
Overview and Key Capabilities
With SAP Launchpad service, organizations can build a portal-like central entry point and provide enterprise-wide, efficient, secure, and role-based access to SAP and non-SAP applications, whether these are deployed on-premise or in the cloud. Business users can find the resources they need to carry on their job functions through a central intuitive access point available from any device. Administrators can take advantage of predefined application templates and roles from backend systems. They can also easily apply corporate branding or leverage SAP's integrated development environment to customize and extend the user experience.
Key Capabilities:
- Central point of access for apps, tasks, and notifications
- Home page personalization
- Role-based access to content (e.g. from SAP S/4HANA systems)
- Intuitive role-based navigation with flexible content structure
- Smooth app integration for different UI technologies and third-party Web apps
- Integration with central services for managing tasks, notifications, and single sign-on
- Extensible framework for customization and branding
- Integration with Enterprise Search
- Optimized mobile experience using SAP Mobile Start app
- Part of SAP Business Technology Platform Free-tier offering
Getting Started
Take your first steps into SAP Launchpad service:
Learn more about SAP Launchpad Service
Dive deeper into our learning material:
- Overview presentation
- Roadmap
- Overview Video
- Service Description on the Discovery Center
- Feature Scope Document
- SAP Fiori Launchpad: Deployment Options and Recommendations: ABAP and SAP Launchpad Service
- SAP Fiori Deployment Options and System Landscape Recommendations (see section about Central Entry Point)
Integrate Business Content into SAP Launchpad Service (Content Federation Capability)
With content federation, SAP solutions such as SAP S/4HANA and the SAP Business Suite can serve as remote content providers for the Launchpad service. An administrator of a content provider system selects and exposes business roles with their assigned catalogs, groups, and applications. This preconfigured content can be consumed by SAP Launchpad service.
The so-called “content federation” capability is available for:
- SAP S/4HANA (on premise) and cloud
- SAP Enterprise Portal
- SAP Business Suite
- SAP Integrated Business Planning
More remote content providers are planned to be available in the future.
What you can also do is the integration of content from SAP BTP content providers, which include the content providers for the HTML5 apps and the launchpad modules and also the manual integration of apps.
SAP Launchpad Service and SAP Enterprise Portal
As a system administrator, you can configure SAP Enterprise Portal as a content provider for creating launchpad sites with SAP Launchpad service on SAP BTP. This enables you to expose your existing Portal content (such as BEx, SAP GUI Applications, Web Dynpro ABAP, and Java) side by side with new content (such as SAP SuccessFactors and SAP S/4HANA) in one single entry point.
For more information, see:
Blog on SAP Community (SAP Enterprise Portal as a Content Provider to SAP BTP)
SAP Launchpad Service and SAP Mobile Start
SAP Mobile Start is a native mobile app which serves as an entry point for users to access various applications and content. It is a major step towards fulling the objective of placing the intelligent enterprise at the fingertips of every customer. SAP Mobile Start runs on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) and on the server-side SAP Mobile Start integrates with SAP Mobile Services, SAP Launchpad service, and SAP BTP notification service.
SAP Mobile Start is an empty shell and the content is made available through SAP Launchpad service – either via content federation or content is created manually in the Launchpad service. The Launchpad service is the place where you will configure the apps which you want to display in SAP Mobile Start. Administrators use the site manager functionality to federate content from different systems and could also create apps/tiles, which point to native mobile apps and determine which app can be displayed to the user depending on their device (Desktop, Phone, Tablet).
More information:
What is SAP Mobile Start ? (Blog post)
SAP Mobile Start – the new native entry point to access applications & content (Blog post)
Trainings and Tutorials
Get to know our learning and training offerings:
- Mission on the Discovery Center
- Explore our Tutorial and Mission Enhance Your SAP Launchpad Site with Federated SAP S/4HANA Content
- To find all tutorials search in the tutorial navigator for "Launchpad" and find the available missions for SAP Launchpad service
- Video about integration capabilities (developer-focused)
SAP Launchpad Service and SAP Cloud Portal Service
You already use the SAP Cloud Portal service on Cloud Foundry environment and you want to move to the Launchpad service? Then these three blog posts are a must-read for you. You will get some insights and recommendations on how to move from your existing SAP Cloud Portal service to the SAP Launchpad service within the same subaccount or in different subaccounts. The aim is the reuse of existing configuration and content, to avoid the need to configure everything from scratch. Please note that the Launchpad service does not support freestyle sites, so your freestyle sites and content cannot be moved to in the Launchpad service.
Transitioning from the Portal Service to the Launchpad Service - some how-to guidelines
How to move from Portal service to Launchpad service in the same subaccount
How to move from Portal service to Launchpad service in a different subaccount
Blogs on SAP Community
To find all blogs about SAP Launchpad service, follow this tag on SAP Community.
We also recommend reading the following blogs:- Designing SAPUI5 Apps for SAP Launchpad Service
- Let us celebrate one year anniversary of SAP Launchpad service and the new features that are available
- Content Federation Capability for SAP Business Suite is available
- Building a Central Entry Point on the SAP BTP (blog series)
- SAP Launchpad service: Integrate apps from the ABAP Environment
- Tunneled and direct access architecture for SAP Launchpad service
- SAP Cloud Portal and Launchpad service say goodbye to Microsoft’s legacy browsers
Events
SAP TechEd:
- Check out the recoding of the SAP Launchpad service and SAP Work Zone session (2021). Read also the recap blog post on SAP Community.
- Check out the recording of the SAP Portal and Launchpad roadmap session DEV805 (2020)
- Check out the questions and answer related to SAP Portal and Launchpad roadmap session DEV805 (2020)
Others:
SAP MaxAttention Innovation Workshop
On December 2021, we hosted a virtual SAP MaxAttention Innovation Workshop with speakers from SAP Product Engineering, Technology and Innovation, SAP MaxAttention Center of Expertise, and SAP customer – Corning. The topics evolved were all around Digital Experience. In this workshop we presented the session "Digital Experience Solutions for the Intelligent Enterprise – SAP Launchpad Service and SAP Work Zone" and discussed the use cases and transition paths from other solutions. For more information, agenda, slides and recordings, check out this blog on SAP Community. For our session check out Day 2 (Session 2, starting around minute 6 in the recording).
SAP Launchpad Service versus SAP Work Zone: What is the Difference?
SAP Launchpad allows to organize a single entry point for customers with hybrid and cloud landscapes. It doesn’t allow employees to engage on business information and projects, build content pages, etc.
SAP Work Zone offers additional capabilities to build a modern intranet with content pages, widgets and cards, organize workspaces to engage on various internal and external projects, and it also includes an embedded launchpad. It can also be considered as a full version of a digital workplace. The launchpad capabilities are an integral part of SAP Work Zone.
We recommend customers adopting either SAP Launchpad service or SAP Work Zone depending on the scenario scope. The Launchpad service is the go-to solution for implementing SAP Fiori launchpad in the cloud (without the freestyle sites experience), while SAP Work Zone offers additional capabilities (such as document access, team workspaces, knowledge base, and more) to cover a broader functional scope and use cases.
At the moment a smooth transition path is available between SAP Launchpad service and SAP Work Zone, but a consulting project is required.
Partner Information
Discover our Partner Enablement Package on SAP PartnerEdge.
News
News 2021
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SAP Help Portal Documentation
Questions around SAP Launchpad Service?
You can check out the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on SAP Help Portal.
If you have questions concerning this new service on SAP BTP, submit them under the following tag: https://answers.sap.com/tags/73554900100800003081