General Concepts SAP Fiori Launchpad Enterprise Search

Updated: November 28, 2018
SAPUI5 Version 1.62

Enterprise Search

Intro

The SAP Fiori launchpad offers an enterprise search function that searches across all apps and business objects, such as materials, customers, and maintenance plans. The search icon is displayed in the shell bar of the launchpad and is always readily available at the top of the screen.

Search icon in the shell bar
Search icon in the shell bar

When pressing the search icon in the shell bar, the search field and the type selector appear.

Information
Some customers may not yet have business objects enabled for search. In this case, the UI adapts accordingly to search for apps only. In particular, the type selector is not visible and the filter functionality is more limited.

After entering a search term, users can trigger the search by pressing ENTER, by clicking the magnifier icon, or by selecting one of the suggestions. A search for All can be achieved by pressing ENTER in an empty search field or by using the * query.

If the search field is left empty, clicking the search icon closes the search field.

Search field in the shell bar
Search field in the shell bar

Type Selection

The search can be restricted to objects of a particular type.

This can be done before the search is triggered, either by using the type selector or by typing the object type into the search field and selecting the respective suggestion.

To filter a result list by object type, users can select the type tabs or the respective section in the filter panel.

Type selection using dropdown
Type selection using dropdown
Search in a specific object type (here:
Search in a specific object type (here: "Sales Orders")

Suggestions

When the user starts typing in the search field, suggestions appear. There are 3 main suggestion types:

  • Type suggestions switch the type selector (for example, Search In: Sales Orders).
  • App suggestions launch the app (for example, App Create Leave Request).
  • Term suggestions execute a search with the respective terms (for example, SAP Walldorf)
Search suggestions
Search suggestions

Result List

The result list is a ranked list of all matching items. Different object types can have different representations.

Apps are shown as tiles and can be launched.

Business objects are summarized in a few lines. Pressing the title link of an object shows a full-screen representation of that object, such as an object page or a document viewer. If additional summary attributes area available, clicking the down arrow  on the right will show them. This will also reveal navigation shortcuts to apps that can handle the business object.

The tabs at the top of the result list allow users to filter by object type. The tabs are sorted by the number of hits – categories with most hits appear first.

If the results have been limited to a certain object type, additional actions appear in the upper right-hand corner. Here, users can change the sort order, or switch to a table representation with the option to show or hide specific columns.

Search results including apps represented as tiles
Search results including apps represented as tiles
App search results only
App search results only
Search results represented as a table
Search results represented as a table

Personalized Search

This feature allows the system to track the user’s search behavior in order to personalize and improve future rankings for search results. Algorithms analyze the user’s behaviors and interests, and adapt accordingly to support the user by focusing on context-relevant information.

Users can switch the personalized search on or off in the Me Area under Settings -> User Profiling. They can also delete collected data with the Clear My History button.

Some of these features might not be available to the user, depending on the system configuration.

Personalized search in the
Personalized search in the "User Profiling" area of the "Settings" dialog

Filters

A filter icon in the top left-hand corner offers additional options for filtering the search results. When the user clicks or taps the icon, a filter panel appears on the left-hand side. In this panel the user can change the object type, which may also be depicted as a hierarchy (depending on the system configuration).

Once the results have been limited to a certain object type, thus ensuring a homogeneous result set, result-specific filters are offered. Only meaningful filters are included. For example, if all results are for the same country, the country filter is not shown.

Up to 5 one-click options are available for each filter. You can show the selection options in a list, or visualize them in a bar chart or pie chart. Multiple selection is supported for all visualizations.

Once the filter panel has been closed, the applied filters are visible in an info bar above the result list. On the right of the info bar, all filters can be cleared without reopening the filter panel.

Filter Panel

Advanced Filters

In addition to the the one-click filters, the user can set more filters by choosing Show More or Show All Filters. This opens a filter dialog with a list of all the available filters on the left. The details for the selected filter show on the right.

The available options depend on the data type of the filter (text-based, numeric, date) and the configuration. For most filters, a list of filter conditions is shown, similar to the filter panel. For texts, this list can be filtered and sorted. For numbers and dates, the user can add custom ranges. There is also an option to enter variable conditions: Instead of picking items from a list, the user can specify advanced conditions like begins with.

Dialog for setting all available filters

Info bar for displaying the filters defined by the user
Info bar for displaying the filters defined by the user

Configuration

Users can switch the personalized search on or off, depending on the configuration.

Information
Users can access their individual settings via Me Area > Settings > User Profiling > Personalized Search.

System-wide configuration for the personalized search is done in the Configure Personalized Search app.

Development teams can fine-tune the search for the business objects they are responsible for.

Information
In search models, you can configure:

  • Which attributes are searched in (including associations to other objects)
  • Which attributes are displayed and in which order
  • Which attributes are displayed as filters in the filter pane
  • The importance of each attribute (for a proper search ranking)
  • The semantics of each attribute (to select the proper matching/fuzzy algorithms)

Using SAP Fiori launchpad intents you can configure:

  • What happens when the user clicks the title
  • What actions are listed in expanded result list items

In the Define Synonyms app, you can configure the synonyms to be applied to each search.

In the Fine-Tune Ranking app, you can configure ranking factors and their influence.
Examples:
“products that are in stock are more important than others”
“new documents are more important”
“sales orders created by my team are more important”

Resources

Want to dive deeper? Follow the links below to find out more about how the search works.

Elements and Controls

Implementation