Pimp my SAP ERP

SAP ERP systems are developed in the proprietary programming language ABAP. ABAP was invented by SAP in 1983, further developed over the years and even got object-oriented extensions. Google "most popular programming language" and you won't find ABAP. However, at Otto Group IT we have a lot of talented ABAP developers who program great things with it. Some programs are even so good that we sell them on the external market. You can find more about this on the website ottopersonalsysteme.de.

Thanks to our ABAP developers, our SAP HCM system - dating back to 1996 - now has a modern HTTP interface. This makes further development much easier for everyone involved, as it is now no longer necessary for everyone to develop with ABAP.

OData

The interface uses the so-called Open Data Protocol, OData for short.

OData uses functionalities from XML or RSS and JSON with REST principles. Pretty modern for such an old system.

For OData there are also various client libraries in different programming languages. Even for popular programming languages like Java, .NET, PHP and JavaScript.

As I said, a lot has changed since 1996 and we all walk around with a smartphone and no longer sit in front of a PC with Windows 95 or Apple with Mac OS 7. Our goal was to develop something for all colleagues that is easy to use on the smartphone. In short: a modern web application.

UI5

For the front-end development we chose SAP's JavaScript framework SAPUI5. SAPUI5 is published as an open source project under the name OpenUI5. You can participate in the further development via GitHub (https://github.com/SAP/openui5). Thanks to the more than 180 UI building blocks, you don't have to worry much about UI design and can focus on the development of the actual functions.

When developing the individual applications, we copied the successful concept of our otto.de colleagues and relied entirely on microservices. Each application must be able to run on its own. A few examples of applications are:

• Salary statement ("Show me my salary.")
• Time sheet ("Show me my working time.")
• Absence planner ("Show me my vacation planning.")
• Canteen accounting ("Show me what I have eaten.")

Each application is versioned in its own Git repository. For a better overview and management we use GitLab. With GitLab we also do our Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) processes. For this, we use the GitLab Runner and the Google Cloud Platform. For each commit, a Docker container with a pre-built image starts in the Google Cloud. The app is built and tested in the container. After successful testing, the finished app is automatically published.

Docker

The Docker image used includes many SAP tools and custom developments. The image is open source and you can find it on GitHub.

Cloud

We already have enough to do with running the many SAP ERP systems. So we didn't want to install and maintain yet another system. So the choice was a ready-made Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution from SAP. SAP markets the solutions under the name SAP Cloud Platform (SCP) and provides a large number of services under it. So far, we are using only a small part of the services offered:

• SAP Fiori Cloud
• SAP Cloud Platform Portal
• SAP Cloud Platform OData Provisioning
• SAP Cloud Platform Identity Authentication (IAS)
• SAP Cloud Platform Identity Provisioning (IPS)
• SAP Cloud Platform Web IDE

The combination of the services provides a modern employee portal for approximately 13,000 Otto Group employees.

Due to the accessibility of the cloud services via the Internet, every authorized employee has access to his or her own personnel data at any time and from anywhere. Access to the sensitive data is specially secured by two-factor authentication.

Questions such as "how many hours do I actually have in my flexitime account?" or "how much vacation entitlement do I still have?" can be answered quickly and you can get back to more exciting topics.

To make old IT systems cool again, give them a modern HTTP API. Build the front-end with modern web technologies. Don't develop everything from scratch and use frameworks. Version everything with Git and use and combine ready-to-use cloud solutions.

I hope I was able to give you a little insight - away from otto.de - into the SAP world of the Otto Group.

If you want to learn more about the individual topics, just leave me a comment or meet me in person at one of the many SAP events - like DSAG or TechEd.

By the way: If you enjoy modern ABAP or SAPUI5 code: Please get in touch too. We are hiring 🙂