In the last years people are talking more and more about mobile access to SAP information. Today, in most cases people mean apps when they talk about mobile access. These apps are created for a device. You can have apps for Android iPhone / iPad or Blackberry, just to name a few. As apps are getting their data out of the internet, you could also use a mobile browser to access that data. Apps offer superior integration for the device, offline access and sync, but they also need maintenance. And they need to get developed, for every device. For online access, you can use the browser installed on the device to consult (or to approve) actual data.
As SAP has a strong position in this market - specially now with Sybase - there is one SAP product that almost never get's mentioned when talking about mobiles: the SAP Portal. WebDynpro Java offers support for some mobile devices, but it doesn't offer portal features like:
- portal profiles and user management
- navigation
- content management
- central place for maintenance
I want to share with you some screenshots that demonstrate that it is possible to access the SAP Portal and to interact with backend system. I used the device / browser simulators provided by Blackberry (OS 5) and Opera (Mobile 10). A "normal" user that logs on to the portal get presented with portal content.
It isn't possible to run the same portal content on the mobile, the content administrator has to make sure that the mobile end-user will see only adapted content. Instead of creating a mobile only portal or mobile only users, the portal offers the desktop filter functionality for this. The same user can see different content based on the filter ID of the desktop.
The standard portal logon works also on mobiles, but it is too large for a mobile screen. I developed a simple HTML form that fits the small mobile screen.
Blackberry
Opera Mobile
