#63: SAP GenAI Hub, Fiori Elements, Schrödinger, Claude Copy Editor
In this issue:
SAP Generative AI Hub - Please Tell Me Why
I have watched the video from SAP's developer advocate Nora von Thenen. I've read the docs and see the brief video on this page. I've talked to a few knowledgeable folks. And I'm still stuck. What is the value of SAP Generative AI Hub?
I'm not asking why SAP AI Core exists. I'm not asking whether Joule is a good thing. My question is specific to Gen AI Hub: for an SAP customer, what is the purpose it serves that isn't met by directly using the Azure/AWS/Google flavors of enterprise generative AI? Is this one of those times where I'm ignorant of an important detail? If you read the comments on the YouTube video posted above, you'll see that I'm not alone.
I think there's an opportunity here for SAP to explain the value of Generative AI Hub. Assemble your most powerful marketing people! Prove to me and the YouTube commenters that we’re just a bunch of dopes who can’t see the big picture! Perhaps a reader of this very piece can explain what I'm missing.
In The Office (US version), a visitor to the company pitches a not-well-thought-out idea. "Something with cell phones. It's like, every time you make a phone call I'd make point two cents." He wants to be a middle man, but only to skim some money off the top of an already-solved problem. That's what SAP Generative AI Hub feels like. Someone correct me, please. PM
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Fiori Elements: SAP’s Worst Hidden Secret
One of the most attended ASUG Tech Connect sessions last year was on how to build awesome Fiori apps without spending a dime on consultants. The secret sauce was SAP Fiori Elements, formerly known as “smart templates”.
What do these Elements do? SAP veterans might remember ABAP Query aka SAP Query aka “SQ01 query”. In a nutshell, it allowed anyone to create simple reports without any programming knowledge. All you had to do was specify which tables and fields to get the data from and then just run a transaction to generate an ALV report with that data.
Fiori Elements goes much further with several supported floor plans but the gist is the same: you work on the data model / backend and don’t worry your pretty little head about the presentation / frontend. A backend here would be an OData service with good annotations, so it’s a bit more complicated than drag-and-click SQ01 interface. It can be rather easily created using ABAP RAP model though, which makes Fiori Elements perfect option for ABAPers not super interested in learning UI5 and JS.
You might be thinking this sounds great but what’s the catch? There really isn’t one, as long as you are OK with the available floor plans and are not looking for anything fancy like playing national anthem after every successful posting. Complex requirements would still call for a custom “freestyle” app (there is a good post that describes both options). But it’s a good idea to use Fiori Elements as a default approach because you wouldn’t lose much by trying even if it turns out later that more is needed.
There are quite a few official tutorials and lessons on the subject, this one is a good start. Make sure to put Fiori Elements on your “stuff to learn” list! It’s useful. JP
Schrödinger's BP List
It started from a seemingly simple question on SAP Reddit sub: is there a way to get a list of business partners with a posting block? Business partner (BP) is the main part of master data in S/4HANA, surely SAP came out with some new and innovative way to get a list of business partners! So I thought naively.
After googling multiple variations of the original question, I came to conclusion that looking for such report is like searching for a black cat in dark room, especially when the cat is not there. Top hits were old questions on SAP Community (called SDN at the time) followed by third-party clickbait. Official SAP Help site is somehow even worse.
Maybe there is a fantastic Fiori app for that? How would you find it though? Search functionality in Fiori app library (providing you even know about the library and are able to get to Search field there) is just as bad as on every other SAP website.
And our good old friend ChatGPT, of course, has answers, which it clearly got from the same old SDN posts (“Option 2: Use SE16”. Sweet!)
Top SAP brass might be thinking: “well, where we’re going, we don’t need search engines!” and that very soon every SAP user would just ask Joule to get such list for them. All it would take is RISEing to the Cloud with SAP! What, you don’t want to do that? Well, that’s too bad… You should have bought a squirrel, buddy. JP
UI5: Lawn Mower
Every week, I painstakingly reassemble my lawn mower from its constituent parts, mow my lawn, and then break it back down into parts to store. Sure, it takes all day, but the simple joy of doing pointless busy work really makes it worth the effort. What's that you say? You just pull out your mower, yank the starter cord, and mow your lawn in half an hour? You bought your lawn mower to save time on that task?
This, dear readers, is my tortured analogy to great community project work, like the generator for OpenUI5/SAPUI5. As web (and other) frameworks grow in capability, they also grow in complexity. And one of the first places that complexity manifests is when you have to create a new project with that framework. If I had to create a UI5 project by hand, with all the bells and whistles for BTP deployment, plugging in test frameworks, and the various views, models, and custom controls, I would simply never get it right. Project generators are one of the core elements that keep a project alive and well.
Props and thanks to Nico Schoenteich and other contributors for getting the latest release out. This little blurb is a piece of magical wonder all by itself: "✨ all projects are instantly deployable". Anyone in the UI5 space should send all the happiest/warmest/fuzziest vibes their way. PM
Make Tech Useful Again
Recently I got to see in person an old friend from SAP Community. The stars aligned for our families to meet for dinner as we were passing through the small town where he lives. Unavoidably, the conversation turned to SAP and the daily struggle of users who end up using Excel because it does exactly what they need. SAP likes to talk about fun stats like every X beer bottles “touched” by SAP systems. But everyone knows that global economy is run by Excel spreadsheets. That’s just the reality.
My main takeaway from the conversation was that technology needs to be useful. It needs to solve some kind of a problem for the users. Otherwise there is just no point. It may sound like “wow, you don’t say” observation but if we take a very honest look at the projects we’re working on, can we tell how exactly are they useful? Sure, there is always some presumption of either cost saving or revenue generation. Which is all important for the shareholders. But for the people who are using technology and all those systems, apps, and web pages – is it helpful to them?
Yes, looking at you, Zoom. Stop pretending to be Teams. People who get Zoom do it not because they can’t afford MS Teams. We do it because we hate Teams. And while consumer grade technology is at least more inclined to think of the actual users, enterprise tech just… doesn’t need to care.
So I guess it’s all in hands of the UX enthusiasts and conscious nerds to make enterprise tech actually useful to the end users. Otherwise, what are we even doing here? JP
Claude Is My Copy Editor
I've been singing the praises of generative AI as a tool to assist creativity. I've also been shouting like an angry old man at the ways people use it to avoid creativity. Let me show you one of the ways I use it to assist my process in writing for Boring Enterprise Nerds.
One of the new features of Anthropic's Claude AI is called "Projects". It's similar to ChatGPT's "GPTs" - you can create an assistant with a certain personality, set of goals, and internal knowledge base.
I created a project called "Boring Enterprise Nerds Copy Editor" and gave it a personality and instructions. My goal: make Claude my sounding board and editor. The instructions help ensure that I'm in the driver's seat. They force me to write the first draft, they force me to look at its notes, and force me to think through its comments and update (or not update) my work.
I want that forcing function. I am the author. It's doubly powerful, because I'm the author of both the original work and of the criteria for which I want my work to be judged. I can adjust how Claude will give me feedback at any time.
YOU GUYS. Claude is so great at this.
(Claude 3.5 Sonnet has been tearing up the social media airwaves with its great performance and capabilities, and I'm 100% in line with that vibe. Its personality is finely crafted in a way that I love. I dig its curiosity; I often chat with it about open-ended, big mysteries of the universe. Not because I expect it to have answers, but because I expect it to be good at helping me talk through my own thoughts on them.)
Here's my setup. (I can already see a few wording tweaks I want to make.)
My custom instructions to Claude:
You are a copy editor for an online newsletter. Users will provide you with drafts of articles they wish to write for the newsletter. You will then provide feedback to them, based on the following guidelines:
- Articles are to be 3-4 paragraphs long.
- Articles are personal perspectives.
- Articles strive to include both entertainment and informative content. Writers should strive for "edutainment".
- You do NOT create wholly new articles, you only provide feedback and guidance to submitted articles.
- Provided documents are examples of good work for this newsletter, and new material should seek to maintain the tone and humor of those pieces.
- You should suggest fixes for grammar or awkward phrasing for submitted articles.
Based on the above guidelines, you should also ask the writer questions that help guide them to meet the guidelines.
Here are 10 examples of the kind of content Boring Enterprise Nerds seek:
[hand-picked list of 10 articles I've written that I want Claude to consider as good examples.]
You, the editor, are encouraged to be snarky and humorous in your engagement with the article submissions. Boring Enteprise Nerds aims for a playful tone, so our editor can also have a playful tone!In the 10 examples I provide to Claude, I use structured XML to delineate titles, content, and separate articles. Anthropic suggests XML as a good way to structure data in your prompts.
My favorite part of how the Boring Enterprise Nerds Copy Editor works is the last instruction that it be snarky and humorous. The feedback has been legitimately that. The lead picture of this piece is a screenshot from one of my editing sessions. Here's some more:
I know people are concerned about dangers in AI. I share many of those concerns. But something about this process shows me the opposite side of the dangers. Properly aimed, AI helps me draw out and expand my own humanity. PM
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