Abstract: The “SAP Cloud Platform Solution Diagram & Icon Guidelines” (MS PowerPoint slide deck) makes documenting viable SAP Cloud Platform solution implementations easier than ever before. It includes a comprehensive set of official SAP Cloud Platform service icons, capability icons, graphical design elements and a set of sample diagrams. All these tools can be used to design SAP Cloud Platform solution diagrams, schematics of different complexity, and to illustrate the work of SAP Cloud Platform, its services, solutions and SAP products, and the ways of their use. Learn how to build your own diagrams for SAP Cloud Platform end-2-end solution scenarios.

Why SAP Cloud Platform Solution Diagrams & Icons

SAP is dedicated to providing you the best approaches to realize solutions on SAP Cloud Platform. As Sudhanshu Srivastava describes in his blog Rethinking enablement assets for the SAP Cloud Platform! our new SAP Cloud Platform Solution Diagrams and Icons make an important contribution to visualize best practices and architectures of end-to-end SAP Cloud Platform solutions.

With the official set of icons, design guidelines and sample diagrams you can easily create your own SAP Cloud Platform solution diagrams by using MS PowerPoint. They are intended to reach a better and faster understanding of SAP Cloud Platform end-to-end solution scenarios as customer, partner, client, solution architect, project lead or developer by using graphical diagrams for visual learning.

Design Principles

The SAP Cloud Platform solution diagram guidelines are based on a common iconography and graphical design that follow the SAP Cloud Platform UX principles (Fiori 2.0). In this way we reach a seamless User Experience in SAP Cloud Platform front-ends (e.g. SAP Cloud Platform Cockpit, SAP Web IDE) and content assets including slide decks, blueprints or blogs (e.g. recent blogs from Murali Shanmugham) with consistent and intuitive metaphors by using shared icons and colors.

Using the Solution Diagram Guidelines in MS PowerPoint

To build your own SAP Cloud Platform solution diagram follow these steps:

  1. Visit our wiki page SAP Cloud Platform Solution Diagrams & Icons
  2. Download the MS PowerPoint slide deck SAP-Cloud-Platform_official-solution-diagrams-and-icons_v03.pptx
  3. Find the icon, diagram design elements and sample diagrams that you need
  4. Create your own SAP Cloud Platform solution diagram for own purposes including twitter, sap.com blogs, project documentation, interactions with clients or workshops

As of today MS PowerPoint is the only supported diagram format. Let’s have a closer look at the content parts inside the SAP-Cloud-Platform_official-solution-diagrams-and-icons_v03.pptx slide deck:

Use SAP Icons & Logos

Behind the formal part with legal disclaimer, terms of use, readme and table of contents the first guidelines section contains various icons & logos as the main design elements

  • SAP Cloud Platform Capability Icons that are also used on the https://cloudplatform.sap.com/capabilities.html web page
  • SAP Cloud Platform Service Icons in two flavors, for diagrams with blue circle, for slides without circle
  • SAP Icons for technical entities, devices, users etc. in neutral grey color. These icons are provided as image objects and are re-used from the SAP Icon font that is based on the SAP Fiori iconography.
  • SAP Product Logos including the SAP Cloud Platform Logo
  • White-listed Third-Party Logos

Use Design Elements for MS PowerPoint Slides

In guideline section “Elements for MS PowerPoint Slides” you can find the visual elements that characterize the SAP Cloud Platform solution diagram design:

  • A Color Palette that is based on a subset of colors as defined by the SAP Fiori Design Guidelines
  • Areas to depict various technical entities or parts of the end-to-end solution architecture and landscape
  • Cardinality Markers to depict multiple occurrences of entities
  • Text in Flex Grey
  • Text in L0-blue, Emphasize & Semantic Colors
  • Connectors, Arrows & Lines
  • Numbers

Follow Author Guidelines

To make it easier for you to create own guideline compliant solution diagrams we added some helpful explanations:

  • Do’s & Don’t
  • Tips & Tricks
  • Arrow Directions
  • How to create Colored Icons in 5 Steps
  • Comparison with SAP TAM Block Diagrams
  • Community Support

Pick & Choose Sample Diagrams

In the next guideline section “Solution Diagram Examples” you can pick and choose from a set of 13 SAP Cloud Platform sample diagrams which can serve as good templates for your own solution diagrams.

  1. SAP Fiori Cloud
  2. Extend SAP cloud applications
  3. Extend SAP cloud applications including SAP S/4HANA Cloud
  4. Extend SAP SuccessFactors applications
  5. Internet Of Things innovation
  6. Develop and deploy innovation applications
  7. Leverage Cloud Foundry to create innovative applications
  8. DevOps in SAP Cloud Platform
  9. Gaining Consumer Insights: Reference Architecture Overview
  10. SAP Cloud Connector 2.10: What’s new in it?
  11. SAP‘s modular IoT platform in cloud
  12. Typical S/4HANA Extension Patterns: Hub applications
  13. Principal Propagation

These sample diagrams were also used to in the official SAP Cloud Platform Product Overview  slide deck (see Architecture Blueprints: slides 25 – 29) or in the SAP Cloud Platform Blueprints.

Sample diagram “6/ Develop and deploy innovation applications” is also contained in a black background style to demonstrate the big advantage, that the SAP Cloud Platform solution diagram design is suited for white and black background styles with minimum modification. You only need to replace the logo image objects (to get readable texts in white or black), all other diagram elements can be kept untouched.

Sample diagram “13/ Principal Propagation” shows how to design a more comprehensive solution architecture that is characterized by various technical details like certificates, certificate authorities or identities. Just note that this diagram also makes use of colored icons (in addition to the standard grey icons, see LEGEND) as described in guideline section “Author Guidelines: How to create Colored Icons in 5 Steps”.

Terms of Use

As customer, partner, solution architect, project lead or developer working with SAP Cloud Platform you are invited to create your own solution diagrams for individual purposes including twitter, blogs, project document or interactions with clients e.g. workshops. For legal safeguard just follow the SAP Terms of Use found in document Terms Of Use for the SAP Cloud Platform Solution Diagrams, Design Elements & Icons. These terms of use govern your use of these SAP Materials (as defined in the Terms of Use), and related Content and web pages.

Watch for Updates

The SAP Cloud Platform solution diagram & icons guideline slide deck you can download from wiki page SAP Cloud Platform Solution Diagrams & Icons will be regularly updated with new versions, e.g. to include new service icons, capability icons, sample diagrams or design changes. To follow these changes that are all tracked in the “version history” table just start watching this wiki page (see following screenshot …)

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Olga Werner for her excellent design work and creativity on the variety of service icons, capability icons and diagram elements. The realization of the new SAP Cloud Platform solution diagram guidelines would not have been possible without the constructive collaboration, inspiration and feedback of many distinguished SAP colleagues like Hamsa Buvaraghan, Thomas Bieser, Jeremy Good, Bernhard Groene, Dan Lahl, Claudia Pacheco, Matthieu Pelatan, Riley Rainey,  Jason Saunders, Matthias Steiner, Michael Van Cutsem.

And Now, Happy Diagramming!