My tips on searching knowledge content the SCN

Doing a fair amount of work in a few SCN Discussion Spaces (SAP Crystal Reports, version for Visual Studio, SAP Crystal Reports, and a few others), one of my most frequent requests of those posting to Discussions / Forums is to do a bit of searching before posting a question. Doing a bit of thinking on why this appears to be as common as it is, I came to the realization that perhaps one reason is that the SCN search is quite different from the ubiquitous Google search. In this blog, I will document how I approach searching on SCN.

So, starting at the top – as it turns out top right hand corner – use the search box:

Now, KIS & S your search terms; Keep It  Short & Sweet. For example for a date selection formula issue with SAP Crystal Reports, it is better to use a string like ‘Crystal selection date’, than ‘date selection formula does not work for Tuesdays and Wednesdays’. Once you enter a search term, say ‘crystal formats export’ the following page will be displayed:

Notice that on the left side of the page, you have a description of what type of knowledge documents were retuned (Asset Type) by the search and how many of each type of documents were found. Also, following the structure of the new SCN, you will find a list of SCN Spaces that may apply to your search term:

Looking for a Support Note (Also known as  KBase or KBA or Knowledge Base Article), there are 356 KBAs to look at.  As I am interested in Crystal Reports and Visual Studio .NET, click on the Support Notes link. I can than select a component, in this case BI-DEV-NET:

This filters me down to 49 results – About two and a half pages.  Adding an extra search term; ‘PDF’, filters down to a manageable 20 results.

Often on the SCN Discussion Space (forum) someone may simply recommend a KBA number. See that you can also search for a specific KBA number.
If you want to go back to your original search result set, click on “Clear All Filters”:

Some resources may be translated and if interested, you can search for a specific language translation:

By clicking on the ’more’ link at the bottom , right side of the page, you will get additional filters that include; Region, Industry, Solution Suite, Contributor and Author:

You can also use date as a possible selection criteria.Sorting of results can be done on Relevance, Date and Rating:

For more details on searching the SCN – where we are / where we are going, see New and upcoming SCN search Enhancements as well as the blog How to use SCN search. And that is it. Following the above steps should eliminate or at least minimize waiting for a response to your query. I suspect there is nothing more irritating than a link to a KBA, a bog, wiki or what ever that comes up using the SCN search engine.

For more information see:

Everything I know about… Searching SCN

What do I need to do to get the fastest issue resolution?

SAP Community Network Rules of Engagement