What is SAP Fiori Launchpad?

SAP Fiori Launchpad is the web-based central entry point for SAP Fiori applications and other SAP business applications. It is designed to provide an intuitive, personalized, and role-based user interface that offers a consistent and simplified consumer-grade user experience across SAP products and various devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops. Typically, it serves as a homepage for users to access their business-related apps, displayed as tiles or links.

SAP Fiori Launchpad is designed to provide a rich set of features such as:

• role-based content,
• personalization,
• responsive design,
• intuitive and intent-based navigation,
• tiles and groups,
• App finder,
• enterprise search,
• notifications,
• extensibility,
• integration with classic UIs,
• user action menu,
• spaces and pages.

We will delve deeper into these features in this blog post.

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Transaction Codes to Launch SAP Fiori Launchpad

What Are the Main Elements of SAP Fiori Launchpad?

SAP Fiori Launchpad is a shell that hosts applications and services, providing core UI elements, such as the home page, spaces, user actions menu, and notifications, to structure navigation, personalization, and the overall user experience.

• Home Page It is the initial screen or default landing area that users see upon logging into Fiori Launchpad and finding their assigned apps. Users can organize these apps for quick access. The home page is composed of tiles/cards, links, and groups. Tiles can serve as visual representations of apps, analytics, or system functions and can be organized into groups that represent various types of apps.

• Spaces: Fiori Launchpad provides a new concept of representation and structure for content in the form of spaces. There could be one or more pages in each space, and each page can contain several sections and applications, providing a more logical flow and reducing clutter. It is a scalable and organized approach compared to a traditional homepage with only groups. Previously, Fiori Launchpad had only the home page, and all the tiles and groups could be configured only on that home page, as shown in the illustration below.

The home page offers a flat structure, while spaces provide a more hierarchical arrangement of applications, such as those based on roles or departments, e.g., Sales Space and Finance Space.

• User Actions Menu (Me Area): The user settings menu is mainly placed on the top right corner of the Fiori Launchpad in a shell bar. It serves as a central hub for user-specific services and settings, offering users’ settings such as themes, preferences, an app finder, recently used links and apps, an About applet, a sign-out option, a support and feedback area, and a section where users can upload their profile picture or avatar.

• Notifications: Also called Notification Center. It is a centralized location for users to receive and manage messages and system-generated alerts within the Fiori Launchpad. This section is also typically located in the top right section, alongside the search and Me Area, and is identified by a bell icon. Notifications include real-time alerts such as workflow tasks, overdue items, system messages, approvals required, or information from integrated applications or different resources. Many notifications are action-based, and users can open the relevant apps when they click on them. Notifications and alerts can be sorted by other criteria, such as type or date, or can be color-coded based on priority levels, including low, medium, and high.

What Are Components in SAP Fiori Launchpad?

SAP Fiori Launchpad comprises several key modular components that work together to build the structure and functionality of the home page and other pages, providing a seamless and intuitive user experience.

• Tile: A tile is a container, visual and interactive components of an application link, report, or any other content, such as KPIs, which are accessible from Fiori Launchpad. Tiles are the primary elements on the homepage or within spaces, providing quick and easy access to SAP functions. Tiles are designed to be informative and can be static, displaying fixed icons and app information, or dynamic, providing real-time insights such as the number of tasks, alerts, or KPIs. Dynamic tiles are automatically updated to display information without requiring users to access the corresponding application. Users can add, remove, or rearrange these tiles into separate groups to personalize their home page according to their requirements. These tiles are designed to provide responsiveness, automatically adjusting to the device type and screen size.

• App Finder: The app finder, previously known as tile catalog, is a central repository in the Fiori Launchpad for users to find and add available applications to their home page or space. It provides a list of all applications for which the user is authorized to access, based on their roles and responsibilities. Users can search different app categories, look for specific apps, and then pin them to their app groups, making it an essential tool for content discovery.

• Shell Bar: The shell bar is a horizontal bar on top of Fiori Launchpad, providing navigation across core services such as key elements like SAP logo, replaceable by company logo, home button, back navigation button, enterprise search field, notification center icon, user action menu, CoPilot icon if enabled and title of the app name. The shell bar is always visible regardless of the application you are currently using.

• Enterprise Search: It is a global search functionality directly integrated into the shell bar of Fiori Launchpad, enabling users to search different business objects such as customer sales orders, customers, products, financial documents or materials, and other applications in the SAP system. Enterprise searches enable users to locate specific business data and associated applications, providing type-ahead suggestions and categories that reduce search time and enhance productivity.

• Services: Services refer to the background functional and technical capabilities in the Fiori Launchpad, enabling its operation and support. Though services are not directly visible to users as UI elements, they are fundamental for the functionality of Fiori Launchpad. These services include personalization, navigation, role management and authorization, shell, search, app state, notification, and analytical services.

• System Information Bar: It is a specific component of SAP S/4HANA systems, providing quick technical details about the backend system, in a bar displayed mostly on top of the page above the Fiori Launchpad shell bar. SAP provides its S/4HANA customers and partners with a three-system landscape: a test system, a development system, and a production system. This bar is activated by default for testing and development systems, allowing users to quickly identify the system to which they are connected. The information typically includes system ID, Client ID, User ID, Server name, or release information. Administrators can customize this bar to display additional information.

How Does SAP Fiori Launchpad Work?

The SAP Fiori Launchpad serves as a central gateway, providing users with access to their assigned business applications in a personalized experience.

Help Functionality as Guided Tour

With the SAP S/4HANA 2021 release, the Fiori Launchpad offers help functionality in the form of a guided tour, accessible through the help icon in the Launchpad shell bar. Once activated, the guided tour provides context-sensitive information to relevant applications, including general help on setting up Fiori Launchpad. The Help panel in the shell bar displays additional help topics related to specific application setup, if integrated and activated by the organization. The Quick Tour is primarily managed and hosted by the SAP Content Server. Customers can also host it, and a combination of both can be used.

Below are the key steps on how the Fiori Launchpad works.

Step 1. User Authentication and Role Assignment

Users enter the SAP Fiori Launchpad access URL provided by their organization into an HTML5-supported browser, which directs them to the Fiori Launchpad login screen. The URL is often in one of the two forms below; the first one is available since the start of SAP Fiori.

https://<server>:<port>/sap/bc/ui5_ui5/ui2/ushell/shells/abap/FioriLaunchpad.html

SAP has been shortening the URL to make it easier to remember, and later provided this shorter URL for accessing FLP.

https://<host>:<port>/sap/bc/ui2/flp

Users reach the Fiori Launchpad login screen, where they provide their credentials, such as username and password, and MFA credentials (if enabled) to be authenticated against the backend SAP system.

After authentication, the system performs role mapping by checking the roles assigned to the user, which define which applications, data, and functions the user is authorized to access and view.

Step 2. Content Aggregation and Personalization

Fiori Launchpad queries the backend system, retrieves, and aggregates all relevant content based on the user’s roles, including spaces/pages, tiles, and the shell bar.

Fiori Launchpad also loads the saved personalization settings, such as custom tile arrangements in the form of groups (e.g., To-Do, Pages, Apps, or Insights), or a theme.

Step 3. Navigation and App Discovery

After the homepage is loaded with all personalized settings, users can then interact with the Launchpad to find applications and use other elements for various activities, such as launching applications from tiles or using the app finder from the user action menu, which are not available on the home page. Users can perform a search for objects or business data using the Enterprise Search field, etc.

Step 4. Application Launch and Execution

When users click on a tile to open the relevant application, Launchpad determines the associated application type, such as SAPUI5 app, Web Dynpro app, or SAP GUI for HTML transactions.

The application communicates with the backend SAP server using OData services for Fiori Apps or other protocols to retrieve and show the data on the screen.

Step 5. Interaction with Shell Services

Fiori Launchpad background services remain active throughout the session, providing consistent functionalities such as shell bar services, which continue to offer navigation through the home button or back button. Notification services continuously update and provide new alerts, messages, and notifications from the backend system. The user action menu is always active, providing all its features in real-time, along with contextual services such as displaying the application title.

Step 6. Session Management

Fiori Launchpad focuses on user session handling, timeouts, automatic sign-out, and security. Administrators can set the automatic sign-out parameters with session expiration or time-out values. Reminder notifications about session expiration can be displayed to users, allowing them to perform an activity to keep the session alive. Alternatively, users can choose to sign out manually from the user action menu. When a session to Fiori Launchpad expires, all the underlying connections or sessions to backend systems are also terminated for security purposes.

Fiori Launchpad Key Features and Benefits

Feature	Description	Benefits
Spaces and Pages	A hierarchical model for improved content organization, featuring the logical grouping of applications into spaces and pages based on specific roles.	More precise and intuitive arrangement of many applications, improved usability by easy navigation, scalability for an enormous number of applications and roles.
Role-Based Content	Shows only applications, information, and data based on the user’s role and authorizations.	Users see only what they need by reducing application overload, clutter, and improving productivity, while also enhancing security through role-based access to sensitive data and functions.
Personalization	Enables users to customize their home page by adding and removing tiles, groups, or applying themes to make a personalized view.	Users can create their work environment according to their preferences to achieve higher satisfaction and comfort, without resistance to system changes.
Responsive Design	The application’s layout and appearance are optimized to accommodate various device screen sizes, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops.	This provides mobility, allowing users to work on any device, at any time, and from anywhere. It offers a consistent experience with increased flexibility, look, and feel, and reduces the learning curve.
Intuitive Navigation	Provides intent-based navigation, seamless transition between relevant applications, and universal shell bar functions.	Easily understandable, this reduces the learning curve, facilitates faster task completion between business processes, and improves user experience with a logical flow.
Tiles (Static and Dynamic)	Visual representation of insights and applications, static tiles with simple information to dynamic tiles with real-time data display or KPIs.	Users receive real-time information in tiles without needing to open the application, highlighting critical data, pending approvals, and a more informative and interactive system.
App Finder	Provides access to the central applications catalog for discovery and adding them to their home page.	Provides a self-service feature that enables users to find and add relevant applications, thereby reducing the need for IT support.
Enterprise Search	A global search function that enables users to search for business applications and objects.	Users can quickly find specific data, such as sales orders or customer details, across the entire system. Increased efficiency and data accessibility.
Notifications	A centralized notifications center to display messages, alerts, and workflow tasks with app links to take actions.	Real-time information to take timely actions, reduce delays, and improve decision-making.
Integration with Classic UIs	Provides a single entry point for modern SAP Fiori and classic SAP GUI applications.	Unified experience for all SAP applications, reduced complexity, phased modernization to Fiori.
Shell Bar	Provides a navigation bar with search, notifications, user menu, help links, and fields.	Intuitive and consistent navigation across all applications.
Embedded Analytics	Provides KPI tiles and analytical cards on Launchpad with real-time insights.	Provides data and information-driven decision-making without launching the relevant application.
Themes and Language settings	Users can apply different themes and select their preferred language.	Provides diverse accessibility features and user preferences.
Cross-App state retention	Fiori Launchpad preserves the state of the application the user is working on, including their sorting, filtering, and scrolling conditions.	Enables users to resume from where they left off, improving task continuity.
SAP CoPilot integration	Provides the capability of integrating SAP’s AI-based digital assistant in the Launchpad shell bar.	Enables users to converse and interact with SAP workflows and data using CoPilot and to use suggestions.

Variants of SAP Fiori Launchpad

SAP Fiori Launchpad offers various deployment options or variants tailored to customer requirements and landscape, determining where the Launchpad is technically hosted and how it integrates with the backend system and services.

SAP Fiori Launchpad on SAP Business Suite or SAP S/4HANA (On-premises Solutions)

This is the traditional and common approach for organizations running their own on-premises SAP ERP, SRM, CRM, and S/4HANA systems. Fiori Launchpad runs on a front-end server (FES) as an ABAP system, serving as a central hub for all Fiori Launchpad UIs and managing communications with backend services via SAP Gateway, including OData services.

• Users launch Fiori Launchpad using web browsers.
• Authentication is managed via FES.
• PFCG roles manage authorization to determine which catalogs, spaces, and groups are assigned to the user.
• Launchpad retrieves the content, such as spaces, pages, tiles, and groups, from the FES server.
• Launchpad consumes OData services exposed by SAP Gateway on FES. OData services retrieve data from respective backend systems such as SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA.

SAP Fiori launchpad on SAP Enterprise Portal

Organizations that have invested heavily in SAP Enterprise Portal use this variant as a central UI for their users to integrate Fiori Launchpad applications and the Fiori experience. Launchpad and other Fiori applications are integrated into SAP Enterprise Portal using Portal iViews or pages, making it a central entry point for users, navigation, content aggregation, and role management, along with other non-Fiori portal content. This approach can add complexity to content management as compared to front-end deployment.

• Users access the SAP Enterprise Portal through its URL.
• Portal manages user authentication.
• Roles are defined at the Enterprise Portal level to determine the authorization for content and applications.
• As the Fiori Launchpad is embedded in the Enterprise portal, it manages the content retrieval by communicating to FES, which then connects to the backend and OData services to render Fiori apps.
• The Enterprise Portal communicates with FES, which then talks to backend services to render Fiori apps by accessing OData services.

SAP Fiori launchpad on SAP BTP via SAP Launchpad service

This variant of Fiori Launchpad is cloud-native and utilizes the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), previously known as SAP Cloud Platform Launchpad services, to deliver Fiori Launchpad as a managed service. This variant can be used in hybrid scenarios where cloud-first is the primary strategy, but it also requires integration with various on-premises SAP solutions. It enables organizations to create a central, personalized, and role-based entry point for multiple applications, including Fiori apps, non-Fiori cloud solutions from SAP, third-party applications, and on-premises SAP systems.

• Users access the SAP Launchpad service URL hosted on SAP BTP.
• SAP BTP manages authentication via its Identity Authentication Service (IAS).
• SAP BTP environment is used for role management and mapping to retrieve content from underlying different systems.
• SAP launchpad service does not store the application content itself. Still, it federates them from different underlying systems, such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud, S/4HANA on-premises, SAP BTP applications, or other SAP cloud solutions and non-SAP applications.
• When users launch an application from a tile, the Launchpad service redirects the request or embeds the application from the underlying relevant system.

SAP Fiori Launchpad Updates

SAP offers minor new features, technical improvements, and bug fixes in the Support Pack (SP) levels, such as SP00 and SP02, as part of SAP’s common release strategies, including the SAP UI 7.53 software component. These support packs contain a section called “What’s New,” which typically provides minor enhancements rather than major new features for these updates. Major innovations often accompany new releases of SAP UI components, such as SAP UI 7.54 or SAP UI 7.55.

SAP_UI_753 SP00

This software component pack introduces the main new features and improvements in SAP Fiori Launchpad.

Configuring the Launchpad in Customizing (New)

Previously, Launchpad settings could be configured using Launchpad configuration files or in target mapping. SP00 introduces Fiori Launchpad configurations in the SAP Fiori Customizing section as follows.

In SAP Reference IMG (transaction SPRO)èchoose SAP NetWeaverèUI TechnologiesèSAP FiorièConfiguring SAP Fiori Launchpad. Under this path, you can find several customization activities. SAP notes that Launchpad configuration files may no longer be supported in the future and recommends using Customizing instead. Fiori Launchpad plugins can also be configured and activated using Customizing.

Configuring the Tile Size in the Launchpad (New)

Administrators can adjust various parameter settings of the Fiori Launchpad through Customizing on the front-end server. These include feedback, support tickets, homepage personalization, App Finder, and Tiles.

Logging URL Tiles and Custom Tiles in the User Activity Lists (New)

Developers can implement URL tiles and custom tiles using an API to display them in the user’s Recent Activity and Frequently Used list in the Me Area section.

Opening apps in Lean Mode (New)

When end users open an app by right-clicking on the tile, it opens in lean mode to improve performance and usability, but the Back button, Search, Home, and Notifications sections are not displayed in the Shell Header bar.

In addition to these new features, there are improvements in SAP Fiori Launchpad performance, allowing developers to enhance loading speed. There are also performance enhancements for launching SAP GUI for HTML applications.

SAP_UI_753 SP02

This software component pack introduces new features and improvements in existing ones for SAP Fiori Launchpad. This version includes SAPUI5 version 1.60.

Placeholder for Empty Groups (Changed)

The placeholder for empty groups, such as the plus sign, is removed. Now, you can drag a tile to the title of an empty group, and the tile area will appear, suggesting the tile can be moved there.

Tile Size Configuration (Changed)

Administrators can enable the feature for users to change the size of tiles displayed on the home page or in the Me Area.

Link Personalization (New)

Administrators can enable the feature that allows end users to edit and delete links on the home page. They can also convert tiles to links and vice versa.

Currency Settings (Changed)

Currency settings can now be read from FioringLaunchpad.html (frontend); the number of decimal places has been adjusted for some currencies.

App Finder (Changed)

Administrators can now choose how to display apps in App Finder, with options to show apps as app boxes or as tiles.

Keeping SAPUI5 Apps Alive (New)

Administrators can now maintain SAPUI5 apps to preserve their state when users navigate between different applications.

Running Standalone Applications (Deprecated)

Running standalone applications is no longer supported following the SAP S/4HANA version 1909.