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Shell Plugin for a SCP CF FLP Site

kammaje_cis
Active Contributor
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I have created and deployed a Shell Plugin (using an MTA app) for Fiori Launchpad on SCP Cloud Foundry. This MTA app has another UI module and other CAP modules as well.

When I access the approuter URL, the plugin loads successfully. This result should prove that there is nothing wrong with the code so far.

Now I created a new FLP site using the 'Portal' service. My aim is to load the Shell Plugin when this FLP site loads. To achieve this I went to 'Content Manager' of this site, created a new 'App' with Shell-plugin as Semantic Object-action. Assigned this app to a catalog and also to 'Everyone' role.

However, when I load the FLP site the plugin does not load. There are no errors either in the dev-tools. I did not find any documentation on how to configure a Shell Plugin to an FLP site.

The only documentation I found is here which is a scenario of the multi-tenant application.

Any help is appreciated.

sveabecker
Community Advocate
Community Advocate

FYI - I had to convert comments into answers and answers into comments in this question thread. Therefore you might have received some weird notifications.

Please assure that you use the "comment" field if you have an additional question or want to leave a comment. If you want to provide an answer, use "Your answer" field.

Thank you,

Svea

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

kammaje_cis
Active Contributor

So here is the answer if anyone is having the same question.

SCP Portal Service provides two launchpads.

  • Local Fiori Launchpad: Only UI5 apps within the subaccount can be configured here.
  • Central Fiori Launchpad: External (to subaccount) UI5 apps can also be configured (via Content Provider concept)

Central Fiori Launchpad

If you are using a Central Fiori Launchpad (cFLP), i.e. by creating a FLP Site using the 'Site Manager' of the Portal service, the Shell Plugins are NOT yet supported. The advantage of cFLP is that it has a dedicated UI for managing the content (Apps, Catalogs, Groups), so that even non-developers can manage the content. Other significant advantage is that you can even subscribe to external content providers and configure those apps in the cFLP. (that is why called central ).

But, if your shell plugin is coming from a different subaccount (not the subaccount where cFLP is hosted), then you can subscribe to that content provider and add the shell plugin to your cFLP site. IMO, this is useful only in a SaaS (multi-tenant) use case.

Local Fiori Launchpad

You can have a Local Fiori Launchpad on CF-SCP by having a 'Fiori Launchpad Site' module (can be part of your MTA app, or a separate dedicated MTA app) and deploying it to CF-SCP. Within this module, in CommonDataModel.json, you can configure the FLP content (only by a developer). A Shell plugin works well in this scenario. You can add other subaccount deployed UI5 apps, by adding corresponding html5-apps-repo service as service binding to the launchpad module (type com.sap.portal.content).

Thanks to Jhodel (@jhodel18) for connecting and brainstorming.

Update: 19th October 2020

At last we have what is needed. Here is how to get it. https://blogs.sap.com/2020/09/17/developing-a-shell-plugin-for-sap-fiori-launchpad-on-sap-cloud-plat...

AviadRivlin
Employee
Employee
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krishnakishor.kammaje2 - I am curious why you write above that Shell Plugins in cFLP are not (yet) supported?

kammaje_cis
Active Contributor
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Hi Aviad, local Shell Plugins are still not supported in cFLP. Happy if that is inaccurate.

AviadRivlin
Employee
Employee
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Let me come back to you. It is possible to integrate a Shell Plug-in into cFLP (cFLP = Launchpad in the administrator scenario).

AviadRivlin
Employee
Employee
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Here is the link I was looking for: https://help.sap.com/viewer/ad4b9f0b14b0458cad9bd27bf435637d/Cloud/en-US/c7b3a1e1f91246c0a281cbbe672... which was linked from your question and was mentioned by Nili as well. This is the way to add a Shell Plugin to cFLP.

kammaje_cis
Active Contributor
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Aviad, For this to work, the plugin has to be hosted in a different subaccount. But this is not a common scenario (just for implementing the Shell plugin I cannot create a new subaccount). Local plugins are still not supported in cFLP. Do you agree? Do you know tentative timelien for it?

antonette_oberholster
Active Contributor
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Hi Krishna

Thank you for explaining this. Do you know if it will be supported soon?

Regards

Antonette

kammaje_cis
Active Contributor
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antonette.venter , Nope, no update from SAP yet. aviad.rivlin , just checking if you have any update.

Answers (3)

Answers (3)

jhodel18
Active Contributor
kammaje_cis
Active Contributor
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Hi Jhodel,

I already referred to this and built and deployed the plugin. But this plugin does not load within the FLP Site. However, it does not tell if there are any special steps to add this plugin to the FLP Site. Were you able to load a plugin in a CF FLP Site?

jhodel18
Active Contributor
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Hi Krishna,

Quite often, that's the hidden challenge, how to make it work based on the hints from the documentation! 🙂

Yes, I was able to setup a shell plugin in Portal service.

If you can share your config for:

  • manifest.json of your plugin
  • CommonDataModel.json

Then maybe I can help to check what's wrong in your setup.

kammaje_cis
Active Contributor
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Hi @jhodel18, the plugin actually loaded when I opened the application router. So I am thinking there may not be any problem with manifest or CommonDataModel. Anyway, I have attached them here. Please have a look.

When you created an app on the portal service, what value did you provide for 'Visualization'? I tried 'None' as well as 'Static App Launcher'.

jhodel18
Active Contributor
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Hi Krishna, I'm a bit confused with your issue. I checked the config you have, and it looks fine to me. You also mentioned that the plugin loaded. I didn't use Visualization though. Maybe, your issue has something to do with your config for visualization.

kammaje_cis
Active Contributor
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Hi Jhodel, Thanks for checking it. By default 'Visualization' for an app is 'Static App Launcher'. So I kept it as it is. Still no luck.

AviadRivlin
Employee
Employee
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kammaje_cis
Active Contributor
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This is not cFLP. (c for Central)

AviadRivlin
Employee
Employee
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Correct! My mistake.

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kammaje_cis
Active Contributor
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Sorry, this link is part of the question itself. It does not talk about local Shell Plugins.