Introducing the new Help Center

[christianoehler]

In this blog I want to attract your attention upon a simple, but highly efficient way to publish process-specific knowledge directly at the users' workplaces - thus cutting down knowledge transfer costs considerably.

I'm referring to the Help Center, a Web Dynpro ABAP application contained in the SAP NetWeaver platform of every SAP Business Suite 7 installation. Technically the Help Center is part of the SAP NetWeaver usage type Web Application Server ABAP 7.01

Using the Help Center brings a lot of advantages: Once it has been activated in the back-end system, the Help Center opens when users launch the application help of an SAP application. The generic SAP application help is, of course, still available via a link in the Help Center. Besides, an editor integrated in the Help Center allows each user to add personal notes on the application.

But what's really exciting, is the possibility to link company-specific process-related information to an application's Help Center. It goes like this:

• Process experts create and store relevant information in files of any format on a central repository. This might be a shared network folder or - in the next version - the Solution Manager repository. Then they link these files to the Help Center. Users just click on the links to open the files.
• If internal information is stored on a Web server it can also be linked to the Help Center. But, more than that, such links may also point to external Web pages, e.g. to suppliers' pages, or to Web 2.0 features like forums, wikis or blogs.

Have a look at the Help Center as users see it while working with an SAP business application:

The Help Center is available for SAP applications running either in an SAP system or in a portal. The SAP applications can be - from a technical perspective - classical ABAP transaction Dynpros or Web Dynpros.

The Help Center is adapted to the different types of SAP applications, to Transaction Dynpros as well as to Web Dynpros. It can be launched for applications run either in a SAP system or in a portal.

More Information

As an integral part of SAP's Business Suite Foundation, the Help Center supports SAP's initiative to increase user productivity and to drive down the companies' total cost of ownership. Read more about the Business Suite Foundation Topics.

Detailed information about the Help Center is available on the SAP NetWeaver SDN pages. See Help Center for Applications of the SAP Business Suite. For feedback and further details, contact SAP NetWeaver product specialist Klaus Zobel.

If you want to share your questions or knowledge about the Help Center in the SDN community, create your posts in the SAP NetWeaver Technology Platform. Your Help Center posts will be answered by our specialists.