What is new in SAP HANA Certification – SAP Webcast
Susan Martin, who Director of the Global SAP Certification program, gave this webcast today as part of the SAP Education Enablement & Certification Webinar Series
If you missed today’s webcast, consider joining this webcast on July 15 Learn about the State of SAP Certification in this Upcoming SAP Mentor Monday Webcast
Figure 1: Source: SAP
Sue said the SAP certification program has been around since the mid-90’s
She said they are working to enhance certification program
They want SAP certification to be a reliable benchmark for customers.
Figure 2: Source: SAP
Figure 2 shows SAP has been changing the certification program in the last 2-3 years
They have moved emphasis from production /function feature to role-based – not about what you know, it’s about what you can do
Professional level was introduced 3 years ago
Customers looking for a benchmark at a professional level – more experienced people who have 3+ years of experience, work independently, and mentor those in the team.
They offer 300 different exams in 9 core languages
Figure 3: Source: SAP
Certification council includes SAP mentors, user groups and partners
They want to enhance professional level exam questions and different exam question types
They are In the middle of transformation phase 3 – need to increase test security
Phase 3 includes a credential management platform
Figure 4: Source: SAP
Figure 4 covers how SAP obtains feedback for SAP certification.
Sue said they have a Design Thinking workshop coming up soon
Figure 5: Source: SAP
Figure 5 shows the results of a User Group survey to find out where are the pain points
400 customers have responded
80% of customers who responded say it is important to have employees certified
The survey showed it is important to check credentials – and right now there is not a consistent way to do that.
Figure 6: Source: SAP
Today being certified didn’t bring extra benefits.
SAP is rolling out a Credential manager which is a hosted solution.
Pilot rollout is planned in NA UK ANZ in Q3, the rest by end of year
Figure 7: Source: SAP
Figure 7 shows you can decide if you want to appear in the registry
SAP plans to offer a way to publish certification to employer, customer – an e-mail endorsed by SAP
Figure 8: Source: SAP
Figure 8 shows SAP will be piloting crowd authoring portal where you can submit exam questions with rewards to allow you to build points
Sue says to watch SCN for announcements
Figure 9: Source: SAP
Figure 9 shows what they are doing to build the workforce, including the US Army veterans program
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Hi Tammy,
Thanks for sharing this information. Recently I have completed my "first certification" on Application Associate SAP HANA 1.0 and the discussions around certification has started intriguing me more. I have always been skeptical about the real value certification brings to an individual, but now I think I have a clearer idea. When I had done first end to end POC on HANA with a great team, I had a huge amount of learning but then there were many other aspects which were untouched e.g. usage of CE functions, procedures etc. Moreover, architecture of HANA, connectivity options, other replication techniques, many other reporting tools were more aspects I wanted to know myself. This lead to the quest of learning more and ultimately turned into wish of getting certified. I found the effort well spent as that has really added to my confidence.
Moreover, there were many questions asked to me like if HANA is only for BW consultants and although I can't negate that it would be very easy for them to learn few things e.g. reporting tools but I don't think others can't get there.
I was also surprised that many people are not aware of certification drives. I have proposed a related point in Jam in TechEd discussion. Thanks.
Regards,
Kumud
Kumud,
Congratulations on your certification and thank you for taking the time to read and comment.
Tammy
Add me to the list. What is a certification drive?
Hi Tobias,
Do you work for a partner company? I don't know if there are regional variance to this but here in India, partner companies get invitation from SAP India Education team to nominate candidates for certification, based on their area of work. If the profiles pass throught the eligibility criterias they could appear for the exam after paying the fees (and of course the exam should be available in the list of exams in the drive). I made use of certification drive - April - June 2013. I would say that I could always use this option when planning for a certification.
This conversation started because few people still have idea that it is only at TechEd that they could appear for a certification supported by their organization. Thanks.
Regards,
Kumud
Hi Tobias
Thx Kumud for your explanation!
How certifications are organized differs from a geographical point of view. We don't really have certification drives around here and judging from your reply, neither does it exist in your location.
We can simply sign up to do a certification exam (at SAP or at an officially supported certification exam center ~PearsonVue for example) at a specific date/time here.
Best regards
Tom
Hi Tammy
Thx for sharing.
Best regards
Tom
Hi Tammy,
Thanks for sharing.
Its valuable information and SAP is doing a great job by providing Credential Manager and Crowd Authoring Portal.... they will be really very helpful
thanks Tammy Powlas for sharing. its really nice. 🙂
Hi Tammy,
It is nice to read ur blogs.
yes i am also planning to learn sap webcast.
It is nice to read...Best !
SAP HANA ...REVOLUTION
Hi,
I am planning to take SAP Hana "Application Associate SAP HANA 1.0" exam. I heard the exam pattern is going to change / changed ?
Can anyone guide me ?
Hi,
I recommend creating a discussion with your question
Tammy
Hi Sasmita,
I would support Tammy's suggestion to create a discussion with your question. However, since I recently appeared for the same I could share my experience. There is no drastic change in the exam pattern. It is just the variety of questions that may get changed e.g. instead of radiobuttons you may face dropdowns and likewise. There could be additional changes. The exam coordinator would let you know that before the exam. You could just keep your calm and go ahead. All the best!
Regards,
Kumud
Hi Kumud,
you raised a very valid and important point about certification, main difference between doing and POC/ dummy project and certification is that during POCs we touched upon the limited aspects of technologies though with deeper understanding, but with certification in general we learn about complete capabilities and offering of the technologies which can be explored at the time of real implementation.
It is also always good/recommended to explore the internal engineering of technologies for example knowing about a Automobile or Car is good but it is more interesting if one knows about the Automobiles engine (Internal combustion engine) and transmission.
So really one wants to know more about entire engineering behind HANA, I suggest to go thru the lectures delivered by Hasso Plattner @openhpi.de
cheers
Dev
Hi Sasmita
the exam pattern has not changed. Best of luck with your exam!
Sue
Thank you Tammy Powlas for sharing this information.
Nice to have this information regarding SAP HANA Certification.