Every company is unique. While this premise holds true, there are certain processes that are common to the vast majority of companies, regardless of their business model. Processes such as displaying a chart or filtering a list are quite common and, without the right tools, developers would find themselves constantly reinventing the wheel. To address this in SAP Fiori applications, we have SAP Fiori Elements.
What Are SAP Fiori Elements?
SAP Fiori Elements are a set of templates designed for Fiori applications that allow developers to focus on the logic of obtaining the data used by the applications, abstracting away the logic for displaying that data. In other words, developers specify the data they want to display, and SAP Fiori Elements take care of rendering it on the screen.
Using this tool significantly saves development time for Fiori applications, as it eliminates the need for the developer to manage user interactions with the provided data.
Types of SAP Fiori Elements
SAP offers a diverse set of SAP Fiori Elements for choosing the most suitable one for each process. The choice of each type mainly depends on the format in which the data needs to be displayed. The types of SAP Fiori Elements provided by SAP are as follows:
- List Report: This is the most conventional format, displaying information in a list. It allows the possibility of adding filters for each column.
- Worklist: This is a list format similar to List Report but typically shows entities that require some form of processing.
- Analytical List Page: This template is focused on analysis through statistics, displaying information through a variety of charts that can be accessed at different levels of detail.
- Overview Page: This template is intended to provide users with a summary of the most relevant information in a specific area. The idea is for users to have an overview of the data before delving deeper for more detailed information.
- Object Page: With this template, you can obtain organised data for an entity, with information organised into different sections.
Use Case for SAP Fiori Elements
To illustrate a use case for this tool, imagine a developer needing to create an SAP Fiori application for order management. Among many possible solutions, one could implement views using an Analytical List Page to display statistics related to orders (how many have been delivered, how many have been cancelled, etc.).
You could also use a List Report to list the orders, and if you need more details about a specific order, you could use an Object Page. This is just one example; the range of problems these templates can solve and the different approaches possible are countless.
Features of SAP Fiori Elements
The significant functionality that SAP Fiori Elements bring to Fiori development is evident. Here are some of the most important benefits you can obtain by using these templates:
- Reduced development time.
- Increased data consistency between design and the backend.
- Greater functionality, which, if implemented from scratch, would consume a significant amount of time.
- High flexibility due to configuration options.
Given all of the above, choosing to use these templates when developing a Fiori application is a more than wise decision, as it represents a significant step toward utilising the most innovative tools that SAP provides.
