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Jayprakash Sharma
September 12, 2022 | 4 minute read

Developer Extensibility for SAP S/4HANA

Cloud on the SAP API Business Hub
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This blog post helps in understanding developer extensibility for SAP S/4HANA Cloud (aka
 Like Embedded Steampunk) and discovering them on the SAP API Business Hub.

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P ro b l e m D e s c r i p t i o n
Today, customers and partners can use key-user extensions and side-by-side SAP Business
Technology Platform (BTP) extensibility to extend SAP S/4HANA Cloud. What is the motivation
behind introducing Developer Extensibility? Do customers need all these? When to use what?
And �nally, where to discover the released artifacts from SAP.

Yo u w i l l l e a r n
• Overview of Developer Extensibility
• Demystifying Steampunk together with Embedded Steampunk
• Comparison of available extensibility options
• Discover released developer extensibility artifacts from SAP

I n t ro d u c t i o n
Developer extensibility allows you to create development projects in an SAP S/4HANA Cloud
system. It gives you the opportunity to develop cloud-ready and upgrade-stable custom ABAP
code on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, combining the bene�ts of custom ABAP code, with the required
restrictions for Cloud readiness, and the SAP S/4HANA programming model to build SAP Fiori
apps.
This includes:

• ABAP RESTful Application Programming model (RAP) to build services and SAP Fiori apps
• Eclipse based IDE (ABAP Development Tools) with debugger, troubleshooting, and testing tool
support
• ABAP software lifecycle support

To ensure Cloud readiness, you should consider the following restrictions:

• Cloud-optimized subset of ABAP language

• Usage of released SAP APIs/objects in the custom code
• Usage of prede�ned extension points to extend SAP objects

• Controlled access to admin, user, authorization, monitoring tools, and services

• No security by default when creating your own tables, in particular, you can’t use ILM
(Information Lifecycle Management) and IRF (Information Retrieval Framework)

Steampunk is a great option for loosely coupled side-by-side extensions or for partners o�ering
SaaS solutions written in ABAP. This is somewhat comparable to the solutions that were running
side-by-side on NetWeaver. It provides the ABAP Platform in the Cloud as a PaaS (Platform as a
Service) o�ering. Customers and partners can build ABAP extensions and add-ons on
Steampunk. Steampunk provides a public PaaS interface containing the ABAP Platform objects
which can be used by extensions. On top Steampunk contains a Cloud ready ABAP development
model for customers and partners.

Embedded Steampunk reuses the top layer of Steampunk SAP BTP: The Steampunk ABAP
development model and currently is o�ered only with SAP S/4HANA Public cloud.

Internally, SAP S/4HANA Cloud and Steampunk share the same ABAP Platform code line
anyway (marked blue), with Steampunk being a kind of frontrunner for innovations. So, it is just a
logical next step to embed the Steampunk development model directly into the SAP S/4HANA
Cloud stack. Custom extensions developed with Embedded Steampunk now have the same
properties that made Steampunk Cloud-ready and upgrade-stable:

• Usage of stable public interfaces only

• No modi�cations of SAP code
• Restricted usage of the ABAP language and other technologies
• Restricted usage of system functionality
• E�cient development with RAP

Developing extensions with Embedded Steampunk using ADT (ABAP Development Tools) feels
exactly like developing with Steampunk on BTP. With one important additional bene�t:
Embedded Steampunk extensions can not only call the more technical ABAP Platform interface
(green), but also a local public S/4 interface containing the business functionality (for example,
CDS views like I_Product, replacing direct access to table MARA, or RAP facades for the creation
of purchase orders). In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, the custom code itself is either an own app or
service, or implemented via public extension points, using the well-known BADI technology.

If you are an ABAP developer and willing to familiarize yourself with RAP, with ADT instead of
SE80, or with clean APIs instead of freestyle modi�cations, you will feel directly at home with
Embedded Steampunk. You can use all the tools and processes you already know. And these are
the same tools and processes thousands of developers are using each day at SAP.

Solution
W h a t ex t e n s i b i l i t y o p t i o n s u i t s m y p u r p o s e ?

Compare the extensibility options in the following table:

Key User Extensibility Developer Extensibility Side-by-Side

Extensibility

 S
Sc e n a r i o Smaller low/no- Tightly coupled Loosely coupled
code extensions more complex extensions and apps
extensions and apps

 T
Ta r g e t Fully integrated in SAP S/4HANA Cloud SAP BTP
e n v i ro n m e n t stack

 U
Us e c a s e s
• UI �eld layout • ABAP-based • Custom or
like small custom app multitenant
changes to development applications
existing apps, • ABAP-based • ABAP and non-
custom forms, extensions of ABAP (Java,
and templates SAP S/4HANA Node.js)
(adding new Cloud solutions development
�elds, for
• ABAP-based • SaaS Solutions
example)
partner developed by
• Custom analytics extensions partners
• Apps for
separate target
 Key User Extensibility Developer Extensibility Side-by-Side
Extensibility
groups

 T
Ta r g e t g ro u p Key users ABAP developers Developer
( p e rso n a )

 R
Re l e a s e d o b j e c t BAdIs, CDS views BAdIs, classes, BAPIs, IDocs, OData
ty p es interfaces, CDS APIs, SOAP APIs,
views, behavior events
de�nitions,
authorization
objects

 B
Be n e � t s
• Fully managed • Custom ABAP • Decoupled
and integrated in development extensions
SAP S/4HANA directly on SAP independent of
Cloud S/4HANA Cloud SAP S/4HANA
• No development stack Cloud operation
skills required • Use and extend and lifecycle
released SAP management
S/4HANA Cloud
objects
• Higher developer
productivity
• One single
development
environment
shared by SAP,
customers, and
partners
• Rich set of cloud
extension points
• No remote
access and data
replication
D i s c ove r D eve l o p e r Ex t e n s i b i l i t y A r t i fa c t s o n t h e
SA P A P I B u s i n e s s H u b
Problem Description:
If Developer Extensibility or Embedded Steampunk is for ABAP Developers, then where are they
can �nd the APIs to build the extensions? Also, are there any technical documentation available
which developers can refer to?

Solution:
SAP API Business Hub acts as a central place to discover SAP S/4HANA Cloud digital artifacts
available to the customer which end-users can explore, extend, and adapt SAP S/4HANA Cloud
with built-in and side-by-side extension capabilities. These details can help customers or
partners to search available developer extensibility APIs and consume them.

You can see the developer extensibility artifacts published on SAP API Business by follow the
below link.

https://api.sap.com/products/SAPS4HANACloud/developerextensibility
 Conclu sion
Alert Moderator
This blog post should help you understand developer extensibility for SAP S/4HANA Cloud and
Assigned Tags discover them on SAP API Business Hub.

Please
SAP API Business Hub | ABAP feel free to| contact
Development us with any questions
ABAP Extensibility youS/4HANA
| API | SAP may have.Cloud
Thanks
| for reading this blog post,
hopefully you enjoyed it!
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extensibility | #AbapEnvironment
Important links for further information:
View more... 
1. Explore Business Object Interfaces for SAP S/4HANA Cloud on SAP API Business Hub
2. Explore Business Add-Ins (BAdIs) for SAP S/4HANA Cloud on SAP API Business Hub
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4 Comments

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Syambabu Allu
September 13, 2022 at 8:38 am
Hi Jayaprakash,

Thanks for sharing!!

Thank you,

Syam

Like 1 | Share

Swati Balani
October 3, 2022 at 10:42 am

Hi Jayprakash,

Thanks for sharing. Nice blog.

It will be nice to also see a sample developer extensibility case in detail.

Regards,

Swati

Like 1 | Share

Jayprakash Sharma | Blog Post Author

October 3, 2022 at 10:56 am

Hi Swati, I'm glad you liked it. You can look for sample scenarios in SAP Extensibility Explorer app

Like 0 | Share
 Bruno Della Ducata
January 6, 2023 at 6:32 am

Hello Jayprakash,
Find us on
thanks for sharing this nice blog!

Are the Side-by-Side Extensibility available in both environments (Neo and CF)? And what are the major di�erences?

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Kind Regards
Bruno
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