Mobile business apps are in high demand, and as more people continue to use their mobile devices for business related activities, the need for enterprise mobile apps is going to see a steady rise.
In order to keep up with the customization of complex SAP apps, rapid development, fulfillment of user requirements in quick turn-around time, SAP Enterprise App Modeler (SEAM), SAP’s Rapid Mobile App Development Tool (RMAD), may be a good fit for the developer.
SEAM provides native client support and consumes mobile services such as onboarding, offline OData services, lifecycle management, and supportability. SEAM provides the metadata-driven model for mobile app development. It also allows you to manage your app lifecycle in a way that does not require you to redeploy your app every time it is updated.
What is SEAM?
• SAP Enterprise App Modeler (SEAM) is a metadata driven development model that allows you to tailor complex mobile apps to your specific business needs
• SEAM allows you to take the business logic, business objects, and user interface and render it all at runtime
• The key concept for SEAM is to use metadata, which describes the actual mobile application like information about the APIs, user registrations and usage analytics of the application
• SEAM applications are basically built by files residing in a folder – the typical www folder you probably know from web development.
• You can also perform operations such as delete, export, and publish on your app through SEAM
• SEAM (SAP Enterprise App Modeler) allows you to manage your app lifecycle in a way that does not require you to redeploy your app every time it is updated
What does metadata mean in SEAM?
• The basic functionality of a mobile app is defined as metadata in a database rather than being hard-coded in a programming language
• This allows a wider pool of resources to develop applications, and provides an abstraction layer for cross platform development
SEAM Architecture
Native-Script
• SEAM utilizes Native Script, which is an intermediate translation technology that can take JavaScript input and render it out as native code
• Running native code on the device provides a huge advantage in terms of power and performance
Editor
• SEAM application development is Web-based via the SEAM editor. SEAM (SAP Enterprise App Modeler) will be available as a plug-in for Web IDE.
Client
• The client can run applications either online and offline and in future will provide the mobile qualities such as geo location, camera, etc.
• A native layer is a bridge between the Native Script layer and the Java runtime engine i.e. communication with the device. This provides communication back and forth between the OData providers, device storage, etc.
• Metadata definitions are interpreted by the app modeler client and translated by the Native-Script runtime engine into native controls
Benefits and Features of SEAM
1. Enables developers and/or technical business users to easily create and customize applications without writing code
2. Enables developers and/or technical business users to easily tailor SAP complex applications (e.g. SAP Asset Manager) to their business needs without writing code.
3. Mobile apps built using SEAM can easily run offline and sync data when the user is back online.
4. Aligned with SAP Fiori design principles created with Apple and provides an amazing user experience
5. App runs natively on client
6. Deployment of the updated application is done with a few clicks and the mobile client receives the updates without re-building or re-installing the application.
7. Mobile business apps built using SEAM can easily run offline and sync data when the user is back online
SEAM allows customers to run, customize and administer select complex SAP mobile apps and will evolve into a Rapid Mobile App Development (RMAD) framework. This expands our Mobile Services offering by delivering a metadata-driven model for mobile app development.
In this blog, I’ll discuss how SEAM may be a good fit for you and your company. Mobile business apps are in high demand, and as more people continue to use their mobile devices for business related activities, the need for enterprise mobile apps also increases. In order to keep up with user requirements, companies can choose to buy an existing enterprise mobile application, such as the new SAP Asset Manager or build their own enterprise mobile applications.
Regardless of your choice, SAP Enterprise App Modeler provides the features needed to get you to the finish line faster. Here are a few of the features and benefits of SEAM.
1. Enables developers and/or technical business users to easily create and customize applications without writing code
2. Enables developers and/or technical business users to easily tailor SAP complex applications (e.g. SAP Asset Manager) to their business needs without writing code.
3. Mobile apps built using SEAM can easily run offline and sync data when the user is back online.
4. Aligned with SAP Fiori design principles created with Apple and provides an amazing user experience
5. App runs natively on client
6. Deployment of the updated application is done with a few clicks and the mobile client receives the updates without re-building or re-installing the application.
Customize Complex SAP Apps Today
If your company prefers to buy an app that provides the features your users have been asking for, SEAM is a customization framework for these complex SAP applications. SAP Asset Manager is the first SAP application built on top of the SEAM framework. SEAM enables your company to tailor SAP Asset Manager to exactly what your users need to be productive within the organization. SAP Asset Manager is a robust application that provides 85-95% of what a company is looking for. Your business can then customize the application with additional screens, branding, styling, actions, rules, and fields that specifically meets your needs. In the end, your business and end-users have an application that looks like it was custom created with your needs in mind.
The customization is coding-free, so there is a lower learning curve for your developers and technical business users to get up to speed on tailoring the application.