I attended my first Tech Ed this year and have been greatly impressed mainly because of hands-on that we get to do on the latest technologies. I got a chance to attend some of the sessions at Tech Ed Bangalore this year that allowed me to have a look at new features and functionalities planned in Web Dynpro ABAP.There have always been great amount of similarities in the way SAP CRM and Web Dynpro applications are developed and concepts involved such as context nodes, view/component controllers, inbound-outbound plugs. Even some of classes in SAP CRM contain WD(Web Dynpro?) in their name - CL_BSP_WD* classes, transaction for component workbench is BSP_WD_CMPWB and so on.
Here are some of the new ones that I was unware of until recently:
- BOL coming to Web Dynpro along with Genil Layer – Objects are called as nodes.
- BOL is framed as ‘timeless software’ – nice to hear, hope we had that feel-good-term while working in SAP CRM as well.
- Business Object Processing Framework (similar to post processing framework?)
- Application Enhancement Tool (CRM), Application Creation Tool (Web Dynpro Floor Plan Manager)
- View Configuration (CRM), Configuration Editor FLUID (floor plan manager) – remember ‘Show Configurable Areas’ button on SAP CRM WebUI – we have it in WDA also.
It would be interesting to see how CRM future enhancement packs look like (I could see some new features in recently added release notes for 7.0 EHP2). With Web Dynpro already building lots of wizards allowing development of rapid deployment solution(RDS), how much investment would SAP do to bring innovation and improvements in CRM UI leveraging all the advantages that BSP (scripting?) has to offer. Though SAP CRM WebUI Framework and Web Dynpro would continue to have enhancements and grow as separate entities as per last UI Technologies Roadmap release of SAP, but I see a lot more enhancements and innovation going on in Web Dynpro framework technology, probably because it is now a standard for all Business Suite applications.
Does Web Dynpro FloorPlan Manager utilize same WEBCUIF framework(Bol/Genil, component workbench?), is SAP CRM framework going to utilize WDA FPM framework in long term Roadmap? Was SAP CRM framework a successful experiment that is now being deployed to WDA(Bol/Genil again) 🙂 Would SAP CRM continue to innovate and stand on its own without being outgrown by WDA? These are interesting times and I feel lucky to be part of the change and I am sure that as much as we need to upgrade ourselves, SAP has got a much bigger task adapting latest UI technologies (did I mention HTML5@SAP, replacing silverlight/flash technologies,mobile technology choices and licensing models?).
