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Murali_Shanmu
Active Contributor

As most of you are aware SAP Fiori is the new user experience (UX) for SAP software that applies modern design principles. SAP Fiori Cloud Edition (SFCE) is a one of the deployment options for SAP Fiori which simplifies the overall SAP Fiori implementation process and accelerates time-to- value. SFCE is one of the services which runs on SAP HANA Cloud Platform which securely connects to the customers’ Business Suite system which is located within their premise. This service was generally available(GA) end of Q1.

In this blog, I wanted to show how easy it is for a customer to enable Fiori Apps for their SAP Business Suite systems. I am going to take an example of a customer who is running a SAP CRM system. This customer wants to rejuvenate their UX experience and adopt Fiori UX. They also want to do this quickly and don’t want to spend much time on procuring their infrastructure and installing software on their on-premise Gateway system.

                                                      

In the above high-level architecture slide, HANA Cloud Connector is the critical piece which helps in setting up a SSL Tunnel between the On-premise SAP backend system and the Fiori Apps hosted on HCP. Business data is not persisted in the cloud. Business data is only pulled from the backend system via the Cloud Connector and displayed on the Fiori Apps. HCP OData Provisioning (HCP-ODP) service comes along with SFCE and it acts as a Gateway as Hub on the cloud. With HCP-ODP, customers no longer need to maintain a Gateway as Hub infrastructure within their premise. As of today, there are 33 Fiori Apps available as part of SFCE which communicates to the backend systems via HCP-ODP.

Below are the high-level steps a customer would need to follow to quickly enable Fiori Apps.

Identify the Fiori Apps available in the Fiori reference Library

Most of you might be aware of the Fiori Reference Library . There is now a new option to filter Apps based on HCP. In my example, I am looking to enable the CRM Appointments Apps. Hence, I search for this App and examine the components which are required for this App. Since this is a SFCE deployment, I only need to ensure that the backend component BBPCRM is on the right level.  Unlike few of the HCM Fiori Apps, there is no need to install any separate ABAP Add-ons to the CRM system to enable the Appointment App. As long as you are on a fairly latest CRM version, you can straightaway start to configure and implement these CRM Fiori Apps.


                        

Configure your backend OData services

Follow the SAP help documentation specific to the Fiori App to activate the OData services (using SICF) and setup your roles based on the templates which are provided.

In the below SICF transaction, I have activated the OData service


                                       

Install & Setup HANA Cloud Connector

The CRM system I am using has the name QHD.  Below are the steps which I have performed.

  1. Install HANA Cloud Connector(HCC) & Setup a connection with the HCP account which is going to use the QHD system. This will establish a SSL Tunnel with the HCP account.
  2. Add the QHD CRM system under Access Controls. Note that I have provided a virtual hostname for the QHD system which I have configured.
  3. As a HCC administrator, I have full control on what resources of QHD system I need to expose to this particular HCP account. Hence, I have added these two services which be needed for HCP-ODP service.

       

                                  

Enable HCP OData Provisioning

Log in to your HCP account and enable OData Provisioning Service. OData Provisioning is a Gateway Hub service on HCP to expose SAP Business Suite services on the cloud.

       

                                          

Click on “Configure OData Provisioning” and add a new destination for QHD system pointing to the virtual hostname (provided in the Cloud Connector earlier). Notice that I have hard coded my user credentials. In productive scenarios, this should be set to “Principal Propagation”.

                                           

Navigate to the HCP-ODP service browse all your OData services available in the respective backend system and register them. In the below screen, I have registered the OData services for Appointment and Opportunity service.

                                  

Finally, add a destination in the HCP Cockpit for the HCP-ODP service.  This step is necessary for Fiori Cloud Portal (which is part of SFCE) to communicate with HCP-ODP service.

                                     

Below ais the explantation for few of the fields in the Destination

Name: Any name you prefer. I have given GWaaS.

URL: Points to the HCP-ODP service within the account.

Authentication: Set to “AppToAppSSO” as this is required for Fiori Cloud Portal to interact with HCP-ODP service.

Additional Properties: To enable using the QHD OData services in WebIDE. Since “AppToAppSSO” is enabled, WebIDE will communicate with HCP-ODP without any login prompt

Enable and configure the Cloud Portal

Fiori Cloud Edition is based on the HANA Cloud Portal. We need to first enable HANA Cloud Portal service.

                                  

If you are developer/admin, ensure TENANT_ADMIN role is assigned to you.

                   

Next, launch the Portal service by clicking on “Go to Service”. By default there would be portal site called “SAP” which has got all the Fiori Apps and a sample catalog/group. Customers need to create their own site and accordingly create catalog/groups for their Fiori Apps. For now, I am going to just test the “SAP” site by clicking on the site.

                   

This should open a Fiori Launchpad as shown below. Notice there are errors for all the Apps.

                   

If you click on “My Appointments” app, it will throw an error message stating that the OData service is not reachable.

                   

The reason being we have not yet done the configurations to point to our backend CRM system QHD.

Navigate to subscriptions menu in the HCP cockpit. You will find list of all the provisioned Fiori Apps. Open the Fiori App for “My Appointments”. If you are not sure which one it is, you can always refer to the Fiori Reference Library to identify the technical name of the Fiori App.

                   

Notice that the default mapped destination “SAP_Gateway”.  This needs to be changed to a destination which we have created earlier.

                   

Change it to the destination “GWaaS” which I created earlier. This destination points to the HCP-ODP service.

                   

Now, refresh the Site and try to access the Appointment App. It should pick up all the Appointments which are maintained against the user account in the backend CRM system.

                    

As you can see it is not hard to connect Fiori Apps on the cloud with your on-premise systems. I think the biggest advantage of this approach is that

1) Customers no longer need to apply updates to either  Fiori App or the SAPUI5 library. Imagine if there is a new UI control which gets released as part of the latest SAPUI5 library, you can start using these controls when you build your own apps on HCP rather than planning to patch your gateway system and regression testing your applications.

2) Reduction in TCO as you no longer need to host and maintain a Gateway system in your premise

Hear what other customers are talking about Fiori Cloud Edition.

Credits
  • elizabeth.thorburn
  • suparna.deb

Hope you found this blog helpful.

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