Being gamified by "Gamification At Work"

I have received a pre-release copy of "Gamification At Work". It is not the first time I am contacted to make a blog post about some new book. And so far this was the first time I actually bothered to do something. The marketing was well done, and I actually liked the trick of receiving the mail twice, the first time with some formatting problems and the second time with an apology and without formatting problems. True, it was very likely that I would delete the first email without reading (actually it was not the case). And receiving a link to the online book with apolemia in the background was also a good trick.

So I was gamified, but that is good. I like to be gamified and somehow I do it to myself every day (task lists with colors, targets in the number of commits, etc). If some number or visual thing helps me do more, then it is good.

Anyhow that is was not main the reason I started reading the book and wrote this blog post. The reason was that one of the authors is Mario Herger and I remember some of his work on the SAP community. For example this video (below) or this.



OK those videos are nothing special in the context of the typical startup, but the SAP world 10 years ago was not like that. The SAP world was boring. It was efficient, it was rewarding, it was full of vapourware and it was completely boring. Nowadays it is still rewarding, efficient and full of vapourware but not so boring anymore. And some nonsense like those videos was quite important for that change.

So my expectations of the book are quite high. And I hope there will be a movie release ;-)

PS. No need search the torrents, the book is freely available here.

Interview with Ole Andre Haugen and Njål Stabell

I recently got to know an interesting product for mobile SAP development from Neptune Software, a Norwegian software shop. Two things caught my attention, they are a startup in the SAP ecosystem, and they are building SAP HTML5 designer, an ABAP development framework for mobile devices. I am quite interested in both topics so I asked Ole-Andre, the CEO of Neptune Software, if he would be interested in a short interview for the blog and he kindly accepted.

[OAH] Ole Andre Haugen – CEO Neptune Software
[NST] Njål Stabell – CTO Neptune Software


Can you tell us more about you and how you started with SAP?

[OAH] I started with SAP back in 1995 after serving as an officer in the Norwegian armed forces as Instructor and Field Engineer. I have since worked with SAP either as consultant or manager in consultancy firms.
[NST] Actually I started out as a Java developer in the late 90’s and was lured into the SAP world through integration projects and java development on the SAP Internet Sales solution. It took me some years to fully embrace and accept the ABAP language but I now cherish its performance, simplicity and suitability for enterprise business logic.


Can you tell us about your company products and goals?

[OAH] Neptune Software is the result of years and years of real-life SAP projects and experience and not a lab product. We have tried to make our product the optimal development tool that we ourselves would have wanted to use as project developers. The result is a tool that combines the best of the features of the SAP Developer Workbench with the functionality we have always desired. As an example we have reused the idea of data binding from Webdynpro and added far better language support in our solution.

[NST] I would like to add that the trigger of this specific product was the emergence of HTML5 as the “code once run anywhere” de facto standard for mobile development. We could not have delivered the kind of quality we do without the open source development communities producing great frameworks like jQuery Mobile and Phonegap(Cordova).

[OAH] So, our product is an SAP certified HTML5 designer within the SAP Netweaver platform. We provide a server, a “drag & drop” designer and tools for creating Apps for multiple devises based on existing SAP functionality. We have no ambitions to move out of this space - meaning we are not a MEAP but a MADP (Mobile development Application Platform)

Is this your first venture in product development?

[NST] No, I started my career as a product developer for a Scandinavian e-procurement company called Proceedo. The move into project based development was quite a shock when I realized that object orientation and inheritance was kind of useless when you code a user-exit or similar “small” fixes within the SAP environment. Luckily I can capitalize on my former experience now that we have created a huge application in SAP and where ABAP Object really shines.

[OAH] I started a company that delivered a procurement HUB between SAP installations (Customers) in 2002 called LogNet. Even if I have started a lot of SAP consultancy firms, it has always been my passion to create software products rather than just delivering manpower to SAP customers.

I suppose it is not easy for you to market a solution outside the official SAP strategy. How do convince customers that is better to use a non-SAP solution to solve the mobile equation?

[OAH] Not being owned by SAP doesn’t mean we are not an SAP solution. We are actually the only ABAP SAP development product for mobility on the market. And I would like to stress that our solution is certified by SAP. In addition we do not provide a MEAP that is competing with the SAP Mobility platform but only a means for ABAP developers to capitalize on their existing skill sets moving into a more and more mobile reality.

[NST] The new partnerships announced by SAP last month also shows that SAP wants more development options for their platform. Especially the Adobe Phonegap partnering was important for us. Now our customers can use applications built with our tool on the SAP Mobile Platform and benefit from the MDM, Security and functionality like push notifications.

Is SAP platform is a good foundation for building a company that develops applications? What major strengths and weaknesses did you find? 

[OAH] SAP has a great platform when it comes to performance. We are especially impressed with the ICF (Internet Communication Framework) for performance and scalability. We also utilize the standard transport system and security of the SAP system.

[NST] We are of course limited to the SAP customers in the world, and as we use the ABAP stack the look and feel of the designer is based on the standard SAP GUI. We find that the familiarity between our product and standard SAP ABAP tools really helps ABAP developers getting started.

Do you code ABAP? 

[BOTH] Yes, a lot.

Have you tried SAPUI5? What do you think of it? Do you think it will be the building block for all new SAP user interfaces?

[NST] We actually imported the SAPUI5 framework into our solution and made a few SAPUI5 plugins to test how it would play along our solution. It worked perfectly and we are now in touch with the managers of SAPUI5 in Waldorf and are awaiting the licensing decisions before we move any further.

[OAH] For desktop solutions it will definitely have a more appealing and modern look than Webdynpro. I believe that when the browsers in the enterprise have decent HTML5 support – HTML5 will be the preferred choice for most UI development.

I can see you choose JQuery Mobile to use in your product. I also see that SAP uses JQuery Mobile in several places, at least in the SUP and in Portal on Devices (do you know more?). Do think SAP will also adopt JQuery Mobile more officially or it will move to SAPUI5 once this toolkit supports mobile?

[NST] SAPUI5 actually packages jQuery Mobile for mobility development. SAP made a partnering announcement with Sencha Touch so we’ll see what that means for jQuery Mobile in the SAP context in the coming year. For our solution, the jQuery Mobile framework is a better fit. It is more HTML oriented and less Java script dependent when it comes to development.

[OAH] I believe SAPUI5 will have most impact on the desktop. SAP really needs a facelift for their portal and business client.

Are there some new SAP technologies do you think can be particularly interesting to independent developers?

[NST] Apart from the SAPUI5 the new Netweaver Neo is interesting. If we have had a push for mobility and HANA this year, my predictions is that Cloud computing will be the hot thing next year.

Can you tell us more about your marketing channels? Do you get many inquiries from the website?

[OAH] We get great help from SAP through the Eco Hub and they help with setting up webinars with SAP partners. Our trial version strategy has been a success and we have our solution installed on more than 200 SAP systems worldwide.

[NST] Also channels like Linkedin are great for marketing. These days it is a lot easier to find the right audience than it was only a few years ago.

Have you participated in SAP events? Which kind of events you found better to show your products?

[OAH] We participated on Teched and Sapphire in Madrid last year and will attend Teched in Las Vegas in October. Other than that we have been to the local SAP user group events in Scandinavia which has resulted in actual contracts.

How do you see the SAP independent developers space?

[NST] For ABAP developers we can highly recommend the Assembly kit that comes with the certification. It gives you the tool you need for packaging and delivering ABAP add-ons in a smooth and professional manner.

[OAH] SAP provides their Software and Technology partners with both the tools and the marketing assistance you will need starting up. So if you
have a great idea and some means of funding I say go for it.

Thanks guys for this interview. I think you are one of the coolest  startups in the SAP space and I hope you have a lot of success with your product.

Simple PhoneGap Logon App for SAP mobile applications

This post is to share a simple PhoneGap application that manages the logon before calling a Netweaver URL with basic authentication. This app can be used as a container to run any HTML5 application from Netweaver and it is also open-source, so it can be useful for other people working on the SAP mobility topic (direct link to the code).

About PhoneGap

PhoneGap is toolkit to build containers for running HTML5 mobile applications. With PhoneGap it is possible to access hardware APIs like GPS, accelerometer, camera, etc, and still code in cross-platform HTML5/Javascript. For example, PhoneGap has a very useful barcode reader plugin, and reading barcodes from standard browser based HTML5 apps is not possible.

About the problem this app tries to solve

The typical pattern for development of PhoneGap applications is to package the application with the HTML and Javascript code and when the application needs data from a server it requests that data using ajax. This pattern has some advantages, the files are in the mobile device so the app loads faster and needs less network transfers.
But I don't think this is a good pattern for enterprise applications. With this pattern deployment is hard, because when code changes it needs to be synchronized to all devices. And because we cannot be sure that all devices get updated at the same time, the data APIs from the server needs to support the different versions of the applications that might be running. This is complex to maintain. Enterprise mobile solutions must be easy to change and deploy and that can be achieved by having all HTML5/Javascript code in the Netweaver server. For that to work the PhoneGap application needs to be enhanced to have configuration data for the login, since currently it does not have a login dialog like the one found in the mobile browsers. So this Logon App provides a way to connect PhoneGap directly to Netweaver using basic authentication.

The Logon App

The application is ultra simple. Starts with a username/password screen (screenshot left). In the menu there is a settings screen where the server connection details and the URL path to the starter application must be saved (screenshot middle). When the login button is pressed the app calls the Netweaver URL using the Basic Authentication credentials and displays the remotely loaded starter application (screenshot right). After the login all UI and logic is in the server side.



Source code and instructions

Code is available in this repository with some minimal build instructions. A binary apk is also available in the downloads section. Currently it is only for Android (doing for other PhoneGap platforms should be easy, at least an iOS version will be done sooner or later).

Note: this blog entry was originally published in SCN

SAP development with jQuery Mobile

One of the hot topics for me last year was doing SAP development for mobile platforms. There is a huge quantity and quality of enterprise information inside SAP servers and the new wave of mobile devices opens so many new ways of interacting with that data and business processes. I did not write much on that topic in the blog but on onsap you can find many questions and answers related to the technologies I was using.

There are many platforms and toolkits for mobile development (and that is a good topic for another blog post that I hope to write one day). My choice of platform is jQuery Mobile for the frontend development and business server pages (BSP) for the backend development. With this stack it is possible to develop solutions using the platforms companies already have (ECC and other solutions based on Netweaver) and using an open toolkit that is evolving quickly and at the same time is stable and tested in a large number of devices.

As a result of some of that work we, at Cognitiva, are releasing an open-source package with some utilities to help development of jQuery Mobile on SAP. It includes sample applications like the one show in action in the video below, and it also includes a search help widget that is described in detail in this SDN blog post.

If you have interest in mobile apps give this technology a try. The source code is available in this repository and it is possible to run a demo application with the free Netweaver developer edition.

Interview with Tamás Holics

Tamás Holics is manager at Hovitaga, a company in Budapest specialized in SAP development that is also bringing to market some SAP add-ons and applications. I asked Tamás if he could share his experience in a short interview, as I think this kind of experience is interesting for many of us running consulting companies or working as freelancers and also trying to market SAP applications or enhancements.

[PL] Hi Tamás, can you tell us more about you, how you started with SAP and what areas of SAP you currently focus?

[TH] I joined SAP Labs Budapest in 2006 as a junior ABAP developer. There I was working on IS-Oil projects for about one and a half years. Since then I've gained experience in the insurance industry, especially with the FS-CD module. Currently I work for a manufacturing company where I do ABAP development within core ERP modules like warehouse management, logistics, sales and distribution etc.

[PL] In parallel with consulting your company is developing SAP applications. What fraction of the time do you invest in app development versus consulting work?

[TH] That changes very often. There were some months when I could spend 10-12 days on the development of my apps, but lately only a few hours per day in my free time. This is also due to the fact that the activities have shifted from development to marketing.

[PL] Can you tell us more about the products you are bringing to the market?

[TH] Our first product was the Hovitaga OpenSQL Editor, a tool which can execute SQL commands on the fly. The results of SQL queries are displayed immediately by an ALV grid or a hierarchical ALV tree. We've packed a lot of features that help developers to create Select statements quickly. The second product is based on the first one, it is called Hovitaga Report Generator. The great feature of it is that it can generate standard SAP reports based on an SQL query. Depending on generation settings, 200-1000+ lines of code can be generated. You can imagine how much time you can spare with this. These tools can cut SAP IT costs by significantly reducing ABAP development, testing and maintenance time.

Our current development is a radically new kind of business intelligence tool called Hovitaga Data Visualizer. It is unique because it is based on Microsoft Silverligt, but it actually runs in the traditional SAP Gui. It can visualize data coming from SQL statements, ALV reports, SAP Queries (SQ01) or tables and views. The added business value comes from the way how data is presented: instead of a simple ALV list, you can analyze business data with interactive charts, maps, pivot grids, treemaps etc. This product is still in development, we currently seek a pilot customer and/or a development company who would join the development. We have just uploaded the first video to youtube.

[PL] How did you come up with the idea of building those applications?

[TH] The SQL editor was missing from the ABAP workbench:) I decided to write one. Again from a personal experience I wanted to reduce the amount of repetitive coding so we came up with the Report Generator. As for the Data Visualizer, I was on the opinion that SAP and SAP customers have put so much effort in developing highly complex business logic to extract data from the database (in forms of reports, queries) that it's a shame that the results of them are analyzed with a simple ALV list. Actually none of these products were suggested by any customer. That would have been much easier if a company would have sponsored the development.

[PL] Do you think the SAP platform is a good foundation for building a company that develops applications? What major strengths and weaknesses did you find?

[TH] In general it is all right. However if you want to gain exposure, you have to invest a lot of money. Presenting at TechEd or SAPPHIRE Now costs a tens of thousands (USD), advertising in SAP related magazines and websites is also expensive.

[PL] How do you distribute your applications? Do you use transports, saplink or something else?

[TH] This depends on what we want to deliver. I think we are the first company in the world (of course I can't be sure) who offer a totally free trial version of their SAP software. Anybody can download a free version of the OpenSQL Editor and Report Generator tools. In order to make the installation even more simple, we have made them "self installing", which means that all you have to do is to copy and paste the downloaded sourcecode into a new report with SE38, activate and execute. It will create the necessary screens, GUI status, messages etc automatically. We consider making a SapLink version also available for download. As for the full version of the products, my experience shows that customers are fine with transport files.

[PL] Are you planning to use WebDynpro for new developments?

[TH] No, not at all. I believe not so many customers use it, and it's already an out-of-date technology.

[PL] That's interesting. How do you see the future of GUI in SAP? Do you think classic Dynpro will be improved or do you think something else will become the SAP GUI of the future?

[TH] I think the UI will not be unified in the short or middle-term future. The traditional SAP GUI will stay for a very long time, and SAP will continue coming up with new technologies. However I'm not sure if those will get the desired popularity. Maybe if they do something with HTML5. But anyway, new technology is only accepted if it adds something to the business.

[PL] Are there some new SAP technologies do you think can be particularly interesting to independent developers?

[TH] Yes, the Netweaver Gateway and mobile applications in general, for example. Nowadays everybody has a smartphone and tablets are very popular these days.

[PL] What has been your experience with selling the applications to the customers? Do you think companies are open to evaluate applications from independent developers?

[TH] Our free products have been downloaded more than 500 times since mid of September 2011. This makes me optimistic. Around 20% of website visitors end up downloading a trial product.

[PL] Can you tell us more about your marketing channels? Do you get many inquiries from the website?

[TH] Since we've made the free trials available we have received around ten quotes from the website, but I know the purchasing departments of big companies (big enough to run SAP) usually work slowly. If there is a download in January, I expect a quote no sooner than February and an actual purchase not before April. We are considering to place our products in online webshops, but I'm not sure how many visitors and quotes would that add. Naturally this again would cost thousands of Euros per year per product.

[PL] I know many networks of companies focused on SAP consulting but so far I did not find any network of companies working on SAP applications. Do you know such networks?

[TH] No, please tell me if you know one :)

I will keep looking and let you know if I find one :-). Thanks, Tamás for this interview, I think it will be very interesting to many people and it is a great first post of 2012 for apolemia. I hope to have more post related to independent SAP developers during this year.