A Practical Guide to SAP S/4HANA Financial Accounting

2.1 The SAP Fiori launchpad

Using the classic SAP GUI was not easy. Menu paths were complicated, the screen old-fashioned, and transactions only accessible on a desktop or laptop. You needed extensive training and often had to scroll through multiple screens to action a single item.

SAP has replaced the traditional menu and graphical user interface (GUI) with a consumer-grade user experience called SAP Fiori. SAP Fiori is web-based and consists of a dashboard or launchpad with a number of tiles which contain only the apps relevant to each user. The tiles are simpler, more intuitive to use than the GUI menu, more in line with apps on a Smartphone or tablet, and can be used on any device.

Apps can be transactional, analytical, or factsheets, and many of the analytical apps show key figures on the face of the tile itself. For example, apps for approving purchase orders or staff leave may contain the number of outstanding approvals on the face of the tile; bank apps may show the bank balance; and bank statement monitors may show the number of successful and unsuccessful bank statements processed. There are some examples of these smart apps shown in Figure 2.1.

In many apps, you see an overview screen showing all customers, suppliers, or other items and you can then either drill down to display or edit the details, or create new items.

Figure 2.1: Smart SAP Fiori apps on the SAP Fiori launchpad

You can tailor the launchpad and arrange your apps into groups, or mini-dashboards, perhaps with the most-used apps at the top. In the top left of the screen (above the apps), there is a small button, , which takes you to the ME area where you can change settings, edit your home page, or sign out. If you select the App Finder, the apps are listed by catalog and you can also search for them by name. Click on at the bottom of an app in the app finder to create a new group or add the app to an existing group.

Also, under Settings, you can change various settings such as the color of the screen, and set defaults, which we will explain later. Edit Home Page allows you to rearrange the tiles and create your own groups. See Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2: SAP Fiori settings for home page display

If you have used an app recently, you can see it in Recent Activities when you click on the ME button. There is also a neat search option at the top right of the launchpad, the enterprise search, where you can specify where to search, as well as what to search for. For example, if you have a reference but are not sure what it refers to (e.g., a document or master data), you can search using All, which will return every location the reference appears. Alternatively, you can use the dropdown to restrict the search to a specific area such as apps, specific master data, documents, etc.

In Figure 2.3, we searched All for the number 12345, and the system returned journal entries with that reference, batch numbers of stock items, customers, and a number of other items to choose from. You can restrict the search to billing documents, cost centers, employees, or a number of other items in the dropdown list, and you can also restrict it to apps, and use the search function instead of the app finder, or export the results to a spreadsheet. You have a button at the top left of the results screen, (not shown in the figure), where you can filter further.

Figure 2.3: SAP Fiori enterprise search