SAP Business Application Studio is a web-based cloud service offered as part of SAP BTP.
The architecture of the service is shown in the figure below. You can see that you can use software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications as well as on-premise applications.
The development itself takes place in SAP Business Application Studio in dev spaces. These can be created and personalized and are completely isolated from the dev spaces of other developers. This has the decisive advantage that the developments of one developer cannot interfere with the developments of another developer, so long as they have not yet been released. In addition, it allows convenient management of development quality assurance and production code lines.
SAP Business Application Studio is available as a subscription. To start the subscription, navigate to the SAP BTP cockpit, choose Services > Service Marketplace > SAP Business Application Studio, and click the Create button.
If SAP Business Application Studio is not displayed in the marketplace, make sure that your subaccount for SAP Business Application Studio has an assignment (called an entitlement).
Now select your desired Plan and click Create (see next figure). The standard-edition option can be used for development, while the free option should only be used for testing or smaller projects (it offers all tools, but you can only use one of a maximum of two dev spaces at the same time).
A window like the one shown in the figure below opens, confirming the start of the subscription creation process. Click the View Subscription button and you can verify that the creation has been completed.
This brings you back to the overview of the applications and instances of your subaccount (see figure below). Clicking SAP Business Application Studio will take you to the application, where you can start creating the subscription.
The link to the application, as shown, is a persistent link. This means that it can also be used outside the SAP BTP cockpit to log onto SAP Business Application Studio. The link has the form https://<org name>.eu20cf.applicationstudio.cloud.sap/, where the value of <org name> is automatically assigned to your subaccount and can be changed as described in SAP Note 3115060. We recommend that you save this link so that you can provide it to your SAP Business Application Studio users.
However, before you can start setting up SAP Business Application Studio, there are still some steps to be taken. The subscription automatically adds new role collections to the subaccount, which must be assigned to SAP Business Application Studio users.
To be able to use the service, you must assign the Business_Application_Studio_Administrator administrator role and the Business_Application_Studio_Developer and Business_Application_Studio_Extension_Deployer developer roles to your users. To do this, navigate to the Security > Users path in your SAP BTP cockpit.
Click the three-dot button to access the Assign Role Collection point, where you have to assign the Business_Application_Studio_Administrator role collection to yourself to be able to set up SAP Business Application Studio (see figure below). You can also assign other roles, but these are not essential for the IDE setup.
Now you can start SAP Business Application Studio with the persistent link (https://<org name>.eu20cf.applicationstudio.cloud.sap/), as previously discussed. First you will be asked to create a dev space (next figure). Such a dev space can be shared by several developers, such as those working on the same project.
The following figure shows you how to create a dev space after you have clicked the Create Dev Space button. The selection shows you how powerful the various tools are that are provided in SAP Business Application Studio. On the left, you can select the development group, and on the right, you can select additional tools.
For our purposes, we selected the SAP Fiori option, entered a name in the field directly under Create a New Dev Space, and selected no extensions. Click the Create Dev Space button when you’re done to complete the creation of the dev space.
SAP BTP then displays an overview of the dev spaces and the text STARTING for a bit while the setup is being performed. When you see the text RUNNING, you can click the name of the dev space to start SAP Business Application Studio with the previously selected dev space.
The spaces terminate themselves if they are not used for a certain period, which is very advantageous for administration. Resources are saved, and the usual problem of never knowing exactly who needs a space and where is solved—even if only for later. If you have a bottleneck or want to restart a space, you can click the Stop button. After the dev space has been stopped, clicking Edit (the pencil button ) takes you back to the selection shown earlier, where you can change the dev space type again if necessary.
With SAP Business Application Studio set up and your dev space running, you now have a secure and scalable environment to build SAP applications in the cloud. The subscription-based model and isolated workspaces make it easy to manage access, ensure quality control, and streamline development workflows across teams. Whether you’re working on SAP Fiori, CAP, or other SAP solutions, BAS provides the modern, browser-based tools you need to develop efficiently within SAP BTP.
Editor’s note: This post has been adapted from a section of the book Configuring SAP Business Technology Platform: The Practical Guide for Administrators by Martin Koch and Siegfried Zeilinger. Martin is the managing director of CloudDNA GmbH, an SAP partner in Austria. Siegfried is a freelancer and managing director of a small management consultancy.
This post was originally published 11/2025.