Following a very successful post I wrote on October 2009, I’ve decided to insist on a FAQ post format, since it seems to interest readers for being direct and straight to the point information. I’ve also collected some of the questions I received through SAPLAB, directly sent by people having questions or doubts on Portal related matters.

If you work with SAP Netweaver Portal implementations, the listed frequently asked questions might help you shortening your implementation times. I’ve collected some of the most common problems I’ve had while working with Portal, and hopefully provided some straight answers. Also, I’ve included some concepts which are best for you to learn sooner than later.

Please note that these topics are part of my personal experiences and are aimed to people starting off with Portal implementations. I’m also planning a series of other posts intended for more expert users . If you feel that you have complementary information or if you have a different perspective regarding something in this post, please comment on this post, ask away, share you knowledge and experience – it will be highly appreciated!

1. What’s the difference between SAP Enterprise Portal and SAP Netweaver Portal?

2. How can I check the installed version of ESS/MSS?

3. What checklist items should I follow to check an ESS Portal installation?

4. What are the main components of the SAP Netweaver Portal?

5. What’s the relation between the Netweaver Portal and the Universal Worklist (UWL)?

6. What’s the difference between a Portal role and an ERP role?

7. How does the Portal connect to the ERP?

8. What is Single Sign-On (SSO)?

9. How can I change a standard ESS application to meet my client’s own needs?

10. What is the Homepage Framework? Is it mandatory to use it?

11. Common issues and hints for ESS

12. I want to install my own local Portal. Where do I start?

13. I want to develop a custom Portal application. Should I use Web Dynpro or Visual Composer?

14. Can you provide a list of the most commonly used Portal acronyms?

15. Web Dynpro Java or ABAP?

1. What’s the difference between SAP Enterprise Portal and SAP Netweaver Portal?

Before SAP’s strategy turn towards the SAP Netweaver Architecture, what we commonly refer to as “SAP Portal” was called just that or SAP Enterprise Portal. It was just a way to identify this SAP standalone product that was capable (and still is) to connect with all kinds of external systems. These systems could be SAP modules or external systems built on different technologies, such as proprietary client systems or legacy systems. By shifting it’s strategy around Netweaver, SAP put the Portal inside the Netweaver platform, arranging its components in order to improve and simplify it’s communication with other systems, as well as harmonizing some of its core capabilities and re-utilize those of the Netweaver platform. In a daily basis, we just refer to it as SAP Portal and specify the version (e.g. Portal 6.0, Portal 7.0 or NW Portal).

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2. How can I check the installed version of ESS/MSS?

Take note of the following steps in order to find out if indeed you have the ESS and MSS components and in which versions do you have them. Please note that there are alternative ways to check this like, e.g., using the Visual Administrator tool. This is just a way that works for me because most of the times clients won’t allow access to the V.A. tool by external consultants.

• Logon the SAP Netweaver Application (Java) mainpage. The URL is similar to your Portal URL but you should remove the “/irj/portal“. The URL should look something like http://[host]:[port]. You will be asked for a username and password and provided that your user has the necessary permissions, you will be redirected to a page similar to the one below:



• Click on the System Information link as shown above
• The resulting main screen will already tell you something about the installed core versions



• Clink on the “all components” link to access the detailed components list
• For the ESS Business Packges and Components, the marked entries in the image below should be installed. You can also view the installed version in the respective column – e.g. BP_ERP5ESS is in version 1.41 SP4

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3. What checklist items should I follow to check an ESS Portal installation?

This must be one of the most asked topics in SDN and there are lots of references in the web. My first recommendation is that you start by reading my post “Employee Self-Services Initial Steps Wiki“. This “ESS Initial Steps” wiki intends to provide a hands-on initial contact with the ESS implementation.

You might also want to look into the SAP HCM Employee Self Service Wiki space.

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4. What are the main components of the SAP Netweaver Portal?

According to SAP:

SAP NetWeaver Portal unifies key information and applications to give users a single view that spans IT silos and organizational boundaries. It allows you to take full advantage of all your information resources – and maximize the return on your IT investments. And, its predefined business content accelerates implementation and reduces the cost of integrating your existing systems.

Main and general components include:

• Portal-infrastructure management
• Collaboration
• Knowledge Management

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5. What’s the relation between the Netweaver Portal and the Universal Worklist (UWL)?

The Universal Worklist is for the Netweaver Portal what the SAP Business Workplace is for the ERP system. So if you want to enable any Workflow activities using the Portal, ESS and MSS, you will need to use the Universal Worklist so that users receive their tasks and act upon them. The UWL is tied to the backend using a Portal System connector which has to be configured before being able to use it. Many users complain about data refresh issues using the UWL. Even though SAP is aware of this and try to advise some workarounds, like the optimization of the delta pull mechanism, the UWL is still the main funcionality to deliver workitems and tasks to users in the Portal, coming from SAP Business Workflow or Guided Procedures tasks. The UWL is delivered with a standard configuration but usually SAP consultants customize it to meet the client’s and project requirements. See how to configure the UWL for Guided Procedures on Composition Environment.

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6. What’s the difference between a Portal role and an ERP role?

This question arises some doubts, mainly in beginners starting to work with Portal. The role assignment function in the portal allows role assignment to users and groups. These roles will reflect the user’s or group’s function within the company (example: ESS, MSS, HR Administrator, etc.). For a Portal user to run properly, the person resposible for User Management will have to assign both portal roles as well as ERP roles. There are, however, situations for which only an ERP role is assigned.

Portal roles define how portal content is grouped together and how it is displayed in the portal navigation area. By assigning a portal role to a user or group, you’ll define which content is available for a certain user or group.

ERP roles define a set of authorization objects. By assigning an ERP role to a user or group, you grant the set of authorizations that the role defines to the user or group. In the portal, SAP recommends that you work with portal roles.

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7. How does the Portal connect to the ERP?

The main Portal object which is needed for the Portal to connect to the ERP is what is commonly referred to as a System. Systems are PCD objects, such as folders, pages or iViews. What this means is that Systems must have a unique ID, a prefix (typically com.companyname) and a name. Systems have specific parameters that need to be configured, in order to enable the connection between the portal and the backend (ERP).  Ideally, you will have created a customer folder in the PCD and you should create any needed systems in a specific client folder, in a folder name such as “Systems”.

Systems can only be maintained using the System Landscape Editor, which is an option which is only available for the under System Administrator role.

Although systems can be transported through the portal transport mechanism, they don’t need to be and, in my opinion, they shouldn’t. This is because the systems that are accessed from a development portal are normally different to the systems accessed by QA and production portals – they connect to different backends!

If you’re creating you own portal applications, as soon as you deploy them into the server, you will then need to create an iView to contain the application. One of the iView parameters will be the System Alias, which is defined when creating the System itself. If you’re working with ESS and MSS applications, this means that your Portal Administrator should have already configured the necessary systems, which have a system alias defined, and which is referred to by each of the standard ESS and MSS iViews.

I recommend that you read this SAP wiki about connectivity and different variations on connecting different systems.

You can also read this SAP weblog with a step by step to connect the Portal to the ERP backend.

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8. What is Single Sign-On (SSO)?

SAP defines Single Sign-On (SSO) as the following:

Single Sign-On (SSO) is a key feature of the Enterprise Portal that eases user interaction with the many component systems available to the user in a portal environment. Once the user is authenticated to the enterprise portal, he or she can use the portal to access external applications. With SSO in the Enterprise Portal, the user can access different systems and applications without having to repeatedly enter his or her user information for authentication.

The Enterprise Portal SSO mechanism is available in two variants depending on security requirements and the supported external applications:

• SSO with SAP logon tickets
• SSO with user ID and password

Both variants eliminate the need for repeated logons to individual applications after the initial authentication at the enterprise portal. Whereas SSO with SAP logon tickets is based on a secure ticketing mechanism, SSO with user ID and password forwards the user’s logon data (user ID and password) to the systems that a user wants to call.

In case you need to know and understand the necessary steps to configure SSO, please read my post Configure Single Sign-On (SSO) on the Portal and the ERP.

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9. How can I change a standard ESS application to meet my client’s own needs?

Well, this is a hot topic on SDN. I must say that I’ve had lots of challenges regarding this matter, due to clients requirements and short time to develop. In terms of WebDynpro Java, there is more than one way to change ESS and MSS standard applications, as well as some workarounds. In my experience, the most controlled and effective way to do this is using the Netweaver Developer Infrastructure (NWDI) as a kind of middle-ware and access the ESS and MSS applications source code directly. This versioning system allows developers to import ESS and MSS software components into their own desktops as local projects. Once here, they can work on them, doing the necessary changes. When they want to see the changes, they will generally check-in their development activities (NWDI transport requests) and view them directly in the Developement Portal. There are several key points to have in mind when performing changes to standard ESS and MSS applications, using NWDI:

• Start by understanding very well how each application is built; not all of them are clear, they can include comments in german or indian and they sometimes use external Development Components and use the Floorplan Manager (FPM), which isn’t clear to everybody;
• The NWDI doesn’t know how to manage a new Support Package implementation along with your own changes. Please be aware that whenever a new Support Package is installed, all your custom coding, bindings, context elements, model changes, etc. will be overwritten. A good and thorough documentation will help you manage these challenges;
• Make sure to trace the boundaries between your job and technical tasks that will need to be performed in NWDI. Usually the client wraps everything in a global “Portal” subject, and you’ll be responsible for everything. A good basis team which is able to solve issues with NWDI is also a plus.

Besides this technique, there are also other ways to change ESS and MSS standard applications. In terms of Webdynpro Java, here’s some that I’ve came across:

• Using the FPM personalization feature to hide or enable/disable fields (limited). The Floorplan manager (FPM) is a central part of the ESS and MSS applications. Any WebDynpro application that implements FPM is known as a FPM Application.
• Enhancing the ESS applications’ User Interface (UI) without modifying the source code, by using table/view V_T588UICONVCLAS (conversion classes);

I recommend that you read further:

• NWDI/JDI Cookbook
• iView Personalization
• ESS Personal Information UI enhancement without modification
  

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10. What is the Self-Services Homepage? Is it mandatory to use it?

First of all let me clarify that the Self-Services Homepage isn’t mandatory at all. You can build your company’s portal the way you want it. However, the Self-Services Homepage is a smart and good looking way to group several ESS applications. The Self-Services Homepage enables you to create overview pages, which allow your employees to access the self-service applications (services) with greater ease and improved usability. These overview pages group and describe the individual services and contain hyperlinks with which your employees can start the services – usually WebDynpro applications.

The Self-Services Homepage offers the following functions for adjusting the overview pages to suit your self-service applications or for creating your own overview pages:

• Replace pictogram (graphics) on area group pages and area pages;
• Enter long area descriptions
• Creating Customer-Specific Areas with Services
• Hide areas included in the standard system
• Add services to an area included in the standard system
• Hide services included in the standard system

I recommend that you read further:

• Self-Services official SAP Help (ehp4)
• Rapid Portal Content Creation using the Homepage Framework
• How to Map the Relationship Between SAP Enterprise Portal and Homepage Framework for Employee Self Service (ESS)
• How to Add Custom Area Page to Overview Page in ESS
• How to Create Custom Overview Page in ESS

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11. Common issues and hints for ESS

There is a great SAP weblog, created by Márcio Leoni, which covers known issues and very good hints on ESS. Please click here to learn about common issues and hints for ESS.

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12. I want to install my own local Portal. Where do I start?

Please read my post Install a Local SAP Netweaver Developer Workplace.

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13. I want to develop a custom Portal application. Should I use Web Dynpro or Visual Composer?

It depends on how far you want to go. Consider using Visual Composer if you:

• need a simple application to display information about your employees or outstanding orders;
• have little time to implement and want a rapid solution available in your SAP Portal;
• have little technical knowledge and feel more comfortable working with a visual tool;
• don’t predict a very large number of users accessing the application.

Consider using WebDynpro if you:

• plan to develop a more complex and robust application, with transactional purpose;
• have a technical team and skill-set comprising of WebDynpro Java, WebDynpro ABAP, Java, Netweaver Portal and knowledge of the MVC (Model View Control) paradigm;
• predict a large number of users working with the portal;
• have already planned you SAP Portal Project carefully;

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14. Can you provide a list of the most commonly used Portal acronyms?

This is yet another challenge. I will update this ASAP!

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15. Web Dynpro Java or ABAP?

In the past years, SAP Portal and Web Dynpro for Java set as a strategic user interface technology for SAP NetWeaver 04.

With Web Dynpro, you build professional, highly interactive, Web-based, and accessible user interfaces for business applications. Using the Portal, you provide role-based, secure access to any kind of information (structured or unstructured), services and applications via a Web browser. In SAP NetWeaver, these two technologies converge, enabling you to run Web Dynpro-designed content in iViews from within the portal.

In order to create portal content, different tools are available for different professional roles and objectives. The wizards and templates included with the Portal Content Studio are specially suited for content administrators, while the Portal Development Kit (PDK) for Java is geared to J2EE developers. Recently, WebDynpro ABAP has become more and more the most used paradigm for developing portal applications. Web Dynpro is best suited for business application developers. In what relates to WebDynpro Java, working from the Eclipse-based SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio, business application developers need Java and ABAP skills to leverage this programming model. From a WebDynpro ABAP perspective, developers must have an advanced knowledge in ABAP as well as the Model View Controller (MVC) paradigm, in order to be able to use it with full capacity.

Bottom line is, in my opini0n, if you’re aiming to learn WebDynpro, I would bet in WebDynpro ABAP.Most of the recent SAP Business aligned with EHP4 are being developed in WebDynpro ABAP. A major plus is that you will work from within SE80 and will use the well known transport system, instead of the NWDI.

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Hope this post is useful for you. Please comment!