DECIDE: PREPARE: ACHIEVE: SHOWCASE
“Certification drives career growth and earning potential”.
“With the SAP Global Certification program, you can enable continuous learning, keep skills up-to-date, and stay current with new cloud product releases, while assuring and validating the highest standards of SAP solution expertise across your organization”.
Dear SAP Colleagues,
I did not find any better way to start of my blogging experience than to share some insights on my SAP Certification experience.
After having completed a couple of them in first attempt 😄, I decided to pen down my experience of going through that journey.
This blog post covers mostly the preparation part and not the decision, registration and exam setup (I will attach some wonderful blogs by some of our colleagues for that part)
Mandatory Introduction:
SAP certification is an important benchmark of consultant expertise. The questions in the exam will rigorously test your knowledge that you have gained via training or practical expertise.
The importance of SAP Certification is such that you are certainly not incomplete without it but pours in more value.
Obviously, you must fill up the practical expertise gap by spending some considerable time in exploring the system landscape.
A recent Pearson VUE study reported the below benefits of certification:
Pearson Study sourced from https://training.sap.com
More explained this beautiful blog post by rashi.sawhney
Type of SAP Certifications:
| TYPE | EVALUATES | IDENTIFIER |
| Associate | Candidate has the fundamental knowledge and an overall understanding of a specific SAP solution | These certifications start with “C_” |
| Specialist | Candidate has both the basic knowledge gained in related training and documentation, as well as on practical experience gained as a member of a SAP team | These certifications start with “E_” |
| Professional | Candidate has the deep and advanced knowledge of a specific SAP solution | These certifications start with “P_” |
So, let us jump into the details to extract more knowledge. As said before, emphasis would be on the PREPARE section.
DECIDE
I hope by now, we have some idea on why we should pursue an SAP certification.
It is imperative to decide which certification should we go with by visiting this link.
Here you will get, two options to choose from.
- Available Certifications
- Soon to Expire certifications (needs to be completed before the expiration date)
Currently the SAP Global Certification supports two subscription options.
- CER001: 1 exam attempt - valid for 1 year.
- CER006: 6 exam attempts - valid for 1 year.
Generally, we choose the desired Certification from the list of ‘Available Certification’.
In case we have our certification listed under ‘Soon to Expire certifications’, we should be confident enough to clear it before the validity end date.
Once we have decided that we can proceed to register for it.
More about registration in this beautiful article by ruthvik.chowdary2
Note: It would be imperative to schedule the exam after studying the exam content combined with analyzing the approximate preparation time.
PREPARE
OK, so now since we have decided to proceed with a particular certification, we may now proceed with preparing for the same.
Know Your Exam:
Once you visit the page with the list of exams, click on ‘View Details’.
I will be concentrating on sections marked 1 & 2.
Sourced from https://training.sap.com
In Block marked as 1, here you can find Exam pattern, Exam Time, Total Questions, Cutoff Score, Kind of Questions.
- For the above it justifies as an exam with 80 questions which needs to be completed in 180 mins with a passing score of more than 70%.
In the Block marked as 2, are the grouped Topics aka Topic Areas.
- Against each topic you have a weight-age attached which signifies the expected percentage of marks from that section.
Sourced from https://training.sap.com
If you expand each section, you can see the following:
Topics / Concepts marked Blue, and its corresponding Training Course / eBook / eLearning marked in White (Will come to this section later)
- Major Topic Areas are those that carry >12% of the total marks.
- Semi-Major Topic Areas are those that carry 8-12% of the total marks.
- Minor Topic Area are those that carry <8% of the total marks.
So, the key takeaways:
- No negative marking
- Question types are: Multiple, Single and True / False
- Multiple Choice questions clearly mentions the number of correct options it has.
So, we now know the exam pattern and cut off score and the pattern of questions.
Next, let’s dive about the how to prepare guide and the resources available.
In the course details, when you expand every Topics / Concepts, you see Course ID (Training Course / eBook / e Learning) on the right.
These are the recommended courses for getting prepared for gaining knowledge on that topic.
This course delivery exists in two forms:
- Classroom training
- Learning Hub
I will focus on the Learning Hub path as I followed it 😊.
Once you book your exam, you get to experience Learning Hub free for 15 days.
Leverage that 👍
The Learning Hub homepage will look something like this.
Learning Hub Homepage as sourced from https://learninghub.sap.com
Once in Learning Hub, you can search the Course ID under Learning Content.
You can also search for a Learning Journey for your certification.
Learning Journeys will provide you a curated list of contents and readable courses to follow for your certification journey.
I would suggest all to follow this as it includes all the Course ID’s ( hope you remember them 😊) that we looked up on the website.
Learning Journey as sourced from https://learninghub.sap.com
For an Example, if you search for ‘ABAP Programming for SAP HANA’ in Learning Journeys, you get the above.
Here if you select the first one which is for the Certification, you will get all the courses and details required to become competent for the exam.
All the required eBooks/eLearning would be listed under 'Become Competent' sub-Section.
If you click on any one of them, it will take you to that respective course
OR
Search by Content as sourced from https://learninghub.sap.com
You can simply search for your exam name under 'Learning Content' and select result containing the name of your certification exam as below. If you click on it, and click on 'Save for Later', it gets added to your learning plan.
You can access that under 'Learning Content'.
OR
Individual Course Contents as sourced from https://learninghub.sap.com
You can individually search for the Course IDs under 'Learning content' and add it to your 'Learning Plan'.
Each Course ID primarily has the following as seen in the image below
- Two content mode: eBook, eLearning
- Assessments to validate whatever you have learnt.
- Practice content to perform Hands-On via SAP Learning system access.
My personal favorite has always been the eBook format though I do not enjoy reading much 😊
While studying, I feel static text helps me in going through the topic several times.
You can also opt for e-learning as it would provide the same content in a playback format.
Once you finish studying the content, I would suggest you enroll for the 'Assessment' to verify the content you studied.
You can also Practice the content via SAP Learning system access that provides you access to a system in a virtual environment.
Some Tips:
- Planning and Time-Management:
- Rigorously follow a time-bound learning pattern and distribute the entire learning content accordingly
- Reading:
- I would suggest you all to relate this with the eBook version of the content mode.
- I would advise to go through the content thoroughly at least thrice depending on how much clear you are on the topics after the first go-through.
- SAP Help Portal
- SAP Help Portal might play a very important role in enhancing the knowledge if you refer to the relevant topic documentations from here apart from Learning Hub
- Watch out for:
- Bulleted points
- Contents enclosed in boxes (Note + Hint)
- Diagrams
- Questions at the end of every Unit and Assessment for Every Course
Kindly note that this should be combined with reading and understanding the entire content rather than solely depending on it.
ACHIEVE
Day before the exam:
- Get acquainted with Sample questions
- On the exam page, there is a View more link to the sample questions.
- This opens a sample exam simulating the real one.
Certification Overview Page Header as sourced from https://training.sap.com
- Verify system details
- Kindly verify the system and software requirements by visiting your Certification Homepage
- Stay Calm before the exam and do not over stress.
- Prepare a time-limit that on on an average you can spend on each question
- Verify the system readiness and network strength.
On the day of the exam:
- Login few minutes earlier than the scheduled time
- Keep an accepted ID Proof handy
- Follow the strict rules concerning the environment in which may take your exam.
During the exam:
- Attempt questions which would take the minimum time to think of an answer first.
- Keep an eye on the time.
- Seek for help from proctor or chat support in case of any technical help.
- Make sure you properly submit the exam and wait for proctor instructions before going ahead to end the session.
SHOWCASE
Once you give the exam and clear it, accept a Congratulations from my end😊
Furthermore, SAP has partnered with Credly for obtaining the certificate/badge more of which u'll find in this blog: https://blogs.sap.com/2019/07/25/sap-certification-download-from-acclaim/
You can verify or Promote your badge as well
Stay Current program lets you stay updated and maintain your acquired certification for some specific solution areas to stay current when a newer version of a solution is released.
That's it 😊
Feedback's as usual would be highly appreciated and greatly encouraging.
ALL THE BEST 😊
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