The SAP Fiori user experience revolutionizes how business users interact with SAP systems by providing simple, role-based, and responsive applications. Underpinning the Fiori UX is SAPUI5, SAP’s powerful JavaScript framework for building enterprise-ready web applications. For organizations leveraging SAP HANA Live, building Fiori-like applications with SAPUI5 offers a compelling way to deliver intuitive, real-time insights directly from live transactional data.
This article explores the essentials of creating Fiori-like applications using SAPUI5 within the SAP HANA Live ecosystem, enabling modern, user-friendly interfaces tailored to business needs.
SAPUI5 is the foundation technology behind SAP Fiori apps, designed to be:
- Responsive: Works seamlessly across devices—desktop, tablet, and mobile.
- Role-based: Presents users with only the data and functions relevant to their job.
- Consistent: Offers a uniform look and feel with SAP’s Fiori Design Guidelines.
- Extensible: Easily customizable and integratable with backend systems.
Leveraging SAPUI5 to build Fiori-like apps on top of SAP HANA Live data enables businesses to offer powerful, real-time analytics and operational capabilities with a user-friendly interface.
SAPUI5 provides rich UI controls, data binding capabilities, routing, and models that simplify building complex UIs:
- MVC Architecture: Separates data (Model), UI (View), and logic (Controller) for maintainability.
- Data Binding: Connects UI controls directly to data models such as OData.
- Routing: Supports navigation and deep linking within single-page applications.
These guidelines ensure consistency and usability:
- Use of standard Fiori controls like tables, cards, charts, and smart filters.
- Adherence to typography, color palettes, and spacing standards.
- Incorporation of accessibility and internationalization best practices.
SAP HANA Live exposes real-time business data through CDS views and OData services, which SAPUI5 applications consume directly:
- Enable dynamic data visualization with up-to-the-second information.
- Reduce latency by avoiding data replication and batch processing.
- Model the required business data and logic in CDS views within SAP HANA Live.
- Annotate CDS views for OData exposure and UI hints to simplify front-end binding.
- Activate and publish CDS views as OData services, making them consumable by SAPUI5 apps.
- Use SAP Web IDE or Business Application Studio to scaffold your SAPUI5 app.
- Implement Views using XML or JS with Fiori UI controls (e.g.,
sap.m.Table, sap.m.List).
- Bind UI elements to OData models connected to your CDS-based services.
¶ Step 4: Implement Navigation and User Interactions
- Use the router module to enable smooth navigation between views.
- Add filtering, sorting, and searching functionalities to enhance user experience.
- Use lazy loading and data paging to handle large data sets.
- Follow Fiori guidelines to ensure the app adapts to different screen sizes.
- Follow Fiori Design Language: Consistency improves user adoption and satisfaction.
- Reuse CDS Annotations: Leverage annotations for UI behavior, such as field labels and criticality.
- Secure Data Access: Use SAP authorization concepts to restrict data visibility.
- Test Across Devices: Ensure responsiveness and usability on desktops and mobiles.
- Enable Extensibility: Design apps to allow easy enhancement without major rewrites.
- Real-time insights: Directly interact with live SAP transactional data for timely decisions.
- Enhanced user experience: Simplified, clean interfaces reduce training and errors.
- Improved productivity: Role-based design helps users focus on relevant tasks.
- Future-ready architecture: Aligns with SAP’s intelligent enterprise vision.
Building Fiori-like applications with SAPUI5 on top of SAP HANA Live empowers organizations to deliver modern, responsive, and role-specific applications that connect directly to real-time data. This approach combines the best of SAP’s user experience strategy and HANA’s in-memory performance to transform how businesses interact with their data.
For SAP developers and architects, mastering SAPUI5 and CDS view integration is a critical step toward crafting impactful, user-centric solutions that drive digital transformation in the SAP ecosystem.