Creating Apps From Scratch

If you decide not to use the Wizard, you can still create a new Android Studio project and then build an app using the SDK libraries, or add the SDK to an existing project. To do this, you'll need to modify the top-level and module-level build.gradle files manually to include all required repositories, dependencies, and settings.

The top-level file stores configuration options common to all sub-projects/modules. The module-level file stores options for your new app.

To generate proxy class Java files, use either the OData Gradle Plugin or the Proxy Generator CLI tool. Both tools are included in the software package.

To use the OData Gradle Plugin, modify the two build.gradle files to add the plugin as a dependency and configure it as required. To use the Proxy Generator CLI tool, open a command prompt and enter the required command. See Using the OData Proxy Class Generator Command-line Tool for more information.

Prerequisites

You have run the installation script to install the SDK. See Installing the SAP SDK for Android for more information.

Procedure

1. From the Android Studio Welcome screen, select Start a new Android Studio project and complete the Create New Project wizard. Refer to your Android Studio documentation for further information.

2. From the project tool window, navigate to the appropriate folder and open the build.gradle file in the editor window.

   For the top-level file, go to <yourproject> > gradle. For the module-level app, go to <yourproject> > app.

3. Add the required dependencies to the project

4. Generate OData proxy classes. See Using the Gradle Tool to Generate Proxy Classes for more information.
5. To ensure you can debug your new project, enable trace logging for your project; see Debugging.

Adding Required Repositories to Your Project

Add all required repositories including the local Maven repository to your project by modifying the app module build.gradle file for your project.

From Android Studio, open the top-level build.gradle file and add the following to all the repositories blocks:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        google()
        jcenter()
        mavenLocal()
    }
}
allprojects {
    repositories {
        google()
        jcenter()
        mavenLocal()
    }
}

Alternatively, we offer a better similar way to well-known public repositories such as Maven Central, Bintray and JCenter: The SAP Cloud Shipment channel. In this very specific case of the Android SDK, we are talking about a customer-facing Maven repository that you can configure in your projects to consume the SAP SDK for Android without any additional manual downloads. We finally publish Android SDK libraries via SAP-hosted Maven infrastructure in the DMZ. The process to use this is:

• Obtain a technical user from the SAP Repositories Management site, and download the Basic Auth Password file. See Creating Required Credentials for further details.
• Set the user credentials in ENV (SAP_MAVEN_USER, SAP_MAVEN_PASSWORD)
• Create a $HOME/.gradle/init.gradle script with the following contents:

allprojects {
     ext.SAPRepoConfig = {
         maven {
             url "https://73555000100800001281.maven.repositories.sapcdn.io"
             credentials {
                 username "$System.env.SAP_MAVEN_USER"
                 password "$System.env.SAP_MAVEN_PASSWORD"
             }
         }
     }
     buildscript.repositories SAPRepoConfig
     repositories SAPRepoConfig
 }

Now all Android projects will also fetch dependencies from SAP infrastructure.

Note

You can add the above Maven project to your project repositories in the app module build.gradle file, the above settings can be maintained on the project level.

Adding Project Dependencies

Add one or more of the SDK for Android components as required for your mobile application. The SDK includes the following libraries:

Library	Gradle Dependency Line
Fiori	com.sap.cloud.android:fiori:3.2.0
Foundation	com.sap.cloud.android:foundation:3.2.0
OData	com.sap.cloud.android:odata:3.2.0
Offline OData	com.sap.cloud.android:offline-odata:3.2.0
Onboarding	com.sap.cloud.android:onboarding:3.2.0
OnboardingFlows WelcomeScreen	com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-welcomescreen:3.2.0
OnboardingFlows Basic Authentication	com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-basicauth:3.2.0
OnboardingFlows OAuth	com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-oauth:3.2.0
OnboardingFlows SAML	com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-saml:3.2.0
OnboardingFlows OTP	com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-otp:3.2.0
OnboardingFlows StoreManager	com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-storemanager:3.2.0
OnboardingFlows Logging	com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-logging:3.2.0
OnboardingFlows EULA	com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-eula:3.2.0
Google Vision	com.sap.cloud.android:google-vision:3.2.0

Add the following SDK libraries as dependencies to your module-level build.gradle file:

dependencies {
    def versions =  [sapCloudAndroidSdk: '3.2.0']

    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:fiori:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:foundation:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:odata:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:offline-odata:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:onboarding:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-welcomescreen:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-basicauth:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-oauth:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-saml:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-otp:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-storemanager:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-logging:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:onboardingflows-eula:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
    implementation "com.sap.cloud.android:google-vision:$versions.sapCloudAndroidSdk"
}

If you intend to enable logging, include logback-android dependencies to this enclosure:

dependencies {
    ...
    implementation 'com.github.tony19:logback-android:2.0.0'
}

Using these libraries will require multiDex. To enable this for your project, add the following to the defaultConfig section of your module-level build.gradle file:

android {
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        multiDexEnabled true
    }
    ...
}

Update the target SDK version and compatibility versions as follows to your module-level build.gradle file:

android {
    compileSdkVersion 28
    ...
    compileOptions {
        targetCompatibility 1.8
        sourceCompatibility 1.8
    }
}

Initializing SDK

Since there are many modules in the Foundation component, using them in the client code to integrate your application with SAP Mobile Services will require lots of boilerplate code in the mobile application. To reduce the boilerplate code from your mobile application, a new API SDKInitializer.start is introduced as below:

object SDKInitializer {
    fun start(
        application: Application,
        vararg services: MobileService,
        apiKey: String? = null) {
        ...
    }
}

The parameters are explained below:

1. Application

   This parameter represents the running Android app.

2. MobileService... services

   This parameter represents all the services to be initialized in your application. Currently the following services are supported:

   • ClientResourceService to download client resources automatically;
   • LogService to setup the log settings and upload logs automatically;
   • PushService to enable Firebase messaging service in your application;
   • ClientPolicyService to download client policies automatically;
   • UsageService to leverage the auto session, auto upload and other client usage features;
   • UserRoleService to download user role information automatically;

   This parameter takes a service object, which contains configuration properties for most of the services, as the value. For example, the UsageService can configure auto session features and set the usage store name. If you want to use customized configurations, you can do so before calling the start method.

   Please follow the links above to see the details.

3. API Key

   This parameter represents the optional API key, which allows apps to interact with mobile services before authentication is performed. Each MobileService can make use of the API key to interact with mobile services during the initialization process.

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Last update: January 25, 2021