Every new SAP Fiori app starts with the same decision: build it with SAP Fiori elements, or write it as a freestyle SAPUI5 app. It sounds like a developer's choice, but it decides how fast you ship, how the app looks next to SAP's own apps, and how much it costs to maintain.
The two approaches
With Fiori elements, you don't design the screen by hand. You describe your data and its behaviour, mostly through annotations on the back-end service, and SAP generates the app from a standard floorplan. You get SAP's layout, filters, tables, navigation and accessibility for free, and the app picks up SAP's improvements when you upgrade.
With freestyle SAPUI5, you write the views and controllers yourself. You can build any layout and interaction you need, and you own every line of it, including its maintenance.
Start with the floorplans
SAP's own guidance boils down to two questions. Is there a Fiori elements floorplan that fits what the user needs to do? And does that floorplan give users every feature they need? If both answers are yes, use Fiori elements.
The floorplans cover most business apps:
| Floorplan | Good for |
|---|---|
| List report and object page | Finding records with filters, then viewing and editing one record in detail |
| Worklist | Working through a list of items that need action, such as approvals |
| Analytical list page | Spotting patterns with charts and drilling into the items behind them |
| Overview page | A role-based home page of cards summarising several areas |
The analytical list page and the overview page are only available through Fiori elements, so if you need either, the decision is made.
SAP DEVELOPERSFiori and ABAP developers, ready in 1–2 weeks.Talk to us →
When freestyle is the better choice
Go freestyle when the work doesn't fit a list and a detail page. Typical cases are a staged, multi-step process with its own logic at each step, a planning board or Gantt-style view, a map, or a highly visual app for people outside the SAP team. Freestyle also makes sense when the app has to look and behave in a way SAP's floorplans don't support at all.
The cost is maintenance. A freestyle app doesn't pick up SAP's floorplan improvements, and every screen is code your team owns.
The middle options
It isn't always one or the other.
- Fiori elements apps can be extended with custom SAPUI5 sections, columns and actions. SAP advises keeping extensions to what's strictly needed, so the app stays easy to upgrade.
- Building blocks let you assemble a custom page from Fiori elements pieces, such as tables, filter bars and forms, while keeping much of the standard behaviour.
In practice, a standard floorplan with one or two small extensions is very often the best answer.
Examples
Take three kinds of screen we've built inside SAP landscapes.
A purchase-order monitoring dashboard, with totals that drill down to the raw documents, maps naturally to the analytical list page or an overview page with cards.
A customer-specific pricing app, where users search contracts and then create or edit one, is a textbook list report and object page.
An invoice cancellation flow, where an initiator searches an invoice, reviews fetched details and routes it to an approver, has stages and rules that don't fit a single floorplan neatly. That's a good case for freestyle, or for Fiori elements with a custom extension for the approval step.
A quick way to decide
- Write down the user's main task in one sentence.
- Match it to a floorplan. If one fits and covers every feature, use Fiori elements.
- If one fits but misses a feature or two, try an extension or building blocks before going freestyle.
- Go freestyle only when no floorplan fits the task, and budget for maintenance.
How we help
We build both kinds of app, along with the OData services and ABAP logic behind them. Our SAP Fiori modernization checklist helps you pick which processes to modernise first. See our SAP development services, read about the pricing and invoice apps we built, or get a quote.
