Updated: August 28, 2019

SAPUI5 Version 1.54

Object Page Floorplan

Information

This article contains general guidelines for the object page floorplan. Note that some features may not be available if you are using the SAP Fiori elements implementation.

For the latest information on SAP Fiori elements, see the documentation and SAP Community wiki.

You can also refer to the object page floorplan article for guideline version 1.52, which includes the main features of the SAP Fiori elements implementation. However, please note that this page is no longer updated.

Intro

The object page floorplan allows the user to display, create, or edit an object. This is the recommended floorplan for representing both simple and complex objects in SAP Fiori. The object page floorplan comes with a flexible header, a choice of anchor or tab navigation, and a flexible, responsive layout. These features make it adaptable for a wide range of use cases.

Object page floorplan

Usage

Use the object page floorplan if:

Users need to see, edit, or create an item with all its details.
Users need to get an overview of an object and interact with different parts of the object.

Do not use the object page floorplan if:

Users want to edit several items at the same time. Use the list report floorplan instead.
Users need to find relevant items without knowing the exact item details. Use the list report floorplan instead.
Users need to find one specific item, where the item or an identifying data point is known to the user (such as a barcode identified by a barcode scanner). Use the initial page floorplan instead.
Users need to be guided through a series of steps when a new object is created. Use the wizard floorplan instead.
The creation process for a new object is not linear, but can have different paths, depending on the information selected. Use the wizard floorplan instead.

Responsiveness

The object page floorplan is responsive and supports all SAP FIori screen sizes: small (S), medium (M), large (L), and extra large (XL).

Object page – Size S

Object page – Size M

Object page – Size L

The layout for size XL (large display) contains four columns.

The default layout for size L (desktop) contains three columns. You can also use an optional two-column layout.

Object page layout – Size L

The layout for size M (tablet) contains two columns.

Object page layout – Size M

The layout for size S (smartphone) contains one column.

Object page layout – Size S

Structure

Warning

Ensure that you build the object page using the dynamic header and not the former object page header. This ensures consistency across all floorplans and provides greater flexibility. More information can be found here.

The object page is a full screen floorplan with a display mode, a create mode, and an edit mode.

In all modes, the object page contains:

A dynamic header (formerly the snapping header)
A navigation bar
A content area

The following sections explain these components in more detail.

Schematic visualization of the object page

Header

The header is the uppermost element of the object page floorplan. It contains key information about the business object and provides the user with the necessary context. The header also contains global actions for the object.

Ensure that you build the object page using the dynamic header and not the former object page header. This ensures consistency across all floorplans and provides greater flexibility.

For an example of the object page with the dynamic header, see this SAPUI5 sample. An example with an image can be found here.

Object page with the dynamic header

Please note:

To display images and placeholders in the header, use the avatar control.
The object header facets described in the snapping header article should be also used in the new dynamic header.
The subtitle is now below the title. (For the object page header it was next to the title.)

Toolbars

The object page supports two toolbars:

Header toolbar: Use this toolbar for global actions such as Edit, Delete, Copy and Share.
Floating toolbar: Use this toolbar for closing and finalizing actions, such as Save, Post, Accept, Reject, and Activate.

This applies to all object page modes (display, edit, and create).

Responsive overflow toolbar

Navigation

There are three ways to navigate within the object page:

Anchor bar (by default)
No navigation (flat scrollable page)
Tabs

Usage

To offer a flat page for a simple object, remove the navigation.
For more complex objects, use the anchor or tab navigation.

Object page – Anchor navigation

Anchor Bar and Overflow

The anchor bar is the default navigation control for the object page. It consist of a series of anchor links, which are arranged horizontally at the top of the page. The anchors represent sections or subsections of the page. Clicking on these links directs the user to specific sections of the page. The anchor links remain visible when the user scrolls down the page.

Developer Hint

Anchor Bar and Overflow

Use title case for the anchor bar texts. To do this, you need to change the default capitalization (block caps) by changing the the property upperCaseAnchorBar to “false”.

Overflow

If there are more anchors than the screen can accommodate, the remaining anchors move into an overflow menu. The overflow overview button on the right of the navigation bar () opens a hierarchical dropdown list of all sections and subsections. When the user scrolls down the page, the anchor links scroll horizontally to ensure that the active anchor is always visible.

You might also see a small right arrow on the anchor bar. This arrow allows you to scroll horizontally to reveal any hidden content, and only appears when you hover over the overflow menu. In the meantime, this arrow has been replaced by the overflow overview button, but is still supported technically for legacy reasons.

Responsiveness

On small screens, the anchor bar becomes a dropdown list. The text field of the dropdown list shows the section currently selected. Clicking the dropdown menu opens a hierarchical list with all the sections and subsections of the document.

Object page – Anchor bar

Active anchor
Inactive anchor
Subsection dropdown
Subsection
Subsection dropdown indicator
Overflow carousel button
Overflow overview button
Overflow overview dropdown
Section (hover) in overflow overview
Section in overflow overview
Subsection in overflow overview

Behavior and Interaction

Clicking an anchor link scrolls the page to the selected section.
Clicking a section anchor that contains more than one subsection opens a subsection menu.
Clicking a subsection scrolls the page to the selected subsection. The keyboard left and right arrows allow the user to move between the anchor links.
Hovering over the fade area to the left or right of the anchor bar causes an overflow arrow button to appear (compact mode only). The overflow arrow button is always visible in cozy mode.
Clicking the overflow scroll button (right arrow) scrolls the anchors horizontally to bring anchors that are hidden in the overflow into view.
Clicking the overflow overview button () displays a hierarchical dropdown list with all the sections and subsections of the document. Clicking an item in the overflow list scrolls to the respective section or subsection.

Hiding the Navigation

You can hide the navigation bar from the object page, leaving a flat, scrollable object. We recommend using this flat view for simple content that doesn’t require anchor navigation.

Tab Navigation

As an alternative to anchor navigation, you can also opt for tab navigation. The tab bar works in a similar way to the icon tab bar, but is not the same control. Tab navigation for the object page is a variant of the anchor bar, and is handled by the object page layout control.

If you set the tab bar property (useIconTabBar = “true”), the navigation bar displays tabs instead of anchors. The object page only supports text-only tabs; icon tabs and icon/text tabs are not available. The object page sections and subsections are reflected in the tab navigation: sections of the object page become the tabs, and subsections become the internal content of the tab. The tabs can have an item counter, which is displayed in parentheses next to the title of the tab.

On small screens, the tab bar uses the same horizontal carousel overflow pattern as the icon tab bar. This differs from the dropdown approach used for the anchor bar.

Tab Bar Subnavigation

To make it easier to reach specific content on a long tab page, tabs can have subnavigation. Subnavigation is optional and the default state is “false”. If the state is set to “true”, a dropdown arrow is shown next to the tab. Clicking on the tab displays a dropdown menu with the subsection anchors for that tab.

Object page – Tab navigation

Breadcrumbs

If the object page uses a hierarchical parent-child drilldown, you can offer a breadcrumb for navigation. The breadcrumb is part of the snapping header.

Content Area

The object page content consists of sections and subsections arranged in a column layout. For large documents, you can enable a lazy loading mechanism (property: enableLazyLoading) to mitigate the loading time.

Sections

Sections are containers for subsections. They provide the basic structure for navigation, and are directly reflected in the navigation bar. Sections can have a title, subsections, and actions. However, they cannot contain controls.

Use title case for the section title (property titleUppercase = “false”). The title can have an item counter, which is displayed in parentheses. If a section contains only one subsection, the title of the subsection is used as the name of the section. In this case, there is no subsection submenu in the anchor bar.

Global actions are always placed at subsection level. Sections can only contain subsections, not content. Because of this, the object page only provides toolbars for global actions at the subsection level.

Subsections

Subsections are the containers for actual content. Always place individual controls inside the subsections. Subsection content is arranged according to the column layout approach for the respective screen size. A subsection can include containers for different controls (mixed content).

Subsections have a progressive disclosure mechanism to show and hide content. App developers can specify which content is shown initially, but the user can also display everything by selecting the Show All button at the bottom right of the subsection.

Each subsection can have a toolbar, which is placed at subsection header level on the right. The toolbar contains actions that affect the content of the subsection.

Subsections within the same section are separated by a gray horizontal line. Subsections can have an item counter, which is displayed in parentheses next to the subsection header.

You can include various types of related content in one subsection. The layout blocks for the object page give you the flexibility to combine different content types.

Responsiveness

The content blocks in a subsection display in a row. The width of the row depends on the column layout for the respective screen size. If there is not enough space to display a content block, it wraps to the line below.

Object page – Content responsiveness

Forms

Forms follow the standard layout of the object page:

Large: 3 columns
Medium: 2 columns
Small: 1 column

Forms are located within subsections. They follow the column design of the object page, whereby each form group is arranged into a column. The title of the form is given by the subsection header. Only use the form title if you are using several forms within the same subsection.

Use top-aligned labels for form fields. Top-aligned labels are known to reduce completion times, and are the best approach for forms requiring localization or long labels. Using top-aligned labels also avoids issues with the spacing between the label and form field, which can occur with left- and right-aligned labels.

Blocks

Layout blocks allow content to be aligned within the columns as follows:

Layout 1: Occupies the maximum available horizontal space of one column.
Layout 2: Occupies the horizontal space of only two columns. If there is only one column available, it occupies one column.
Layout 3: Occupies the horizontal space of three columns. If there is only one column available, it occupies one column. If there are only two columns available, it occupies two columns.

Object page – Blocks

Contacts

The contacts on the object page are technically a list, but they can be represented visually as a card.

The cards can contain:

An image (optional)
A title (mandatory)
A subtitle (optional)
A text snippet consisting of two lines maximum (optional)

A single card covers the column’s entire horizontal space. To avoid alignment problems, all cards are the same height. The card with the most content defines the overall height for all cards. The image can be rectangular or round. It shows in the top left corner of the card. The content of the card never truncates. If there is not enough space to display the information, it wraps onto the next line.

Content type – Contacts

Tables

In an object page, tables with up to 20 expected items can be displayed right away without lazy loading.

If a table is expected to have more than 20 items, use one of the following 3 options for long tables:

1. Lazy Loading Behavior (“More” button)

If you expect up to 100 items, use the More button of the responsive table. The initial amount of items shown depends on the height of the rows. We recommend initially showing 5 to 10 items, but not more than 20. If there is more than one table in the object page, this option should be used only for tables with up to 50 expected items.

2. Tab Navigation

If you expect to have more than 50 to 100 items, but less than 400, using the object page with tab navigation instead of anchor navigation also solves the problems associated with long tables. Here it is important to place the table within a tab as the only or at least the last element and to enable the scroll to load behavior.

3. Navigation to List Report

For tables with more than 400 items, or when the tab approach is unsuitable, the table itself should be restricted to a reasonable amount of items. We recommend only showing a preview of the data in the table, which should not contain more than 20 items. Ideally, you should have about 10 items. This can be either be achieved by prefiltering and/or by sorting the table, and if necessary, by restricting it to a fixed amount of items (such as top 10). To provide the user with a way to work with the entire table, a navigation to a separate list report containing the full table must be offered. This navigation should be located below the table in the form of a right-aligned link labelled Show All (x), with x representing the total amount of items in the table.

In the object page, we recommend that you do not use the analytical, grid and tree tables. Instead, use a responsive table and offer navigation to a list report with the table types mentioned above.

For all of the three options mentioned above, we recommend providing a search, and if feasible, sort and filtering for the table in the object page. Grouping should be avoided.

Table with navigation to a separate list report

Child Page Representation

In object pages with drilldown navigation, child pages are represented in three ways:

Visual representation in the header: A narrow blue band is displayed in the left margin of the snapping header.
Breadcrumbs: A breadcrumb is displayed above the object title. Limit the breadcrumb to the drilldown levels within the object page.
Item navigation arrows: Up and down arrows in the application toolbar allow the user to navigate between subitems without going back to the original list.

Behavior and Interaction

Edit

The basic layout of the object page in terms of header, navigation, and content remains the same in all modes (display, edit, create). In edit mode, the object page can contain a mixture of editable and read-only content.

If the user needs to edit elements in the header, a header section is added in the content area for edit mode to enable editing.

Use the same content layout for both display and edit mode. Content should not change location when the user switches between display and edit modes.

For global and local editing guidelines, see manage objects – create, edit, delete.

Editing the Header

The object page header can be edited in two ways:

Global edit
Partial edit

Global Edit

The header can be edited when the entire object page is in edit mode.

Because the header snaps on scroll, there are no editable forms in the header itself. Instead, a temporary header section is added before the other sections of the page. The title bar information and all editable fields from the header container move from the header to the new editable header section. Any non-editable content displays as read-only. You can leave out header content that doesn’t make sense in edit mode (for example, aggregated values that are calculated from several sources, KPIs, or micro charts).

If only a few fields in the header are editable, and they match an existing section, they are moved to that section. In this case, no editable header section appears.

Object page – Global edit with header container and independent header facets

The header container in edit mode may contain independent facets that are not included in the header content in display mode. They provide information to assist editing.

If the entire object page is in edit mode, but there is no editable information in the header, no editable header section is added.

Any changes made to the header are not reflected until the user saves them.

Partial Edit

The user can edit the header content separately by pressing the Edit Header button.

If there are only a few elements to edit, the partial edit triggers a dialog.

If there are too many elements to fit on a dialog, the partial edit triggers a subpage. The subpage contains all editable information from the header. However, it differs from the “Header” section in global edit mode in that it has no action buttons in the toolbar, no navigation, and no breadcrumbs.

Object page – Partial edit with dialog

Create and Edit Subobjects

The following options are available for creating or editing subobjects:

Navigation to a subobject page
Inline create or inline edit in a table
Dialog containing the fields of the object

If the subobject has less than 8 fields, use a dialog or the inline create/edit option (no separate page for the subobject). Exceptions can apply if additional content for the subobject is available but not part of the edit process, or if other apps need to offer deep links to the subobject page.

Unsaved Changes

If draft handling has been implemented, documents are automatically saved as draft versions in the background. An editing icon to the right of the object title indicates that a draft version exists. In other words, either the current user or another user has made changes, but not yet actively saved the document (“unsaved changes”). Do not show the editing icon for unsaved changes if draft handling is not supported.

Selecting the editing icon invokes a popover with more information about the unsaved changes. This normally states:
•Who made the changes
•When the last changes were made

The popover closes when the user clicks or taps the Close icon or anywhere outside the popover.

Unsaved changes popover

Create

Create mode is similar to edit mode, except that the user creates a new object and defines a title for it. Until the new object title is known, use the placeholder text “New ” (for example, “New Purchase Order”). Replace the placeholder text with the actual name or ID of the new object as soon as this has been entered or generated.

Consider using the wizard floorplan instead of the object page floorpan if:

You need to guide the user through a series of steps when a new object is created.
You need a progressive disclosure approach for the creation process.
The creation process is not linear, but can have different paths, depending on the information selected.
The user is not familiar with the creation task.

Guidelines

Header

Use the header to set the context. Ensure that it is clearly structured and contains only essential information. Too much information impedes the main purpose of providing a clear context.

Actions

Arrange the actions in the header toolbar with care, and consider what matters most to the user:

Highlight actions that are common or most important.
Differentiate between secondary and generic actions.
Use either a text button or an icon for an action, but not both.
Place the most important actions on the left (actions go into the overflow from right to left).
Establish a coherent visual approach.

Tab Navigation

Use tab navigation if you need a facet approach to your content. This could be due to performance issues in a flat view, or in response to a specific user preference.

Not a Content Dump

Avoid using the object page as a universal container for masses of information. You should use the object page in accordance with the SAP Fiori principles: role-based, coherent, simple, and adaptive.

Simplify Content for Your Users

Give your users quick and easy access to the information they need to complete their task(s). Use a progressive disclosure strategy to keep your interface clean. You can always provide additional information on request. Furthermore, only present your users with information that makes sense for their industry, role, activity, and task.

Dynamic Side Content

You can offer dynamic side content alongside the object page under the following conditions:

Use the side panel only for contextual content. Do not place finalizing or global actions in the side panel. This is because opening the side panel occupies the whole right side of the screen. There is no way to show it only below the header and anchor bar.
Do not place object information in the side panel. This information should always be in the content area of the object page.

Standard Naming Conventions

For all objects, follow the standard conventions for action buttons, the object name, and the title in the shell bar. For more information see Manage Objects – Naming Guidelines and Launchpad Shell Bar – Page Title and Navigation Menu.

Resources

Want to dive deeper? Follow the links below to find out more about related controls, the SAPUI5 implementation, and the visual design.

Elements and Controls

Snapping Header (guidelines)
Dynamic Page – Header (guidelines)
Wizard Floorplan (guidelines)

Implementation

List Report and Object Page (SAP Fiori elements developer guide)