a major redesign.

Read further to understand the problem i think needs to be addressed by SAP. And then do share your thoughts about the same.

We want 2 ipad apps for fiori, i.e., separate ipad apps for employee(self service) and manager(self serice). Employee ipad app should show the launchpad with only employee specific tiles and similarly manager ipad app should show only manager specific tiles. We decided to package the apps ourself instead of using the fiori client (whose source code was not shared by SAP so that we cold customize the icon and name).

However, since we have only 1 launchpad for fiori, we fear there is no way we can achieve our requirement in standard sap fiori. the only we figured we would need to create custom SAPUI5 pages with tiles as per out requirement, which would be a huge new investment all together(now and for future maintenance).

In future we would want to have more role specific ipad apps for example Sales Rep, Plant worker, etc to provide them access to mobile applications to help them perform their job roles.

Having a single launchpad actually forces us to have only 1 app for each platform and cram in all the applications for all roles into 1 single ipad app(SAP Fiori Client). By creating role specific apps for each platform, it somehow makes more sense since users can easily identify the specific applications available to them to perform the tasks specific to their job roles.

By the way, this is not something new. Just check SAP enterprise portal, we have roles and worksets. For a desktop environment we can have a portal of different roles. Similarly in fiori i think this feature needs to be added.

What do you guys think about this? Please share your thoughts.

SAP fiori was a major step by SAP towards revamping it's UI and i really like it. But i think there is a lot in fiori which needs to be improved by SAP before it becomes widely accepted.

Regards,

Varun Reddy

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Discussion successfully moved from SAP for Mobile to SAP Fiori as appropriate.

Regards, Mike (Moderator)

[Former Member]

Hi All,

I have a requirement. Is it possible to avoid multiple logon in case of Fiori? Say if a user is already been logged in via SAP GUI and at the same time he/she wants to login via Fiori Launchpad (or vice versa), then the entry must restricted.

Kindly help.

Regards

Parth

[AviadRivlin]

Hi Varun,

First - thank you very much for posting this. This feedback is very interesting for us.

I think that I get your point, but let me take it from a different angle - don't you think that the end user would prefer getting only one app/launchpad that aggregates all his content:

- Employee: will see only the employee specific content

- Manager: will see the employee + manager specific content

- Sales rep: will see the employee + sales specific content

This approach will provide the end user a single point of access to all of his corporate applications (organized in groups). Doesn't it make more sense?

Looking forward to your feedback,

Aviad

cc:

[Former Member]

Hi Aviad,

Glad to see you showed interest. I will explain.

End user preferring to get only one app/launchpad that aggregates all his content: I have 3 reasons why that would not be pleasing to the end user.

1. Content segmentation is very important. The user experience would not be so desirable with a single app/launchpad, especially when the number of fiori apps we implement keep on increasing. The launchpad is already not efficiently structured with catalogs since there is no option to search and sort to get the app the user needs. The ability to use the existing platform above app (i.e. the OS like ios, android) is far more apealling to end users. The users are already self trained on popular platforms like iOS, Android and Windows and it is easier for them to use something like spotlight search in ios to find the exact app to help them perform their task.

2. Branding is another issue for us: My client uses not just SAP but many other vendors for their enterprise software needs. They have always branded mobile applications as per user roles like Plant Worker, Sales Rep, etc.. Fiori client/launchpad, does not allow almost every app on the planet to be placed as tiles. They have a bunch of role based native ios apps which are in productive use from before fiori was introduced by SAP. So plan is not to change the strategy now.

3. We have an enterprise mobile store where our users can download the apps which they need. Not all applications are forced upon the user and we try to achieve a non-disruptive implementation (as much a possible). However, we do push some apps directly to user's devices and users are forced to use the app for their daily tasks. This requirement, is not possible even by control of the PFCG roles in fiori. If i remove the authorization for a user to delete a tile from his/her launchpad, the user cannot remove even the tiles which are actually not supposed to be compulsorily used. (I can elaborate this technically if you need).

As i said earlier too, just image a situation of having just one app like the fiori client for all your personal tasks on your iphone. Trust yourself on the idea and I bet it wouldn't sound appealing at all. It is exactly the same how we think about having a single fiori client/launchpad.

Also check another discussion by Matt Harding who has the same requirement concerning a portal scenario.

I know Matt would too have new points to add to mine.

Best Regards,

Varun

[AviadRivlin]

Hi Varun,

First, I would like to thank you again for taking the time to describe your scenario and explain the background for your requirement.

I get your point and I will make sure this requirement is taken into consideration (can’t tell you yet if/when it will be available). 

I would like to ask you to drop me an e-mail, in case we need further specific details about your customer’s specific expectation. You can find my e-mail address in my personal profile ().

Cheers,
Aviad

[Former Member]

Aviad,

Thanks for your response and i'm glad you could understand the requirement.

I'll drop you an email soon.

Regards,

Varun

[former_member183915]

Hi Varun,

Were you able to find solution? We have similar requirement .

Regards,

Navya.

[Former Member]

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 custom sap.m based applications with tiles for all the applications pertaining that particular role. Each custom application independently looks like the fiori launchpad itself and it serves our purpose.

Yes, we end up not using fiori launchpad designer, groups and catalogs and lpd_cust concepts. But that didn't actually matter since our users are gonna be happy. And since they are all custom apps, we have a lot of control on them.

We ended up with this approach since otherwise we would have had to modify standard SAP code and you just are never supposed to do that, right!

BTW, SAP mentioned they will discuss about adding the functionality onto the fiori launchpad or not in future(it might happen in next 3 months or after 100 more years).

Regards,

Varun

[FEKronenberg]

Hi Varun,

do you want to combine only SAP approval apps behind one ipad tile eg "mss approvals"?

If so, have you already tried the "my inbox" app in combination with an bookmark (deeplink) on the ipad?

That could be a way to solve your problem.

In a second tile (eg "ess services") you can simply hide the approvals by removing the mss role/group from the launchpad.

This actualy works only if you want to separate the mss approvals.

A better way would be a role/group specific url parameter like &sap_role=XYZ which only shows you the role/group specific tiles one the launchpad.

Regards,

Eugen

[Former Member]

Eugen,

Not specifically just MSS apps. I was looking in a more broader sense. Something which allows me to create multiple launchpads. From the traditional desktop perspective, this might look weird since everyone is used to having one single portal with links to all the applications right there. However, in the mobile world, the same logic becomes a clutter. SAP's idea to create a single portal(i mean the launchpad) for all fiori apps probably comes from the same old thought process.

We intend to give our end user an experience which is not dependent on the backend business system. For them, it should not matter if it is SAP or oracle or workday or something else. They can just focus on the task they need to perform. Mobile is a very well made platform with apps for each function. So the intension was to separate mobile apps for each job function. For example, it just made more sense to separate all the ESS applications like leave request and entrering timesheet from apps for the employee's daily tasks like creating purchase orders or invoices, etc.

As of now i have gone ahead by creating custom launchpad like applications with tiles for the apps i need. But the possibility to have a url parameter would be just awesome!

Regards,

Varun

[Vasilis]

Hi Varun,

in Fiori you can have catalogs and groups which can be assigned to roles. So each user can have more app tiles depending on their role. You don't need to have 1 launch pad for each app.

regards,

Vasilis

[Former Member]

HI Vasilis,

Having multiple apps is the requirement. My requirement is - 'do no have ONLY one launchpad for all fiori apps'. I'll give you a use case which help you understand the situation better.

What if we want an ipad app only for Approvals. This ipad app should show all the tiles of only approval type fiori applications. It will be one single app for all approval tasks for managers. Then what if we want another ipad app which should show tiles of only employee self services- My Timsheet, My Leave Request, My paystub,etc. If for example Varun Reddy is a manager in my organization, i will assign his roles giving him access to both the catalogs/groups which give him access to all the approval and employee self services fiori Applications.

Now can you tell me how can i have 2  separate ipad apps working for my requirement with only 1 launchpad instance?

My point too is that i am forced to ship all fiori application tiles under one launchpad, which does not give the opportunity to brand the mobile apps specific to the role or tasks it is intended for.

Regards,

Varun

[former_member182874]

Hi Varun,

You need to have 2 users. One with MSS role and one with ESS role.

Now you can control your launchpad on the basis of roles assigned to ESS users and MSS users.

Say : employee and manager are 2 user ids

Go to PFCG : take all the manager app roles - > Provide appropriate authorizations - > User comparison you are adding "manager"

Now take all the employee roles -> Provide appropriate auth -> User comparison you add "employee"

Now,

• login from one ipad1 : login with "employee" and you will see only employee specific apps
• login from ipad2 : login with "manager" and you will see only manager specific apps.

Usecase : You can create leave request from one ipad and approve from another : This will be full cycle.

You need to play with roles only, you don't need a separate launchpad for this.

Regards,

Tejas

[Former Member]

HI Tejas,

In an HR syatem, if you check the IT 0105, you will notice that you cannot assign multiple users to the same PERNR. The use case is flawed. Moreover, every manager in an organization  cannot be expected to carry 2 different ipads to do his work.

Best Regards,

Varun

[former_member182874]

Varun I see you want to access two different roles with single user, which is not possible. How can same user be a manager and an employee.

• There should be 2 separate users with 2 separate PERNR.

• and should be in same org structure.

• Assign employee apps to employee and manager apps to Manager

• Then access 2 different ipads with 2 users and use it.

Regards,

Tejas