I stopped opening OSS messages one or two years ago. The reason was that it is getting harder and harder to get in adequate response. If an error is drastic (think of as system crash with a dump) your error message will be solved. But what happens when there is “only” inconsistent data or a simulation that should detect errors will fail in 90% of all cases? The answer is simple: SAP Support will refer to OSS note 11 “Requested function is not in standard”. If you don’t this note – here is the content:
Dear customer,
We regret to inform you that the function you require is not included in
the SAP standard system.
If you want to work with SAP on future product functions, we recommend that
you do so by working in an SAP user group, or by working in one of the SAP
communities of innovation. You will find a list of all SAP user groups at
http://www.sapusergroups.org.
You can see a description of the SAP communities of innovation at
http://www.sap.com/ecosystem/communities/index.epx.
Alternatively, you can request the development of special functions by SAP
Custom Development (http://www.sap.com/services/portfolio/customdev/index.epx).
You will find more information at http://service.sap.com/rollin.
Yours sincerely,
SAP Active Global Support
What is your experience with development requests? My collegues started them but the correction was never rolled out. Only if the missing functionality has severe impact and you have a competent key account manager you’ll get help.
Fortunately SAP development is interested in producing good software and therefore SAP’s Customer Engagement Initiative - It's great to be part of it! has been started. And in fact every product owner from SAP I got in contact with is interested in customers’ feedback. Unfortunately I never heard of an official process that informs product owners about OSS messages that are rejected as development request. I think such a process could help product owners to learn more about weaknesses of their products and which feature request should be added to the product backlog. In my opinion this is necessary because even if people from SAP support find solutions so that customers can live with a problem there is still place for improvement.
