This blog post is applicable to both SAP S/4HANA on-premise and SAP S/4HANA, private cloud edition. 

Creating your own custom business roles is an essential skill for any team deploying SAP S/4HANA or just looking to drive more value from your existing SAP S/4HANA system.

SAP delivers more than 500 business roles based on real-world jobs, with all relevant SAP Fiori apps and classic UIs available as SAP Fiori launchpad content. Most organizations will want to tailor the delivered business roles to your own needs.  For example:

• To focus attention on your preferred apps/UIs that best suit your processes
• To pace the change from older classic UIs to new SAP Fiori apps over time
• To reduce the content to something more manageable for your users
  • Some SAP Business Roles such as General Ledger Accountant and Purchaser already deliver a choice of over 150 apps and UIs!
• To add your own custom content, such as new custom apps, navigation to Cloud apps, or custom classic UIs inherited during system conversion from SAP Business Suite

The good news is SAP Fiori implementation tools and accelerators for SAP S/4HANA keep getting better and better. The latest improvements in SAP S/4HANA 2020 FPS01 and higher make crafting your custom business roles easy.

You can now access an end-to-end video playlist showing you how to craft your own custom business roles using the latest tools and accelerators at openSAP microlearning. Look for the SAP S/4HANA User Experience Playlist.   Keep reading to find a summary of the process, the related videos and what they cover.

So now the hardest part of crafting your own business roles is just deciding what you want to use!

The Process for Creating Custom Business Roles

There are 2 approaches:

• Basic Scenario – Use SAP content as delivered
  • You want to refine your custom business role from the SAP delivered launchpad content

• Advanced Scenario – Adapt SAP Template content and add your own content
  • You want to add your own custom content (or override existing SAP content) into your custom business role, alongside the content delivered from SAP
  • The advanced scenario extends the basic scenario

You will find an overview diagram for each scenario and the related videos.

Basic Scenario: Use SAP delivered content only to create your custom business roles

Overview of the Basic Scenario:

1. Gather content into reusable business catalogs
   1. This includes activating your desired content, if needed
2. Define the basic layout structure for the role
3. Assign business catalogs to roles
4. Organize content into your desired layout

Basic Scenario for creating a custom business role and the related tools

In  Refining Business Roles with SAP Fiori Launchpad Content Manager [11:47]

You will learn:

• Prerequisites for using the SAP Fiori launchpad content manager
• How to copy a SAP Business Role to your own custom business role
• How to remove unwanted content and layouts from your custom business role
• How to test your role using a test user

In Activating SAP Fiori Content in Custom Business Roles [11:59]

You will learn:

• How to recognize activation issues in the launchpad
• How to check if your custom business roles need to be activated
• How to mass activate the content in your custom business role using the task list SAP_FIORI_FCM_CONTENT_ACTIVATION

In Creating SAP Fiori launchpad layouts for custom business roles [12:00]

You will learn:

• Understanding launchpad content vs layouts
• Prerequisites for spaces and pages
• How to create layouts using SAP Fiori apps Manage Launchpad Spaces and Manage Launchpad Pages
• How to assign the layout to your custom busines role
• How to adjust layouts

Advanced scenario: Add your own launchpad content and/or override SAP delivered content with your adaptations or extensions

The Advanced Scenario extends the Basic Scenario with one additional pre-step.

1. Add your own content and/or override SAP content settings
2. Gather content into reusable business catalogs
   • This includes activating your desired content, if needed
3. Define the basic layout structure for the role
4. Assign business catalogs to roles
5. Organize content into your desired layout

Advanced Scenario for creating custom business roles and related tools

For example, you can create new launchpad content by:

• creating App Variants of existing apps using Adapt UI
• creating new KPIs using SAP Fiori apps Manage KPIs and Reports
• add SAP Screen Personas flavors to classic GUI transactions and WebDynpro ABAP applications
• adding your own custom Fiori apps
• adding your inherited custom classic UIs, such as Z transactions
• adding URL tiles and links
• overriding texts and icons of SAP delivered content

In addition to the Basic Scenario, the following microlearnings are recommended.

Creating Launchpad Content with the SAP Fiori Launchpad App Manager [12:00]

You will learn:

• Understand how launchpad content is added to a business role
• Prerequisites for launchpad app manager
• How to create a custom technical catalog
• How to add content to your technical catalog
• How to copy content from other technical catalogs
• How to reference technical catalog content to your custom business catalog which is assigned to your custom business role

Adapting the UI of List Report Apps [10:59]

You will learn:

• How to use Adapt UI to adjust SAP delivered content
• How to save your adaptations as an App Variant
• You can assign this content as new launchpad content in your custom business role

Even more useful microlearnings available now for SAP S/4HANA

You might also like to look at these videos.

For your business users

Personalizing SAP Fiori Launchpad Basics

How to Search for a SAP GUI Transaction in SAP Fiori

Using Enterprise Search for Reporting in SAP Fiori

Using Default Values and Variants in SAP Fiori Apps

Creating Bookmarks in SAP Fiori Launchpad

For your functional team

In Finding Available SAP Fiori Apps you learn how to find available SAP Business Roles and their apps for your SAP S/4HANA release.

You will also find microlearnings on SAP S/4HANA line of business areas including Finance, Manufacturing, Service, Sourcing & Procurement, and Supply Chain

For your technical team

Activating Fiori Apps Via Rapid Activation shows how to rapidly activate SAP Business Roles for exploration using the Rapid Activation task list SAP_FIORI_CONTENT_ACTIVATION

How to Patch SAP Fiori (SAPUI5) and Why  helps you avoid rediscovering known and already resolved issues by patching your SAPUI5 version to the latest releases

You will also find microlearnings on SAP S/4HANA for Technology Topics and Cross Topics (such as Predictive Scenarios).

Becoming a SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA guru

If there are more microlearnings you would like to see – let us know!

You’ll find much more on our SAP Fiori for SAP S/4HANA wiki

If you want to delve deeper into business roles, you might like to refer to the blog series: Understanding SAP Business Roles.

You can find more announcements about the latest SAP Fiori features in SAP S/4HANA 2020 SP01 in Check out the improvements in SAP Fiori launchpad content administration and operations with SP01 of SAP Fiori front-end server 2020

You can also find out more about SAP User Experience and Design in 3 Tips to Stay Informed About User Experience & Design Topics at SAP

Other helpful links in the SAP Community:

Brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA RIG.