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Learning SAP when you don’t have an SAP job already – Web Sites

May 1, 2012 | 1,777 Views |
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*Please note, I stole this title from a previous blog which is now called Getting access to an SAP system when you don’t have an SAP job already – System Access , but I changed the other blog title in order to extend the series. I apologize if this causes confusion.

There are a couple questions/requests that pop up fairly frequently:

  1. I just graduated from (college, MBA, etc) or I’ve been in industry for a while and am now interested in a career in SAP, but no one will hire me without SAP experience and I can’t get SAP experience until I’m hired.  I addressed this one in a previous blog, Advice for Recent College Graduates,  and again in this post.  (I wrote a blog for students who have not yet graduated as well, Advice for Students Interested in a Career in SAP.  Also, be sure to read Getting into SAP – From the perspective of a prospective consultant by Terry Choo for a fascinating account of a mid-career switch in progress!
  2. How do I get access to a system on which I can practice? (Getting access to an SAP system when you don’t have an SAP job already – System Access )
  3. How should I study for the certification exam? (Good person.) What questions are on the exam? (Cheater.)  I’ll address these in a future blog. Ravi Sankar Venna addressed this recently in his blog, How to Approach and Pass a SAP Certification.

I’m not a big fan of folks laying out a lot of their own money for training prior to getting a job (more about this in Advice for Recent College Graduates).

However, I am in favor of educating yourself in order to make better career decisions. In this blog series, I’m going to cover ways to become educated and I’ll try to start with the free approaches and gradually move to the more expensive approaches. Due to the length, I’ve had to split this post into several posts.This blog will only cover web sites.

First the outline:

Now the detail:

Web Sites

There are a million web sites that talk about SAP. The problem is that it is difficult to find a simple introduction for folks who have absolutely no knowledge of SAP and it is difficult to get an orderly introduction where one concept builds on the next (classes are better for that). Obviously the following is not a complete list, but I’ll try to list out a few of the most popular. I will be happy to update this list if folks have favorite websites and you leave them in the comments.

  • Community Sites
    • SCN
      • http://scn.sap.com  – Yes, I know, you’re already here, but it doesn’t hurt to point out again that SCN is an awesome source for information.
    • SAP User Groups
    • Other Community sites
      • http://sap.toolbox.com – Nice site. I tend to lurk in the career forum, answering questions.
      • http://www.sapfans.com/ –  This isn’t a site I’ve used much, but I’m going to be taking a look over the next few weeks.
      • http://www.saptechies.com/ – This isn’t a site I’ve used much either, but I’m going to be taking a look over the next few weeks.
      • http://www.linkedin.com/  –  I personally find that the SAP forums that I’ve seen on Linked In have an annoyingly small signal to noise ratio (more noise than signal), but I do follow the education forum.  If you have a forum you’ve found helpful, please link it in the comments.
      • https://twitter.com/  – Twitter. I’m fairly new to twitter but reliable sources tell me that if you follow the #SAP hashtag, you’ll get great tidbits and news items of interest to folks in the SAP world. I can be found/followed on twitter @thomas_dulaney

Hopefully this is enough to get you started. Please link your favorite sites in the comments!

Best regards,

  –Tom

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  5. Thomas Dulaney Post author

    Thank you Hemraj, Alison, Jannus, and Osvaldo! I appreciate your kind comments. Please do return as you run across additional sites and leave them in the comments. I will update this blog from time to time as I find additional sites as well. I’m so happy you all found this helpful!

    Best regards,

      –Tom

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        1. abhishek singh

          Hi Thomas,

          I am Currently working as Business analyst and now I would change my carrer to SAP. I have fair knowledge of SAP SD and SAP POS . For last two years I am not working in SAP . I did my MBA in Marketing and now inclination is towards SAP CRM.  Request you to please let me know which module in SAP CRM will best for me to enter in SAP world.

          Is SAP CRM will be good for future or should I start learning any other SAP Module.

          Please guide me ..

          Thanks in advance.

          Regards,

          Abhishek

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          1. Thomas Dulaney Post author

            Hello Abhishek,

            How long did you work with SAP SD and/or SAP POS? Why wouldn’t you continue working in one of those two disciplines? SAP SD and SAP CRM are very closely related. I would recommend continuing to work on SAP SD until you have time to do the research to figure out which SAP CRM module suites you best. Any of the SAP modules (SAP ECC SD, SAP ECC, MM, SAP ECC PP, etc) and/or components (SAP CRM, SAP SRM, SAP SCM, etc) can provide a wonderful, long term career if you have passion for the subject. The best thing for you to do is to really invest the time to learn what functionality resides in what module or component. Please see Learning SAP when you don’t have an SAP job already – Books if none of the web sites in this blog did the trick for you.

            Hope this helps!

            Best regards,

              –Tom

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          1. Thomas Dulaney Post author

            It requires an SAP Service Marketplace ID, also known as an “S-number” or “OSS ID”. To get one, I think you have to be working for an SAP customer or partner. I should update the blog to make note of that. You might be able to get similar information from the public side of the house at http://www.sap.com/erp. The public side is typically heavier on the marketing-speech. Sorry.

            Hope that helps!

            Best regards,

              –Tom

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  6. NAVEEN KUMAR REDDY Kalikiri

    Thank you Tom, this is an excellent post….this post not only helps the people who don’t have SAP job but also helps everyone who has an SAP job with curiosity to learn more……………..

    (0) 
      1. Vilas Kamath

        Thank you Tom, the post was very helpful to me…actually in working in SAP BI for 2.5 years and mostly involved in support activities like process chain correction,BEX analyser and solving the diffrent types of issues during loading. I have sound knowledge of ABAP and BI , would like to learn about HANA or SAP mobilty services along with this day to day activities I perform.

        Can you Please guide me how can this be done!

        Thanks in Advance

        Regards

        Vilas Kamath

        (0) 
  14. Ladislav Rydzyk

    You can also check this free online training for beginners: ABAP StarterKit Online Training

    You get there for free:

    1. instructions on how to get your SAP learning system
    2. free access to online training and all learning materials for beginners
    3. you will implement there your own help library of codes + implement final project all by yourself
    4. access to community to ABAP students on beginners level
    5. chance to get direct free feedback on your coding from ABAP Expert
    (0) 

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