SAP Screen Personas for Web Dynpro ABAP

[dirk_becker2]

SAP Screen Personas is widely known as a powerful tool to reduce complexity and increase efficiency for end users working on SAP GUI screens. Many people have asked when SAP Screen Personas would be available for other UI Technologies such as Web Dynpro ABAP. I’m pleased to announce that this capability is now available.

 

Motivation

Web Dynpro ABAP and especially the Floorplan Manager (FPM) already provide a large variety of adaptation options in configuration, customizing and end user personalization. Most enhancements and adaptations can be done with the available tools already. So, why should SAP Screen Personas be enabled for Web Dynpro ABAP?

There are multiple reasons why SAP Screen personas makes a lot of sense for Web Dynpro ABAP:

• Support of a new Role: Business Expert

In Web Dynpro ABAP, adaptation options are available for system administrators and personalization options are available for end users. But no support was available so far for any roles in between, such as business experts who want to do certain settings for their individual department.

• Sharing concept

Web Dynpro ABAP does not have any sharing concept. Customizing is valid in the entire client; end user personalization is only available for the individual end user. But with the support of other roles like Business Experts it becomes mandatory to support the sharing of adaptations.

• Simple editor

The configuration editor FLUID and the other enhancement tools are complex and intended for experts such as system administrators, but nor for end users or business experts. A lightweight editor is required for these roles – such as the WYSIWYG SAP Screen Personas editor.

• Scripting

Web Dynpro ABAP had no scripting engine so far. But scripting capabilities are highly desired when screens shall be simplified and clicks reduced.

 



 

Architecture

For consistency and efficiency reasons, it was clear from the beginning that reuse is the key to success. Thus the Web Dynpro ABAP implementation for SAP Screen Personas has as much as possible in common with SAP Screen Personas 3.0 for the GUI.

SAP Screen Personas 3.0 (for SAP GUI) and SAP Screen Personas for Web Dynpro ABAP share the same editor, flavor gallery, scripting editor, and administration tools. So, you do not need to learn new editor or admin functions. The flavor administration tool is available as a GUI transaction and as Web Dynpro application; both tools can administer all flavors regardless whether they are GUI flavors or Web Dynpro flavors.

There are a few functions exclusively for Web Dynpro or FPM. The runtime implementation of the changes in the flavors itself is handled in the Web Dynpro framework itself. The Screen Personas adaptations are integrated between customizing and end user personalization so that the end user still has the chance to do some individual personalization (e.g. default values) even in a scenario which uses a SAP Screen personas flavor.



 

Capabilities and Limitations

With the initial delivery of SAP Screen Personas for Web Dynpro, many features are already supported; some others are still on the roadmap. We are planning to release the following features:

• Coloring of most parts of the screen


• Support of custom styles


• All kinds of text formatting for most texts


• Background images


• Insertion of elements like text fields and labels, input fields, images and sticky notes


• Drag & drop of elements; most of the drop targets are absolute values within a given container. Some specific elements can be dropped logically in their environment (e.g. toolbar buttons)


• Resizing of elements


• Hiding of elements


• Undo and Redo of individual changes to a flavor


• Client-side scripting including object inspector and script button

 

In the first version the following features are not yet supported:

• FPM List ATS


• Conditional formatting of a Web Dynpro table or FPM List


• Web Dynpro ABAP Select Options


• Web Dynpro ABAP Popups and FPM Dialog Boxes


• Z-Layering (Bring forward, send backward), alignment and grouping


• Format copy


• Script execution on load or on roundtrip.


• Scripting across sessions.

 

As we are working on adding new capabilities, we are looking for customer feedback to react on customer input and requirements.



 

Availability

SAP Screen Personas for Web Dynpro ABAP is available with SAP Screen Personas 3.0 SP01 and Net Weaver SAP_UI 7.50 SP00 – please note that SAP_UI 7.50 can be implemented without the necessity to upgrade SAP_BASIS to 7.50 as well!

Also have a look at note 2181980 which explains availability, capabilities and limitations in some more detail.

[Former Member]

Hi,

Appreciate your effort for detail information.Just want to know what is the scope of SAP personas for Webdynpro?.

Thanks

KH

[dirk_becker2]

Hi Katrice,

with the implementation of SAP Screen Personas for WDA we want to address certain scenarios which were not possible in WDA so far: Enabling of the new role 'Business Expert', sharing of adaptation within dedicated group of people, scripting and easy in-situ styling capabilities.

In principle, all WDA applciations can be adapted with SAP Screen Personas now, regardless whether they were created with FPM (Floorplan manager) or with native WDA. The authorization concept enables certain employees to be Personas Admin, Personas Editor or just Personas consumer.

Most controls in WDA can be addressed with SAP Screen Personas already; still there are some limitations listed in this blog and in the referenced note 2181980 which we are working on currently.

I hope that I could answer your question.

Best regards,

dirk

[Former Member]

Hi Dirk,

Appreciate your reply.I'm not much aware of thi SAP Screen Personas.It would be great if your provide me any link/blog which helps me to know and learn about it.

Thank

KH

[dirk_becker2]

Hi Katrice,

that's easy to answer: You will find a bunch of information on SAP Screen Personas here or on the SAP Screen personas SCN Page here.

Best regards,

dirk

[Former Member]

Hi Dirk,

Thank you very much.

Br,

KH

[Pavan_Golesar]

THanks alot.

--Pavan G

[Carifaine]

Great summary of necessary information about this feature. I'm pretty curious to test it and our customers are as well.

So i assume opening a web dynpro application in my webbrowser will lead to the blue "P" appearing just like in the webgui?

Thanks for sharing!

[dirk_becker2]

Yes, you will see the blue 'P' for WDA applications as well - once you have the authorization! 🙂

[christopher_griffin]

Hi Dirk

Thanks for the blog.  How good is the capability currently for hiding/renaming/merging tabs?

Chris

[dirk_becker2]

Hi Christopher,

are you talking about tabs in OIF (e.g. Horizontal Contextual Panel) or about panels in OVP?

Panels are pretty well enabled so far. For the other tabs, we have still some way ahead of us. Therefore it would be helpful if you can describe what you would like to do in detail! And then I can respond in more detail.

Best regards,

dirk

[christopher_griffin]

Hi Dirk

We are trying to work with tabs in PPM module, which I think are largely based on FPM_OIF_component.  We would like to remove and rename these tabs, and perhaps move some labels/text boxes from one to another.

It sounds like this is not yet possible in Personas, indeed we have tried and the tabset appears as just a single block.  Do you recommend in that case, making the changes in using deep-copy configuration?

Chris

[dirk_becker2]

Hi Chris,

for such major changes in the screen appearance, we would recommend to use Customizing or if you want to create your own application, you can use deep-copy and configure your own application.

Our recommendation is to use the native WDA/FPM adaptation tools to adapt your screen, especially when it is for a large group of people (.e.g an entire client). - We recommend to use SAP Screen Personas for the smaller adaptations of the screens and some clean-up activities.

Indeed, you could combine both, WDF/FPM adaptation and Personas for further refinement... - But you should always consider the context of a Personas flavour.

Best regards,

dirk

[Former Member]

Hi Dirk

We have a SAP Portfolio and Project Management system that has a number of Web dynpro screens that we want to use Personas 3 on. We upgraded the components to the following:

SAP_BASIS           740         SP10  SAP Basis Component

SAP_GWFND        740         SP10  SAP Gateway Foundation 7.40

SAP_UI                 750         SP01  User Interface Technology

WEBCUIF              747        SP03  SAP Web UI Framework

PERSONAS          300         SP02  PERSONAS – SAP GUI PERSONALISATION

CPRXRPM            600_740  SP02  SAP Portfolio and Project Management

Personas 3 works on the GUI screens and the health monitor is green across the board. Version 7 of note 2222774 has been implemented as well but as soon as I launch a Web dynpro application, the blue line does not appear. Is there any additional authorization apart for the /personas/ roles that is required? I have also removed the WD_DISABLE_PERSONAS parameter from the Web Dynpro global settings in SE80.

Any help would be appreciated,

James

[Carifaine]

Hi James,

the authorization objects P_EDIT and P_RUNTIME come with a field "P_ACTVT_FW". If it is defined with "01" for your role, you only have access to Dynpro editing. "02" allows you to edit web Dynpro. Make sure the authorizations are set to 01 + 02 or * if you checked all the other prerequisites.

Christoph

[Former Member]

Hi Christoph

Thank you for your swift response. Unfortunately I already have the role /PERSONAS/ADMIN_ROLE so I have those authorizations. Personas 3 works for GUI screens but not for the Web Dynpro screens.

James

[former_member215843]

Hi James,

I think it should work now. Just create a ticket so that we can have a look and analyze it.

Regards, Regina

[christopher_griffin]

Hi James

We are also working on PPM implementation, and trying to apply Personas flavours.  If you like, we can maybe collaborate on tips & lesssons learned?

[Former Member]

Hi Regina

Our basis team has logged a ticket 914196 / 2015.

Kind regards,

James

[Former Member]

Hi dirk.becker2

It looks like note 2181980 is not released yet. Do you know when that will be available?

Thanks!

[dirk_becker2]

Hi Brian,

sorry for this; the note is now released (again).

Best regards,

dirk

[Former Member]

Hey james.everson_aquilon

What did you end up doing?

[Former Member]

Hi Dirk,

From what I can see there are some differences between available options in SSP for SAP GUI and for WebDynpro, i.e. are radio buttons available in Sap Screen Personas for Webdynpro?

Best Regards,

Dominik

[dirk_becker2]

Hi Dominik,

indeed there are differences between the Personas implementations for WDA and GUI. There are two major reasons for this:

1.) The functionality and the technology is completely different in GUI and WDA. Those functional differences imply also differences in the available scope for Personas.

2.) The WDA implementation for personas is much younger than the GUI implementation. Therefore we have many things which are still work in progress.

Especially for the radio buttons: They are not yet available, you can insert check boxes instead. If you require radio buttons in the WDA Personas scope, this would be helpful to know because then I can raise the priority for this.

In general, we are eagerly looking for customer or partner feedback for WDA Personas. So if you are interested to come into a closer discussion with me / us, just let me know and we can dig into some more details or we can discuss your individual requirements.

best regards,

dirk

[Former Member]

Hello Dirk,

Thank you for your reply :smile: . I do not have any specific task related to Sap Screen Personas for WD, I am quite new to Personas and just trying to figure out its capabilities.

Which regards to feedback, I think it would be good to have a simple button to copy a flavor. It took me some time to get used to the fact that I had to create new flavor with checkbox "flavor based on current one". Which regards to radio buttons, I wanted to get rid of a dropdown with two values and replace it with radiobuttons. Even if I use checkboxes, still I am unable to change the dropdown selection in javascript. Changing the 'value' is not reflected in WD as selected entry.

Other obstacle is that I am missing the possiblity of adding script for control events, i.e. dropdown selection, regular button click (not script-button).

Best Regards,

Dominik

[Former Member]

Hi Dirik,

Is script recorder work same way for Webdynpro as in GUI ?

i can see recorder button in personas in GUI but for webdynpro the button does not appear.

is there any Note or anything which will fix it.

I can write script but no recorder.

Regards,

Kiran

[dirk_becker2]

Hello Dominik,

I forwarded your feedback for for a simpler 'Copy Flavor' function to the central personas group.

I will add the radiobuttons to our backlog.

Regarding scripting: In the moment we have only the Script button and no further possibility to add the script to any other WDA event. but we will discuss this requirement as well.

Best regards,

dirk

[dirk_becker2]

Hi Kiran,

thank you for your comment! Are you currently working at a certain WDA Personas implementation project?

We are just in the middle of enhancing the scripting capabilities. Script recording is on my high priority list but since this is no simple task, it will still take some while until we have it available for WDA as well.

Best regards,

dirk

[Former Member]

Hi Dirk ,

We are working on WDA- Personas Project and running into many challenges .Major ones are Tab merging and hiding of elements on tab strip . Please confirm if these are also some limitations on Personas side.

Thanks
Shivani

[dirk_becker2]

Hi Shivani,

it is good to hear that you are working on a WDA-Personas project. On the other hand, it is bad that you are running into limitations. Indeed, tab merge for WDA-Personas is not yet available - we are currently working on it.

I can offer to you that we get in contact and have a closer look at your project. Then we can check what your possibilities are and we could potentially rearrange our backlog priorities.

Best regards,
dirk

[Former Member]

Thanks a lot Dirk . Indeed it will be of great help if we can connect with each other and discuss our project . Because right now  we have put in double efforts of doing changes in WDA and then use Personas for Screen elements .

Thanks
Shivani

[Former Member]

Hi everybody,

we did upgrade to SAPUI 750 - by that we are now able to work with Screen Personas 3.0 on WebDynpro Screens.

We got one WDA that is authnticated by a Internet User that is mentioned in SICF service to that WDA. Now with the Screen Personas Flavor on top the system requires an Logon.

How can i prevent my Personas Flavor to Logon to Netweaver ? The pure WDA Application doesn't need a Login.

Thx for your support !

Tom

 

 

 

[Former Member]

Hello Dirk,

Anybody has implemented Personas 3.0 in SRM webdynpro screens?

We are really struggling to merge the tabs for SRM Purchase Order application. So, I would like to know whether these capabilities are building now. Further, I have seen any new updates after Noveber 2016.

So, could you please share latest changes within Wendynpro applications and limitations which will be highly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Ramesh Kyla

 

 

[Former Member]

Hello Dirk,

We have implemented the BADI "EAML_LFE_SCREEN_CUST" and enhanced the dictionary structure CI_EAML_LFE, now I see new fields in methods PUT and Get screen of BADI. Standard webdynpro application is available for this. Do we need to enhance the webdynpro or we can enhance the app through screen personas as well, could you help me please? 

Kind Regards,

Sanjoy

[former_member205869]

Hi Dirk,

 

Thanks for the blog. Personas Vs CBA's. How do we decide between which option to choose?

 

Really appreciate your answer.

 

Thanks,

Rohan Saundattikar

[former_member107631]

Hi Saha, i implement the badi but i can't view the new fields, could you guide me in which cuold be the problem.