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Managing SAP Mobile Cards

Abstract

All the features and guides useful for an SAP Mobile Cards Administrator are listed on this page.

Administrators can use the SAP mobile service cockpit and other tools to manage and monitor native, hybrid, and Web mobile applications. Managing includes defining and configuring applications, monitoring applications and application usage, viewing statistics and logs, checking system health, and troubleshooting problems.

The administrator provisions applications to devices through native application stores, or through enterprise Website downloads. When a user logs in to an application (or accesses the application as an anonymous user), the application+user+device combination is registered in SAP mobile service cockpit, enabling access to individual user's usage statistics.

The mobile services are hosted on top of SAP Business Technology Platform. To perform Admin-related actions, mobile services provides a cockpit where admins can manage admin actions.

Tip

Follow this tutorial to setup SAP Mobile Cards.

Button Details
Initialize Creates a new service instance for SAP Mobile Cards
Restore Restores the service instance to the default state.
Clicking Restore results in the deletion of existing cards.
Integrate Workflow Integrates SAP Mobile Cards with SAP Workflow. It automatically creates the Workflow Form card and the destination. You can use the iOS and Android application to interact with the Workflow service.
Integrate Workflow appears only if the Workflow Form card is not created.
Enable Detailed Event Log Enable detailed event logging for the Cloud Build standalone service on SAP mobile service cockpit.
To see the detailed event log related to the build process for the cloud build, enable the detailed event log for the cloud build feature at the application level.
Disable Detailed Event Log Disable detailed event logging for the Cloud Build standalone service on SAP mobile service cockpit.
When disabled, error logging continues but the detailed create, read, update, and delete operations are not included.

Card Templates Tab

Card Types Table

The Card Types Table lists all of the cards that have been deployed to SAP mobile service cockpit, irrespective of the Card Type.

Note

SAP Mobile Services on CF Trial supports only 5 card types.

Table Actions

Button Details
refresh
Refresh
Refresh the table to fetch the latest list of card types.
create
Create Card Template
Create a New Card Template. Cards can be developed on either SAP Business Application Studio or SAP Web IDE.
sort
Sort
Sort the items of the Card Types table.
Search Custom Cards Search for a card in the table.

Card Actions

Button Details
edit
Edit existing SAP Custom Card definitions
Edit the Card Template.
delete
Delete
Delete all versions of the Card Type.
along-stacked-chart
QR code to add a card
Scanning this QR Code will subscribe to the Card Type and add relevant card instances in the client.
download
Export Card Type
Export the archived version of your Card Type.
You can import the exported file in SAP Web IDE or SAP Business Application Studio.

Card Development View

Clicking on a Card Type in the table opens the development view. The functionality of this section is similar to that of in SAP Web IDE/SAP Business Application Studio.

Card Info Tab Image

Note

Refer to the Developing cards section to view the details about developing a Card Type.

  • Template Details Section

    Refer to the template details section in the Developing Cards Guide.

  • Card Template Section

    Refer to the Card Template section in the Developing Cards Guide.

  • Parameter Constants Section

    Refer to the Global Parameter Type in the Developing Cards Guide.

  • Versions Section

    SAP Mobile Cards supports versioning for cards. A Card Template can be managed through development and production using multiple versions. The row highlighted in green signifies the version currently in view. This section is available only in SAP Business Technology Platform cockpit.

    Card Version Details Image

    A card can be in one of the following states.

    Status Details
    Productive The card is in production and is read-only.
    You can have only one Productive version for each version.
    Development The card is still being worked on.
    You can have multiple Development versions.
    Prototype The card can be used offline with sample JSON data.
    You can have multiple Prototype versions.
    Backup The card is a copy of a Productive or Development version.
    You can have up to five Backup versions.

    Following are the version actions.

    Version Action Details
    edit
    Edit
    Edit the details of the Development Card Template version.
    show
    View
    View the details of the Card Template version.
    sys-enter
    Publish
    Publish the Card Template to Productive.
    Once in the Productive state, you can no longer edit the properties, but you can create a copy and edit it.
    delete
    Delete
    Delete the Development Card Template version.
    A Productive Card Template cannot be deleted, it switches to Backup.
    media-forward
    Start Prototyping
    Changes the state from development to prototype.
    media-rewind
    Finish Prototyping
    Switches the state to development.
    copy
    Copy
    Create a copy of a productive version as a card in development.
    sys-prev-page
    Restore
    Restore a Backup Card Template to Productive. The current Productive Card Template switches to Backup.
    inbox
    Archive
    Archive the Productive version to create a backup.
  • Actions

    Button Details
    Save Save the changes made in the current editing session.
    Reset Reset the changes made in the current editing session.
    Delete Delete the card and all of its versions.
    Export Export the archived version of your Card Type.
    You can import the exported file in SAP Web IDE or SAP Web IDE
    QR Code Scanning this QR Code will subscribe to the Card Type and add relevant card instances in the client.
    Web IDE Creates a Project for the selected Card Type in SAP Web IDE.

Features

The SAP Mobile Cards client uses features defined in the cockpit. The features currently available are:

Feature Details
Mobile App Catalog The Mobile App Catalog service stores mobile application artifacts for beta testing via App Lab, and for deployment to external services.
Artifacts can be uploaded directly or from the Mobile Cloud Build Service.
Mobile Client Log Upload Allows the application to upload the client logs to the server for further analysis.
Mobile Cloud Build Create customized versions of standard SAP mobile applications, which can be used with SAP Mobile Services.
Mobile Connectivity Configure routes to additional back ends.
Mobile Network Trace Collects network trace information from mobile applications for debugging.
Mobile Sample OData ESPM Sample service that can be used for development and testing.
Mobile Settings Exchange Configure native client policies and settings for an application.
Push Notification Register devices to receive native push notifications.

Mobile Settings Exchange

Define and maintain the client and user settings.

Client Configuration Tab

Define settings and policies relevant to the clients.

Passcode Policy

Define the client password policy used to unlock the application.

Option Default Details
Enable Passcode Policy Disabled Enable or disable the passcode policy.
The following options only appear when the passcode policy is enabled.
Expiration Time Frame
in Days
0 The number of days that a password remains valid.
The default value means that the password never expires.
Minimum Length 5 The minimum password length.
This number must be greater than or equal to 5 and less than or equal to 99.
Retry Limit 20 The number of retries allowed when entering an incorrect password.
After this number of retries, the client is locked out, the DataVault and all its contents are permanently deleted, the application is unusable, and encrypted application data is inaccessible.
Minimum Unique Characters 0 The minimum number of unique characters required in the password.
Lock Timeout 0 The number of seconds the DataVault remains unlocked within an application, before users must reenter their password to continue using the application.
No Passcode Required
(only supported by SMP SDK)
Disabled If enabled, the user is not required to enter a password.
The DataVault is protected by a default password.
Biometric Authentication Allowed Disabled If enabled, it allows the use of native biometric techniques to unlock the app.
Upper Case Character Required Disabled If enabled, the password must include uppercase letters.
Lower Case Character Required Disabled If enabled, the password must include lowercase letters.
Special Character Required Disabled If enabled, the password must include special characters.
Digits Required Disabled If enabled, the password must include digits.
Locking and Wiping Policy

From SAP mobile service cockpit, the administrator can create locking and wiping policies for the app where:

  • Locking - refers to locking the app on the device client. Once the app is locked, the user can unlock it by connecting to the server and authenticating. All existing data (in particular the offline OData store) remains on the device.

  • Wiping - refers to resetting the application on the device. This deletes existing data on the device.

Option Default Details
Enable Locking and Wiping Policy Disabled Enable/disable the policy for locking and wiping the application running on a device.
Offline Days Before Locking 0 Set the number of days before the application will be locked on the user device.
If locked, the user must reconnect to the server and authenticate.
Offline Days Before Wiping 0 Set the number of days before the application is reset on the user device.
If wiped, the application remains, but the data is deleted.

Note

The Offline Days Before Locking and Offline Days Before Wiping fields cannot both be set to 0.

Feature Restriction Policy

This feature allows the administrators to choose whether the spotlight search feature can be used in the application.

Option Details
edit
Edit
Edits the feature flag.
decline
Delete
Deletes the feature restriction policy.
Network Synchronization Policy

This feature lets administrators control synchronization behavior, by indicating when it is okay for data-heavy components to synchronize. Eligible components include:

  • Offline OData
  • Logs
  • Client Resources
  • Analytics

User Registrations Tab

View details about user registrations and specify an automatic removal policy.

Automatic Removal

Setup the automatic removal of all registered users on a periodic basis. Once the specified time elapses, all the users need to re-authenticate on the client.

Option Details
Automatic Removal Enable/disable the automatic registered user removal policy.
Removal Time Frame Specify the time after which the user's registrations are removed.
Valid values: an integer between 1 and 999.
Summary

Specifies the number of registrations.

Registrations are associated with an authenticated or an anonymous user on one or more devices.

Registered Users
Option Details
edit
Edit Wipe
Set the wipe status of a registration.
sort
Sort
Sort the entries of the Registration table according to Registration ID, Username, Device Type, or Last Connection in either ascending or descending order.
action-settings
Customize Table Columns
Select the columns to be viewed in the Registration Table.
Username Filter registration by the Username.
Registration Time Frame (UTC+0530) Filter registration by the Registration time.
Device Type Filter registration by the Device Type.
Email Address Filter registration by the user's Email ID.
Go Enable the specified filters.
You can see the effect in the Registration table.
Reset Filter Reset the specified filters.

Registration Table

Option Details
Registration ID Unique identifier provided by the client application, or system-generated application registration ID.
Username User of the registered application.
Device ID Device identification number.
Device Model The device model used.
Device Type Type of device, such as Android or iPhone, sent by the device during registration/onboarding.
"Unknown" indicates that the device type cannot be detected.
Email Email ID of the registered user.
Created At (UTC+0530) Registration creation time.
Last Connection (UTC+0530) The date and time when the application was registered, in the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. The value appears in local or UTC format, depending on your user settings.
Wipe Whether the application connection is set to be wiped.
Actions Delete the user registration.

APIs Tab

Onboarding

QR codes that can be scanned to start the onboarding process on your clients.

The codes for iPhone and Android are different. Once the specific code is scanned, the device launches the SAP Mobile Cards application and starts the onboarding process. The application can be downloaded from the App Store and Play Store.

The end user only needs to enter the authentication information in the login screen.

APIs

A list of frequently used API URLs.

  • Server API ‒ the root API of mobile services; can be used to view a list of frequently used APIs. For example, use this API to integrate from a third-party website.
  • Registration iOS ‒ (iOS devices only) provides the server URL and the OAuth client ID to users to help them register their SAP Mobile Cards applications.
  • Registration Android ‒ (Android devices only) provides the server URL and the OAuth client ID to users to help them register their SAP Mobile Cards applications.

Security Tab

OAuth Clients

View or edit OAuth clients:

  • Client ID - An automatically generated random ID that identifies the application client to the authorization server. If you enabled the sharing of OAuth access tokens, this ID may be shared by multiple applications.

  • Redirect URL - An automatically generated universal link.

Role Settings

Administrators can assign roles to control access to the selected application. At runtime, SAP Mobile Services verifies that application users are assigned the required roles.

Enter the name of the role that a user must be assigned to run the application. If multiple roles can run the application, enter the names of all the role, separated by commas. Users registering an application must be granted at least one of the roles configured in the access control policy or the registration fails with a response code of 403.

Configuration Tab

Fiori Card Settings

Option Details
Fiori Theme Select one of the predefined themes.
Maximum Automatic Instances The configuration controls the maximum number of cards that are created for a Multi Instance Card Card Template.
If the query returns more cards, the first card is used and a custom event is created.
The default value is 20.
Disable Business Data via Push Notification If selected, no custom messages with parameter replacement based on business data are generated.

Tip

For OData Services, $top and $skip can be used to control the number of returned cards from the back end.

Gatekeeper Settings

You can create a gatekeeper to limit card subscriptions to specific roles associated with users. This allows you to provide users with only subscriptions that are relevant to them.

SAP Mobile Cards checks if the user can access the /get endpoint for the Gatekeeper URL. Access is denied if the response code is either 401 or 403. The subscription list contains only those card types that are not restricted by the Gatekeeper. The Gatekeeper status is updated every hour, or if it has changed.

Note

The Gatekeeper configuration is not intended for limiting the access to business data. This must be done by the back end. It only reduces the number of entries displayed in the subscription list to potential cards for the current user. Therefore, it's not a security feature, but a usability feature.

Gatekeeper Settings Table

Option Details
Name Name of the gate.
Destination The back-end destination.
URL URL of the gatekeeper.
Description Description about the gatekeeper.

Developer Team

By default, end users can only view Productive card versions on their clients. However, SAP Mobile Cards provides the functionality to view cards in development and prototype status.

Under Developer Team, enter the list of developers who need access to the cards in development/prototype status. Use commas, not spaces, to separate the developers in the list.

This feature can be used for beta testing a card before the card is made available to the public. To know more about the status of the cards, see

Widget Tab

SAP Mobile Cards supports widgets for Android and iOS.

Note

Click here and navigate to the News Enabled option under the Define Query URL subsection to learn about widgets.

You can customize the widget on iOS in the SAP mobile service cockpit.

  • Use Resources - Upload the image and enter the title.

  • Use ZIP file - Upload a zip file with the image and title.

    The ZIP file must include a resources.json file at the root level. This file specifies the path of the image and the title in multiple languages.

    {
        "TodayExtensionTitle":{"en":"News from SAP", "de":"News von SAP" },
        "TodayExtensionImage":"<path to the title image relative to root>"
    }
    

Users Tab

User Data

You can export or delete the data specific to a user.

To export data, enter the username in the field provided and click Export. A JSON file is downloaded with user specific information, for example:

{
   "subscriptions":[ ... ],
   "cardTypeBlacklist":{ ... },
   "modifiedAt":null,
   "language":"en",
   "pushRegistrationCapabilities":[ ... ],
   "userId":<user_name>,
   "lastQueryRefreshs":[ ... ],
   "createdAt":null,
   "storageDeviceConfiguration":[ ... ],
   "storageUserConfiguration":[ ... ],
   "id":null,
   "pushRegistrations":[ ... ],
   "cardInstances":[ ... ]
}

To delete user's data, enter the username in the field provided and click delete. All the data stored for the specific user is deleted.

Blocked Users

Allows you to block one or more users from using the SAP Mobile Cards application.

Note

When a blocked user tries to access the application, they see a 403 error message.

To block a user, click the add (add) button and enter the username of the user to be blocked.

The Blocked Users (n) table lists all the users who have been blocked. You can use this table to unblock a user. (n) signifies the number.

Example

If 4 users have been blocked, the field would be Blocked Users (4)
If 10 users have been blocked, the field would be Blocked Users (10)

Card Life Cycle

Each card that you develop has a life cycle.

Card Life Cycle Flow Chart

Development

When a new card is created and deployed to the mobile services server, the card is in development state. In this state, you can keep submitting changes to your card.

After you publish your card, the state changes from Development to Published, or you can change the status to prototype by clicking the Forward icon.

Prototype

Prototype cards help you to work offline. These cards are rendered with sample JSON data. These cards can be used by the development team for testing purposes. In this state, you cannot perform actions on your card.

You can change the status of the card to development by clicking the Rewind icon.

Productive

End users only see Productive cards. The Productive card is a read-only file. To make any changes, you need to create a new version of the card.

Backup

Backup cards help you maintain a version history. Productive cards become Backup cards when a new version of the card is published. You can also archive a card to make it a Backup card.

You can change the status of the cards to productive by clicking the Restore button.

Example

You have a card Sample 1.0, and you deploy a new version of the same card Sample 1.1. Now the status of Sample 1.0 changes to Backup and the status of Sample 1.1 is Productive. Suppose you notice that Sample 1.1 isn't working as expected, then you can restore the Sample 1.0 version of the card while you fix the issues on Sample 1.1. This ensures that your end users don't face any issues.

Backup cards are deleted automatically after a month (or sooner if you have more than five Backup versions).


Last update: November 18, 2021