Subject: SAP-Fiori-Elements
Field: SAP UX / UI Design and Development
SAP Fiori Elements applications rely heavily on OData services and Core Data Services (CDS) views to deliver dynamic, metadata-driven user interfaces. Understanding how OData and CDS views interplay is critical for developers and architects aiming to build efficient, scalable, and maintainable SAP Fiori apps. This article explores the role of OData and CDS views in SAP Fiori Elements, detailing how they work together and best practices for development.
OData is a REST-based protocol for querying and updating data, widely used in SAP for exposing backend data and services to frontend applications like SAP Fiori.
CDS views are semantically rich data models defined using SQL-based syntax within the ABAP environment.
CDS Views as Data Providers:
Developers create CDS views that model business data including joins, calculations, and aggregations.
Annotations for UI Metadata:
CDS views can be annotated with SAP Fiori Elements-specific metadata (UI annotations) that instruct the UI on how to render fields, define navigation, and manage behaviors.
OData Service Exposure:
The CDS views are exposed as OData services either automatically using @OData.publish: true annotation or via manual service binding in SEGW (SAP Gateway Service Builder).
Fiori Elements Consumption:
SAP Fiori Elements apps consume the OData service metadata to generate user interfaces dynamically, following the annotations defined in the CDS views.
@AbapCatalog.sqlViewName: 'ZV_SALESORDER'
@OData.publish: true
@UI.headerInfo: { typeName: 'Sales Order', typeNamePlural: 'Sales Orders', description: 'Sales Order Header' }
define view Z_CDS_SalesOrder as select from vbak
{
key vbak.vbeln as SalesOrder,
vbak.erdat as CreatedOn,
vbak.netwr as NetValue,
@UI.lineItem: [{ position: 10 }]
vbak.kunnr as Customer,
@UI.selectionField: [{ position: 10 }]
vbak.erdat as OrderDate
}
This CDS view exposes a sales order entity with UI annotations for header info, line items, and selection fields. When published as an OData service, SAP Fiori Elements apps can automatically generate list and object pages based on this metadata.
Mastering the use of OData services and CDS views is foundational for developing SAP Fiori Elements applications that are efficient, scalable, and aligned with SAP’s UX guidelines. By leveraging the power of metadata-driven UI generation and semantic data modeling, developers can deliver high-quality enterprise applications with reduced effort and improved consistency.