SAP Developer News, March 7th, 2024

0:00 Intro
0:10 New SAP BTP Solution Diagrams and March’s Developer Challenge
1:30 ‘Did You Know’ shorts Nr. 15 – Previewing spatial data with SAP HANA Cloud Database Explorer
2:40 SAP CAP February 2024
4:43 Use Case Buddy – SAP Build
6:17 SAP Business Application Studio – February 2024 Edition
7:26 ABAP Elastic Scaling
8:14 SAP Data Unleashed 2024

TRANSCRIPT

Antionio: This is the SAP Developer News for March 7th, 2024. Hola, SAP developers. In case you missed
it, the SAP BTP solution diagrams were recently updated. We got new icons and an updated timeline.
Previously, the diagrams and icons were only available as PowerPoint assets. Now, they are available as
libraries for Drawer.io, meaning that creating diagrams will now be much easier. So apart from the draw.io
libraries, the icons are also available as SVG files. They are all available on GitHub, where you can also find
some example diagrams that can help you get started. So go ahead and get familiar with the updated
guidelines, download the starter kit, and start using the new assets in draw.io. Also, in case you would like to
build your diagrams programmatically, I recently updated the diagrams Python library fork to include the new
SAP BTP solution icons. I’ve also submitted an API to the main diagrams repo, so I hope that sooner rather
than later, they will be available in the standard diagrams Python library. And before I finish, I want to remind
you about the Developer Challenges in the SAP Community. I hope you enjoyed last month’s depth
challenge that focused on CAP plugins. Now this week, we’re kicking off March Developer Challenge,
focusing on Cloud Events and event-driven architectures. Make sure to check it out. I’m including the links in
the description below.

Witalij: Did you know the Database Explorer in SAP HANA Cloud offers a preview of the spatial data? As a
multi-model database, SAP HANA can store, access, and process different types of data, including spatial.
This is data that describes the position, shape, and orientation of objects, and is represented as geometries
in the form of points, strings, or polygons. In the Result table, select the binary values of the spatial data that
you want to visualize, right-click the highlighted cell, and select View Spatial Data. Selecting cells in multiple
rows will display all selected spatial data on the same map.

Ajay: Hello everyone, February release of cloud application programming model is now available. It is
remarkable to see significant new features and capabilities getting added every month. We have some
information about support and feature requests for CAP plugins. A common CDS definition for time zones is
provided that is useful as a code list. The open source CDS plugin for audit logging is now generally
available. Then we have update for CAP Java, namely optimistic logging API that can be called from custom
code, out-of-the-box support for automatic tracking of changes, and support for generic outbox. Finally, we
have updates from tools where we have new snippet for annotate statements. support for a new command in
the CDS add to add HTML5 application repository. There are new convenience options for CDS bind
command. The service keys are now automatically created with this command. In addition, CDS bind comes
with a new to app services option that binds to all services of a given Cloud Foundry application. You can
now upgrade all tenants at once where the CDS MTX CLI. Starting with the version 7.6.0 of CDS and CDSDK, CAP plugins can now contribute a schema for their configuration. CDS build now allows the
implementation of custom build plugins. To know more about these updates, please visit the CAPR
documentation page. Links can be found in the description below. And if you have just embarked on your
CAP journey or you want to learn more, I recommend you to follow the link to the ongoing Back to Basic
YouTube series by DJ Adams. That can be found on the top of the CAPIRE documentation.

Ian: As in many projects, the volume of use case ideas for consideration quickly grows from a few to a dozen
to hundreds. For IT teams responsible for governing the use of SAP Build, they will need to manage ideation
and use case selection at scale. They can do this now with the Use Case Buddy which was released this
week, check out the first link below to the launch blog post. But let me tell you about the Use Case Buddy.
It’s a digital assistant to collect, analyse, score and submit and review use case ideas for prioritization and
development approval based on their complexity. It consists of an app based on SAP Build apps, an
automated workflow based on SAP Build Process Automation, and a repository page in SAP Build
WorkZone Advanced Edition. It’s packaged as a set of templates that you can download, then customize and
brand for your own organization. So you can use the templates to build the solution, then host it in your
organization’s landscape for internal use. There’s a tutorial group for SAP BTP admins or Center of
Excellence teams who are responsible for managing the pipeline of low code use cases and low code
solution portfolios. The link is also below. Happy building!

DJ: The SAP Business Application Studio is a great leveler. It’s available to anyone, even with just a trial
account with only a browser. And the team keep on rolling out those updates. Here’s a few highlights from
the February 2024 edition. They’ve improved the startup time for DevSpaces. It’s now easier and quicker to
get back to your code after a session timeout. There’s also a new command bar that has all the common
actions. And last but not least, there’s a new data center in Switzerland that hosts the Business Application
Studio. What’s not to like? And before I end this very quick item, did you know that some of the tooling in the
Business Application Studio dev spaces is actually open source? I only found this out the other day when I
was directed to a pull request in a public repo on GitHub. To find out more about the updates, head over to
the blog post, and to find out more about the open source tooling, head over to the GitHub repo. Links in the
description.

Thomas: One of the major benefits of cloud computing in general is that it’s so easy, cheap, and dynamic to
allocate hardware underneath our systems and services. This is a major benefit that now comes to the ABAP
Cloud on SAP BTP environment. With release 24.02 we see the introduction of Elastic Scaling. A system
can be configured to dynamically add or remove application servers depending upon the load on that
system. And it all works within your pre-configured parameters. So check out the blog post by Frank Jentsch
to go through all the details of how to turn on this feature, configure, and monitor it to get the best use out of
your ABAP cloud environment.

Witalij: This week, during the major annual event SAP Data Unleashed, our company announced some
great new features coming soon to SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Datasphere. Let me summarize the top
five announcements for you. First, Joule will be integrated into SAP Analytics Cloud. This will introduce
business AI capabilities enabling users to request new reports or modify their planning scenarios using
natural language. Second, SAP Datasphere will introduce a knowledge graph feature, facilitating the
discovery of new insights and patterns across systems. Third, the integration between SAP Datasphere and
SAP Analytics Cloud will be strengthened to support analytics and cross-organizational planning scenarios
more effectively. Fourth, the SAP Analytics Cloud Compass will enhance scenario planning with SAP
Analytics Cloud. This feature allows for generation of various scenarios such as inflation rates using Monte
Carlo simulation and provides simulated probabilities of impact on profit. And fifth, there will be an increased
collaboration with Colibra to integrate the Colibra AI governance platform with SAP solutions. You can find
additional resources in the description of this episode