Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
Version
Date
Author
1.0
9/3/2017
R Frykberg
Comments
Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
Contents
1.
Executive Summary ........................................................................................................ 2
2.
General Business Benefits .............................................................................................. 3
2.1. Engage and delight business users................................................................................................3
2.2. Internal Team Empowerment .......................................................................................................6
2.3. Evolve and extend your process solutions ....................................................................................6
3.
Key Differentiators ......................................................................................................... 8
3.1. Integrated Development Environment .........................................................................................8
3.2. What You See is What You Get .....................................................................................................8
3.3. Document Management ...............................................................................................................8
3.4. Base Class Methods and Extensions .............................................................................................8
3.5. Built-in Workflow ..........................................................................................................................8
3.6. LaunchPad .....................................................................................................................................9
3.7. Process Monitoring .................................................................................................................... 10
3.8. Flexible Data Model ................................................................................................................... 11
3.9. Runtime Form Rendering ........................................................................................................... 11
3.10.Flexible Coding ........................................................................................................................... 11
4.
Quantitative Benefit Models ......................................................................................... 12
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
1.
Executive Summary
Fiori AppBuilder (FAB) empowers your internal SAP technical team to work in an agile way with your
business users to deliver beautiful process automation.
This document identifies the common business case considerations and provides reference metrics and
calculation models that can be applied in determining the key benefits within any particular environment.
The key benefits of FAB are outlined below:
 Engage and delight business users: SAP supplies a large number of generic Fiori apps to make SAP
transactions web and mobile enabled. FAB delivers the same SAP Fiori user-experience for all your
unique business process requirements. Replace all your current paper, Word/Excel template, Lotus
Notes and SharePoint forms with familiar Fiori apps, fully customised to your business language
and process requirements. Being fully hosted within the SAP context users will be delighted by the
reduction of data input required – SAP already knows who you are, where you work, what role you
perform – so all request forms become easier to complete. Built-in workflow capabilities, including
out-the-box integration with OneList Approvals, ensures that corporate policies and procedures
and consistently followed. And on approval, any required SAP transactions are instantly processed.
 Empower your team: FAB has been built by SAP developers for SAP developers. Without learning
new web skills or frameworks your current team will be able to rapidly produce rich web and
mobile applications based on the SAPUI5 JavaScript libraries. The visual design environment allows
SAP technical resources to interact directly with business process owners to compose apps in a
truly agile manner. This revolutionary capability means that your users can see what they’re getting
in real-time, eliminating the typical gaps in project communications. As a result, FAB apps are
delivered faster and cheaper by your internal team, transforming your user’s perception of SAP.
 Evolve and extend your process solutions: FAB is deployed directly into your SAP environment,
with no infrastructure or 3rd party component dependencies. All FAB apps are consistently built and
secured with no dependency on specialist skills or consultants. This means that you can deploy
multiple FAB apps with confidence that you will be able to maintain and enhance your business
process solutions cost effectively into the future.
Quantifiable Business benefits primarily derive from the following:
 Development Cost saving (internal vs consulting)
 Process Productivity (ease of use, reduction of input, process automation and integration)
 Accelerated Outcomes (achieve results sooner, maximise opportunities,
 Risk reduction (reliability and supportability)
Examples of where FAB Apps are delivering immediate business benefits:
 CAPEX Requests – Standardise CAPEX request with business relevant categorisations, and generate
the SAP cost controlling objects only on formal approval.
 Employee on-boarding – Ensure your employees are productive from day one.
 Maintenance notifications – Implement urgent corrective action before it’s too late.
 Supplier Set-up – Procure to pay automation depends on getting new vendor records created
quickly.
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
2.
General Business Benefits
The following key business benefits are realised through the implementation of FAB, irrespective of the
business scenarios deployed.
2.1.
Engage and delight business users
2.1.1.
Web and Mobile Access
FAB produces input forms based on the SAP HTML5 (SAPUI5) JavaScript framework. These forms are
accessible via any browser on any device.
Figure 1 - Familiar web and mobile access to FAB forms
2.1.2.
Fiori Familiarity
SAP supplies a large number of generic Fiori apps that make SAP transactions more accessible to casual
users.
SAP is committed to the Fiori as the end-user experience:
Personalise and simplify the user experience (UX) for your SAP applications. Using modern UX design
principles, SAP Fiori delivers a role-based, consumer-grade user experience across all lines of business,
tasks, and devices. Use SAP Fiori apps, or take advantage of new solutions that natively incorporate the
UX – such as SAP S/4HANA, Ariba Mobile, and SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer.
SAP AG. 2017. SAP Fiori | User Experience. [ONLINE] Available at:
https://www.sap.com/australia/product/technology-platform/fiori.html. [Accessed 9 March 2017].
FAB delivers the same SAP Fiori user-experience for all your unique business process requirements.
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
Figure 2- Standard SAP MyInbox Fiori App
2.1.3.
Customised Language
The problem with standard Fiori apps is that they are very generic and SAP-transaction centric. Business
Users may not be familiar with an ‘Internal Order’, but prefer to use business terminology such as ‘project’,
‘campaign’ or ‘asset under construction’. With FAB, you can build interfaces fully tailored to your business
users.
2.1.4.
Data Entry Productivity
External data-entry forms (eg paper, Word/Excel template, Lotus Notes and SharePoint forms) typically
require a requestor to enter voluminous and redundant data, for example: your name, your organisational
unit, your managers name.
Being fully hosted within the SAP context users will be delighted by the reduction of data input required –
SAP already knows who you are, where you work, what role you perform – so all request forms become
easier to complete. For most SAP-centric business processes, we see a 20%-40% reduction in data entry.
Furthermore, the ability to perform live validations against SAP (eg does the vendor exist already, is the
order still open, do I have budget) means that more invalid requests are trapped at inception.
Less data entry and fewer redundant requests means less error and exception handling, a primary cause of
process inefficiency.
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
2.1.5.
Workflow Automation
Human-glue processes require lots of training and experience to know who needs to approve what. With
FAB, built-in workflow capabilities mean that all requests are consistently routed to the appropriate
participants in accordance with standardised business rules. Due to the accessibility of SAP data, this may
include defined positions in the organisation, for example, and not fixed individuals. This ensures the
consistency of all process, and over time as individuals enter and exit the organisation.
FAB tasks are accessible from the FAB inbox, standard SAP inbox or Fiori MyInbox. But out-the-box
integration with OneList Approvals, provides an exceptional executive user experience across all
applications and tasks.
Executives prefer the in-context experience of OneList Approvals as both SAP and non-SAP tasks are
aggregated in a single convenient ‘live’ action list for faster, more confident approval processing,
everywhere. This eliminates the clutter of emails and application-specific approval apps.
Figure 3 - OneList approvals open tasks indicator in Outlook
Figure 4 - OneList Approvals Open Task count badge on a phone
2.1.6.
Flexible Data Fields
With FAB, the user-entry screens are designed around the user and their role in the process. FAB is not
limited to standard SAP transactions, and any organisational classifications and commentary can be added
‘on the fly’ in designing the screens.
2.1.7.
SAP Integration (or none)
On completion of a FAB process, any resultant SAP transactions are automatically processed. This deep SAP
integration delivers maximum process productivity when SAP is your strategic business platform.
Of course, SAP integration does not need to be the result of a process – simply recording an approval
process for compliance purposes is a very valid use case (for example policy exemption requests, benefits
registration, and interested party disclosure).
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
2.2.
2.2.1.
Internal Team Empowerment
No new skills required
FAB has been built by SAP developers for SAP developers. A key constraint for many organisations in
developing their own custom Fiori Apps is the availability of resources with the required web and mobile
app development expertise. This is typically resolved through retraining or outsourcing. However,
recognising that your internal team have the fundamental business context knowledge, FAB provides your
team with tooling to make your internal team members highly productive Fiori app builders.
Of course, there may still be a need for specialist skills to address your most complex Fiori App
development requirements. However, in our experience, SAP standard apps support 20%-40% of your
process requirements and FAB can deliver 90%-95% or your medium UI complexity/high process complexity
apps.
This results in dramatic saving in both the development cost and time to deliver custom Fiori Apps.
2.2.2.
Agile Design
Underpinning the Agile Manifesto is the recognition that users don’t really know what they want until they
see it. Agile projects invariably deliver more for less because of the focus on deliverable artefacts.
In a typical custom web app development process, the number of individuals involved in the delivery
process (web designer, mobile developer, web service developer, workflow developer, SAP functional, SAP
technical, BA) increases the demand for formal documentation of specification and more rigid development
phases. Web app developers typically do not understand SAP, nor business process requirements. ABAP
developers are not normally web app developers.
With FAB, however, the visual design environment allows SAP technical resources to interact directly with
business process owners to compose apps in a truly agile manner.
Users can see what they’re getting in real-time, eliminating the typical gaps in project communications
between the various resources. Versions can be deployed often and continuously enhanced, as there is
only ever ‘one’ version of the truth (and no redundant forms/templates to worry about).
The typical FAB approach adopts this process of rapid deployment of a Minimum Viable Product with ongoing iterations of refinement within a Continuous Integration/DevOpps environment.
As a result, FAB apps are delivered faster and cheaper by your internal team.
2.3.
Evolve and extend your process solutions
2.3.1.
No dependency
FAB is deployed directly into your SAP environment as a simple SAP Transport. Whilst there is a
requirement for Gateway components be installed (either in a hub or embedded configuration), there are
no additional infrastructure or 3rd party component dependencies.
SAP Mobile Platform is not a requirement in order to fully mobilise your FAB Apps. Simply configure a
reverse proxy network-connection and your mobile users will have ready access to their apps directly on
their devices.
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
2.3.2.
Secure
FAB apps fully respect your user’s existing authorisations and access rights. As all information retrieved and
processed in performed under the user’s only credentials, there is are redundant authroisation profiles to
maintain.
Every interaction and update is all fully logged within SAP and a detailed approval audit trail produced for
audit review.
2.3.3.
Consistent
With typical custom development projects there is a high degree of variation between solutions based on
the respective skills of the developers, and technologies trialled/adopted at the time of implementation.
With FAB, all Apps work the same way.
This means that you can deploy multiple FAB apps with confidence that you will be able to maintain and
enhance your business process solutions cost effectively into the future.
2.3.4.
Administration and Monitoring
FAB provides out of the functionality for analysing process performance and workflow statuses. This ensure
that administrators and process owners have the information required to continuously optimise their
business processes and eliminate blockers.
2.3.5.
Future Proof
FAB is architected to fully support your migration to S/4 HANA. So you can continue with confidence that
FAB will be there throughout your SAP journey.
IQX Business Solutions is continuously enhancing and developing the FAB solution with features that make
it easier and faster to build process solutions. We take care of updating FAB with new versions of SAPUI5
libraries so you don’t have to worry about your solutions keeping pace with SAP.
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
3.
Key Differentiators
Key features of FAB, that make it a globally unique value proposition are outlined below:
3.1.
Integrated Development Environment
For custom Fiori Apps this is Eclipse or Cloud. With FAB, this is the familiar SAPGUI! This minimizes the
learning curve for existing team members, and ensures that the power of SAP is close at hand to interact
with subject business objects.
3.2.
What You See is What You Get
Your development environment on the left, generated form on the right. Perfect for agile design sessions.
Figure 5 - FAB WYSIWYG Workbench
3.3.
Document Management
Almost every process requires attachments. With FAB, these are fully integrated with SAP Generic Object
Services out-the-box for usability.
3.4.
Base Class Methods and Extensions
FAB exposes methods at every stage of the form rendering lifecycle for your injection of custom ABAP code.
Prepopulate forms, and validate forms with ease.
3.5.
Built-in Workflow
FAB provides a standardised implementation of state-based workflow with or without SAP Workflow.
A standard integration to SAP Workflow tasks is enabled (for worklisk access purposes), but typically status
managed workflow is enough and full SAP Workflow expertise is not required for most scenarios.
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
Figure 6 - FAB Configurable Workflow Status Management
3.6.
LaunchPad
FAB forms can access from your Fiori LaunchPad, your existing intranet or the supplied default launchpad.
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
Figure 7 - FAB default app launchpad
3.7.
Process Monitoring
The FAB Data Monitoring report enables the progress of all forms to be centrally monitored and
administered.
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
3.8.
Flexible Data Model
With FAB, creation of Z* custom data structures is not required for unique data entry requirements.
The form data model is configured and stored in a generic table structure.
3.9.
Runtime Form Rendering
FAB Apps are not compiled into external source code. The FAB form definition is ‘live’ and rendered on the
fly. This means that deployed form adjustments are instantly applied.
3.10.
Flexible Coding
Of course, for expert users, custom code can be injected into each element of the form. Custom JavaScript
can be injected onto any page to accommodate your most demanding user-interface requirements if
required, whilst remaining within the general FAB app framework for data, process and integration.
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Fiori AppBuilder Business Case
4.
Quantitative Benefit Models
Alternative views of the Business Case models are provided:
 Do nothing vs FAB for form automation – productivity saving vs cost (license, imp, support)
 Custom development vs FAB – in-house/consulting vs in-house +license incl. support cost
All metrics are based on empirical evidence but generalised for client-confidentiality purposes.
It is recommended that prospective customers consider their operating environment and update the
measures appropriately in-line with their specific circumstances and expectations.

Number of forms to automate per annum:

Custom form development Days:
o In-house
o Consulting

Fiori Form Development Days

Support cost for custom solutions (Cumulative over 3 years)
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