Question Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota... in Technology Q&A

Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annotation

RaminS — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 15:54:57 GMT

In my FE object page, I want to make a field clickable to navigate to a second app using Intent-Based Navigation.

My CDS view annotations are:

@Consumption.semanticObject: 'AccountingDocument' @UI.identification: [{ type: #FOR_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION, semanticObjectAction: 'displayDocument', }]

But when I click on the field, it brings up a list of available action links, one of which is the action that I want.

I don't want to show the user the other links, I want it to navigate directly to the Intent specified by the annotations.

In the browser preview, it shows that the correct annotations are loaded:

So why does it not navigate to the intended target instead of bringing up a list of actions?

Thanks

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annotation

sandeep_rs — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 05:55:12 GMT

Can you maybe pass the xml annotation sample that shows how this Identification annotation is linked to the "QuickViewFacets" annotation? Thx!

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annotation

RaminS — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 13:07:23 GMT

Hi @sandeep_rs ,

I don't have local xml annotations. This is a List Report app with no local xml annotations, just CDS view annotations. The quick view automatically shows up with those links. That is my question, why does that quicklink popover shows up, instead of the user being navigated to target mapping specified in the cds annotations?

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

patrick_winkler — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 11:37:54 GMT

Hello,
try with

type: #WITH_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION

Regards,
Patrick

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

RaminS — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 16:16:54 GMT

Hi @patrick_winkler ,

Same results. Still the popover action list comes up, instead of navigating directly to the semantic action defined in the annotation.

Seems like it correctly interprets the annotation for semanticObject but totally ignores the Action

semanticObjectAction: 'displayDocument',

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

RaminS — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 18:23:47 GMT

Hi @patrick_winkler ,

Something strange just happened. I switched to #WITH_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION in my table's LineItem, and now I'm getting two of the same column. The first column still brings up the popver list, but the second one actually goes to the target action I want.

The strange thing is, the first column has the label that I defined in my annotations but does not respect my semanticAction. The second column that does respect the target, has a different header.

This is my annotation:

@Consumption.semanticObject: 'AccountingDocument' @UI.lineItem: [ { position: 99, label: 'Acc Doc' }, { type: #WITH_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION, semanticObjectAction: 'displayDocument' }] AccountingDocument;

I have no idea where that second column comes from, if I take out the annotation for AccountingDocument both columns disappear.

Spooky !... 😯

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

patrick_winkler — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 17:17:37 GMT

Hi @RaminS sorry to hear that. At least in my example, I can switch between the popover and direct navigation by changing the type. Best regards, Patrick

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

RaminS — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 01:11:52 GMT

Is there documentation somewhere that describe the CDS annotations and the different options for each one? for example the difference between #WITH_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION and #FOR_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION? What perhaps what is supported in which version of SAP?

I've looked and can't find anything, SAP's help docs are not useful, they don't explain every option.

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

patrick_winkler — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 07:30:45 GMT

@RaminS You can check this help page: https://help.sap.com/doc/saphelp_nw75/7.5.5/en-US/f8/af07bb0770414bb38a25cae29a12e9/content.htm?no_cache=true and https://sapui5.hana.ondemand.com/sdk/#/topic/d782acf8bfd74107ad6a04f0361c5f62.html

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

RaminS — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 13:26:39 GMT

Thanks @patrick_winkler for sharing those links.

I had already seen those documents but I didn't find them useful. They don't explain what the behaviour is and what the different attributes of the annotations actually do. Here are FOR_INTENT and WITH_INTENT definitions together:

From that can you tell that one brings up a popover and one links directly? If anything, those definitions cause more confusion, eg. what does the attribute value do? It is never explained.

In the the second link you sent, there is absolutely no mention of semanticObjectAction. The only example we get is this:

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

patrick_winkler — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 14:46:01 GMT

hi @RaminS in the second link you can find the following information: https://sapui5.hana.ondemand.com/sdk/#/topic/d782acf8bfd74107ad6a04f0361c5f62.html

Navigation to a Semantic Object (Intent-Based Navigation)

in section "Using a Button" you can see that type: #FOR_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION is used to render a button

in section "Using a Link" you can see that type: #WITH_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION is used to render it as a link and it is supposed to be used with LineItems

You can also find general information about the popover: When a user chooses the link, and only one navigation target is found, direct navigation to the target is triggered. If more than one target is found, the system displays a popover containing some text and links to the targets for the user to choose from

So if you have a LineItem i.e. column in a table and you want to render it as a link you choose #WITH_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION. If the combination of semanticObject and action is unique a direct navigation is triggered.

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

RaminS — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 15:48:09 GMT

Thanks @patrick_winkler , that is indeed useful.

However my link isn't in a table, it's a field on the Object page. So I'm using UI.Identification which should work the same way as LineItem (although I still don't know what the other attributes are for, like "value").

May target navigation is unique, the combination of AccountingDocument-displayDocument represents a unique intent. It's just not seeing my semanticObjectAction

You mentioned earlier that you can switch between popover and direct link by switching between WITH_INTENT and FOR_INTENT. So I don't know how uniqueness of the target comes into play in that case?

Anyways, I'll try a few other things, hopefully I can get it to work by trial and error.

Thanks for your help.

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

Erol_CAGLAR — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 10:36:55 GMT

Hi,

You can add with this way, Be careful, it must be same additionalBinding(element) name.

@Consumption.semanticObject : 'AccountingDocument'
@Consumption.semanticObjectMapping.additionalBinding: [{ localElement: 'CompanyCode',element: 'CompanyCode' },
{ localElement: 'FiscalYear', element: 'FiscalYear' },
{ localElement: 'AccountingDocument', element: 'AccountingDocument' } ]
@ui: {
lineItem: [ { position: 110 ,importance: #HIGH ,
type: #WITH_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION,semanticObjectAction: 'displayDocument'}
],
identification:[ { position: 110 } ] }

AccountingDocument;

Best wishes

Erol ÇAĞLAR

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annotation

RaminS — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 20:52:12 GMT

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

RaminS — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 20:56:38 GMT

Thank @Erol_CAGLAR for your suggestion. But Consumption.semanticObjectMapping does NOT exist for us.

Is it a special annotation for cloud only perhaps? Do you have a link to the documentation for it?

As SAP help clearly indicates semanticObject only accepts a string:

https://help.sap.com/docs/ABAP_PLATFORM_BW4HANA/cc0c305d2fab47bd808adcad3ca7ee9d/d60c0bf6798a481fb7412bc89934cb8a.html?locale=en-US

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

RaminS — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 21:01:06 GMT

Thank @Erol_CAGLAR for your suggestion. But Consumption.semanticObjectMapping does NOT exist for us.

Is it a special annotation for cloud only perhaps? Do you have a link to the documentation for it?

As SAP help clearly indicates semanticObject only accepts a String, and there is no semanticObjectMapping :

https://help.sap.com/docs/ABAP_PLATFORM_BW4HANA/cc0c305d2fab47bd808adcad3ca7ee9d/d60c0bf6798a481fb7412bc89934cb8a.html?locale=en-US

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

Erol_CAGLAR — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 08:47:01 GMT

Hi again, Is there available Company code and year in your metadata extension?

Because when you mapping your semantic object , it is looking these fields? it must be same source and target.

it is case sensitive lover and uppercase.

For example target app is waiting

Your app targetapp result

Companycode CompanyCode doesn't work

You can look fioriappliblary for this information.

Re: Intent-based Navigation - semanticObjectAction annota...

satishcsehitk — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 01:25:37 GMT

Hi @RaminS @ I am probably too late and you might have already resolved this. What worked for me is putting all the properties in one element of UI.lineitem instead of putting 2 elements in it.

This works correctly and it opens a unique target directly without the popover

@UI : { lineItem : [{position: 10, importance: #HIGH, type: #WITH_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION, semanticObjectAction: 'display'}], selectionField: [{position: 70}] }

This doesnt work if you want a unique target and shows a popover

@UI : { lineItem : [{position: 10, importance: #HIGH},{ type: #WITH_INTENT_BASED_NAVIGATION, semanticObjectAction: 'display'}], selectionField: [{position: 70}] }

Probably this is why you were seeing 2 columns in one of your examples.