SAP

Manage my Account SAP Devs YouTube ↗ Learnings ↗ Community ↗ Provide Feedback ↗
Logout
⤢ Open full site

Implement Your First Screen in an iOS App

Implement the first screen of your SAP BTP SDK for iOS app.

Overview

You will learn

  • ✔How to create your first iOS screen
  • ✔How to retrieve data and display it on the screen
  • ✔How to follow the SAP Fiori for iOS guidelines.
Kevin Muessig K Kevin Muessig August 21, 2026
Created on January 9, 2023
Contributors

More from Kevin Muessig

See all 13 tutorials by Kevin Muessig →

Prerequisites

  • Development environment: Apple Mac running macOS Catalina or higher with Xcode 13 or higher
  • SAP BTP SDK for iOS: Version 7.0 or higher

Steps

Details

You will learn

  • How to create your first iOS screen
  • How to retrieve data and display it on the screen
  • How to follow the SAP Fiori for iOS guidelines.

Step 1 Replace generated UI with your own
—

The Human Interface Guidelines for SAP Fiori for iOS has certain screens defined that you can use as guidance on how you could structure a business app.

Usually a business application has some sort of overview screen giving the user a entry point to key information he or she might need to do their daily work. From there, the user can navigate into more detailed information or more concrete workflows.

If you’re interested in the HIG of SAP for SAP Fiori for iOS, visit: SAP Fiori for iOS Design Guidelines

For this tutorial, you will implement an overview screen displaying a KPI Table View Header, products and customers.

Overview Screen
Overview Screen

In the Set Up the SAP BTP SDK for iOS, you’ve learned how to create an Xcode project using the SAP BTP SDK Assistant for iOS. The result of the generation process of the Assistant can be a split view screen if chosen. In this tutorial you will change the generated UI to match the screen shown above, the overview screen of your app.

  1. First, open you Xcode project if not opened already and select the Main.storyboard, this will open the Main.storyboard in the Interface Builder of Xcode.

    The Interface Builder allows you to create complete app flows including the UI for each screen of those flows.

    !

    Xcode Main Storyboard
    Xcode Main Storyboard

    For now go ahead and select all displayed View Controllers in the Main.storyboard and simply delete them.

    !

    Xcode Main Storyboard
    Xcode Main Storyboard

  2. Next, click the Object Library and search for Table View Controller. Drag and drop the object on the canvas of the Interface Builder.

    !

    Xcode Main Storyboard
    Xcode Main Storyboard

  3. Thinking ahead, you know that you want to have navigation to various screens from the overview screen. Using a Navigation Controller and embedding the just-created View Controller in it allows us to use the power of the Navigation Controller for navigation. The Navigation Controller handles the navigation stack for you, which is exactly what you want.

    Select the added View Controller and click Editor > Embed In > Navigation Controller. This will embed your View Controller in a Navigation Controller. You should see the Navigation Bar appear in the View Controller.

    !

    Xcode Main Storyboard
    Xcode Main Storyboard

    !

    Xcode Main Storyboard
    Xcode Main Storyboard

  4. Almost every View Controller you’re adding to the storyboard needs a Cocoa Touch Class representing the logic implementation of that View Controller.

    Control + click your project source in the Project Navigator on the left-hand side and select New File.

    !

    Xcode Overview Class
    Xcode Overview Class

  5. Select the Cocoa Touch Class in the upcoming modal sheet, and click Next.

    !

    Xcode Overview Class
    Xcode Overview Class

    Make sure that your class is going to subclass of UITableViewController and change the name to OverviewTableViewController. Click Next and then Create.

    !

    Xcode Overview Class
    Xcode Overview Class

    Great! You’ve created your first Table View Controller Swift class, now you have to set this class as Custom Class in the Main.storyboard View Controller.

  6. Open the storyboard and select the created View Controller. On the right side, you can see the side bar. Click the Identity Inspector to set the custom class to OverviewTableViewController and hit return on your keyboard.

    !

    Xcode Overview Class
    Xcode Overview Class

    Notice the title of the Table View Controller on the left side changes accordingly to the entered custom class.

  7. Lastly you have to make the Navigation Controller an initial View Controller. Doing this will allow us to instantiate an initial View Controller from Storyboard and tells the system the main entry point for that specific Storyboard.

    Select the Navigation Controller and open the Attributes Inspector to check the box next to Is Initial View Controller.

    !

    Xcode Overview Class
    Xcode Overview Class

Step 2 Change the Application UI Manager code to display the overview
+
Step 3 Implement basic functionality of overview screen
+
Step 4 Implement FUITableViewHeaderFooterView
+
Step 5 Load customer and product data
+
Step 6 Implement cellForRowAt method
+
Step 7 Implement UICollectionViewDataSource
+
Step 8 Add KPI Header to Table View
+

Resources

Discussion

Share feedback on this tutorial or join the conversation in SAP Community.

Submit detailed feedback Discuss in Community
Steps
Step 1 of 8
1. Replace generated UI with your own 2. Change the Application UI Manager code to display the overview 3. Implement basic functionality of overview screen 4. Implement FUITableViewHeaderFooterView 5. Load customer and product data 6. Implement cellForRowAt method 7. Implement UICollectionViewDataSource 8. Add KPI Header to Table View
Next