Overview of UI Technologies and Key Features

User interface add-on for SAP NetWeaver provides UI frameworks and tools for developing and adapting applications as well as UI clients to provide consolidated access to applications.

Here you can find an overview of the UI technologies and key features provided by UI add-on for SAP NetWeaver:

NoteThe following image contains links to more information.

User interface add-on for SAP NetWeaver is a product that can be used to rapidly provide new user interaction and technology without disrupting the underlying business applications. It addresses mainstream SAP landscapes and deployment scenarios at existing customers to improve their UI independently of application releases and without major investments, such as upgrading existing systems or challenging their IT landscapes.

The goal is to integrate existing UI functionality while making use of state-of-the-art UI technology and functionality provided by SAP, to bring significant UI improvements to customers and end users irrespective of the application lifecycle and the SAP NetWeaver platform version used. This goal is achieved by the following:

Decoupling the UI technology deliveries from the application release cycle
Delivering state-of-the-art UI technology with the UI development toolkit for HTML5
Providing non-disruptive integration services as an ABAP add-on, using OData and modern REST/HTTP principles
Assuring interoperability of existing UI technology with new UI technology based on an integrative client, SAP NetWeaver Business Client 4.0 or higher
Delivering new functionality on a frequent basis in a fully backwards-compatible way, without disrupting application and system operations of existing customer systems

The UI add-on for SAP NetWeaver includes the following main components:

SAP Fiori Launchpad

The UI add-on contains the components that comprise the common infrastructure for all SAP Fiori apps, including the SAP Fiori launchpad. Organized by user role, the SAP Fiori launchpad is the central entry point to Fiori apps on mobile or desktop devices, where users launch apps using tiles. Additionally, it can be enriched with specific analytical reports. Which tiles are displayed on a user’s entry page depends on the user’s role. The launchpad is a shell that provides services for navigation, personalization, single sign-on, and search, and theming and branding support.

You need to configure the SAP Fiori launchpad so that users can access the apps that have been assigned to their respective role using the SAP Fiori launchpad designer, an administrator tool that runs in the browser.

UI Development Toolkit for HTML5

The UI development toolkit for HTML5 (SAPUI5) is a library and a framework designed to enable developers to easily create and extend state-of-the-art user interfaces. SAPUI5 is based on HTML5 and uses the jQuery library as foundation. It supports CSS3, which allows you to adapt themes to your company's branding in an effective manner. It is Open AJAX compliant and can be used together with other standard JavaScript libraries. The client-side rendering library provides a rich set of controls. You can as well as extend these controls and develop new custom controls.

To support you in developing applications, SAPUI5 comes with the SAPUI5 Application Development Tools, a set of eclipse-based tools and editors. They provide wizards to create application projects and views according to the model-view-controller concept and other features like JavaScript code completion and in-place preview.

SAPUI5 Application Frameworks

SAP Smart Business

The SAP Smart Business modeler apps are a set of SAP Fiori apps that you use to create and manage SAP Smart Business objects. SAP Smart Business objects allow your company to define, manage, and leverage consistent KPIs across all your business apps (for example, reporting tools, dashboards and custom-built apps).
Analysis Path Framework

Analysis Path Framework (APF) provides reuse components that allow building and enhancing interactive analytical Web applications. You can use these applications to explore KPIs and their influencing factors by drilling down into multidimensional representations of data, such as charts or tables.

UI Theme Designer

The UI theme designer is a browser-based tool for cross-theming scenarios. Use it to easily build your themes by modifying one of the theme templates provided by SAP. For example, you can change the color scheme, or add your company's logo. You can create themes for applications built in various SAP UI clients and technologies including SAP NetWeaver Business Client, Unified Rendering technologies (such as Web Dynpro ABAP and Floorplan Manager) and SAPUI5 (for example SAP Fiori apps).

SAP NetWeaver Business Client

SAP NetWeaver Business Client (NWBC) is a user interface that presents a single entry point to different SAP business applications and technologies. Version 4.0 or higher offers an enhanced shell design, the modern Corbu theme, tabbed browsing, and many other enhancements.

SAP Visual Business

SAP Visual Business is a user interface technology that visualizes data from SAP and external data sources on a single screen. SAP Visual Business applications not only combine different types of content, but also include interactive graphics that visualize and combine enterprise data with geographical or three-dimensional real-world scenes. You can use SAP Visual Business applications both to display and to transact with back-end system data, since you have your enterprise data at hand as well as interactions you need to control various business situations. The visual presentation makes the data much more tangible to the user, without the need for detailed explanations on fields, tabs, and in tables.

User Interface Integration

The UI add-on for SAP NetWeaver offers a set of back-end services and front-end services. To decouple your UI, you use OData services for ABAP-based back-end systems based on an OData channel that is part of SAP Gateway. To couple to a new UI technology, you use front-end services.

Social Media Integration

Social Media Integration (SMI) allows you to easily integrate the social collaboration platform SAP Jam across SAP technologies, including Web Dynpro, ABAP, and SAPUI5. This allows you to leverage the collaborative functionality of SAP Jam to accelerate business and drive results by connecting your customers, partners, and employees with key information and processes in the Cloud, whether you are using the SAP® Fiori™ launchpad or an application on the SAP NetWeaver Application Server for ABAP.

SMI provides the following tools to allow you to enable collaboration for your business:

Collaboration components

You can use the SAPUI5 collaboration components delivered with SMI to provide users with access to SAP Jam features directly from an SAP Fiori app. For example, users can share information or view and contribute to a feed directly from the app.
SAP Fiori launchpad tiles

You can use the Social Media Catalog to set up the SMI tiles. These tiles give users easy access to SAP Jam-related content directly from the SAP Fiori launchpad. For example, users can view their notifications from SAP Jam or navigate to their SAP Jam groups.