My conclusions after SAP Community migration

[L_Skorwider]

In general, I appreciate SAP Community's move to the new home. Splitting into interest groups can bring more order. Numerous configuration options will help you better customize the content you are watching.

I also know how difficult it was to transfer content from the old site. It was a huge operation that went very smoothly. Although, of course, a minor delay occurred.

However, there are a few minor issues that I would like to bring to the attention of the honored managers of the new site.

1. The division into groups seems somewhat incomplete. In general, all tech blogs ended up in one "Technology" bag. In addition, the division into "Product and Technology" and "Groups" may cause some confusion.

2. For this reason, one gets the impression that the number of people reached by new posts is incomparably smaller than the former blogs.sap.com. Maybe it's problems related to the adaptation of newness or issues that users haven't quite settled in yet. On the other hand, maybe it's the separation of SAP staff posts from other users. Perhaps the goal was to highlight official SAP posts from the less important rest? But isn't this a community?

3. Michael has already mentioned that there may be something wrong with sending posts for review. First of all, the rules are not clear and in some places I can just post. In others I have to send it for review. Such a post sent for review is difficult to be found in the site interface. I don't know if by chance the person in charge of approvals doesn't have the same problem, because for more than a week a post posted in a small group hasn't been approved nor has there been any response. This is a bit strange, especially since before the migration I was posting to this group's blog without approval.

4. Logging out of the site occurs very frequently. My main account is logged in, but the notification and overview of my content icons disappear. Instead, an annoying message appears that I have to log in again.

5. Thumbnails under post previews are very small and unreadable. This applies to both blogs and discussions. The intro to each entry is a large tile, which is completely incomprehensible given how small the attached images are and how cropped the teaser's content is.

6. The fields when creating posts are not entirely clear. I understand to some extent the separation of "SAP Managed Tags" from the rest. However, the division between Labels and User Tags is completely incomprehensible. Similarly, the division between cover photo and images added to the teaser, which sometimes results in two same thumbnails under the post. I think most people also do not know what the SEO and canonical URL section is for.

7. By the way "SAP Managed Tags" could be reviewed, expanded and organized. Often very general things are missing, while only specific things are found.

8. There has been some mess with notifications lately. On the one hand, I really appreciate that I can choose what to be notified about. On the other hand, the default inclusion of information that anyone has edited a post resulted in dozens of notifications yesterday.

So much for the beginning. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for fixing the glitches and wishing you a great and engaged community to build.

[Devraj]

That's a great list.

I would like to add that sorting blogs by "Most recent" is not working. I don't think the community will adopt the new home anymore. I didn't expect it to be so painful. I have been using groups for the past 2 years  so did have an understanding on what to expect but the migration is a complete disaster!

The original SDN and SCN were the best. Somehow we resigned to the fact that we had to live with community.sap.com and blogs.sap.com but what we now have is not acceptable . Also why have a category blogs by members and blogs by SAP. Does that add value? I demand a catagory Blogs by Influencers and Blogs by first times and blogs by Tier 1/ Tier 2 partners! Bring it on.

https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blogs-by-members/bg-p/technology-blog-members

https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blogs-by-sap/bg-p/technology-blog-sap

Random dates and blogs - not sorted - this should be blogs 101 . Its like double entry book keeping not working for SAP!!

[Jelena]

I stumbled upon this post by accident. I think I saw your AI blog post in the dumpster that RSS feed has become and then I clicked on the profile where I saw this post. Otherwise I have no idea how would I had a chance to find this. Considering I'm from the generation that remembers when we had to use actual maps and ask people for directions, it is a problem in itself. But I digress.

1. "The division into groups seems somewhat incomplete" - that's a very charitable way to put it. 🙂 What is even basis for organization of community after migration? Does anyone know? Every community of this size do need some kind of structure that works not only for the organizers but also for the community itself.

Looking back, SDN/SCN before 2016 was organized like file folders (typical php forum structure common in early 2000s). If you wanted to ask a question, you'd need to start from the top level (e.g. Development), then drill down into, say, "ABAP" or "Output" forum. This hierarchy structure was imposed by the platform and, again, since it was typical at that day and age, did not raise many usability questions.

The migration of 2016 replaced that hierarchy with "tags". De facto, the "tags" were equivalent of the previous forum "node". So, ABAP forum just became ABAP tag. It was a bit confusing because the word "tag" already had a meaning that we use today, some text to help identify / organize / search the content. Since the tags did not have tree-like structure, it became possible to use more than 1 tag. This was a huge advantage for the questions where it wasn't clear whether it's an ABAP or a functional issue.

Now, it looks like we still have tags. Now, there are also groups? And "labels" (which seem to be use like actual tags). I honestly do not understand at all how "Technology" is meaningful on SAP website and I don't really understand how the content is organized anymore. From there, unfortunately, stem many problems that people cannot find stuff anymore.

2. "number of people reached by new posts is incomparably smaller than the former blogs.sap.com" - this is 100% correct for the reason above. It's impossible to find blog posts based on one's interest. RSS feed options are limited and are not useful. I no longer browse the posts, if I find something, it's by accident or because someone sent me a link. Can't find stuff -> can't read stuff.

Don't get me started on "posts by SAP employees". It's such an unnecessary, tone-deaf and off-putting segregation. First, SAP employees were like "UwU we are community too!". And now some are "more equal".

Some additional feedback has been poured into comments here (because it's also not clear where to share it): https://community.sap.com/t5/what-s-new/the-sap-community-is-all-moved-in/ba-p/13582103

I'm stumbling on more annoyances every time I use this new platform. But a lot of feedback has already been provided and someone needs to start acting on it. The source of disappointment for me is that we've already been through a tough migration in 2016 that resulted in exodus of prominent and long time community members. Yet it doesn't look like lessons were learned.

[TuncayKaraca]

Hi @Jelena,

You are awesome! I really wanted to highlight and give thumps up 👍 "Don't get me started on "posts by SAP employees". It's such an unnecessary, tone-deaf and off-putting segregation. First, SAP employees were like "UwU we are community too!". And now some are "more equal""

I would repeat don't get me started! 😁

Regards,
Tuncay

[Nigel_James]

Hi all - it seems like this the one of the places to mention glitches to the migration. 

Firstly - from the ISS view it looks great. 

But some of the detail there are some things that need tweaking. One of those in my opinion is the 'people' url

It is just broken - and I think it should be restored at least to redirect to the new profile urls.

https://people.sap.com/nigeljames now returns a 503 - service unavailable. 

If I click on my lovely photo up in the top right I go to:

https://profile.sap.com/profile/id5d998c790b2f0727d784bbdc425cac344ca5eacbac51f0c9bc950455b0a1ba5a 

but if I click in a user name in the forum / discussion I get to 

https://community.sap.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1269 

And (and I had this conversation last time we did a migration ) my "Member since" is wrong. 

It says ‎22 Dec 2011 but I joined in 2003 and was one of the original beta members back when Shai Agassi was around.

So it why two profiles ? 

Thanks, 

Nigel

[TuncayKaraca]

Hi @L_Skorwider,

I agree with a lot of comments. There are more to be noted about new Community site. I don't know where to start! Instead, I'm trying to concentrate my expertise area 😁

Yes, indeed. Product and Technology division confusing! Then there are separate groups. I've seen that recently some people are posting the same blog on under Technology and then under specific group. Suddenly here we have duplicates in our feed. 😑

The change is difficult, the change is inevitable. But why some old stuff are better than new ones, changes ones. I miss my old SCN even SDN.  Even Community Members -- 👨‍🔧 👩‍🔧 -- probably does not know about what SCN and SDN stand for! 😣

It's positive feedback, I don't have issue "Logging out of the site occurs very frequently."  ✔️

The tags, SAP Managed Tags are okay. What about others? Confusing! 😕

I've asked and suggested one change about Notification Feeds. Why can't I see my Updates on my Notification Feed? 

Regards,
Tuncay 

[TuncayKaraca]

@L_Skorwider @L_Skorwider @Jelena @Devraj 

Have you also noticed that we don't have Reply and Reply the Reply feature in our regular blog posts. We have just continues Comments. That makes very uneasy to be able to follow conversations.

Example, 12 sequential comments. You have to figure out which reply for which reply.  What’s New in SAP Datasphere Version 2024.3 — Feb 1, 2024

And Don't get me started 😑 with tiny, one line Comments in Questions & Answers.  The trick is post your reply / comment with one line, then come back and edit, you will get full editor 😉

Regards,
Tuncay 

[Jelena]

It looks like at least in the blog comments we can now reply to an individual comment and then see it as a reply, like in the previous platform. At least that's how I see your reply to my earlier comment here. (I hope it's not just for our own.)

Sadly, I'm afraid damage is already done to the legacy posts.

[TuncayKaraca]

No, actually replying an individual comment somehow is only available for SAP Community blogs. But it's not available for Technology Blogs by Members, example What’s New in SAP Datasphere Version 2024.3 — Feb 1, 2024  or yours  Are Your ABAP Guidelines Misguided? ; event not available --no privilege--  for Technology Blogs by SAP , example SAP Datasphere – New Replication Flow 

Yes, sadly the damage is already done! 😟 I'm still though wondering if there is still a possibility to have reply-the-reply/comment feature in other blogs posts as well. A magic configuration might work, just a little hope!  🙂

Regards,
Tuncay

[Srdjan]

Some features are apparently lost and I miss them. Will they be available again?

• Number of blog views
• Follow member, to get notified on new blogs of particular member
• Other features mentioned in https://community.sap.com/t5/what-s-new/what-you-need-to-know-to-prepare-for-the-community-migration...
• Overall design and UX could be done better: