Spaces and Pages

Spaces and pages form a three-level structure:

1. Space: an entry in the launchpad navigation bar, usually built around a work area such as purchasing at Alder Manufacturing. A space holds one or more pages, which users open from the space menu.
2. Page: the main working area. A page can be assigned to several spaces, so one design can serve several user groups.
3. Section: a titled block on a page that contains apps, each shown as a tile or as a link.

A page stores references to apps, not the apps themselves. At runtime the launchpad shows an app on a page only if one of the user's business catalogs contains it. Two users who open the same page can therefore see different tiles, depending on their roles. Spaces and pages are a presentation layer on top of catalogs, which remain the source of what a user may start.

Spaces, not pages, are assigned to roles; pages follow the space they belong to.

• On-premise and Private Edition: in PFCG, add the menu entry SAP Fiori Launchpad → Launchpad Space (or Launchpad Space Template) with the space ID to the business role. Every user with the role sees that space.
• Public Edition: spaces are added to business roles in the Maintain Business Roles app, and SAP delivers spaces and pages for its business role templates.

The same role must also carry the business catalogs that contain the apps on the pages. The Manage Launchpad Pages app supports this check with Select Role Context: it filters the editor and the preview to what users with the selected roles would actually see, and it dims apps that come from catalogs not assigned to the role. Assigning a space to a role without the matching catalogs produces pages with gaps. A space assignment controls which spaces and pages a role sees, never which apps it may run.

Administrators choose between three starting points, and the choice is a trade-off between upkeep and control:

• Use SAP-delivered spaces and pages as delivered: assign them to roles based on SAP business role templates. They are read-only and are updated automatically when SAP ships a new version; user personalization survives those updates. Public Edition labels this content "Templates" as of release 2508.
• Copy and adapt: copy SAP content into the customer namespace and change it. The copy is yours to maintain.
• Build from scratch: create a space and its first page in Manage Launchpad Spaces, then add sections and apps in Manage Launchpad Pages. SAP recommends this when you work with your own business roles and catalogs.

Existing groups can be converted with the Create Launchpad Pages from Groups app (/UI2/FDM_GTP). On-premise, spaces are controlled by the SPACES launchpad parameter, set for example in /UI2/FLP_CUS_CONF; check its effective value in your release. Spaces and pages are customizing content recorded on customizing requests; developers and partners can also deliver space and page templates built in ABAP Development Tools. Spaces and pages need an owner, a naming rule and the same transport discipline as roles.

The move is more than a format conversion. Converting groups one to one carries over home pages that grew by accretion, while designing spaces around work areas forces a decision on which apps each role needs every day. Where My Home is enabled, users who personalized their old home page can import those apps into it rather than losing them. Spaces and pages are the point at which launchpad layout becomes a deliberate design task again.

Check from the role to the page:

1. No space in the navigation bar: the space is not assigned to any of the user's roles, or spaces are not enabled in the launchpad parameters on-premise.
2. Space visible, tile missing: the app's business catalog is not in the user's roles, so the page reference is filtered out. Use Select Role Context in Manage Launchpad Pages, or /UI2/FLPCA_USER, to compare page content with the user's catalogs.
3. Whole page or space missing for some users: empty pages and spaces may be hidden on purpose through the SPACES_HIDE_EMPTY_SPACES_PAGES parameter.
4. Tile shown as broken: the page refers to a tile or target mapping that can no longer be resolved. /UI2/CHECK_PAGE_REFS lists broken references on pages and page templates.
5. Tile removed by the user: personalization supersedes the administrator's layout, so a user's own changes win.

A frequent complaint in practitioner communities is that pages look complete in the editor but empty for users; that almost always means the editor was used without a role context. Most spaces and pages problems are catalog and role problems that surface on the page.