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Leslie_Castle
Associate
Associate
18,392
As a UX specialist in the SAP S/4HANA Regional Implementation Group, I’m privileged to work with many of our SAP S/4HANA customers.  Many of these customers are looking to leverage the business benefits of SAP S/4HANA by implementing SAP Fiori at scale. This means that you need to ensure that your SAP Fiori landscape is both stable and free of issues. In this blog post you will learn the skills required to achieve this.

Important topics that you need to know  to ensure a robust and stable landscape include the following:

  1. Supporting Business Users (personalization, authorization problems etc.)

  2. What do the support team need to know?

  3. What support & monitoring activities are required to ensure a stable system?

  4. Authorisation Tools

  5. Worth Knowing Topics

  6. Troubleshooting Tools


NOTE: Please see the individual topics for SAP S/4HANA version info (incl. SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition)

Understanding the above topics will ensure you have a stable SAP Fiori landscape & will help you both increase user adoption of SAP Fiori and realize real business benefits.

Good Business Outcomes depend on business users using solutions easily, accurately & efficiently in a stable  SAP Fiori landscape.

Disclaimer: This blog post is intended as general support guidance only and you should check the embedded links to official SAP documentation which will be updated on a regular basis.

1. Supporting Business Users


a) Finding the technical name of an app. Ensure all users know how to find and report the technical support details of an app or UI using: User Actions > About and capture errors and warnings in the App Support tool.

You can use the ‘About’ option in the User Actions menu to find out which SAP Fiori App (App ID) you have to support as well as the Application Component should you need to raise an SAP Incident:


Use of the About option from the User Menu


See Finding the technical name of an app for further information.

b) App Support. In earlier releases of SAP S/4HANA, you often had to look in multiple places for authorization, configuration and customizing errors and this can become time consuming. With the App Support tool, you can now access ALL this information from the User Actions menu on the SAP Fiori Launchpad thereby allowing quicker issue resolution. A sample App Support Screen is shown below:


App Support


See App Support for the SAP Fiori launchpad

c) App Product Documentation. Ensure all users also know how to find the Product Documentation using the ‘?’ icon as show below (#1) and then selecting ‘What’s this app?’ (#2) takes you directly to the SAP Help Product Documentation for the app in question.


App Product Documentation


You can also reach the SAP Fiori apps reference library via the URL  SAP Fiori Apps Library & this is generally the first place you should check when resolving an issue. In particular, you should check both the Installation and Configuration sections for the SAP Fiori app you need to support and/or debug. Ensure it has been installed and configured properly and all pre-requisites have been met.

d) When you are having difficulties identifying the exact app, look for the # in the URL to the app. You can see the URL when you launch and app, often even when you hover on a tile or link. Immediately after the # you will find the Semantic Object and action separated by a – (hyphen), e.g. #Customer-manage. This Semantic Object and action identify the navigation target and can be used in tools such as Launchpad App Manager, Launchpad Content Manager, Launchpad Content Aggregator, Launchpad Intent Analysis and others to find the exact app or UI and the navigation parameters.

2. What do the support team need to know?


a) SAP Fiori Apps Library. Once you know the App ID & component, you can use this to view (in the Fiori Apps Library) both the Installation (#1) and Configuration (#2) details of the app. Here you can confirm all the relevant pre-requisite and configuration steps have been carried out:


SAP Fiori Apps Library


b) Speed up your SAP Fiori Support Incidents

Ensure you have the correct App ID and Component for the SAP Fiori app that you have a problem with, this way you can quickly and easily raise an incident and have it resolved in a timely manner.  The good news is there is a very quick and easy way to find this information when you need to raise a support incident against a SAP Fiori app - just use the About dialog.  This appears in the User Actions menu in SAP S/4HANA 1909 and above – see SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA – Speed up your Fiori Support Incidents for further details on both raising your incidents and getting them resolved as soon as possible.

NOTE: You may find it useful to upload logs from the SAP Fiori Launchpad App Support Plugin to your support incident.

c) Resetting personalizations. While it is occasionally unavoidable, try to avoid or minimize deleting user personalizations to resolve issues. Removing user personalizations is a considerable inconvenience to users.  Use the checkboxes and user selection options provided in transaction /UI2/FLP_DEL_PERS to minimize the impact.


Delete Personalization



3. What support & monitoring activities are required to ensure a stable system?


a) App Support Plugin

The App Support tool helps you to troubleshoot configuration and authorization errors for apps in the SAP Fiori launchpad. App Support is a plug-in tool for the SAP Fiori launchpad & supports the following app types:

  • SAPUI5 Fiori App

  • Web Dynpro Application

  • WebClient UI Application

  • Transaction


Complex customer system landscapes and modern app architecture lead to greater effort in troubleshooting for customers and SAP. The App Support plugin provides an integrated approach in root cause certain scenarios.


App Support


App support is available for SAP S/4HANA as part of the SAP_UI component from the following versions:

  • SAP_UI 7.54 SP06 in S/4HANA 1909 SP04 or Frontend Server 6.0 SP04

  • SAP_UI 7.55 SP02 in S/4HANA 2020 FPS01 or Frontend Server 2020 SP01


App Support has the following features:

  • Displays technical app information (UI5 Fiori app, Web Dynpro, GUI)

  • Identifying certain issues like

    • Missing authorization

    • Inactive services

    • Access to logs (auto, gateway, ST22 runtime errors) on frontend and backend system.

    • Download of logs to Excel

    • Switch User to get logs on behalf of other users

    • Feature scope controlled by authorizations




With the App Support tool, you can now access ALL configuration, authorisation and other error information from the User Actions menu on the SAP Fiori Launchpad thereby allowing quicker issue resolution. You can find further details on the App Support Plugin here:

See App Support for the SAP Fiori Launchpad

b) Planning for regular upgrades of SAP Fiori front-end server & SAP S/4HANA

Many SAP S/4HANA customers are looking to leverage the business benefits of SAP S/4HANA by implementing SAP Fiori at scale This means implementing regular upgrade and support packages to keep SAP Fiori and related SAP classic UI technologies (SAP GUI for HTML, ABAP WebDynpro, Web Client UI) up to date with the latest features, innovations, and fixes – as a result you realize business benefits as soon as possible and minimize unexpected issues.

Why should you do this? By keeping your SAP S/4HANA and SAP Fiori systems up to date YOU realize the following benefits:

  • Get the latest innovations both on SAP S/4HANA and SAP Fiori as soon as they are available

  • Avoid ending up with unsupported software

  • Avoid having to implement lots of SAP Notes individually

  • Avoid diagnosing & reporting known issues that are already fixed

  • Keep current with the latest long-term SAPUI5 maintenance release


Further detailed information on these topics can be found in the excellent blog post here:

SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA – Best Practices for Upgrades and Application of Patches

c) Setup of SAP Fiori Launchpad:

Configuration of the SAP Fiori Launchpad requires the following:

  • /UI5/APP_INDEX_CALCULATE - (Background Job). The SAPUI5 application index provides an indexing and caching mechanism for information related to SAPUI5 applications, components, and libraries that are contained in SAPUI5 repositories on the SAP NetWeaver Application Server for ABAP. Schedule the creation of the SAPUI5 application index as a background job. This background job can also be scheduled via task lists. Further information can be found here:Scheduling the Creation of the SAPUI5 Application Index

  • /UI5/SCHEDULE_JOB_UPDATE_CACHE - (Task List)For fast loading times of SAP Fiori apps, cache buster tokens are used to cache OData metadata. To ensure the tokens are up to date, a report has to be executed periodically. Further information can be found here: Scheduling Update of OData Metadata Caching


d) Web Dispatcher. The SAP Web Dispatcher is not part of AS ABAP. From a technical point of view, it is located between the Internet and your SAP system. It is the entry point for HTTP(s) requests into your system, which consists of one or more application servers. As a “software web switch”, SAP Web Dispatcher can reject or accept connections. When it accepts a connection, it balances the load to ensure an even distribution across the servers. SAP Web Dispatcher therefore contributes to security and also balances the load in your SAP system. If you are using (or thinking of using) the SAP Web Dispatcher, further information can be found here:

 e) SAP Fiori Caches. There are caches at several levels of the SAP Fiori architecture as shown in the diagram below:


SAP Fiori Caching Architecture


The purpose of these caches is to maximise performance so they should be invalidated with caution – especially in a production environment.

 - The server-side cache stores resources requested by the client on the server. In the context of SAP Fiori launchpad, this is the front-end server. UI2 caches are relevant for all services with the prefix /UI2/ (for example, /UI2/PAGE_BUILDER, /UI2/INTEROP).

If you see in the network trace long /UI2/PAGE_BUILDER_PERS/PageSets calls, this request retrieves the all the SAP Fiori Content information linked to the roles assigned to the user.  For the user in the example below this is 1.6MB (compressed 51.5 kB), and it was retrieved in 793ms.


Server Cache Network Trace Example


Cache Quality Statistics. You can use transaction /UI2/CSU (available from ABAP 7.54 component onwards) to monitor the cache quality and setup a trace for the cache invalidations.  Cache quality is an indicator of how often data is read from the UI2 cache. Please note that the hit rate of the browser cache is not considered. Therefore, a low cache quality indicated by the cache statistics utility does not necessarily indicate performance issues related to UI2 OData services.

This transaction will allow you to find out why the UI2 cache was invalidated. You can find further info here: SAP Fiori Launchpad - Analyzing Cache Statistics

- The client-side cache typically resides in a browser & stores the requested resources. If certain conditions are met, subsequent requests read the resources from the cache. This improves the performance considerably as roundtrips to the front-end server are avoided. An example of such a condition is if the maximum retention period in the cache has not been reached (HTTP response header cache-control: <max-age>).

The SAP Fiori launchpad infrastructure uses the technique of URL expiry (cache busting). The server typically assigns the resource an expiry date in the far future to avoid conditional HTTP requests, which require a roundtrip to the server.

- The ICM server cache or Internet server cache saves HTTP(S) objects before they are sent to the client. The next time an object is requested, the application gets the content directly from the cache before sending it to the client. SAP Gateway Foundation (SAP_GWFND) - ICM Cache

- The Metadata cache FND & BEP. SAP GatewayFoundation caches the metadata information of a service for a significant performance increase. You can find further details here SAP Gateway Foundation (SAP_GWFND).

The transaction codes below are used for managing these caches:

  • /IWFND/CACHE_CLEANUP Cleanup of GW Model Cache

  • /IWBEP/CACHE_CLEANUP Cleanup of GW Backend Model Cache


Further details & guidance on the above topics can be found here:

- Cache Validity  The resources remain in the cache until an event in the system occurs, upon which they are invalidated. Typical events are:

  • Change to a Web Dynpro configuration: This affects SAP Fiori launchpad artifacts such as groups, tiles, and catalogs.

  • Change to an authorization role

  • Change in the navigation repository

  • Change to a SAPUI5 app


Manual invalidation of UI2 caches should not be required. See SAP Note 2362875 

4. Authorisation Tools


Starting in SAP S/4HANA 1511 many SAP Fiori Applications make use of the Service Adaptation Definition Language (SADL) based OData services in order to consume and expose CDS views. SADL models are entities that are used in business applications – for example, business objects, database tables, search views. An SADL model is a data model such as:

  • DDIC (Data Dictionary) tables or views

  • CDS (Core Data Services)

  • BOPF (Business Object Processing Framework)


The authorization enforcement in this process is interposed between query specification by the application or end user and data retrieval from the database. Further information on this topic can be found here:

The transaction codes below are used for managing CDS authorisations:

  • SACM - Access Control Management (CDS/DDL)

  • SACMDCLS ­- CDS Access Controls


Ensure you also consider the important points below when working with authorization issues:

  • CDS Views use IMPLICIT authorization checks – i.e., they act as filters on the data extracted. So, they will NOT show up in an authorisation trace or in App Support

  • Use the Launchpad Content Aggregator to sort out which OData Services (IWSG + IWSV authorizations) relate to which app would be the Launchpad Content Aggregator which is detailed here

  • Turn on App Support (See App Support for the SAP Fiori Launchpad) This will show authorization errors and any missing OData Services when you go into the app.  That at least will pick up EXPLICIT authorization checks.  You can also use transaction STAUTHTRACE

  • You can find the underlying CDS views for OData services using the blog post Identifying OData Services-C

  • DS Views and Authorizations of an SAP Fiori app

  • To find the authorisation objects used by an OData service you can use transaction SU22. In SU22 the ‘Type of Application’ is “SAP Gateway Business Suite Enablement – Service”. Then use the OData service from Fiori Apps Library E.g., UI5 App Manage Profit Centre


a) Find the OData Service from the Fiori Apps Library


SAP Fiori Apps Library


            b) Execute SU22 with the selected OData Service

SU22


c) The OData Service Authorisation Objects / Values are shown:


SU22 OData Service Authorisations



5. Worth knowing Topics



6. Troubleshooting Tools


You can find some of the most common troubleshooting tools below.

Please refer to the link SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA - Troubleshooting Tips and Tricks for examples on how to use some of these.























































































































































































TCODE SAP Fiori front end server tools
SU01 User Maintenance
PFCG Role Maintenance
SICF Maintain Services
SM59 RFC Destinations (Display/Maintain)
SPRO Configure SAP System as per client requirement
SMICM ICM Monitor
SHMM System Shared Objects Monitor
STC01, STC02 Execute/Display Task List Runs
ST22 System Dumps
/UI2/CUST Customizing of UI Technologies
/UI2/FLP Launch SAP Fiori Launchpad
/UI2/FLC Fiori Launchpad Checks
/UI2/FLP_CUS_CONF Fiori Launchpad System Settings (client-specific)
/UI2/FLP_SYS_CONF Fiori Launchpad System Settings (cross-client)
/UI2/FLP_DEL_PERS Delete Personalization of SAP FLP
/UI2/CSU Cache Statistics Utility
/UI2/FSAC System Alias Consistency Check
/UI2/RSP_LIST Analysis of Spaces and Pages
/IWFND/CACHE_CLEANUP Clean-up of Model Cache
/IWFND/ERROR_LOG   SAP NetWeaver Gateway Error Log
/IWFND/GW_CLIENT Simulate OData Service execution
/IWFND/TRACES SAP NetWeaver Gateway: Tracing Tools
/IWFND/APPS_LOG Application Log Viewer
/IWFND/CACHE_REBUILD Rebuild Gateway Model Cache
/IWFND/MAINT_SERVICE Activate and Maintain OData Services
/IWFND/ERROR_LOG   SAP NetWeaver Gateway Error Log
IWFND/GW_CLIENT Simulate OData Service execution
/IWFND/TRACES SAP NetWeaver Gateway: Tracing Tools
/IWFND/APPS_LOG Application Log Viewer
/IWFND/CACHE_REBUILD Rebuild Gateway Model Cache
/IWFND/V4_ADMIN OData V4 Administration (for Notifications)
/IWNGW/R_HUB_CLEAR_CACHE OData Cache (for Notifications
SBGRFCMON Monitor bgRFC queues (for Notifications)
TCODE SAP S/4HANA backend tools
/IWBEP/CACHE_CLEANUP Clean-up of Model Cache
SACM Access Control Management
SACMDCLS CDS Access Controls
/IWBEP/ERROR_LOG SAP Gateway Backend Error Log
/IWBEP/TRACES SAP Gateway Backend Traces
/IWBEP/VIEW_LOG SAP Gateway Log Viewer
/IWBEP/CONFIG_CHECK Check Configuration of BEP
ESH_DASHBOARD Enterprise Search Connector Analysis and Troubleshooting
ESH_TEST_SEARCH Enterprise Search Connector Test
ESH_QUERY_LOG Enterprise Search Connector Query Log

Check also.  the following SAP Notes and Blog Posts:


SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA Performance Optimization and Best Practice Part 1 Tools and Tracing

SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA – Performance Optimization and Best Practice Part 2 Architecture

Resolving Fiori "could not open app" errors in SAP S/4HANA

App Support for the SAP Fiori Launchpad

3 simple use cases for Launchpad Content Aggregator

Identifying the OData Services, CDS Views, and Authorizations of a SAP Fiori App

Solving No Data Available for Smart Business Apps

SAP Gateway Foundation (SAP_GWFND) - Error Log

SAP Gateway Foundation (SAP_GWFND) - Debugging Query Option

SAP Fiori Overview - Troubleshooting SAP Fiori Apps

Troubleshooting Authorization concept in SADL based OData Services

SAP Note 2353453 - Check of ABAP Push Channel (APC) WebSocket connection

SAP Note 2919392 - Determining missing authorizations for Access Controlled CDS Entities

SAP Note 2704855 - Navigation away from the FioriLaunchPad (Inplace) - Popup appears

SAP Note 2506498 - Monitoring SAP Fiori Application Usage

SAP Note 2282103 - How to check the version of SAPUI5 you have installed

SAP Note 1508958 - Look and Feel in the WEBGUI

SAP Note 2658822 - Release notes for SAP GUI for HTML (short WEBGUI)

SAP Note 1672817 - Browser: Microsoft Legacy Edge and Internet Explorer Support Policy Note

SAP Note 2730648 - Unable to navigate to new transaction from existing transaction-based Fiori app

SAP Note 2730648 - Unable to navigate to new transaction from existing transaction-based Fiori app

SAP Note 2985402 - Webgui FSM: 400 session timeout when FSM's are called on start

Conclusion: With these guidelines you will be able to ensure the best possible support for your SAP Fiori landscape & thereby ensure you ensure your business can leverage the latest SAP Fiori innovations as soon as they are available – increasing productivity, user satisfaction, customer loyalty & solution adoption.

Becoming an SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA guru


You’ll find much more on the community topic page for SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA

Other helpful links in the SAP Community:

 

Brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA Customer Care and RIG.

 

 
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