Preparing for the New SCN: A Checklist for Users

December 5, 2011 | 9 Views |

Patrick Flanders

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beginner improving my experience patrick flanders

The SAP Community Network (SCN) team is feverishly working to put the final touches on the New SCN. The mood among community members appears to be one of eager anticipation (we’re listening to you on Twitter, in blogs and discussion forums and love the enthusiasm and support you’re showing), and to help you prepare for the change to the new platform, the following list of “to knows” and “action items” should come in handy:

LAUNCH:
We plan to launch the New SCN in early 2012.

DISCUSSION FORUMS:
As we do take our final migration steps, we still want SCN users to be able to use the community. To that end, discussion forums will be accessible through the weekend prior to launch, and we encourage users to continue using the site to get answers to questions. However, discussion threads that take place during December 10 – 11 will not be migrated, and will therefore not be present once our new site launches.
Suggestion: Please keep a record of your discussion questions and responses, both for your own purposes, and to possibly add to the new site.

BLOGS:
All users will be able to continue to publish blogs up to the end of the work day (Pacific Standard Time) on Friday, December 9. At that point, blogs will be available in read-only mode. Also, blogs that are in “draft” mode will not be migrated.

Please also note that blogs previously written will be published in your profile. You will need to go into your personal profile and assign your blogs to their correspoding spaces.
Suggestion: If you have a blog in “draft” mode and are prepared to publish it, we suggest you do so prior to Friday, December 9. If you are not ready to publish it, please consider saving a copy locally so you can return to your work. All blogs in “draft” mode will be lost after migration is complete.

POINTS:
Points that are awarded during the weekend prior to launch (December 10 – 11) will not be migrated. Therefore, if points are awarded to you during that time, they will not be included in your profile.

WATCHES:

“Watches” you set up to alert you to discussion forum topics will not be migrated to the new site.

Suggestion: Catalog your watches for yourself and re-assign in new site.

LEARN MORE:

Our “Tip in a Minute” video series, along with a variety of videos, blogs and other resources is available on our New SCN Wiki page.

If the season was Spring, I might be inclined to wax poetic about the opportunities inherent in change and newness. But even in Winter, I’ll suggest that we all be open to the opportunities the New SCN will present to us – a better way to communicate and engage with the SAP community, and a chance to be part of the software world’s most vibrant online destination for intelligent discussion, opinion, content, tools and resources.

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27 Comments

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Martin English December 5, 2011 at 4:13 pm

just a quick note to thank everyone for their work on this. I’m looking forward to next week !!

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Gregory Misiorek December 5, 2011 at 4:27 pm

Hi Patrick,

good blog, especially when written as a test. we have now been forewarned and are now eagerly awaiting the new platform.

rgds,

greg

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Sascha Wenninger December 5, 2011 at 6:03 pm

Hi Patrick,

best of luck with the final launch! You guys can be rightfully proud of the great work so far. I was very impressed with the preview at TechEd, and I’m sure it’s only improved since.

Best of luck with the cutover!

Sascha

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Patrick Flanders Post authorDecember 5, 2011 at 9:07 pm

Thanks to all of you for your kind comments – your enthusiasm is contagious and it gives those of us on the SCN team a second wind as we complete our final sprints to launch. We’ve really tried to ensure that the community gets a great experience with our new site, and that’s what we expect to deliver!

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Jim Spath December 5, 2011 at 9:55 pm

Patrick:

I expect many casual users will find surprises on the new site, especially those who don’t look at the wiki or blogs, staying in classic forum land.

Discussion forums

In addition to watches not being preserved, interregnum questions/answers being unceremoniously ditched, and a hopefully short down time, forum users should keep in mind:

– Discussion forums may have new names, and be tricky to find at first.
– RSS feeds from the current location may not function after the cutover
– Your list of open questions may or may not be visible as before
– Links to previous threads should still work, but it’s better to update them

Blogs

Not having seen a blog converted from the old site to the new site, I don’t know how different the content will look, but based on my experience with previous changes of this nature, as a writer or even a reader, I’d look out for:

– Links to other content, or images, depending on the markup, may look funny or be broken
– Formatting with some tags may also change.
– Blogs are being moved to personal spaces, and authors have the option of trying to move them manually after; don’t bookmark right away
– I’ve not heard complete answers on sizes and numbers of allowed attachments, so expect growing pains on new posts

Business Cards

Take a screen shot, or text download of your SCN business card, so you can have a reminder on what was previously shared, since most of it will start out hidden. There will be new fields, so after the cutover see what else you care to reveal. I don’t know if links to the current cards will be maintained, but if I had to guess I’d say new URLs will be made.

If you have a list of “favorite” users on your card, don’t bet on that surviving.

As for the LinkedIn integration that mostly worked for a year or so, it’s less and less viable.

See my spin.

Jim

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1. Patrick Flanders Post authorDecember 5, 2011 at 10:16 pm
  
  Hi Jim…you bring up good points here, and I thank you for that. I will update my blog with some of the higlights. Thanks.
  
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2. Patrick Flanders Post authorDecember 5, 2011 at 10:25 pm
  
  Hi again…some comments and responses here:
  
  DISCUSSIONS:
  – Active forums will all be migrated, and the forum titles should be kept intact. The spaces under which the forums (which will be called “discussions” in the New SCN) will live may have different names, but most discussions will remain the same.
  
  BUSINESS CARDS:
  – Users should update their profile when they first log on to the new site, and they can certainly use much of the same info they currently use in their business card.
  
  Your original blog on the topic has been helpful. Thanks, Jim.
  
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Tobias Hofmann December 6, 2011 at 1:57 am

where I live, it currently IS spring. So go on, “wax poetic about the opportunities inherent in change and newness”

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Michelle Crapo December 6, 2011 at 2:49 am

Just repeating the text here. I will miss the blogs. But… I am looking forward to the new features.

Best of luck on the conversion. They are NEVER fun.

Michelle

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1. Patrick Flanders Post authorDecember 6, 2011 at 6:54 am
  
  Hi Michelle…I think you’ll like how easy it will be to blog in the new site. Easy to publish, assign and then easy for users to find.
  –Pat
  
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Stefan Koehler December 6, 2011 at 9:45 am

Hey Patrick,
well some call it anticipation or enthusiasm – i would call it “despair of the unfixed bug”. ( http://forums.sdn.sap.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2082085 )

I am really looking forward to new SCN, but not due new features (except blog writing) – i hope for promised bug fixes. By the way – do we have some kind of private messaging on the new Jive platform?

Regards
Stefan

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Siva Kumar Arivinti December 6, 2011 at 10:06 am

Eagerly waiting for new platform.

Thanks,
Siva Kumar

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Anil Kumar December 6, 2011 at 8:40 pm

Hi,

I am very much excited for New look of SCN.

Thanks to SCN Team.

Regards,
Anil Kumar

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Deepak Dhamat December 7, 2011 at 12:11 am

hi,

quiet Excited for new SCN . i hope it will bring more cheers on the face of User’s …

COngrats to SCN Developer .

regards
Deepak.

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Nagaraj Sarangamath December 7, 2011 at 1:14 am

Thanks to SAP for providing a space called SCN.
Its Amazing!! & Awesome!!

My well wishes to all the Developers of SDN and awaiting for the New SCN.

regards,

Sarangamath

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Durgesh Gandewar December 7, 2011 at 2:56 am

Happy to hear that we are migrating on coming Monday.

And waiting for the surprises!!!!!!!!

Regards,
Durgesh.

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Henrique Pinto December 7, 2011 at 4:51 pm

Any specifics regarding wikis & articles?

Thanks,
Henrique.

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1. Patrick Flanders Post authorDecember 8, 2011 at 6:57 am
  
  Hi Henrique…let me know what specific questions you have. You might also find this helpful for seeing some of the changes that will happen and how to prepare: https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/Jive/Preparing+for+Changes+in+the+New+SCN
  
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Sadiq Iqbal December 7, 2011 at 8:44 pm

wow its good
My well wishes to all the Developers of SDN and awaiting for the New SCN

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1. Patrick Flanders Post authorDecember 8, 2011 at 6:54 am
  
  Thanks, Iqbal!
  
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Anupam Ghosh December 9, 2011 at 8:29 pm

Thank you for launcing the new platform.
I waited to publish an article in SCN for almost 100 days. The artcles was posted on 23 august 2011 in draft stage. Due to upgradation process ,it was not published even after 100 days. So I decided to move my content to SDN wiki on 23.11.2011. Its in wiki stage now. Could you please kindly let me know, if publication of wiki articles are also going to be delayed? I have written several times to SCN team and also dropped an email to wiki moderator in this regard.

Thanks
Anupam

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1. Patrick Flanders Post authorDecember 12, 2011 at 10:35 am
  
  Hi Anupam…like all the wikis, you should have access to publish docs there without delay. Let me know if that’s not the case.
  
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  1. Anupam Ghosh December 12, 2011 at 9:10 pm
    
    Hi Patrick,
    Thank you so much for your kind response. My article got published yesterday.
    
    Regards
    Anupam
    
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  2. Anupam Ghosh December 12, 2011 at 9:11 pm
    
    Hi Patrick,
    Thank you so much for your kind response. My article got published yesterday.
    
    Regards
    Anupam
    
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Durgesh Gandewar December 11, 2011 at 6:40 pm

Hi,

I don’t see anything new yet in either forums or Blogs. Is upgrade activity postponed?

Regards,
Durgesh.

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Martin English December 11, 2011 at 7:23 pm

For those that are unaware..
Mark Yolton has blogged that the SCN Upgrade has been put off till 2012 – http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/27744 – with a more detailed blog describing why at
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/27755
hth

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1. Patrick Flanders Post authorDecember 12, 2011 at 10:34 am
  
  Thanks, Martin…as you’ll all see, we’ve seen a very positive response regarding our decision to postpone launch. Those two blogs that Martin refers to are helpful in understanding why we decided to wait on the launch, as well as what we’re working on to improve the solution we end up delivering.
  –Pat
  
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