Fiori Launchpad Part 1: Catalogs, Tiles and Target Mappings

📌 KEY POINTS
✅ A tile is what the user sees; a target mapping decides which app opens for an intent.
✅ Intents have the form #SemanticObject-action, e.g. #SalesOrder-display, and are resolved by target mappings.
✅ Catalogs bundle tiles and target mappings; business catalogs reference SAP technical catalogs.
✅ Cross-app navigation works only if a target mapping for the intent is available to the user.
⚠️ A tile without an accessible target mapping shows but fails to open — or is not shown at all.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ WHERE WE ARE
This series covers how Fiori apps reach users. Part 1 explains the content building blocks.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 1. TILES AND INTENTS
Users start apps from tiles or links in the launchpad. Each tile points to an intent, a semantic object and an action like #PurchaseOrder-manage. The intent is a stable, abstract name for 'what the user wants to do', independent of which app technically implements it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 2. TARGET MAPPINGS
A target mapping maps an intent (and optionally parameters and device types) to a concrete app: a UI5 component with its URL or ID, a classic GUI transaction, or a Web Dynpro application. When a user clicks a tile or a navigation link, the launchpad resolves the intent through the target mappings available to the user.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 3. CATALOGS
Catalogs are containers of tiles and target mappings. SAP delivers technical catalogs with all app content, and business catalogs that reference them for a business area. Customers create their own catalogs by referencing, not copying, SAP content so updates flow through with upgrades.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 4. NAVIGATION BETWEEN APPS
When an app navigates to #Supplier-displayFactSheet with a parameter, the launchpad finds a target mapping for that intent. If the user's roles do not include a catalog with it, navigation fails with an error such as 'could not open app'. This is why roles must contain both tiles users click and target mappings used for navigation.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 5. WHERE CONTENT IS MAINTAINED
On ABAP front-end servers, the Launchpad Content Manager (/UI2/FLPCM_CUST for client-specific) and the older Launchpad Designer maintain catalogs. On SAP BTP, SAP Build Work Zone manages content, often imported from ABAP systems through content federation. The concepts are the same.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ STEP BY STEP

1. Open the launchpad content manager and find an SAP business catalog.
2. Inspect one tile and its target mapping intent.
3. Trigger cross-app navigation in test and note the intent used.
4. Check which catalog provides that target mapping.

✅ CHECKPOINT: you can explain how a click on a tile resolves to an app through the intent and target mapping.

Users could open the Manage Purchase Orders app but clicking a supplier link inside it failed. The supplier fact sheet's target mapping was in a catalog not assigned to their role. Adding the business catalog containing the target mapping (without a visible tile) fixed navigation.

• Copying SAP catalogs instead of referencing them.
• Roles with tiles but missing navigation target mappings.
• Inventing semantic objects for standard business objects.
• Testing apps only with administrator roles.

• Reference SAP technical catalogs in custom business catalogs.
• Include navigation targets in roles.
• Use SAP semantic objects where they exist.
• Test with real end-user roles.

Interviewers ask the difference between a tile and a target mapping, what an intent is and why navigation can fail even when the tile works.