SAP NetWeaver Business Client (NWBC) 5.0 : Released!

[julieplummer20]

Yes, finally SAP NWBC 5.0 is available!

Prerequisites

Software

• Microsoft .NET 4.5 - if necessary, available here: Download Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.1 (Offline Installer) for Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Wi...
• Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012. Note: Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 is included in NWBC 5.0. If you do not have this, it is automatically installed with NWBC 5.0.
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0, 9.0, 10 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 for the desktop. If higher versions can be used, this will be published in SAP PAM (Product Availability Matrix), product instance Frontend
• SAP GUI for Windows 7.40 This is part of the common installer with NWBC 5.0. NWBC 5.0 is not supported with SAP GUI 7.30. (Corollary to the above: NWBC 4.0 and NWBC 5.0 can run on the same front end, but SAP GUI 7.30 and 7.40 are exclusive.)

Hardware

• For desktop installations, the same requirements apply as for SAP GUI installations. For more information, see Note 26417.
• We recommend at least 1 GB of memory. The actual memory consumption depends on the number of windows that are open.
• We recommend a minimum screen size of 1024x768, but larger if possible.

Relevant SAP Notes

Software, operating system and browser requirements as well as restrictions are listed in SAP Note 2066345. Planned release dates for the next patch can be found in SAP Note 2023658.

Documentation

SAP Help Portal: NetWeaver UI Add-Ons 1.0: SAP NetWeaver Business Client

Download and Installation

Download from Service Marketplace:

http://service.sap.com/installations

-> A - Z Index -> "N" -> NETWEAVER BUSINESS CLIENT -> NWBC NW BUSINESS CLIENT 5.0 -> Installation:

You will see two options:

Generally, we strongly recommend that you choose the first option (in red), since this offers you the joint installer with both NWBC and SAP GUI (which is kind of the point 😉 ). (The other option is intended mainly for testing or patching purposes).

What's New

Well mainly, if you install NWBC 5.0 and open it up, it looks remarkably similar to 4.0. This is because most of the interesting new developments are under the hood. We’ve tried to minimize disruption for end users be keeping most of the visual idioms of 4.0 – Corbu theme, tabbed browsing, etc – and focused this time on installation and configuration. So – what exactly has changed?

Common installer

The first thing you may have noticed is that you only download one installation file for both SAP GUI 7.40 and NWBC 5.0 – SetupAll.exe. BTW, once you open this file up, there are still checkboxes for each component – so you can still patch one component without the other, or just install one for testing purposes:

Common infrastructure

Before, you had to create system connections for NWBC manually – even if you had already created these connections in the SAPLogon pad. Now, SAP
GUI/SAPLogon for Windows , SAP GUI for Java and NWBC all share their system connection information. There are just two files: admin and user.

So now, if you create a new system in NWBC, the system reconciles this automatically:

One access point to all systems regardless of release

NWBC 4.0 (and earlier) required all systems to be 7.0 or later. NWBC 5.0 consumes content from all SAP ABAP systems - 6.20, 4.6C etc. (See the documentation for a complete list of system requirements.: SAP Library: NWBC Versions .

Much tighter SAP GUI integration:

These are arguably smaller features taken individually but together they add up to a much more closely integrated desktop client, so that the number of reasons for choosing SAP GUI standalone over NWBC is dramatically reduced:

• GUI transactions always open in NWBC tabs - in 4.0, if you opened one transaction from another (eg to display a role from User Maintenance (SU01), the new transaction opened in standalone SAP GUI. Now, it opens in a new tab.

• SAP Shortcuts open in NWBC tabs - that is, these:

• Stop transaction from context menu of tab - you could always access this function from the menu of a stand-alone SAP GUI window. Now, it 's also on the context menu of the tab hosting the SAP GUI session.

• Use SAP GUI theme - In SAP GUI 7.3 standalone (Signature theme), you could set different color themes for different systems - eg to distinguish between ERP and HCM, or DEV and PRD. In the NWBC Corbu theme, these color systems were lost. Now you can retain them:

Other features:

• Easy entry - In 4.0, the default entry page was the index page. Now you can choose between: Index page, first pinned tab, New Tab page, First Work Center Page (eg Page Builder entry page, or Power List (POWL)). The Work Center title is now a live link, so you can open the work center entry page / POWL without having to open the work center.
• Favorites - you can now structure favorites in folders (and sub-folders) and manage your structure using drag and drop:

• Side Panel - we've made the side panel symbol more more obvious (just for you, skemp 😉 ). Also, you can personalize your settings so that the side panel opens by default (if available) when you open a new tab.

In summary, For the first time, SAP NetWeaver Business Client and SAP GUI are released in step, with one common installer and infrastructure, and much tighter integration. For more information on the new SAP GUI 7.40 release, see the following blog :

Announcing SAP GUI 7.40: New Features

And see the following video: NWBC 5.0

[sandra_thimme]

Hi Marc,

it's planned for 2016. As soon as we know when, we will announce this here.

Regards,

Sandra

[yashwanthkumar_kethineed]

Hi,

Does anyone else also have problem with NWBC unable to open the SrvConlink.sap directly from the BCP ?

Instead of taking me to the customer system (stfk) it takes me to the NWBC - CSN Inbox -

I have to manually download this "SrvConlink.sap" file and then drag/drop on to NWBC window to open the customer 'service connections' stfk page.

It was working fine when I first installed it, but somehow stopped working now.

[julieplummer20]

Hi Yashwanth,

You will probably get a better response if you create a new discussion thread.

Best wishes Julie.

[Former Member]

<<IMPORTANT for NWBC installation using .NET >4.5 ! >>

Hi all,

Just to share with you my troubleshooting tip - it costed me two days!

Download sw as mentioned in the post is OK. But if after you started NWBC, you get err msg "Cannot find .NET 4.5", it is because you are using .Net higher than 4.5.

Do this:

goto http://goo.gl/1HudnV

download NWBC 5.0 PL7. PL7 solves this problem.

Hope this would have been mentioned in the post too.

Br,

Dong Zhu

[julieplummer20]

Thank you Dong Zhu. I am sorry that this cost you 2 days. We always recommend the latest patch, and use it ourselves; this is why the problem was not clear to us.

Best wishes Julie.

[Former Member]

Hi Julie,

No problem and thank you for your reply. We are starting to use NWBC as a main tool. No doubt it offers more functionalities. I may seek helps from time to time in this group from now on. 🙂

Br,

Dong

[Former Member]

Hi Julie,

Initially, I was working on NWBC 5.0 PL 2 and now I have installed PL 7

After login the Index screen sections looks like below, which is different than the one I used to work on in PL2 or 4.0.

How do I fix it ? Can you please help

Best Regards,

Uday

[Former Member]

Resolved it. Reference link Look and feel of Index page in NWBC 5.0 PL7

[Former Member]

Hi Julie,

First of all, thank you for your hard work on the NWBC client; it is truly excellent (and I can see it soon replacing the standard SAPGUI for my company's end users).

I'm currently on NWBC 5.0 PL 2 (SAPGUI version 7400.1.0.3301) and I noticed that SAPGUI shortcuts are still being opened in the classic SAPGUI client. Some things to note:

-The SAPGUI shortcuts were created via the NWBC Desktop client

-I've made sure that the "ActivateDesktopAgent" parameter is set to 'True' in the NwbcOptions.xml file. This parameter is mentioned in the following SAP Help Portal URL and I thought this would be the solution for my situation (but it did not work):

Administrator Configuration Tips - User Interface Add-On for SAP NetWeaver - SAP Library

How can I get SAPGUI shortcuts to open in the NWBC Desktop client (ideally in a new tab)? Thank you for any help you can provide!

-Nadir

[sandra_thimme]

Hi Nadir, I'd really recommend an upgrade. With 5.0 we are on PL 10. SAP Shortcuts are mapped to SAP Business Client. Depending on a registry entry that is set during installation, it is possible to start an SAP GUI connection directly in SAP Business Client.SAP Business Client shortcuts are based on URLs. Applications addressed in SAP Business Client start-up URLs are opened within an existing SAP Business Client window if the connection matches the user. A new shortcut is opened in a new window. If you re-open a shortcut, it is opened on a new tab within the same window.

The desktop agent is activated by default. It starts when the first NWBC instance is opened and is terminated with the last NWBC instance.

I've just reproduced what you wrote within my system (PL 10) it works fine for me. Please check the parameter again. If it wont work you'l have to open a message.

Shortcut for SU01 (German) to be open as a new tab within NWBC.

Regards,

Sandra

[Former Member]

Sandra,

Thank you for the prompt reply. I upgraded to PL10 but it still didn't work for me; I'll be opening a ticket for this.

Also, I noticed that the CTRL+Left/Right keyboard shortcut is documented as enabling tab movement and this is working fine for me. However, I've become accustomed over the years to using this same keyboard shortcut to fast skip through text (whether it be code or just about any text field). This keyboard shortcut is similarly used for fast skipping in the overwhelming majority of applications generally speaking (text editors, web browsers, etc..) and to have the NWBC utilize this for tab switching seems to be an awkward and less efficient use of this shortcut.

Is there a way to selectively suppress this NWBC keyboard shortcut so that the legacy behavior will be respected? Thanks again for the help.

-Nadir

[Former Member]

Hi Sandra,

now six months have passed. Are there any new information when NWBC will Support Windows 10. Will it be NWBC 5.x or NWBC 6.x?

We plan a Windows 10 Business-Rollout in Q1 2016 and need NWBC as an SAP-supported Client für W10.

I hope you can help with temporal information.

Best Regards,

Marc 

[sandra_thimme]

Hi Marc, it will be supported for NWBC 5.0 and BC 6.0! can't give you any dates yet. Regards, Sandra