Advantages of SAP Fiori®

One of the main reasons why SAP Fiori® is successfully used by many companies is that there are not only advantages for the company/management itself but also end-users and developers. When introducing a new system or technology, often only the advantages for the company as a whole are considered. Aspects, like fast rollouts, cost savings, and compatibility to older systems are usually in the focus. With SAP Fiori® there are actually a lot of benefits for the people using these apps day by day and the developers who create, maintain and develop them.

Advantages for end-users

• All SAP Fiori® apps have a similar structure. The settings are in the same place, filters work similar, navigation is the same, etc. This allows users to get familiar with other SAP Fiori® apps quickly. As soon as they are familiar with the structure, layout, and behavior of one SAP Fiori® app, they can use and understand almost any other immediately.
• Daily work can be done more efficiently since only relevant information and input fields are visible. No more distracting data that is only useful for a colleague in another department and no more dangerous input fields that must be empty.
• SAP Fiori® apps can be accessed everywhere with most devices. There is no need to write some information on a piece of paper in the warehouse anymore, just to walk back in the office and enter it on the desktop computer. With SAP Fiori®, this information can be entered directly in the warehouse on a smartphone.
• Another important advantage is the look and feel of SAP Fiori® apps. Everybody likes efficient, but also good-looking UIs. We get used to beautifully crafted apps every day through polished consumer apps on our smartphones. This level of UI and UX is nowadays expected by employees when having to use an application at work.

Advantages for developers

• SAP® provides a lot of supporting tools and libraries to help devlop SAP Fiori® apps. There are, for example, libraries with ready-to-use UI elements, icon explorers, theme designers, and many more.
• A lot of repetitive development goes into designing and implementing navigation, settings, filters, or search functionality. SAP Fiori® supports these tasks in two different ways:
  1.) design guidelines define how these elements and functionalities should look like and how they should work.
  2.) libraries provide ready to use elements and functionalities.
  As a result, developers can implement all the “supporting” functionalities very fast and easily by using the tools and resources provided by SAP® and can focus on the actual, important content of the app.
• SAP Fiori® apps are rendered and even developed (with the WebIDE or the SAP Business Application Studio) in a web browser. This allows developers to use standard browser-debugging tools, like DOM inspection or network analysis. Additionally, there are browser-plugins that help with development. Most developers are already familiar with these tools and thus can start using them immediately.
• SAP Fiori® uses standard technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Almost every developer who finishes university/school/training is already familiar with these technologies. This enables new colleagues to get productive within a few days.

Advantages for companies/management

Of course, all the advantages for end-users and developers listed above are also advantages for the company itself. Furthermore, the implications of those, like the increased speed of development, efficient day-to-day work, and happy employees are very beneficial to the company. However, there are some advantages of SAP Fiori® aimed directly at the company/organization/management:

• A role-based access system allows management and admins to give fine granular access for certain apps to specific employees.
• SAP Fiori® is a future proof technology. SAP® puts a lot of resources into it and intends to make this the UI and UX standard for enterprise apps of the future. When moving to SAP Fiori® you can be sure to have support and improvements for the next decade.