In our Teched session AD104 you have learned about how to build CAP applications using SAP Build Code. And how to enrich this application with prebuilt functionality and service integrations by utilizing CAP Plugins.
After entering into the development environment from the SAP Build Code Lobby, we used generative AI by providing it with a textual description of our use case. Joule AI used this input and generated very useful artefacts for us:
- A complete CDS data model
- A CDS service definition
- Fiori Elements UI annotations
- Sample data
If you think of a typical 3 tier architecture everything is covered. From the CDS data model the CAP framework automatically creates the database statements covering the database layer. The CAP application itself is the server and with our CDS service definition we have defined the behavior of the server and the endpoints it provides (by default via Odata v4). And the UI annotations provide the information to render a Fiori Elements User Interface that matches our model.
So one simple command created a complete full stack application, that we can start up an try out.
And with the sample data (which even fits the business context!) we can try out the application with meaningful test data.
This is a great starting point - and we can start to enhance the application now with additional functionalities and our business logic.
One common requirement across applications is uploading attachments. On our incidents sample app, it would be very helpful to upload supporting documents. Previously, that would have been a challenge connected with a ton of custom code, maintenance and so on. Maybe a thousand lines of code to access low level APIs of an attachment service, where you need to take care of everything. Plus the additional logic - what is the maximum attachment size? How to malware scan it? How to implement the UI to upload and download attachments.
Image instead a single dependency to a reusable package and two lines of code - that includes all of the above already.
That's the power of CAP Plugins and the story behind "Calesi" - CAP level service interfaces.
___
If you want to try out this functionality, the Joule functionalities are now available in SAP Build Code on a trial account.
The instructions for this can be found here:
https://developers.sap.com/mission.sap-build-code-test-drive.html
___
For a list of officially supported CAP plugins, check out the corresponding page in our documentation:
https://cap.cloud.sap/docs/plugins/
For node.js there are two github organizations where all the plugins can be found:
cap-js : https://github.com/search?q=topic%3Aplugin+org%3Acap-js&type=Repositories
cap-js-community: https://github.com/cap-js-community
For a Devtoberfest session, where you can follow along hands on and learn how to add additional plugins and a custom handler to a Joule generated app, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o2Swj89zxU
___
Any more questions, feedback and so on - feel free to leave a comment!
Thank you for reading 😃
