Side-by-Side Extension of SAP Asset Performance Management: Build Custom Launchpad

[VinayHS]

The blog post is part of the series Side-by-Side Extension of SAP Asset Performance Management.

In this blog post, we shall walkthrough the steps for creating custom launchpad; adding standard applications of SAP Asset Performance Management (hereinafter referred to as “APM“ for brevity); organizing the applications into the groups, catalogs, and business roles; and finally assigning the users to the business roles.

The following diagram shows the resulting state of the solution landscape on completion of the procedure described in the blog post.

Figure 1: Solution landscape for developing custom launchpad for APM users * Click to enlarge * if applicable

Prerequisites

1. SAP Asset Performance Management entitlement is assigned to a subaccount and already subscribed in it.


2. Initial set-up of APM is completed as described in help document including security configuration, Creating and Assigning Role Collections | SAP Help Portal.


3. Entitlements to application SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition with standard plan (hereinafter referred to as “Build Work Zone“ for brevity) is already assigned to the subaccount used for APM subscription.

Procedure

1. In the SAP BTP Cockpit, navigate to subaccount used for subscription of SAP Asset Performance Management. On left-side menu, choose Service Marketplace. Find and subscribe to the SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition application.


2. In the SAP BTP Cockpit, on left-side menu, choose Security > Role Collections. Find and open the Launchpad_Admin role collection for edit. In Edit mode, under Users section, add users that should have access to Content and Site Manager capabilities of Build Work Zone. Save the changes.


3. In the SAP BTP Cockpit, on left-side menu, choose Services > Instances and Subscriptions. In Subscriptions section, find and select the “SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition” row. In the details page, click on “Go to Application” button. This will open the Site Manager tools of Build Work Zone.


4. In the Site Manager, on the left-side menu, choose Channel Manager. Check the status  of content from Asset Performance Management channel. This is the channel to retrieve standard application content.


5. In Site Manager, on the left-side menu, choose Content Manager and navigate to Content Explorer section. Click on Asset Performance Management live card.


6. Select all (or desired) standard applications and click on “Add to My Content”. Now the selected content will be available in My Content section.


7. You can now build up the content structure per persona, by grouping related applications and assigning them to business roles, as needed by your business. For the sake of simplicity, we will create a structure similar to that of standard launchpad of APM, where we have 2 business roles (personas) namely Reliability Engineer and Administration.


8. In Site Manager, on the left-side menu, choose Content Manager and navigate to My Content section. Click on New, then choose Role.


9. In the Role editor, enter title and description for the business role and assign business apps (non-administrative) to the Reliability Engineer role.


10. Repeat the previous 2 steps to create Administrator role. Add only administrative apps, including Configuration Manager and Integration Monitor.


11. In Site Manager, on the left-side menu, choose Content Manager and navigate to My Content section. Click on New, then choose Group. In the Group editor, enter title and description for the Administration group and assign apps to the group.


12. Repeat previous step to create additional groups and assign the related applications to them, following the structure you see in standard launchpad of APM.


13. A catalog is a set of apps that are displayed together in the App Finder under the catalog name. You can choose to create single catalog for all APM applications or multiple ones. In Site Manager, on the left-side menu, choose Content Manager and navigate to My Content section. Click on New, then choose Catalog. As in previous steps, in Catalog editor, enter title and description for the catalog and assign apps.


14. To bring all the content together into a custom launchpad for APM users, in Site Manager, on the left-side menu, choose Site Directory. Click on Create Site button. Enter a name for the site and click Create button in the pop-up.


15. Click on the Site Settings button and click Edit button to enter edit mode.


16. Assign the business roles created in previous steps. Click Save. The custom launchpad is now ready with APM standard content.


17. Open the custom launchpad by clicking on URL in Site Settings editor. Alternatively, open the custom launchpad by navigating back to the site directory and clicking “Go to site” button.


18. The launchpad opens in a new browser tab. Notice that there are no visible application tiles. For the application tiles to be visible in launchpad, the security configuration needs to be set up.


19. In SAP BTP Cockpit, navigate to the subscribing subaccount, on left-side menu, choose Security > Role Collections. Find Administrator role collection, which was automatically created by Build Work Zone corresponding to the Business Role modeled in Content Manager in Steps 8-9 (see ID field in Role Editor). Assign end users to the role collection.


20. Repeat the previous step for Reliability_Engineer role collection.


21. Sign out and sign-in to the custom launchpad to confirm that all the applications corresponding to the assigned role of the user are visible.


22. If the launchpad still doesn’t display application tiles (few or all), check that the initial security configuration of the APM is completed as per help document Creating and Assigning Role Collections | SAP Help Portal.

Conclusion

With the successful set-up of custom launchpad, let’s look into procedure for integrating custom and third-party applications into this launchpad in the next blog post, Integrate Custom / Third-Party Applications into Launchpad

Related Content

Side-by-Side Extension of SAP Asset Performance Management: Overview

Integrate Custom / Third-Party Applications into Launchpad

Build Custom Application with SAP Business Application Studio

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