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Former Member
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Authors

Gangadharayya Hiremath, Mindtree Ltd. (gangadharayya_hiremath@mindtree.com)



Summary

This whitepaper describes importance of portal on device in the organization’s IT landscape as the usage of mobile device for the organization activity is increasing rapidly. Most of  management and people who involve in decisional activities rely on mobile for the critical information as they will be on move or need to work on multiple locations, multiple areas. White paper attempts to explain how this need of management can be fulfilled by Portal on Device. White paper discusses the SAP UI road map by referring SAP official UI roadmap documents.



Applies to

  • SAP NetWeaver Application Server
  • SAP NetWeaver Portal
  • SAP GUI
  • SAP Portal on Device

Keywords

Portal on Device, SAP Portal, SAPUI5, Authentication

Introduction

SAP Enterprise Portal (EP) has been gateway to SAP business software from the point internet became way of working for all organizations.  Enterprise Portal has evolved and adopted based on industry needs with federation, external facing, third party tools integration and many more features along the long journey. Almost all organizations which have SAP business software would have invested in EP as it was inevitable to make applications available on secured internet (VPN).

With mobility becoming ubiquitous and one of the important way for globalized business running as decisions, information flow has to be pretty fast and on the finger tips; mobility has become necessity. As EP was single point of entry for enterprise applications; organizations would have invested lot in EP infrastructure, customization, and custom objects development. Organizations that have invested already in EP would like to extend and use SAP EP on the mobile. SAP EP based Portal on Device is the answer for this.

What

                Portal on Device (POD) is a feature in EP 7.3 SP 5 onwards which provides capabilities to access EP on the mobile device.  POD enables mobility without additional investments in the form of license or infrastructure. With out of the box features from SP 8 onwards, it is still more powerful. Current setup of security, UME, user session management can be extended to POD. Modifying of existing applications (limitations though) can make them available on device. As can be seen from below architecture diagram(taken from net resource), if EP is enabled to internet; with few configurations POD can be achieved.

Getting into more details on how to enable portal on device; following activities have to be performed in SP8 onwards:

  1. a. a) Configuring support for html5 in NWA
  2. b. b) Enabling filtering portal content by desktop
  3. c. c) Assigning mobile roles

  In SP5 portal; following activities have to be performed.

  1. a. a) Deploying the POD software package
  2. b. b) Creating the mobile portal framework
  3. c. c) Creating and configuring the mobile framework page
  4. d. d) Adding a header less page to mobile desktop
  5. e. e) Creating desktop for the mobile framework page
  6. f. f) Creating desktop rule

Why

POD is essential and can go long way in fulfilling the need of current and future as mobile devices, network technologies are witnessing revolution and becoming more powerful and in some contexts are comparable to desktops and laptops. User productivity can be improved by enabling business software applications accessibility on mobile devices. With SAPUI5 becoming important UI technology and SAP investing heavily in SAP Fiori; POD can be powerful feature which all the organizations were, are and will be looking for.

How

Portal on Device is powerful and trump card feature of SAP EP 7.3 as it can change the perception of SAP EP usage and overcome current limitations of SAP EP. With SAPUI5 capabilities being incorporated in SAP EP and hoping to make Web Dynpro ABAP UI technology compatible for POD; SAP EP can become world’s leading tool which provides mobile capability to business software. By small modification of existing applications; we can make them available in POD which helps in reaping on investments organizations have done from years.

When

POD has come at the right time and organizations should not delay in using this feature as mobility is necessity and buzzword in the current business era. If SAP comes up with SAPUI5 applications for accessing business software as it has already done with some HR applications in the form of SAP Fiori; then organizations can incorporate the new business components in their landscape.

Biggest advantage of POD are continue to use existing landscape in the same way and if needed use it on mobile devices without any additional investments.

SAP UI Roadmap

SAP UI technologies over the years as shown in above graphic(taken from SCN site) has evolved from black and white plain screen to jazzy SAPUI5 with in between powerful UI technologies like SAP GUI - the ITS one, Web Dynpro for JAVA, Web Dynpro for ABAP, Adobe Interactive forms as options.

As shown in below graphic, SAPUI5 and FPM framework for Web Dynpro are major UI technologies as per SAP UI roadmap. With SAP App Designer; SAPUI5 applications can be designed. Gateway plays important role in SAPUI5 applications development as can be seen from below graphic.

POD can and will be one of the powerful feature of EP which can change the way SAP business software  was perceived by end users as they will be delighted with accessibility on the mobile device with all the security, performance, usability, scalability, robustness taken care of

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