SAP Build Work Zone: Frequently asked Questions

SAP Build is a unified low-code solution portfolio which empowers users to create applications, automate tedious processes, and design engaging business sites with drag-and-drop simplicity. SAP Build brings together SAP Build Apps, SAP Build Process Automation, and SAP Build Work Zone into a unified development experience with new innovations to rapidly build apps, automate processes, and create business sites. SAP Build Work Zone is part of the SAP Build portfolio.

SAP Build Work Zone is a service on SAP BTP bringing together SAP Launchpad service and SAP Work Zone into a unified solution with a coherent and intuitive user experience with two editions:

• SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition (formerly known as SAP Launchpad service)
• SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition (formerly known as SAP Work Zone)

Starting with SAP Teched 2022, SAP Work Zone was rebranded to SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition and SAP Launchpad service to SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition. Please note, that they are still the same products/services regarding capabilities, features and the commercial point of view, only the naming was changed.
In the past, we offered two digital experience services on SAP BTP: SAP Work Zone and SAP Launchpad service. SAP Work Zone already included most of the SAP Launchpad service capabilities (for example the application launcher), but they were still separate products. Now both products are coming together with two editions under the SAP Build Work Zone brand. We are currently also working on harmonizing step-by-step standard and advanced edition of SAP Build Work Zone (regarding user experience, content model, mobile experience etc.), and we have also a future focus on a simplified upgrade path from the standard to the advanced edition.

When asked about typical challenges in their everyday work-life, employees often mention that they struggle to find the relevant information they are looking for, having to spend too much time switching between business applications or not even finding the relevant application they need to accomplish a given task. The reality is that complex enterprise technology landscapes lead to suboptimal user experiences that are heterogeneous and fragmented across a vast number of content types, UI tools, IT systems, content repositories, applications, and channels.
SAP Build Work Zone offers a solution to this problem. It enables companies, IT departments and employees to improve this situation by bringing it all together and making it easier to consume. SAP Build Work Zone delivers consistent and engaging user experiences across all channels, business processes, and applications.

SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition (formerly known as SAP Launchpad service) provides a central access point to multiple SAP cloud & on-premise systems, integrating apps and providing customizations and extensions.A new site experience is available since 2023: customers and partners can enjoy a fresh and modern user experience with major enhancements in the area of navigation (with pages and spaces), visualization (UI Integration Cards), page building with a flexible grid-based page layout and pre-packaged business content. Check out this blog post for more information.
Important note: As of January 2023 “SAP Launchpad service” was rebranded to “SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition” in the following areas: SAP BTP cockpit, all the product UIs, and related assets including SAP Help Portal and SAP Discovery Center. Check out this blog post for more information.

SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition (formerly known as SAP Work Zone) extends the standard edition by empowering business users to build & publish content, integrate unstructured content and leverage premium pre-packaged SAP content. The advanced edition offers the following additional capabilities:

• It empowers the business users to create and manage their own content (in the standard edition the page creation is a pure “admin task”).
• The list of widgets is expanded to offer a more flexible page building.
• Business data and unstructured content can be placed side by side with images/videos or audios on the same page.
• Creation of interactive communities (so called “workspaces”) with document access and repositories.
• There are also templates for pages and workspaces.
• A flexible menu builder is available.

SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition offers capabilities for customers asking:

• for a central access point to multiple SAP cloud & on-premise systems, for example SAP S/4HANA cloud and on-premise
• to extend & customize the product (e.g. branding, translation, shell plug-ins, domains URL)

SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition offers additional capabilities for customers asking:

• for a digital experience solution bringing together business processes together with unstructured content (documents, videos, knowledge bases, etc.).
• to extend the standard edition with unstructured content and allow business users to create & publish content (delegate content creation to business users).
• for enhanced capabilities for content management, web content, team workspaces and integration with 3rd party solutions (e.g. MS Teams)

Starting with SAP TechEd 2022, SAP Launchpad service was rebranded to SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition. The rebranding was continued in January 2023 in the following areas: SAP BTP cockpit, all the product UIs, and related assets including SAP Help Portal and SAP Discovery Center

Read this blog post for more information.

Note that we just rebranded the product, and the product is still what it was before. No actions need to be taken from customers regarding the sites that were created with SAP Launchpad service.

Yes, there is also no difference, for more information read this blog post.

No, there is also nothing to do from the commercial point of view. “SAP Launchpad service” was simply rebranded and existing licensed customers can continue to run and use the service under the new naming “SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition” according to their contracts.

There is a subscription-based and a consumption-based model for the standard edition.
A new commercial option for external-facing access scenarios (such as Partner or Supplier Sites) was also introduced: typically, these external stakeholders are infrequent users of the system. For this reason, we have just introduced connection based pricing. In this way, you only pay for the actual logins to your site, you don’t have to pay for each user individually. This allows thousands of users to access the system in a cost effective way.

You find all details on the SAP Help Portal.

SAP Fiori launchpad with My Home as the start page is the entry point to one SAP S/4HANA system, while SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition provides a central entry point across several systems, e.g. several SAP S/4HANA systems, SAP Cloud solutions, custom built apps or third party systems. SAP Build Work Zone gives users access to applications, but also to a central place for accessing To Dos from different systems (by integrating SAP Task Center), central notifications, central search and so on. It also provides mobile access to those applications, tasks, and notifications with the SAP Mobile Start app.

For more details, please take a look at these blogs that cover the benefits of having a central entry point with SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition (at that time still called SAP Launchpad service):

Boost user productivity and simplify access to business apps with SAP Launchpad service

SAP Launchpad Service or SAP Work Zone: The cloud-based central entry point for all users

Starting with SAP TechEd 2022, SAP Work Zone was rebranded to SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition. For more information, see our SAP Community Topic Page.

Customers can transport selected content items from SAP Build Work Zone, standard to the advanced edition. For more information: see information on the Help Portal. This process still requires some manual efforts (sites with their content for example cannot be transported, as the content concept is still technically different in the advanced edition). It is our product strategy to bring SAP Build Work Zone standard and advanced edition closer together from a technology perspective, which will also result in enabling in the future a smoother upgrade path from standard to the advanced edition.

No, there is nothing to do from a commercial point of view. “SAP Work Zone” was simply rebranded and existing licensed customers can continue to run and use the service under the new naming “SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition” according to their contracts.

You find all details on the SAP Help Portal.

SAP Build Work Zone advanced edition (formerly SAP Work Zone) is not supported via BTP trial or free tier. In order to access the Work Zone environment you will need to subscribe to this service on your 'regular' enterprise account. Either via regular subscription or CPEA; please see here: SAP Discovery Center - SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition (cloud.sap)

Guided experience is a capability enabling business users to simplify complex business processes into self-service journeys that are easy to follow and execute. It allows users to create interactive, step-by-step guides for navigating and using applications.

For more information, check out this blog post and the FAQs.

Some use cases examples can be: 

• Creating one simple employee onboarding journey for new employees
• Creating step-based guide to deliver best practices, training and relevant material to empower sales teams
• Simplified purchase order verification process while purchasing equipment
• Creating a smooth onboarding journey for new suppliers
• Seamless journey for processing invoices across channel partners

SAP Start is SAP’s new out of the box central entry point, that gives users a powerful, yet simple home page experience when adopting SAP’s cloud solutions. It is generally available since July 27, 2023. SAP Start is available for customers with a "RISE with SAP", "GROW with SAP" or SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition subscription and can be activated by launching a new booster in the BTP-cockpit.

Key capabilities include:

• To-Dos: The experience pushes the users’ workflow To-Dos as easy action cards
• Business Insights: Content that is exposed as insight cards, allowing for more in-depth visibility at-a-glance, with the ability to take further action to do their job quickly and without friction.
• Search: Users can search for and start apps from any of the connected SAP cloud business solutions, and SAP Start remembers most frequently used apps. In addition, the Search functionality supports launching a content search in any of the connected cloud solutions, for example to find an employee in SAP SuccessFactors.

More information:

SAP Start on sap.com Work Zone page (scroll down to find the relevant information) 

SAP Start Help Portal Documentation

7 Things You Need to Know about SAP Start

Today, end users access our SAP cloud solutions from the respective solution’s product homepage, giving a disconnected user experience when they are using more than one SAP Cloud solution. Customers adopting multiple SAP cloud products expect to provide their users with a single, centralized entry point to easily access and navigate to all their cloud applications. Today, every customer has to create such a central entry point themselves, either by using SAP technology (SAP Build Work Zone) or even 3rd party technology.

The objective of SAP Start is to deliver immediate value to our customers to access any SAP cloud solution from a single central entry point with out-of-the box content. This includes at the moment SAP SuccessFactors and SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud content.  Customers can still build enhanced digital experiences using our SAP Build Work Zone solutions, which will also allow them to further customize and extend core functionality provided with SAP Start.

SAP Start - although it has a different branding - is part of the SAP Build Work Zone product family together with SAP Build Work Zone, standard and advanced edition as well as SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone. All are based on the same technical foundation and easily extendable.

SAP Start provides a simple, yet powerful way to access SAP applications and tasks with no additional effort or expense. For customers, who are looking for the flexibility to expand the digital experience of their end users through extensibility, on-premise connectivity, collaborative workspaces or additional content and 3rd party applications, the SAP Build Work Zone offerings will provide this extensibility and additional scope.

With the general availability of SAP Start, customers running SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition, can also use the SAP Start content including the To-Dos and the Insights cards.

SAP Start is available for customers, who purchased SAP public cloud solutions. Learn more about SAP Start commercial aspects.

The setup of SAP Start is different if you do not yet have a subscription to SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition or if you already do have a subscription. More information on SAP Help Portal.

Read also the blog post Setting up SAP Start with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition

When purchasing SAP solutions, our customers prefer different commercial options depending on their use cases and adoption plans. That’s why SAP offers flexible pricing models including consumption-based and subscription-based contracts, and packaged solutions for selected scenarios.

• SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition is available for consumption-based model and can be activated and used right away in SAP BTP accounts with valid Cloud Platform Enterprise Agreement or Pay-as-you-go option. Consumption-based means that within a particular month only the “active users” (employees) or actual “connections” (site visits / sessions of external users) are metered and charged to the customers.
• SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone is a dedicated solution bundle with user-based subscription model. The package includes SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition, plus several SAP BTP services (such as SAP Business Application Studio, Custom Domain). It includes the same feature set as the regular SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition.
• With the price list update in July 2023, SAP Build Process Automation was added to SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone service bundle replacing SAP Workflow service. Customers using the booster to onboard to SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition, or to SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone, can choose whether to include SAP Build Process Automation in their onboarding. See also Commercial Models and Metering and this blog post.

Please note that the HR content package with pre-built UI Cards, Workflows (guided experiences) and workspace templates is available in both commercial options: regular SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition as well as SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone. More information: Commercial Models and Metering.

Joule, SAP’s generative AI assistant, is now integrated into SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition, SAP Start and SAP Mobile Start. The integration of Joule into SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition is planned for 2025.

Integrating Joule into SAP Build Work Zone is easy. After successfully running the Joule booster and completing the integration between SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition and Joule, a new setting becomes available in the Site Setting screen of your Work Zone sites. As an administrator, navigate to the Site Settings screen and enable the Joule option under the Services section. Once enabled, the Joule icon will appear in the header of your runtime site, giving users instant access to the AI-powered assistant for enhanced productivity and elevated outcomes across business.

For more information: read this blog post

Both SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition and SAP Work Zone, advanced edition provide a native mobile client. Already today, SAP Mobile Start is the native mobile client for the standard edition (note that the new site experience with spaces and pages is still not available via SAP Mobile Start).

For more information read the blog posts What is SAP Mobile Start? and SAP Mobile Start – the new native entry point to access applications & content.

SAP Work Build Zone, advanced edition has its own mobile app. Users can download and set up the SAP Build Work Zone app themselves. The app is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. The long-term strategy is to align the two mobile clients and evolve SAP Mobile Start to become the mobile client for both editions.

SAP Mobile Start is already included in the standard edition license of SAP Build Work Zone. No additional license is required to run SAP Mobile Start.

It was already possible to create a Task Center tile on SAP Build Work Zone advanced and standard edition as well as as on SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone. For more information, see SAP Help Portal.

Starting in Q3, 2023 the integration with Task Center is working bi-directional. SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition (and SAP Successfactors Work Zone) can now serve as task providers for SAP Task Center. The integration with SAP Task Center allows users to see any task that is created in a workspace in the central SAP Task Center UI. For more information, see here.

Access to multitenant business solutions via SAP Build Work Zone instances on consumer tenants is enabled since August, 2024. This enhancement removes a significant barrier, allowing development teams, customers, and partners to use SAP Build Work Zone as a unified entry point for their multi-tenant solutions.

More information:

SAP Help documentation for developers and administrators reflect this new capability

Watch Devtoberfest session from October 2024

Enterprise Search in SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition provides direct search access to business data stored in SAP S/4HANA. Check out Help Portal for more information.

SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition offers an enterprise search capability that searches across all SAP S/4HANA apps and business objects. Check out Help Portal for more information.

The standard edition is available in the free tier model of SAP BTP, check out the free tier services on the Discovery Center. The standard edition is also part of the SAP BTP trial landscape: Learn in this tutorial how to set-up SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition using a trial account. In addition there are service plans available for CPEA, Pay-As-You-Go and Subscription.

The advanced edition is not yet available as free tier or in the SAP BTP trial landscape. We are working on this topic and you can expect it as part of our future roadmap planning.  For the advanced edition we offer service plans for CPEA and Pay-As-You-Go.

SAP Jam Collaboration is no longer available for purchase and is in maintenance mode, with the plan to sunset the product by January 2027. While no new enhancements will be made, it remains fully supported in accordance with existing cloud contracts. SAP released alternative products with SAP Build Work Zone and SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone, which provide many of the features currently contained in SAP Jam Collaboration Enterprise, in addition to a broad range of additional capabilities as well as integration and extension options.

Read more about SAP Jam sunset and the alternative products

Existing SAP Cloud Portal service customers can continue using the service on the Multi-Cloud environment.

Read also the following SAP Note 2902576.

We recommend existing customers to evaluate a transition to SAP Build Work Zone:

• Customers who implemented the launchpad site template (on the multi-cloud environment of SAP BTP) could consider a transition to SAP Build Work Zone, standard edition: see also this blog series.
• Customers who implemented freestyle sites could consider a transition to SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition. You should take into account that there is no 1:1 equivalent between freestyle sites and SAP Build Work Zone, advanced edition capabilities.

New customers are advised to start projects with SAP Build Work Zone standard or advanced edition.

Note the following regarding the Neo environment: SAP announced that the legacy Neo environment of SAP Business Technology Platform will sunset on December 31, 2028. For more information, read this blog post and check out the FAQs.

SAP announced the extension of the mainstream maintenance of SAP NetWeaver 7.5 to be continued to the end of 2027 (aligned with SAP Business Suite), with extended maintenance to 2030. As a general strategic approach, we recommend to consider a transition of your SAP Enterprise Portal use cases to SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), multi-cloud environment. As SAP puts major investments in SAP Business Technology Platform, customers automatically get the latest innovations.

Note that moving from SAP NetWeaver Platform to SAP Business Technology Platform requires a comprehensive analysis of your current use cases. SAP Business Technology Platform offers various micro services to help you implementing your scenario with more flexibility, it is not like the monolithic-like EP usage type. Going forward we recommend SAP Enterprise Portal customers considering a transition to SAP BTP multi-cloud environment, in particular to SAP Build Work Zone, standard or advanced edition, based on the use case and functional requirements.

See also:

SAP Enterprise Portal Transition to Cloud Community page

Blog post on "Learn more about a transition from SAP EP to Work Zone"

Hands-on Tutorials:
Create Your First Digital Workplace Using SAP BuildWork Zone
Design Your First SAP BuildWork Zone
Enrich Your SAP BuildWork Zone With Applications and Data from SAP Gateway Demo System

Learning Journeys

• Getting Started Learning Journey for SAP Build: providing you the fundamentals of SAP Build and first hands-on experience with SAP Build Apps, SAP Build Process Automation & SAP Build Work Zone.
• Check out the dedicated unit for SAP Build Work Zone in the learning journey “Utilize SAP Build for Low-Code/No-Code Applications and Automations for Citizen Developers“. The unit guides you through the main concepts and features of SAP Build Work Zone standard and advanced edition. After completing the complete learning journey, learners have the chance to take a 3-hr proctored exam to earn a certificate and become a certified Citizen Developer Associate.
• For more deep dive technical information, we recommend our new learning journey “Implement and Administer SAP Build Work Zone“, targeted to partners, consultants and administrators. This learning journey will guide you through the process and considerations of implementing SAP Build Work Zone, from initial deployment and system administration to integration setups and extensibility options. A certification is also included.