Evolution from Homepage to Landing page

[Former Member]

Homepages of Employee Self Service, Manager Self Service, HR Administrative Services have been constantly evolving with every Enhancement pack release! In fact there is a steep difference in homepage framework with the introduction of “Landing Page” concept as HR Renewal deliverable.

Original Idea of Homepage –

Homepages are meant to group the related applications based on the role i.e. all employee related applications/services are grouped under Employee Self Service homepage; all manager related applications/services are grouped under Manager Self Service homepage and HR Administrative applications/services are grouped under HR Administrative Services. These traditional homepages organize information based on Area page and Sub area page. For e.g. all “Personal Information” related applications like “Personal Profile”, “Birth of Child”, “Request Termination”, etc are all grouped under the “Personal Information” folder; so on ESS Homepage, we find links to navigate to sub area pages in this case it’s Personal Information. On click of this link, it takes us to “Personal Information” sub area page displaying all applications that are grouped under this folder.

ESS Homepage -

Personal Information subarea page –

Features –

• Runs on Web Dynpro (ABAP/Java based on the version)
• Applications are organized in Area and sub area pages
• Additional functionality like “Related links”, “Most Frequently Used” and “Upcoming Birthdays and Anniversaries”.
• Different views like Map, Directory and Index.
• Quick link functionality to publish important applications in the homepage itself.
• Individual homepages for ESS, MSS and HR Administrative Services

Prior EHP5 the Web Dynpro Java homepages used to work on almost similar concept, but the homepage configuration activity was completely different! I don’t want to point out the configuration differences in this blog, as it deviates from actual topic of this blog

New idea of Homepage i.e. Landing page –

SAP has completely redefined its own good old – “Homepage” framework by introducing many new functionality into this “Landing page” like “Lanes” based approach, “Search” functionality(for Employees and HR Administrators), “My Team”(for Managers),  “Tasks”(for HR Administrators), etc. Landing pages are more organized way of presenting applications or representing information to the end user. Instead of displaying all applications in Sub Area pages, applications are presented in a better way i.e. in the form of lanes (all related applications are grouped under these lanes). For e.g. Employee related important information (some basic information is displayed) and important applications (Leave Request, Salary Statement, Employee Profile, Org Chart) are grouped under My Info lane. The best part is – “There is one single application that renders the homepage content based on person’s roles i.e. ESS, MSS, HR Administrative Services all render in the same landing page application”!

Employee landing page

Manager landing page

HR Administrator landing page

Features

• Runs on SAPUI5 which is SAP’s new deliverable direction.
• Content is displayed in the form of Lanes (condensed lanes) and expanded lanes.
• Introduction of Quick Views which displays quick information about hovered object (Person, Position, Org Unit).
• Introduction of “Action menus” for Person, Position and Org Units. This feature allows us to open this object related information or initiate HCM Processes and forms.
• Introduction of “Search” lane for Employees and HR Administrators.
• Introduction of “Tasks” lanes (displaying number of tasks using ‘Task circles’ in condensed lane) for HR Administrators to categorize Tasks by timeline, Tasks by priority and Tasks by Draft.
• All applications are grouped under one single lane per role i.e. applications related to employee are grouped under “My Services” lane; applications related to Manager are grouped under “My Team Services” and applications related to HR Administrator are grouped under “Actions” lane & all reports are grouped under “Analytics” lane.
• Introduction of user specific “Favorites” where you can tag certain Org Units and applications as “Favorites” which are accessible from the landing page itself (you don’t have to navigate to the expand lane to reach these favorite applications or Org Units).
• Introduction of Wallpaper concept with personalization option.
• Introduction of Social Media Integration with SAP JAM.
• Personalization option to the end-user to hide/display lanes as per his choice.

Conclusion

I am very happy to see SAP’s progress by expanding the whole concept of homepage framework into “Landing Pages”. Landing pages got more powerful with the seamless integration of Workforce Viewer and Maintain Master Data Application (Please refer my other blogs for more information about this integration).

Wishes

Though the lane based concept looks amazing in the Landing pages, I would still like to do more customization using simple configuration i.e. introduction of new custom lanes with my custom content (could be a simple report/re-organized tasks/something else). I wish SAP builds a framework around this concept. Though we have limited customization option (assignment of custom launchpads to Actions, Analytics, My Team Services, My Info and My Services), but this might not help us in catering every custom requirement. I would love to have an option to control the content of existing lanes using simple customization i.e. instead of displaying “Leave Request” application; I would like to display “Timesheet” application in “My Info” lane.

Let me know your thoughts on this evolution...