SAP Fiori applications deliver modern, role-based, and responsive user experiences for SAP users. Built primarily with SAP-UI5, these apps are designed for extensibility to meet unique business requirements without disrupting the core functionality. Extending SAP Fiori applications allows organizations to tailor solutions, add custom features, and enhance usability while maintaining upgrade compatibility.
This article covers best practices and techniques to extend SAP Fiori apps effectively using SAP-UI5.
Standard SAP Fiori apps are built to address broad business needs. However, enterprises often require:
Extending rather than customizing helps preserve standard code integrity and enables easier upgrades.
SAP provides dedicated tools like SAP Business Application Studio and SAP Web IDE that support app extensions with guided wizards.
Extension Points allow inserting custom UI fragments at predefined places without changing the original app code.
Example: In the app’s XML view, an extension point looks like:
<ExtensionPoint name="AfterHeader" />
You can provide a fragment to be injected at this point, enabling custom UI additions like buttons or text fields.
You can extend controllers by overriding or adding methods in your extension project.
sap.ui.define([
"sap/uxap/ObjectPageControllerExtension"
], function (ControllerExtension) {
return ControllerExtension.extend("my.custom.Extension", {
onInit: function () {
// Custom initialization logic
}
});
});
This technique allows adding event handlers or modifying lifecycle behavior.
For apps using SAP Fiori elements (e.g., List Reports), you can create adaptation projects using tools like the UI Adaptation Editor to add custom fields or views declaratively.
Extend the backend OData service by adding custom annotations that enhance UI5 metadata consumption:
This allows enriching standard apps with new backend capabilities.
Extended apps are usually deployed as separate projects on SAP Cloud Platform or SAP Gateway front-end servers. This separation simplifies:
Extending SAP Fiori applications with SAP-UI5 empowers organizations to tailor apps precisely to their needs while maintaining the benefits of standard SAP solutions. By following SAP’s extension framework and best practices, developers can deliver custom functionality efficiently and upgrade-proof.
Whether adding new UI elements, custom logic, or integrating with other systems, SAP-UI5’s flexible architecture supports robust Fiori app extensions.