- SAP Managed Tags
Introduction
For long time SAP users, they enjoy the benefit of posting and reading a system related message in SAP ECC or SAP S/4HANA systems using transaction code /sm02. From 2508 Release, SAP Cloud ERP (formerly called SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition) can do the same on My Home page. This blog discusses the details on how to create the messages called News Articles, especially how to make them visible to your intended audience.
Background
Until Release 2508, our customers can see a beautiful My Home page with display of software related news (see box in the below figure). The news is limited to SAP provided features in your subscribed function areas, such as Supply Chain, Human Resources, etc.
Many users were asking if they can post their own news in the News section. This feature becomes available in Release 2508 so that an administrator (yes, only the user with SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR business role) can post relevant news to the users on a needed basis. Here is an example of news postings – Hot Fix Collection 6 is going to be applied this weekend.
Recently I heard some users were attempting to post their own news without much success. I tried and figured out what is the mechanism behind and would explain them in detail in this blog.
News Article Creation
To create a News Article, we use the Manage News app. To launch this app, the user needs to have the business user role SAP_BR_ADMINISTRATOR, which contains the Business Catalog SAP_CORE_BC_CUX_NWS_MNG_PC.
When you launch the Manage News app for the first time, it should be empty, News Articles are 0, News Groups are 0 and News Images are 0.
Before discussing news article creation, let me explain some relevant components first.
News Images
Besides default images, customers can upload their own images to be used together with news articles. For example, I downloaded one system maintenance related image from SAP’s brand image library as below.
By clicking on the News Images tab, and Create button, we can create a news image called “System Maintenance”.
I also downloaded another blue Joule image to be used for Artificial Intelligence related news. In the News Images tab, you can see these two Image entries are created.
News Groups
News Groups are used to group relevant news articles together and display under one umbrella. For example, I have two system related News Articles
- System Upgrade 1 for Release 2602 Upgrade
- System Upgrade 2 for HFC 1 Upgrade
Since they are all System Maintenance related news, I put them under the same System Maintenance Group. When you check the News, you can see System Maintenance related news are all grouped together.
When you click on the News screen “System Maintenance”, a second window pops-up. It lists three news
- Critical: System Upgrade 2
- Critical: System Upgrade 1
- Normal: Caution: Business Catalogs
The sequence of this group of news is most probably based on creation time. The newly created news is on top.
In addition, one news article can belong to more than one news groups. That is the case of News Article Caution: Business Catalogs. It belongs to two News Groups: “AI Joule Group” and “System Maintenance”. I will discuss that further later.
The creation of a News Group is quite straightforward as shown below. You can also assign an image to a News Group. This image will supersede any images assigned to a news article.
When you leave the Description section blank, the system will display a default message for you as shown below: Discover new features and changes of this release.
News Article
Now let’s create our first News Article: System Upgrade 1 as shown below. It is a created News Article with a background image (Blue Joule). You can further Edit it or Delete it.
Overall, the creation is quite straightforward. I only explain a few entries:
- Title and Subtitle is a combination. You need to make it eye catching for users.
- Footer Text could indicate its author; at least that’s how I use it.
- Background Image is optional, but a good picture saves thousands of words. However, if this news article is under a News Group umbrella, the image won’t show when you display the news.
- Publish Start is tricky. If you want to see the News Article right away to verify your news, you could put a yesterday’s date here. Otherwise, you can put your intended publish time.
- Status: as soon you click the Create button, it changes from Draft to Published.
- News App Assignment is for limiting the news exposure by applications. For example, if the news is only intended for users of certain applications, such as Manage Workforce, you create a Manage Workforce app entry. With that, the news is only displayed to those users with access to the Manage Workforce app.
- News Group Assignment allows you to assign more than one group. With that your news article will appear in each News Group when you click on the News section. For example, this System Upgrade 1 news article will appear not only in System Maintenance Group, but also in AI Joule Group as shown below.
When you create a news article without assigning a News Group, this news article will appear as an independent (vs. belonging to a news group) entry in News section. For example, I have one news article called “System Announcement” which does not belong to any news groups. It will show by itself.
News Display
When I first worked on Manage News app, I could not see my news articles in News Section. I found out the business catalog SAP_CORE_BC_CUX_NWS_DSP_PC must be assigned to the users for them to see the News. This is not documented anywhere!
Let’s check this business catalog out in the Business Catalogs app. It only serves one Fiori application, the Display News app.
By expanding above screen to include Used in Business Role Templates tab, I found it is used in SAP_BR_EMPLOYEE business role template. Our developer probably thinks all users should have the role of SAP_BR_EMPLOYEE. Therefore, displaying news is not a problem. This might not be the case. Because this business role introduces a lot of Employee Self-Service apps, not necessarily adopted by all our customers.
My advice is to create a user defined business role like Z_Display_News_All_Employee which contains one business catalog SAP_CORE_BC_CUX_NWS_DSP_PC; then you assign all users to this role. There is no need to assign a space or a page to the role. You can transport this user defined role to your Test and Production tenants (Note: I created this blog related objects in a production tenant to limit the impact to others; you usually do this in your Dev tenant).
With the proper business catalog SAP_CORE_BC_CUX_NWS_DSP_PC assigned, I can see the News in my Fiori Launchpad – My Home – News.
Conclusion
With the above explanations, you should be able to create a news article or a group of news articles as an administrator and view them as a business user. The Manage News app is a powerful tool to keep your users informed on your SAP Cloud ERP system.
Reference
Bluesky| User | Count |
|---|---|
| 17 | |
| 12 | |
| 12 | |
| 11 | |
| 5 | |
| 5 | |
| 5 | |
| 4 | |
| 4 | |
| 4 |
