SAP GUI Visual Extraction: Streamlining Custom Workflows for Modern React

Most SAP GUI implementations are archeological sites, not software architectures. Thousands of custom Z-transactions, undocumented for decades, are currently holding a significant portion of the $3.6 trillion global technical debt hostage. For the enterprise architect, the challenge isn't just moving to the cloud; it's the fact that 67% of these legacy systems lack any form of usable documentation. When you attempt to modernize these "gray screens" into a modern React-based experience, you aren't just fighting old code—you're fighting lost tribal knowledge.

The traditional approach involves manual business analysis, months of requirements gathering, and a high-risk rewrite that takes an average of 18 months. According to Replay’s analysis, 70% of these legacy rewrites fail or significantly exceed their timelines because the complexity of custom SAP workflows is underestimated.

Replay changes this dynamic through Visual Reverse Engineering. Instead of parsing decades-old ABAP or trying to find a functional consultant who remembers why a specific field was added in 1998, you simply record the workflow.

TL;DR: Modernizing SAP GUI is notoriously slow due to undocumented custom logic. Visual extraction streamlining custom workflows allows teams to convert recorded SAP sessions into documented React components and Design Systems automatically. By using Replay, enterprises reduce the time-per-screen from 40 hours to just 4 hours, achieving 70% average time savings and bypassing the 18-month rewrite trap.

The High Cost of Manual SAP Modernization#

The manual path to modernizing SAP GUI is a gauntlet of inefficiency. To move a single complex transaction—like a custom procurement flow—to a modern React frontend, a developer must:

1. •Shadow a power user to understand the hidden logic.
2. •Manually map every ALV grid, tabstrip, and modal.
3. •Reverse-engineer the validation logic that lives in the backend but triggers on the frontend.
4. •Standardize the "SAP look" into a modern Design System.

Industry experts recommend moving away from this "clean sheet" approach. When you start from zero, you lose the edge cases that keep the business running. This is where visual extraction streamlining custom processes becomes the only viable path for large-scale enterprise transformation.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the process of capturing the visual state, user interactions, and underlying data structures of a legacy application through video and metadata analysis to generate functional, modern code.

Visual Extraction Streamlining Custom SAP Workflows#

The core of the problem with SAP GUI is the "Z-Transaction." These are the custom-built workflows unique to your organization. They don't follow standard Fiori patterns, and they are often the most critical pieces of software in the company.

Using Replay, the process of visual extraction streamlining custom workflows begins with a recording. As a user navigates through a complex SAP transaction, Replay captures the layout, the component hierarchy, and the state changes.

From Video to Component Library#

Replay doesn't just take a screenshot; it identifies functional patterns. It recognizes that a specific coordinate set on the screen represents an ALV Grid (SAP’s high-powered table component). It then maps that grid to a high-performance React table component, complete with sorting, filtering, and pagination logic that mirrors the original intent but utilizes modern web standards.

Video-to-code is the process of converting visual recordings of user interfaces into structured, maintainable source code and documentation using AI-driven spatial analysis.

For more on how this works across different legacy stacks, see our guide on Reverse Engineering UI.

Handling Complex State in React#

One of the biggest hurdles in SAP modernization is state management. SAP GUI is inherently stateful, often relying on the backend to maintain the "session" of the UI. When we move to React, we need a stateless or client-state-heavy approach.

Below is an example of how Replay generates a standardized React component from a recorded SAP "Header and Detail" view, utilizing TypeScript for type safety—something SAP GUI notoriously lacks.

typescript
// Generated by Replay Blueprints
import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import { Table, Card, Button, Input, Badge } from '@/components/ui';

interface SAPPurchaseOrder {
  id: string;
  vendor: string;
  status: 'Pending' | 'Approved' | 'Rejected';
  items: Array<{
    lineItem: number;
    material: string;
    quantity: number;
    uom: string;
  }>;
}

const PurchaseOrderModernized: React.FC<{ poId: string }> = ({ poId }) => {
  const [data, setData] = useState<SAPPurchaseOrder | null>(null);
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(true);

  // Replay automatically identifies the data-fetching pattern 
  // from the recorded network/UI transition
  useEffect(() => {
    const fetchData = async () => {
      setLoading(true);
      const response = await fetch(`/api/sap/po/${poId}`);
      const result = await response.json();
      setData(result);
      setLoading(false);
    };
    fetchData();
  }, [poId]);

  if (loading) return <div>Synchronizing with SAP Core...</div>;

  return (
    <div className="p-6 space-y-4">
      <header className="flex justify-between items-center">
        <h1 className="text-2xl font-bold">PO: {data?.id}</h1>
        <Badge variant={data?.status === 'Approved' ? 'success' : 'warning'}>
          {data?.status}
        </Badge>
      </header>

      <Card title="Header Information">
        <div className="grid grid-cols-2 gap-4">
          <Input label="Vendor" value={data?.vendor} readOnly />
          {/* Custom fields identified during visual extraction */}
          <Input label="Ext. Reference" placeholder="Enter reference..." />
        </div>
      </Card>

      <Table 
        columns={[
          { header: 'Item', accessor: 'lineItem' },
          { header: 'Material', accessor: 'material' },
          { header: 'Qty', accessor: 'quantity' },
          { header: 'Unit', accessor: 'uom' }
        ]}
        data={data?.items || []}
      />
      
      <div className="flex justify-end gap-2">
        <Button variant="outline">Cancel</Button>
        <Button variant="primary">Submit to SAP</Button>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

export default PurchaseOrderModernized;

The Architecture of Visual Reverse Engineering#

To achieve visual extraction streamlining custom workflows at scale, Replay utilizes a four-pillar architecture:

1. •The Library (Design System): As screens are recorded, Replay identifies recurring UI patterns—buttons, inputs, grids—and aggregates them into a unified Design System. This ensures that your modernized SAP app doesn't just look like a collection of random React pages, but a cohesive product.
2. •Flows (Architecture): This feature maps the "connective tissue" of the application. If clicking "F8" in SAP GUI takes you from a selection screen to a list output, Replay's Flows document that transition, creating a visual map of the business logic.
3. •Blueprints (Editor): This is where the AI-assisted code generation happens. Developers can refine the extracted components, adjusting the TypeScript interfaces or modifying the layout before the code is committed to the repository.
4. •AI Automation Suite: This layer handles the heavy lifting of documentation. It writes the READMEs, the component stories, and the integration tests based on the actual observed behavior in the recording.

According to Replay's analysis, the most significant risk in modernization is "Logic Leakage"—the loss of small but vital validation rules. By recording the actual user workflow, Replay ensures that even the most obscure validation error messages are captured and accounted for in the new React frontend.

Bridging the Documentation Gap#

67% of legacy systems lack documentation. In the SAP world, this usually means the original developers have retired, and the only "manual" is the muscle memory of the users.

When utilizing visual extraction streamlining custom workflows, the documentation is a byproduct of the process, not a separate task. Replay generates documentation that describes not just what the code does, but what the business process is.

Legacy Modernization Strategies often emphasize the need for a "Source of Truth." In a Replay-driven project, the recording is the source of truth.

Example: Mapping SAP Tabstrips to React Tabs#

SAP GUI uses "Tabstrips" to manage dense information. In a modern React environment, we might want to keep the tab structure but improve the accessibility and responsiveness.

typescript
// Replay Blueprint: SAP Tabstrip Transformation
import * as Tabs from '@radix-ui/react-tabs';

export const SAPModernTabs = ({ legacyData }: any) => {
  return (
    <Tabs.Root defaultValue="general">
      <Tabs.List className="flex border-b border-gray-200">
        <Tabs.Trigger value="general" className="px-4 py-2 hover:bg-gray-50">
          General Data
        </Tabs.Trigger>
        <Tabs.Trigger value="accounting" className="px-4 py-2 hover:bg-gray-50">
          Accounting Info
        </Tabs.Trigger>
        <Tabs.Trigger value="delivery" className="px-4 py-2 hover:bg-gray-50">
          Delivery Schedule
        </Tabs.Trigger>
      </Tabs.List>

      <Tabs.Content value="general" className="p-4">
        {/* Extracted fields for the 'General' tab */}
        <div className="grid grid-cols-3 gap-4">
          {legacyData.fields.map((field: any) => (
            <FieldKey key={field.id} label={field.label} value={field.value} />
          ))}
        </div>
      </Tabs.Content>
      
      {/* Additional Tab Content... */}
    </Tabs.Root>
  );
};

Security and Compliance in Regulated Industries#

SAP is the backbone of Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government—industries where security isn't optional. One of the primary reasons 70% of rewrites fail is the inability to meet the rigorous compliance standards of the original system during the transition.

Replay is built for these environments. It is SOC2 compliant and HIPAA-ready. For organizations with extreme security requirements, such as defense or high-finance, Replay offers an On-Premise deployment model. This ensures that your proprietary SAP workflows and data never leave your controlled environment during the visual extraction streamlining custom process.

Why Visual Extraction is the Future of Enterprise Architecture#

The $3.6 trillion technical debt problem cannot be solved by more manual coding. There aren't enough developers in the world to rewrite every legacy SAP instance by hand. We need a force multiplier.

By leveraging visual extraction streamlining custom workflows, enterprises can finally decouple their business logic from the aging SAP GUI. This isn't just about making things look pretty; it's about agility. When your UI is a modern React codebase, you can deploy updates in hours rather than months. You can integrate with modern AI tools, provide mobile-first experiences for warehouse workers, and finally sunset the Citrix servers required to run the old "gray screens."

Industry experts recommend that enterprise architects stop looking at modernization as a "migration" and start looking at it as a "translation." Replay is the universal translator for the visual layer.

Key Benefits of the Replay Approach:#

• •Consistency: Automatically generate a Design System that mirrors your brand, not the 1990s SAP aesthetic.
• •Speed: Move from a 40-hour manual screen development cycle to a 4-hour automated one.
• •Risk Mitigation: Capture 100% of the visible workflow, ensuring no "hidden" features are left behind.
• •Documentation: Automatically generate the technical and functional specs that were missing for the last 20 years.

Summary: Breaking the 18-Month Cycle#

The 18-month average enterprise rewrite timeline is a death sentence for innovation. In the time it takes to manually rewrite a single SAP module, the business requirements have likely changed twice.

Visual extraction streamlining custom workflows via Replay provides a "Fast Track" that bypasses the traditional bottlenecks. By converting visual recordings into documented React code, you turn a high-risk architectural gamble into a predictable, repeatable engineering process.

Whether you are in Manufacturing, Telecom, or Insurance, the goal is the same: get off the legacy stack without breaking the business. Replay provides the tools to do exactly that.

Frequently Asked Questions#

What is visual extraction streamlining custom workflows?#

It is a methodology used by Replay to capture unique, organization-specific SAP transactions through video recording and automatically convert them into structured React components, maintaining all custom business logic while modernizing the UI.

How does Replay handle SAP's complex ALV Grids?#

Replay’s AI recognizes the spatial patterns and data structures of ALV Grids during the recording phase. It then maps these to modern, high-performance React table components that support the same functional requirements (sorting, filtering, exporting) but with a modern UX.

Is Replay's visual extraction secure for Financial Services?#

Yes. Replay is built for regulated industries and is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready. For organizations requiring total data sovereignty, Replay offers an On-Premise version so that no sensitive SAP workflow data ever leaves the corporate network.

Can Replay generate TypeScript instead of plain JavaScript?#

Absolutely. Replay’s Blueprints editor defaults to generating type-safe TypeScript code. It infers interfaces from the data observed during the visual extraction process, helping to solve the "undocumented data" problem common in legacy SAP systems.

What is the typical time savings when using Replay?#

On average, Replay provides a 70% time saving compared to manual rewrites. Tasks that typically take 40 hours per screen (including analysis, coding, and testing) are reduced to approximately 4 hours through automated visual extraction and code generation.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay