The SAP ecosystem is evolving rapidly toward cloud-native, efficient, and scalable application development. Two key technologies at the forefront of this transformation are SAP Fiori, the user experience framework, and SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP), a framework for building enterprise-grade services and applications in the cloud. Together, SAP Fiori and CAP enable developers to build modern, full-stack SAP applications that are both user-friendly and robust.
SAP Fiori is a design language and set of UI technologies that provide a consistent, intuitive, and role-based user experience across SAP applications. Using SAPUI5—a JavaScript framework—Fiori apps offer responsive, accessible, and performant interfaces for business users across devices.
CAP is a framework designed to simplify the development of enterprise applications and services on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). CAP provides opinionated architecture, tools, and libraries to accelerate backend development by using core artifacts like:
CAP applications typically expose OData or REST APIs consumed by frontend apps like SAP Fiori.
Define entities, types, and relationships using CDS files. Example:
namespace my.bookshop;
entity Books {
key ID : UUID;
title : String;
author : Association to Authors;
}
entity Authors {
key ID : UUID;
name : String;
}
Expose entities via a service definition:
service CatalogService {
entity Books as projection on my.bookshop.Books;
entity Authors as projection on my.bookshop.Authors;
}
Add custom logic in JavaScript handlers for validation or events.
Use SAP Fiori Elements or freestyle SAPUI5 apps consuming the CAP OData service. For example, a List Report app can be generated based on the metadata.
Deploy the backend and frontend to SAP BTP and access the Fiori Launchpad.
SAP Fiori and CAP together represent the future of SAP application development. By combining CAP’s powerful, model-driven backend framework with SAP Fiori’s user-centric frontend technology, developers can deliver sophisticated, cloud-ready applications faster and with higher quality. This synergy empowers organizations to innovate rapidly while maintaining the reliability and consistency SAP is known for.