Q&A transcript from SAP Screen Personas webinar 4

[PeterSpielvogel]

Thank you to everyone that attended the fourth webinar in our 5-part series, “Enhance Usability with SAP Screen Personas” on April 3, 2013. Sebastian Steinhauer and Florian Doerr discussed master data management and showed how to improve data quality with SAP Screen Personas. We have consolidated all the questions into the following Q&A guide, grouped into the following topics.

Compatibility

Rollout/Implementation

Use Cases

Pull-down Menus

Other Features

Compatibility

Question	Answer
Is this available to purchase now?	We released Personas on December 7, 2012.
Is SAP Personas a complete replacement for SAP GUI?	You can use Personas as a substitute for the SAP GUI, if you choose. SAP Screen Personas does not require any client software to be installed.
What SAP GUI version supports Persona?	You do not need SAP GUI installed to run Personas.
Do you have to have NWBC or SAP Portal to use this product?	You do not need NWBC (NetWeaver Business Client) or SAP Portal to run Personas. Personas only requires a browser. But, if you are already running NWBC or SAP Portal, you can use Personas content in either of those solutions.
We are currently SAP GUI 730. Can we access Personas?	You can use both channels in parallel to access your system. They do not interfere. SAP Screen Personas is not a feature of SAP GUI.
Is there any minimum requirement for processors?	Since Personas runs in a browser, most of the processing happens on the server. So, there is no processor requirement for Personas. We often run it on standard laptops or even Windows 8 tablets.
Are all the "standard" browsers supported (Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox & Chrome)?	Personas runs on all the browsers you mentioned (Windows and Mac) along with the Opera browser.
Does this Run on HTML 5 instead of Silverlight?	The Personas client uses Silverlight to deliver pixel-perfect rendering of the SAP screens across all the browsers mentioned above.

Rollout/Implementation

Question	Answer
By using SAP Personas does the performance of this system affect as it is using more customization?	SAP Screen Personas uses an XML protocol to extract screen data from the SAP Backend – it also downloads the flavor and corresponding imagery (only once per session). If you are comparing performance to SAP Web GUI, it should be close for comparable screens. If you remove items from the screen and push multiple requests to the backend in a script, then Personas will have a significant speed advantage.
Since this uses ITS, does performance suffer? Our basis folks are worried about that.	Personas only a small part of ITS to parse the screen and keep the state of the screen and of all the controls on it runs. The output is not generated in HTML but only sent as structured data to the frontend which is a very slim interface. So, Personas performance is quite good.
Can we have Single sign-on for SAP Personas screen?	Yes, SAP Screen Personas runs in the browser and picks up X.509 certificates to authenticate an https connection if they are present.
Once you setup a Personas screen, can the particular screen be accessed via a URL?	This is how to embed Personas content into NWBC or SAP Portal.
Can you attach custom searchhelps to Persona variables or override SAP provided searchhelps?	Personas does currently not support custom match codes or overriding existing match code assignments.
Can you use automation tools to test these screens?  Are there specific tools that are needed?	We have not used any automation tools to test flavors. The underlying screens can still be tested as you are used to.
How does SAP upgrade impact SAP Personas?	The following things could happen during an upgrade: A new field is added to an existing screen - if this screen is personalized then this field will show up where it would be in the original screen. You might need to update the personalization. There will be no performance impact. A field is removed - even if this field was personalized it is now gone and the personalizations work as before. This is a very unlikely scenario. The screen flow changes - if the personalizations contained a script button that skipped screens, this might now not work anymore and the script might need to be recorded. This is a very unlikely scenario. In most cases, Personas will work smoothly with an SAP upgrade.
Are scripts managed by versions?	Currently script versioning is not supported within Personas. You might however use any document versioning solution to manage your recorded script files in a repository.
This is considered a SAP bolt-on correct? And is licensing by user, administrator? Or number of users that will access the Personas screens?	SAP Screen Personas is an additional product with a separate license. It is licensed by the number of users that will access the Personas screens.
Should I just cache all my tabs so my user has access to all the information they might need?	Caching or pre-fetching tabs impacts the initial loading time of a screen, thus we recommend a more selective approach.

Use Cases

Question	Answer
Can you use the MM01 example and map data fields to an SAP custom Z-table as well as the standard SAP tables?	Using the WebRFC shown in the webinar is conceivable to extract data from a custom table or write it to such a table.
Does this application allow the personalization of Inventory transactions screens, like inventory movements?	Yes, we designed SAP Screen Personas to allow users to change existing SAP Dynpro screens.
For validated fields that are not entered via the SAP Screen Personas (as you stated the users can still bypass those), when will the user know that certain required fields are missing?	SAP Screen Personas does not change the screen’s regular post-processing of the Dynpro screen – if data is validated and issues are detected the corresponding status bar messages will appear.
How do you manage errors messages in Screen Personas?	The handling of error messages is not impacted by the use of SAP Screen Personas.
We have a requirement to be able to access SAP GUI screens from SAP BPM. Unfortunately the only way we can do it is building custom UI screens via Web Dynpro. But if we can access Personas via a URL link, this is a better option.	SAP Screen Personas can be launched with a regular link, or you can start it embedded in an iframe. Personas also allows IT administrators to create links that connect a user to a system, launch a transaction, and apply a specific flavor.
Can we use Personas to hide fields from users to add an additional security layer?	No! Definitely not.  SAP Screen Personas is not a security tool – while fields are hidden they are not removed from the data stream.
We have seen the ability to import data through an RFC. Can we import other data sources?	As you have seen, data can be imported to personas through a simple JSON format – in our example it was exported by a WebRFC. Of course you can link to any other application that produces data following this format.

Pull-down Menus

Question	Answer
Is it possible to customize Personas in order to work with multi-language installations? Can be the labels, dropdown boxes, and so on, translated?	Yes, SAP Screen Personas 1.1 (Officially Personas 1.0 SP1) will provide the ability to extract entered hardcoded values and translate them.
Is there a way to map a back end search help when you convert an input field into a drop down list?	This is not currently supported.
When creating custom drop downs, will the codes be validated against the ECC backend IMG?	It is up to the transaction to validate the inputs at runtime.
When using drop down boxes or radio buttons, do the value lists have to be static or can the list be dynamic? (ie: All equipment categories for a specific plant)	Currently only static drop down lists are supported.
I would like to know if is it possible to define several drop down lists depending on organizational structures, material types, users...?	Currently only static drop down lists are supported.  You can of course use multiple flavors with distinct drop down lists values or keys for different user roles.

Other Features

Question	Answer
Do the backend fields remain same irrespective of the title change for the fields in Personas?	Yes.
Can you capture the errors before this is sent to the screen, and add some logic to perform different actions?	Yes – you can use simple logic to verify values, or even use the WebRFC to verify data prior to executing a transaction.
Will you have a demo using HR Personnel Action PA40 with dynamic actions?	PA40 was used at SAP TechED DemoJam in Las Vegas in October of last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n22veDco7gg
What scripting language does Personas use?	Personas allows you to record individual script actions, and modify those without learning a specific scripting language. Additionally if an action is not provided by the product you can use out “execute in Javascript” action to execute your own logic.

2013 H1 Personas Webinar Series

Original Broadcast Date	Recordings no longer available as of 2014	Q&A Transcript on SCN
February 27, 2013	Make SAP ERP Beautiful with SAP Screen Personas	http://scn.sap.com/community/gui/blog/2013/03/05/qa-transcript-from-sap-screen-personas-webinar-1
March 6, 2013	Streamline Quote to Cash Process with SAP Screen Personas	http://scn.sap.com/community/gui/blog/2013/03/09/qa-transcript-from-sap-screen-personas-webinar-2
March 13, 2013	Planning, deploying, and managing Personas in your SAP environment	http://scn.sap.com/community/gui/blog/2013/03/18/qa-transcript-from-sap-screen-personas-webinar-3
April 3, 2013	How to improve master data quality with SAP Screen Personas	http://scn.sap.com/community/gui/blog/2013/04/09/qa-transcript-from-sap-screen-personas-webinar-4
April 24, 2013	Varian Medical Improves Sales and Distribution with SAP Screen Personas	http://scn.sap.com/community/gui/blog/2013/05/02/qa-transcript-from-sap-screen-personas-webinar-5