SAP UI/UX one year on - What has changed and what do you choose ?

[OwenPettiford]

About this time last year I wrote a series of blogs on what options you had if you wanted to put a new UI/UX on top of SAP - based on the number of times the series was read, it seems plenty of people are interested in this.

The reasons for wanting to not use SAPGUI and the technical options available are still valid from these blogs (Part 1 - Options, Part 2 - Recommendations), but as always things have moved on, and these changes are the reason for this updated blog.

3 major things that have happened are :-

SAP Mobile Platform - Sybase Unwired Platform, Mobilizer and Syclo all got mashed together and stamped SMP 3.0. SMP is also offered as a Cloud Edition for the SAP Productivity Mobile Apps. Good links are available here.

Fiori was born which is the brand name for a bunch (currently 25 - but growing) SAPUI5/Gateway apps that allow simplified access to SAP Business Suite from your desktop, tablet and phone (or phablet) - These can be added to and extended and show that the best architectural option for building UI's on top of SAP Business Suite is definately SAPUI5 (or your UI technology of choice) and SAP NetWeaver Gateway.

SAP Screen Personas was also born and whilst in the initial release this only allowed SAPGUI to be skinned with Microsoft Silverlight, it now supports SAPUI5 as well (with some restrictions).

So how might these developments impact your decisions for a UI renovation project ?

Below I have included an example decision tree that I developed (sorry for the size....), your specific version of this will be different based on your IT landscape, unique use-cases and your personal preferences.

One option missing is what you do if you have WebDynpro / BSP / CRMUI screens that you wanted to "Personas" (a common question I am asked) - it doesn't seem that SAP has plans for a tool here (but the frameworks are being supported), so I have been looking at Capriza as an option - the topic of another blog in the future.