The New SCN – Launch Now Planned for Early 2012
With 2011 coming to a close, the SAP Community Network team has had a chance to reflect on our accomplishments of the past year. Our primary goal was, and will always be, delivering to our users a highly valuable and usable online community that encourages learning and collaboration to help you develop, deploy, customize, and operate world-class SAP solutions. To that end, we’ve been planning over the past year to deliver a New SCN, and have been busy migrating our current site to a new platform. We communicated plans to go live with the new site in December, but today I have decided to postpone the launch to early 2012.
It’s an understatement to say that the decision to delay the launch was not taken lightly… it was really difficult, nearly excruciating after so much time and work has gone into design, build, migration, testing. But, despite extraordinary efforts by our core SCN team, our partners in SAP IT, vendors/consultants, and key stakeholders, we don’t feel that the new platform is of high enough overall quality to launch to our community members. With a project of this size, there are literally thousands of moving parts, and we need to feel absolutely convinced that every aspect of the site meets our high standards. It is making progress but doesn’t meet those standards now, so we’ve identified what is needed to get it there, and we’re actively engaged around the clock in fixing those issues so we can deliver the new site to you in early 2012.
We recognize that many of you have been eagerly anticipating this change, and some have made plans based on the new platform. But ultimately we have to do what’s right for our customer community — that, more than anything else, drives our decision making — and we aren’t willing to deliver a new site until it’s reliable and stable, with all the features and functionality we require, and with checks and double-checks completed. Quality is what’s expected and deserved by our SCN members, and we won’t compromise by launching the new site until it meets our highest standards.
We will continue to fix bugs, migrate content, run QA, test scenarios, verify usability, and ensure that full implementation of functionality is delivered and ready for launch in early 2012. We’re constantly in communication with members of the community, and we’ve been humbled by the supportive, enthusiastic and encouraging feedback from so many of you since we first announced plans to construct and launch a New SCN.
The team, too, is excited to be able to provide you with this new platform – it will help you stay informed on the topics that interest you most, and it will help you to connect and interact with topic leaders. I’ve seen the detail to which our extended team has focused to ensure we’re delivering the highest quality online community, and we’re excited to keep our plans moving forward and to ultimately launch a New SCN in early 2012.
Stay tuned! … and thank you for your support.
Mark Yolton
I wrote a lengthy comment about how this is an excellent decision, because quality masters most and nothing alienates a user more than a lengthy comment that hours up into a puff of smoke - but it went up into a puff of smoke. *sniff* So much for the "safe" in "better safe than sorry". 😉
This joke was in me - but congrats nevertheless.
Cheers
Thorsten
None the less, enough talk, focus on solutions now *chop chop* 😉
M.
Kudos to the SCN team and the great job they have done in 2011! And look forward to a fantastic 2012!
simon
M.
sad to read that news and i am sorry to say that, but some parts of your listed goals sounds like some kind of irony to me. Why ? Well over the last month there were several (new) annoying bugs in SDN ( What happened to SDN (quality)? ) which limit the usability and they were not fixed with the argument of the new SCN launch. Now it is canceled and rescheduled to "Early 2012" - but what is "Early 2012"? Will it be january, february or march or maybe even later?
I can only hope, that the SDN development team will analyze and fix the reported bugs of the old platform now - after the new SCN launch is canceled.
Hopefully the new SDN launch will not be the same story like Business by Design a few years ago.
Best Regards
Stefan
i don't understand. as a frequent user of SDN i have learned to live with its quirks and wanted to get on the new platform as much as everyone else. if something's not ready for prime time, why push out a half finished product only to meet a deadline? in any event, we don't pay subscription fees of any kind to be here and only contribute our time and energy, so instead of complaining maybe we should ask how we could help. isn't this what a community is all about?
best regards,
greg
yes SDN it is free for everbody, but i don't know any vendor driven communication / social media platform that is not.
Please don't get me wrong - i am the same opinion - if the new product is not ready to use, it should not be pushed out. We also don't know which part doesn't work, so that the new launch was canceled. The only thing that i am wondering about is, if the platform quality is so important to SAP - why they don't care about the currently used "old platform" anymore. Bugs will be in all platforms, but there are some really big ones in the currently used one too (the SSL certificate issue for example) which are not fixed.
By the way the SCN Migration Announcement is still placed in every area even it is canceled.
Best Regards
Stefan
M.
thank you for taking the time to reply to each comment. Well we as community members have no choice as to wait (and curse in front of our screens ;-)) ).
Qoute: ".... putting new tires on the car in order to drive it to the scrap yard."
I would describe it more like that: "If you can't even start (= SSL login issues) your old car, you can't drive it to the scrap yard".
Best Regards
Stefan
It is the right decision because quality matters.
I had the opportunity to meet a lot of SCN team members online and just recently in person at SAP TechED Madrid and it has been an amazing year. Each SCN team member that I connected with shares the same passion for SCN and they put a lot of effort into their work. You have a great team there.
Of course I will be looking forward to the new SCN but I prefer to have a working environment in which the content I have created in the past is still there. If you need another tester to play around on the new environment, I'm always willing to help out.
The most urgent issue at the moment on SCN is the comment disappearance bug which is blocking newcomers to comment and be active. The die-hard community members are aware and we copy/paste our comment and try again until it's there.
Kind regards
Tom
M.
I would like to congratulate you for taking this brave decision in order to deliver a stable community.
M.
-nathan
M.
as many of us are very eager to get our hands on our new, improved home base the disappointment about these news will be felt.
Yet, I believe it's the right decision and to be honest - a surprising one. Far too many times a project is rushed and quality is surrendered to meet timelines. Not this one!
It's like before a move... your old home, well once you made your mind to leave it behind you stop investing in it. You suddenly notice all the things that will be soo much better in the new place... all the things that made you wanted to move. Yet, it's still your home and spending a last holiday season there will be more than "just fine."
In Germany we say "Anticipation is the greatest joy of all!"
So, I think we all be just fine staying here for a little bit more time until our new home base is *all* ready.
Yet, I can also understand why some are grumpy about how communication was handled in this manner - like pulling an emergency brake. People wonder: since when do you know the timeline cannot be met? And what were the reasons for not communicating it earlier?
For me your blog gives me enough explanation from what you wrote and what I can read between the lines being in this biz for a decade. I would also treat it as a family affair. There sure are lots of learnings - as there always are in projects of that size and magnitude - yet I'm confident that you and your team knows best howto handle this and that the platform will be amazing.
At the end of the day, I have to say that I think the decision is the right one, I can relate how it feels to having to postpone it at the last minute, and I have a lot of respect for stepping up and saying it how it is... knowing that it's never a pleasure to be the bearer of bad news.
But then, it's just a short delay... and frankly speaking, knowing that the team behind all this gets a little bit more time - especially now before the holiday season (!) - I'm just fine waiting a little longer...
Best regards,
Matthias
M.
You are in a hard place - you have over 2 million users to please and SCN as a service offers many different solutions.
Having attended sessions both in Madrid and webinars covering the new functionality I was excited to finally get my hands on the new solution, and am part of the grumpy pack.
I think your BETA roll out is a good idea, and hope we can test drive this for you to find the bugs so when the rest of the pack get access it is seamless.
M.
--- Siva Kumar
M.
M.
I was today so excited about New SCN Look, But still not seen.
We can understand that it's not just a simple task, it's a huge task for change it..
We are all with you..and best hopes for Early 2012.
Regards,
Anil Kumar
M.
What impresses me is how you wrote the blog: explaining what is going on, assuming the responsibility and justifying it the right way: quality and (!!) people. Doesn't happen too often in the IT world.
Someone can only wish to have you as your manager.
M.
I was very excited about the new SCN look today. We are waiting eagerly for the New SCN to be lunched. Thanks for informing us about the delay.
Wish You and SCN core team all the best.
Regards,
Alok Tiwari
M.
For those that have worked on this new platform and to those that have been exposed, they already know the 'look and feel' and will be comfortable with the changes.
When this gets rolled out the the larger SDN community, there will be enough change to digest without introducing poor performance. It is a good idea to delay the launch so that when the roll out does occur, people can focus on understanding the new ways of participating.
M.
I have been waiting with so much excitement for the new look and feel of SDN however i really apreciate your justification and status update to the community, will wait for the further update,
but one small clarification, once after moving to the new look and feel still old version will be available until certain period of time which can be switchable in between like we can notice in GMAIL nowadays..?
Cheers,
Rambabu
M.
M.
Right at the very bottom, Mark Yolton's title, it's spelled out right there
SAP Community Network - SCN
I just cannot wait for the new SCN's look and feel... maybe it can be a new-year present for all the Community 🙂
Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to the new improvements.
Cheers,
Alvaro
M.
It is very nice that you are updating us and i can understand the effort that the team is taking on the new SCN Look.But if it takes time also finally if new SCN look starts from 1st January 2012 then it will be very good.We all can go with the feeling that it as a 2012 New Year gift to all of us.
Regards
Srinath
M.
Thanks
Ram
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