How to develop ABAP RICEF objects in S/4HANA

[vikrant_dev1]

Hi All,

I have been wondering how the S/4 HANA framework allows for the development of ABAP RICEF objects or if there is a alternate mechanism for building these objects with S/4 HANA. From what I learn, S/4HANA will still be based on ABAP backend programs. Can we please get some details as to how the ABAP enhancement framework will work for these programs.

I understand the SAP UI5, Fiori customisations for data retrieval and User Experience at high level but an example of each of ABAP report, conversion, interface, enhancement and form development would really help visualise how S/4 HANA ABAP customisations would look like. Please let know if there is already some article on this topic.

Also I learn that the future ABAP developments will be primarily built as ABAP on eclipse, so is there a complete replacement of ABAP workbench planned? Also any new patterns recommended to be learnt for ABAP on Eclipse programming for S/4 HANA.

Thanks,

Vikrant

[ThFiedler · Accepted solution]

Hi Vikrant,

for the ABAP development tools in eclipse we are focussing on the Fiori programming model. All tools that you need to build the ABAP parts of a modern SAP UI5 based Fiori application will be available in Eclipse. Legacy technologies like Dynpro or BSP are not supported in Eclipse. Therefore Eclipse will not be a complete replacement for SE80. 

Regards,

Thomas.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Will Eclipse support the entire Fiori Application?

I know and understand that support for HANA, AMDP, CDS, BOPF, ABAP and still SAPUI5 (what isn't moved over to WebIDE) is supported (also going forward), but there is still one thing obviously missing: NetWeaver Gateway!

Does that mean that at some point in the near future we can expect an SEGW alternative in Eclipse?

(And btw. that would be awesome )

[vikrant_dev1 · Accepted solution]

Thanks Thomas, that was helpful.

Do you have any reference of ABAP workbench tool or even ABAP in eclipse used for modifying an S4/HANA object. I would just like to visualise how the whole thing works with S4/HANA platform.

Thanks,

Vikrant

[ThFiedler · Accepted solution]

Hi Henrik,

there are still no plans to provide SEGW as an Eclipse Plugin.

But there will be the possibility to enrich the data models (based on CDS) of S4/HANA by so-called annotations to enable oData access to the data. That means the oData services are then generated automtically based on the data model and the annotations. The annotations are maintained in the CDA editor in Eclipse.

Do you have plans to visit Teched this year? There we will give an overview on the End2End picture. 

Regards,

Thomas.

[ThFiedler · Accepted solution]

Hi Vikrant,

the development model does not differ between S/4HANA and the classic business suite in the on premise world. You can still modify and enhance SAP objects and can create your own customer objects. In the Cloud it will be different as modifications are not allowed in the Cloud and the programming capabilities are more restricted than on-premise. For example in the cloud you are only allowed to use SAP objects that are released for usage. Usage of arbitrary objects as it is possibile in the on-premise world are not allowed in the Cloud.

Does this help?

Regards,

Thomas.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Thomas,

I have already tried the annotations for CDS - combined with the Associations on CDS - and they are fine, but they are not exactly delivering the full Power of SEGW yet, especially when it comes to testing the service.

Also still miss the link between the OData Modeller (The Otee project) and the CDS annotations.

Want to be able to share an OData model between frontend implementation (WebIDE/Eclipse) and backend implementation (BOPF/CDS/AMDP)

Also still waiting for a full OData V4 implementation from SAP

... I don't plan to go to Tech'Ed this year - will be too busy with NetWeaver 7.50, EhP8!

Best Regards

Henrik

[vikrant_dev1 · Accepted solution]

Yes that helps. Thanks Thomas for the information.

May be we can have a separate webinar or a unit in OpenSAP course to show ABAP customisation for S/4HANA. That may explain better.

Thanks,

Vikrant

[former_member192611 · Accepted solution]

Hi Henrik,

indeed we are not planning to re-implement SEGW inside of Eclipse. This has multiple reasons. SEGW is a very powerful tool for building OData service from almost any datasource on any NetWeaver release starting with 7.0. Instead of rebuilding this tool including the deep embedding into all datasources in Eclipse we intend to further enrich the service development flow with a combination of Service Builder (for the backend service implementation) and SAP Web IDE (for the development of the Fiori UI). SAP Web IDE already contains the new OData Model Editor. OData models created/enhanced in SAP Web IDE can be transferred to Service Builder for creating/generating the service implementation. In any case, Service Builder can still be accessed embedded in Eclipse

Regarding V4: SAP has driven the specification to a large degree and has a strong interest of leveraging the huge improvements of the protocol in the future.

Cheers...Thomas

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the information... Still think it is a bad decision

SEGW is indeed a powerful tool, but it is not integrated into your most powerful tool at the moment and the home of the developer, which is still Eclipse.

Thinking ahead to SAP S/4 HANA cloud edition will then still depend on Dynpro-based development because of SEGW - the rest of the stack has already "left" good, old R/3...

WebIDE is okay and the OData modelling powers is a step in the right direction, but then again so is the OGEE project in Eclipse (okay, I know that WebIDE is basically still Eclipse, just based on the Orion project).

So imagining the world of the end-2-end developer for SAP S/4 will then be Eclipse & HANA Studio (still Eclipse-based) for database, datacentric and business logic, then into HCP and WebIDE to model the OData Model (EDMX), then onto an R/3 session to adapt the BOPF (modelled and implemented in Eclipse) in SEGW from the OData model and then log into the HCP and WebIDE to create the User Interface.... Not really a single platform anymore, but a triple stack on a tons of inconsistent tools!

So yes, we get AMDP debugging in Eclipse soon, but with the division of tools debugging an end-2-end application from Fiori Launchpad, over UI5-application, over SAP Gateway, over BOPF, over CDS/AMDP we aren't really left with an awesome IDE, but in really an MDDE (Multiple Disconnected Development Environments).

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

+1 Agreed on premise is fine but we need to get a feel of tghe cloud solution.

I found a useful link and would like to share http://www.sap.com/bin/sapcom/en_us/downloadasset.2015-07-jul-08-12.sap-s4hana--extensibility-for-cu...

Regards,