Over the decades, SAP customers and partners have adapted and grown -- and SAP technologies and strategies have changed with them. SAP Community has done so as well, to ensure we match the needs of our members and keep pace with the evolution of online communication and interaction.
For 20 years, what is now known as SAP Community has been the premier destination for customers, partners, and others to share and gain knowledge, connect, and improve. From SAP Developer Network (SDN) to SAP Community Network (SCN) to SAP Community, we have always sought out new opportunities to introduce online platforms that best support our members as they seek to get the most from their SAP investments.
We laid the groundwork for our most recent iteration in 2023, and after more than a year of planning, investigating, discussing, and researching, we have concluded our latest journey with the launch of the newest SAP Community platform today.
On January 16, we announced the migration to this new platform, but preparations began months prior to that. My team and our colleagues worked tirelessly to get ready to migrate content and users from the legacy community.sap.com platform into the groups.community.sap.com platform, creating a single community.sap.com destination. And before migration even began, we weighed each possibility carefully, made no decision lightly, tested scenarios thoroughly, and communicated frequently -- so our members knew what was happening when and why. And before we moved anything, we conducted user testing and held focus groups to ensure we remained on the right track.
Once migration began, we still had to contend with hundreds of thousands of users and 30 million pieces of content -- maintaining our focus on the best possible experience in the best possible new home for our members and their information.
I'm sure many of you have done migrations and implementations, so you can just imagine the implications of moving that much material. We spent hours upon hours on scripts and additional steps to ensure data consistency and verification along the way.
The process ran amazingly well considering the sheer volume of what we were dealing with, but we did have a few hiccups along the way -- as is often the case with projects of this magnitude. Early in the project, we ran into an issue with user merging that required us to restart the process, and reindexing of content took longer than originally anticipated, leading to additional delays.
If you were already a member of the community Groups, launched in October 2021, you may already know your way around the platform. If you're experiencing the new platform for the first time, we think you'll find it intuitive and settle in quickly. In either case, we did publish several What's New posts to help you understand how some key functionality differs from the legacy platform:
As you can see, we've been busy sharing and documenting everything as quickly as possible. We're also in the process of updating our help section, and, in the meantime, you can familiarize yourself with the new platform and its features by taking the new Tour of the Community tutorial.
You'll find some things are the same compared to the previous platform. For example, you can still go directly to feeds with the latest content with your favorite tags , as well as access content from the topic pages. (Tag feeds and topic pages received redesigns, but they still function the same.) You can subscribe to tags, get content via RSS feeds, or simply browse and review.
You'll be able to access the Topics area from the top navigation. You'll also want to familiarize yourself with these navigation selections:
- Products and Technology: These eight major categories individually include Q&A, blogs by members, and blogs by SAP, to help you find and interact with the subjects most important to you.
- Groups: These special community sections allow you to connect with peers in a variety of locations, chat with like-minded members about common interests, search for new job opportunities, and join educational activities to grow your network and learn useful skills.
- Topics
- Events: Broken down by a variety of event types, this section gives you the ability to subscribe to get event updates, RSVP for events you want to attend, and interact in activities covering a multitude of topics and interests.
- What's New: As the name implies, this blog board will help you stay informed about the latest in SAP Community -- with posts exploring new developments, strategy updates, and program announcements shaping the future of our community.
- Help
Those options cover the basics for finding and consuming content, but if you want to contribute content, you'll find entry points for asking questions, starting discussions, and writing blog posts on locations throughout the site -- including many of the areas mentioned above.
For those who have been with us for a while, you should find everything you are looking for and more. That said, we know any change can be tough, and we will do everything possible to make you feel at home in your new home. We will continue to offer our monthly calls throughout the year to help answer questions, provide guidance, and listen to your feedback. We will also conduct additional user testing, because while we are excited about the new platform, we know there's always room for improvement -- and we're looking forward to exploring these possibilities with you!
We are currently collecting all of your feedback and will be responding but please give us time to ensure things are running as expected.
