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beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert

Update February 2024: Individual users exploring SAP BTP should now use SAP BTP Trial rather than free tier plans. This article describes an older SAP BTP account and free tier signup process which is now obsolete. The revised process is available exclusively for Customers, Partners, and other organizations - not Individuals. 

Are you looking to try SAP Build Apps as an individual user?

You can use the Free tier model available on SAP Business Technology Platform to test and evaluate if the no-code app builder is the right choice for you or your company.
The free tier option includes the front-end capabilities to build beautiful UIs in drag-and-drop fashion using a large library of customizable components, logic flows, and formulas for data transformation.
It also enables the creation of no-code application backends using the built-in cloud functions.
For details and possible restrictions, please refer to the
Service Guide.

You can follow this video tutorial to subscribe to SAP Build Apps on SAP BTP Free Tier:

When starting from scratch there are 4 steps to use SAP Build Apps on free tier: 

1. Order SAP BTP Pay-As-You-Go account 

As a first step we'll create an individual SAP Store account. See here for country availability and limitations
Go to the pricing information and click the ‘start now’ button in the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) for SAP BTP model.
Fill out the registration form.
After you’ve successfully registered at the SAP Store, you now need to verify your contact details. You will find an e-mail in your email account asking you to 'activate your account'. The 'continue' button will take you back to the store and you'll be logged in using the new credentials.

Select 'purchase as an individual' to create a global account on SAP BTP with free tier service plans.
(The registration flow offers you the option to register on behalf of your employer but there's more steps to that process and that's not what we're going to focus on in this walk through.)


Fill out the address form, configure your solution and go to 'check out'
Please note: you are asked to enter your credit card details, such as card holder namecard number, and expiration date. Your free tier service plans are for free. However, we need this information for authentication purposes and for billing if you decide to use standard service plans.

The verification of your order might take a while, you’ll receive an email with the confirmation and your credentials.

2. Run the SAP Build Apps booster  

Use the access URL from the confirmation email to log into the SAP BTP Cockpit with your newly created global account.
In your global account, go to ‘Boosters’, search for ‘Get started with SAP Build Apps’ and click on ‘Start’.


In step 1, we‘ll  check  if your SAP BTP account meets the pre-requisites to run the booster, such as the required authorization and entitlements, and the customer IAS tenant.

In step 2, you’re able to select an existing SAP BTP subaccount or create a new one.  
In step 3, you’ll choose the service, the region, and the cloud foundry environment you want to use.

On Step 4 a new custom IAS tenant will be created and shown as your ‘custom identity provider for applications’. You don't need to enter your email address as admin as this is done automatically.

After the Review in Step 5, click ‘Finish’ and the booster should execute successfully.  
3. Confirm the custom IAS tenant activation 

You’ll receive an email confirming the provisioning of your custom IAS tenant, providing you with your credentials and a URL to activate your admin user.


 5. Launch SAP Build Apps 

You can go back to the subaccount, under ‘services’ - ‘instances and subscriptions’ and launch SAP Build Apps.
Sign in with your credentials from step 3, log into the lobby and start building! 
For detailed and updated product information,
and what’s new, visit the
service guide on SAP Help Portal.

In case of further questions don’t hesitate to contact us or comment below this post.
Best regards,
Beatrice Pasch, Maiara Ellwanger
for SAP Build Apps PM

50 Comments
Former Member

It would have been really, really helpful to mention that you have to choose 'USA East' as a region to make this work, not 'Europe'.
Took me hours to find out☹

Even without that the process is incredibly complicated with trust configuration etc.

I don't think many newbies will have the will to walk through this.

 

UPDATE: Process seems to have been streamlined and is easier now:
/https://blogs.sap.com/2022/12/16/sap-btp-developer-onboarding-sap-build-apps/

Dan_Wroblewski
Developer Advocate
Developer Advocate
Is the cloud identity service, default plan, free? How can I be sure?

I have looked in the Discovery Center and could not for certain see that this was free.
gregorw
Active Contributor
Hi Daniel,

I'm using the BTP Free Tier and also activated the Identity Services (Identity Authentication and Identity Provisioning). I can confirm that it's free unless you classify any connected app as "Unknown" or "Non SAP Solution". Because then this app moves to the "Charged Applications" as you can see in this screenshot:


and the logins to this app produce costs.

CU
Gregor
Dan_Wroblewski
Developer Advocate
Developer Advocate
0 Kudos
Thanks ... would love to see the beershop app 🙂
gregorw
Active Contributor
You can deploy it yourself: https://github.com/gregorwolf/pg-beershop. It's my test application for cds-pg - which brings PostgreSQL support for CAP.
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hello Kai,
I am sorry that the setup of SAP Build Apps didn't work as expected.
I have added the service availability information to the blog, thanks for the feedback.
SAP Build Apps is available on US East and Europe Frankfurt. Can you please let me know what kind of issues you experienced on the Europe region?
Kind regards,
Bea
mohit_bansal3
Active Participant
0 Kudos
Hi Beatrice, Seems Free tier is still not available for Singapore and India region. Tried many times but I don't accept the credit cards from India / Singapore.
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hi Mohit,
The Free Tier model for individual accounts is currently only offered in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. (see here)
I've forwarded your requirement to offer it also for India to the responsible SAP teams.
Kind regards,
Bea
Alex_D
Explorer
0 Kudos
Hi Beatrice,

Thanks. We've (the partner) got a second global account for the Free Tier with Pay-As-You-Go (the first one is still not migrated to Feature Set B - so, in my understanding, this all isn't available with Feature Set A).

But anyway, the first global account has an own Identity Service, so also with a booster i didn't get any proposals to create a new identity service:


So, with your video it was clear, that the identity service is missing.

Best regards,
Alexander
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hi Alexander,
Thanks for the clarification regarding the issues on the Europe datacenter. I will discuss with the Engineering team if there is a way to improve the booster.
Kind regards, Bea
GoranKovacic
Participant
0 Kudos
Hi Beatrice and Maiara,

Thank you for the interesting post, it is exactly what I needed right now!

I have a question though regarding point 3 - Create a custom IAS tenant and establish trust .
You write that "You’ll receive an email confirming the activation and providing an URL to activate your admin user for this new IAS tenant."
Under Instances and Subscriptions I see my subscription as "subscribed" (green), but I never received an email though. And if I start the App, I can not log into it, even though I am the sole admin with all accessibly rights in the Subaccount.

Do you maybe know how long it should take for the Email to arrive?

Thank you and best regards,
Goran
MSo
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hi Goran,
the IAS tenant will be created immediately. There is just a waiting period of several minutes (up to 30) until the DNS entries for the new tenant were replicated.

In case you didn't receive an account confirmation email for your admin user of the new tenant, you may use the forgot password flow.
Navigate to the URL of the admin console and click 'Forgot password?' on the login screen.

How to find out the IAS tenant URL?
Either in the BTP cockpit -> Instances and Subscriptions -> besides the Cloud Identity Services application there is an icon. Clicking on it will navigate you to the login to the admin console.

Other alternative would be to use the iamtenants application and list all IAS & IPS tenants of your 'company'. By registering a BTP Free Tier account you received an S-user for your 'company'. You might use that S-user to see your IAS tenant as described in the following blog:
https://blogs.sap.com/2021/08/19/new-check-on-one-single-page-all-of-your-identity-authentication-an...

I hope that helps!
Marko
GoranKovacic
Participant
0 Kudos
Thank you for your feedback, Marko!
GoranKovacic
Participant
Hi Marko.
It turned out that we already had an IAS, which was created some time ago by a colleague of mine on a different Global Account, of which I of course didn't know anything 🙂

I noticed this only because the URL of the IAS was always the same (doesn't matter how many I created) and then I saw it also already listed on https://iamtenants.accounts.cloud.sap/.

Anyway, I never got an Email, until my colleague added me as admin on the existing IAS. Now all works 🙂

BR
Goran
quovadis
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hello beatrice.pasch ;

Great blog and many useful comments from the other readers.

The single one thing I have stumbled upon is the assignment of SAP Build Apps relevant roles to the booster created AppGyverUser role collection.

Until I had added the BuildAppsAdmin role to AppGyverUser role collection I was being denied the SAP Build Apps access.

Despite the fact it is documented in the official SAP Help pages at Configuring User Roles | SAP Help it is hard to understand why neither  BuildAppsAdmin nor BuildAppsDeveloper is added automatically to the booster created AppGyverUser role collection (alongside RegistryAdmin and RegistryDeveloper roles that the booster does populates)?

kind regards; Piotr
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hi Piotr,
Thank you very much for your feedback.
I have retested the process for individual users of the pay-as-you-go SAP BTP model. The access to SAP Build Apps still works as described in the blog above.
You mentioned the role configuration described in the documentation, but that is not valid in our individual use case as we do not need to share the SAP BTP account with other colleagues in the company.
However, I agree that if you are working on a BTP account for an enterprise, the booster should assign the roles as mentioned. Let me clarify this with the development team.
Kind regards, Bea
dhimantpatel
Advisor
Advisor
0 Kudos
Are customers w/ existing (legacy) SAP Build license automatically upgraded to new SAP Build Apps SKU?
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hi Dhimant,
No that isn't planned.
SAP Build Apps is available in subscription and consumption mode and you can find more pricing details in the SAP Discovery Center: https://discovery-center.cloud.sap/serviceCatalog/sap-build-apps?tab=service_plan&commercialModel=cl...
Kind regards, Bea
quovadis
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos

Hi Beatrice,

Thank you for taking the time to investigate this on your side. I also use a personal BTP Free Tier account but it would be too much effort to go back in time.

That makes me think that as we have boosters we also could have a way to undo a booster,  just to be able to rewind to a pre-booster state.

On a side note I was able to complete my blog post that explains how to import projects from SAP Appgyver community edition into SAP Build Apps here.

kind regards; Piotr

Former Member

During my long tries to get this running I obviously stumbled across something that is causing costs now.

So be warned: Before giving your credit card details to SAP you should be really sure what you are doing (or better: seek legal advice).

I definitely learned my lesson (and will spread the word):

BTP's 'free' tier or SAP Build - never touch it !

 

UPDATE:
I got a chance to talk to Beatrice Pasch about this and was told that I will not be charged. 
While this shouldn't have happened in the first place I was positively surprised with the quick response. 

beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hello Kai,
we are very sorry for your experience. We are already looking into this issue and will get back to you as soon as possible.
Kind regards, Bea
TMNielsen
Contributor
How can I be sure i'm not on a path that requires payment.

I'm trying to follow this guide, but the screens I see does not match the guide, so with the scary story from kaisicker i interrupted the creation of Cloud Identity Services.

The guide says I must select the service type (either productive or test), but the screen I see does not have any service type field and in "Plan" I can not choose any free plan, I can only choose plan application.

 


I tried to search SAP Discovery Center to see available plans for Cloud Identity Service, but that doesn't even exist in the Discovery Center. Here is the search result I got when searching fro Cloud Identity Services:


 

I have like KaI Sicker a bad experience receiving an invoice (amount 344,- eur) for activating a free-tier service. In may case it was SAP Hana Cloud. During the activation I got a similar general warning that I also see in this blog "costs might apply see blog" , but I never got any specific warning "You are now activating something that is not free". I just got an invoice BAM.

In general SAP needs to be much more detailed and specific with the available plans, so there is no doubt when a service is free and when it is chargeable.

In this specific case please confirm that plan "application" for Cloud Identity Services is in fact free.

In case region has anything do do with the question I can confirm that my BTP is in Europe (Frankfurt):


 

Kind regards

Thomas Madsen Nielsen
MSo
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hi Thomas,
the 'application' plan refers to an existing 'Instance', i.e. an already existing Identity Services tenant. It will setup a trust configuration from the BTP subaccount to IAS; iow: it will create an 'Application' in the IAS admin console.
This application plan does not refer to any commercial or subscription plan.

Besides this 'Instance' specific plan, there are two 'Subscription' plans available for the Identity Services: the 'default' and the 'additional-tenant' plan.
The 'default' plan can be used to generate an Identity Services default tenant for a company (i.e. either a productive or a test-tenant). Such default tenants are free of charge.
The 'additional-tenant plan can be used if a customer requires more than the two default tenants for his company. Such default tenants are subject to be licensed; i.e. they will cost money.

Best regards, Marko

TMNielsen
Contributor
Mary Christmas SAP Builders

 

marko.sommer Thanks for you reply.

"Instance specific plan" and "Subscrition plan" -  that just increased  the level of confusion.

In my BTPs entitlements I have plans called free, standard, lite, default, application, space, apiaccess, oauto2, proxy, dashboard and more.

This seems to be completely unstructured and now you talk about "Instance plans" and "Subscription plans".

I realize that this is a discussion that should be in a thread by itself and not be spamming this blog, so lets us just leave it for now.
anurag_mundra
Explorer

Hello,

I tried accessing Cloud Identity services as part of the setup in Step 3 as shown above, but I am not able to see any apps for that. Please find the below image for reference.

Service marketplace

lilialezano
Member
0 Kudos
Hi,

I also encountered the same issue, I wonder if it's because we're using a trial account?
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hello anurag.mundra and lilialezano
Yes, SAP Build Apps and SAP Cloud Identity Service aren't available on the BTP Trial landscape. The described process in this blog is only valid for a SAP BTP Pay-as-you-go account for indiviual users.
Please note that you can also use a free of charge SAP Build Apps Sandbox for 30 Days as described in the blog from Joe Binkley: https://groups.community.sap.com/t5/sap-builders-blog-posts/announcing-the-sap-build-apps-sandbox/ba...

Kind regards,
Bea
Peter_M
Explorer
Just to add that SAP also sorted out my "free" billing accident.

In my case, when I read teh billing email and realised I was on the wrong plan by mistake, I immediately deleted the subscription, and contacted the SAP team explaining the mistake and asked them for help.

When SAP looked at it, they gave me a credit note to cover the mistake (which I am grateful for).

The moral of the story?

Always review your BTP billing emails, and delete the service as soon as you find out you've pressed the wrong button!

 
gregorw
Active Contributor
0 Kudos
Great that you share this positive experience.
brunovillanova
Discoverer
0 Kudos
Hi!

In my case, I followed the trial steps, but when I installed Build Process Automation, it installed Cloud Foundry on its own in the "standard" plan, will I be charged?


 



 


 

 
peterengel
Advisor
Advisor
0 Kudos
Hi Bruno,

I think you ask for the Environment. No you will not be charged for this, but SAP Build Process Automation needs the Cloud Foundry Runtime to run thee application. The charge is included in free and later the standard plan for SAP Build Process Automation.

Br,

Peter
0 Kudos
Hi good evening,

When running the SAP Build App Booster, in the step of Configure Subaccount, when selecting my subaccount, I notice Org. and Space are blank, and I get the following error message:

"Some of the entitlements are not available in the selected subaccount (Provider: AWS, Region: cf-us10). Please either add them or select a subaccount with a different provider or region.

Below are the missing entitlements or entitlements with insufficient quota:
Name: SAP Build Apps
Type: Subscription
Plan: free
Required Quota: 1
Remaining Quota: 0"

Could you please help? DId I missed something during the activation?

Thank you very much

Jose Luis


Image


 
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hi joseluis.perazajuarez

The Org and space field is open for selection when the entitlement for SAP Build Apps and Launchpad is ok. Please go to your SAP BTP Global Account - Entitlements - Entity Assignments and select the relevant subaccount. Select "Add Service Plan" and search SAP Build Apps. You should see the Free plan for selection and can save your settings afterwards. If that doesn't help, I would suggest to contact us via buildapps@sap.com for a deeper look into your BTP account.
Kind regards,
Bea

 
itanta_andrew
Explorer
Hi Bea

I have the same problem as Jose, and adding SAP Build Apps (free) entitlement does not make any difference. I had successfully setup the Cloud Identity Service before hand.

I notice that like Jose, it lists a Required Quota of "1", whereas when I watch the SAP HANA Academy video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSzEWvG-iqw&list=PLkzo92owKnVw3l4fqcLoQalyFi9K4-UdY) it lists the Required Quota as "limited" - see picture attached below.

Would it be easier for me to email buildapps@sap.com for you to look into this in more detail?

Kind regards,
Andrew


SAP Build Apps Booster Problem

beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hi itanta_andrewharding ,
Yes, please contact us via buildapps@sap.com.
We will share the results with the community later.
Kind regards, Bea
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hi joseluis.perazajuarez and itanta_andrewharding ,
Short update from my side regarding this issue with the SAP Build Apps booster. This is a general issue and the development team is already working on the solution.

In the meantime you can use the SAP Build Apps Sandbox to test free of charge the creation of SAP Build Apps frontend or backend applications: https://groups.community.sap.com/t5/sap-builders-blog-posts/announcing-the-sap-build-apps-sandbox/ba...

I will provide feedback as soon as we have an update on this topic.

Kind regards,
Bea
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Hi joseluis.perazajuarez and itanta_andrewharding ,
the problem was solved and the booster should work as expected now.
Please note that you can only use one free service plan for SAP Build Apps in a sub-account of your global SAP BTP account as described in the service plan in the Discovery Center:
https://discovery-center.cloud.sap/serviceCatalog/sap-build-apps?region=europe(frankfurt)&tab=servic...

Kind regards,
Bea
former_member839991
Discoverer
0 Kudos

SAP needs to make this process MUCH SIMPLER for AppGyver adopters if they hope capture market share.

The Free Tier should be a one-step provisioning process with a 1-year recurring subscription that includes Build.   As long as you are logging in periodically, then your account should remain active.

I understand SAP wants to integrate the AppGyver technology into its existing products for existing customers.  There is serious brand confusion when introducing BTP.

AppyGyver is getting lost in this process.  There are way too many steps.  I'm extremely disappointed in the execution and integration of AppGyver into SAP's ecosystem.

tharney
Explorer
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hi tomappgyver

Thank you for your feedback. We try to make the onboarding process for SAP Build Apps as simple as possible. I would be pleased if you could contact us at buildapps@sap.com to discuss the ideal procedure in more detail.
Kind regards,
Bea
Product Management SAP Build Apps
dptai
Explorer
0 Kudos

Hi Experts
Please help me in this case
I do step by step follow your guide.
When I configure SAP Build Apps.I didn't see Launchpad in Entitlements as your video
I also access SAP Build and create new project. But I can't access to Apps and have HTTP ERROR 403

 

I also remove this Subaccounts and create new Subaccounts. Than I step by step follow guide, but I can't access Build App and have 403.
I very appreciate for your support. Thank you very much

 

 

beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hello dptai ,I assume you can see SAP Build Workzone instead of Launchpad, right? The product has been renamed and we need to update the video. Maybe you can send me your screenshots to the email address buildapps@sap.com so we can have a closer look.
Kind regards,
Bea Pasch
dptai
Explorer
0 Kudos

Hi beatrice.pasch

Although I set up Application in Instances and Subscriptions. I do step by step follow your guide. But I can't access project in SAP Build Apps. I receive HTTP ERROR 403 when starting the application.You can see the images I attached in the comment above.

I very appreciate for your support

beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hello dptai , Let me add a comment here for the community that the problem on your side has been solved and it was only a temporary problem.
Kind regards, Bea
vitazz
Discoverer
0 Kudos
Hi beatrice.pasch

Could you please clarify what i need to do to get to the SAP Build Work Zone app? I have an access denied error.


My user has required role collections


 
ingoditrst
Discoverer
0 Kudos
Hi Bea! Thank you for the explainer video... incredibly helpful. I followed the instructions using my Free Tier account I created using SAP HANA course instructions and I used the option that does not require credit cards.

After completing subscription to SAP Build Apps and going through setting up the Cloud ID Services, I clicked to run SAP Build Apps and got the following error:

Would you be against helping me understand how to get this resolved? Thank you so much, all of the community, for your support. I'm new to SAP and database management in this capacity and am impressed with the level of commitment and dedication by this team!

 

It looks like aipj2oqgj.trial-accounts.ondemand.com closed the connection






Try:


ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED




beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hi vitalykz , Sorry for my late reply but I didn't saw your comment earlier. Please assign the Launchpad_admin role to your user.
Kind regards, Bea
beapasch
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos
Hi ingoditrst , welcome to the SAP community:-)
I've never seen this message earlier for SAP Build Apps. Can you please use the following tutorial to re-run the booster for Build Apps on your SAP BTP trial account: https://developers.sap.com/tutorials/build-apps-trial-booster.html
Please contact me via buildapps@sap.com in case of further questions.
Kind regards, Bea
ingoditrst
Discoverer
0 Kudos
Thank you very much for the fast reply. I'll try this; though I did use the Build Apps sandbox to run this tutorial but got to the Test API function and it didn't work. I suspect its because when I click "ABC currently bound to: static text" button and go to "Edit binding for" dialog box and select "ABC Static text", no new dialog box appears and my only option for entering "Enter 6416453061361 into the Type a text field" is to enter it at the original box under the "Test" tab. IDK... I've deleted and recreated and it doesn't resolve to the product data.

Thank you for your help. I struggled to access support from the sap.com pages earlier but will try again.
ingoditrst
Discoverer

The workaround above didn't work. I'll try reaching on the buildapps@sap.com 🙂