Technology Block Diagram

SAP Business Client consists of a shell and a content area. The main goal of the shell is to enable the navigation through business processes based on the roles assigned to the user. It is possible to load these roles from either an ABAP role repository ( PFCG) or a portal role repository (PCD) using a set of Web services. Once the roles are loaded, they are presented to the user in an overview page such as the Index page and a detailed navigation area on the navigation panel.

Additionally, the shell can open any number of tabs, each with its own content area in which users can run a specific transaction as part of a business process. The side panel is an additional content area that can be used to display context-sensitive information that relates to the main application.

The figure below illustrates the main screen areas of a SAP Business Client comprising the shell, content area, and the side panel:

The content area can display applications that are based on different types of technology, according to the required business process. For end users, the content area is the main area where they do their actual work.

The type of application running in the content area can be as follows:

• Dynpro-based (embedded SAP GUI for Windows) with protocol DYNP/DIAG

• Web-based in the Internet Explorer control with protocols HTTP/HTTPS

  This includes in particular Web Dynpro, UI development toolkit for HTML5 (SAPUI5), and Business Server Pages (BSP).

  Note

  The side panel can only render Web-based content.

With this approach, SAP Business Client as shell links the different application technologies by combining various content area types. Consequently, SAP Business Client forms a connection between SAP's old SAP GUI and the more modern Web Dynpro.