In previous blog posts (Business Configuration in SAP BTP ABAP Environment (1): Overview and BC Maintenance Apps | SAP Blogs  , Business Configuration in SAP BTP ABAP Environment (2): BC Content Transport | SAP Blogs), I provided information on how to create RAP/Fiori-based custom business configuration objects in SAP BTP ABAP Environment. RAP/Fiori-based custom business configuration objects can also be created in SAP S/4HANA (Cloud and on-premise), and I want to share some details in this blog posts.

1. What is available in which environment?

In SAP BTP ABAP Environment and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, SAPGUI/WebGUI is not supported for custom applications. This means, customers must use Fiori/RAP technology for creation of custom business configuration apps.

Creating RAP/Fiori-based custom business configuration objects is possible in the different environments:

Comments:

(1) Details can be found in my previous blog post Business Configuration in SAP BTP ABAP Environment (1): Overview and BC Maintenance Apps | SAP Blogs and in the documentation

(2) As mitigation, customers can use the key user extensibility app Custom Code Lists to create custom code lists (which includes the transport of the code values from the Q to the P system), or the key user extensibility app Custom Business Objects to create custom business objects to maintain local configurations (no transport of content supported).

(3) See System Landscapes in SAP S/4HANA Cloud and Business Configuration in Developer Extensibility

(4) Generating a business configuration object in the ABAP Development Tools (ADT) is available as of 2022. In on-premise, customers can still create maintenance views for their configuration tables, which includes a generic SAPGUI UI and transport handling (design time SE54, runtime SM30).

2. Differences between the environments

My previous blog post Business Configuration in SAP BTP ABAP Environment (1): Overview and BC Maintenance Apps | SAP Blogs describes how to create a custom business configuration object in SAP BTP ABAP Environment, including:

• Generating the business configuration object in the ABAP Development Tools (ADT)
• Working with the generic Fiori UI (Custom Business Configurations)
• Transport handling

The blog and the material linked in the blog (i.e. the tutorial) can also be used as a basis for creating custom business configuration object in other environments.

In this section I will describe the differences between the following environments:

• SAP BTP ABAP Environment
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud (public edition, 3SL setup)
• SAP S/4HANA (on-premise) and SAP S/4HANA Cloud (private edition)

1. Transport management

While SAP BTP ABAP Environment uses a Git-based transport management (gCTS), SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud use the classic SAP transport management (CTS). But, as all environments use customizing transports for recording of business configuration changes, this aspect has no influence on the business configuration objects itself. In all environments, a customizing transport must be available and then be selected by the user to record the changes during save.

2. UI and Authorization Management

The biggest difference between the environments is the UI and the authorization management. In SAP BTP ABAP Environment and in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, custom business configuration objects appear in the “generic” Custom Business Configurations Fiori app. (Users need the catalog SAP_CA_BC_IC_LND_PC in SAP BTP ABAP Environment and catalog SAP_CORE_BC_BCT_IMG in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for access.) This means no dedicated UI development is needed. The authorizations are managed via the Cloud Identity and Access Management (Cloud IAM), this means via an IAM app and IAM business catalog (details see the link to tutorial in the mentioned blog).

In S/4HANA (on-premise/private cloud edition), the Custom Business Configurations Fiori app and Cloud IAM is not available. Customers must create a dedicated Fiori app for each custom business configuration object (just like for every “normal” Fiori app) and create the FLP content and authorization role and deploy it accordingly – depending on the chosen Fiori frontend setup (embedded, hub). This means the generator for business configuration objects in the ABAP Development Tools (ADT) creates all artefact “below” the OData service in the same way as in the Cloud environments, but customers must take care for the Fiori UI, FLP content and authorizations as in any other Fiori app in on-premise.

3. Appearance in the Implementation Activities app

As mentioned, in the SAP BTP ABAP Environment, customers can access the custom configuration objects starting the Custom Business Configurations Fiori app in the Fiori Launchpad. In S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, navigation to the custom business configuration objects is supported from the Implementation Activities app (SIMG) via the node Custom Configurations in the IMG tree.